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  When she abruptly pulled away, he faltered. He could hear her breathing, heavier and more labored than before.

  No, that was him.

  “Rom?”

  He looked at her mouth, the way her lips, still moist, moved when she said, “Triphon’s waking.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Here are the eyes that have captivated the world,” the maidservant Nuala said, setting down black eyeliner. She laid it atop the astronomical chart she had insisted Feyn relinquish at least long enough for her to be made up.

  Feyn turned on the stool to look into her vanity mirror. Nuala’s round face appeared over her shoulder against the backdrop of silk draperies. “You see, my lady, you are beautiful.”

  Beauty, Feyn thought idly. Such a strange concept. A matter of desirable features—in this case the light gray eyes and pale skin of royalty. The coveted evidence of humanity’s evolution, proof they had become something great.

  And she must be greater than them all. Not because she personally wished it, but because in four days she would accept the mantle of sovereignty from the hands of the Sovereign, her father.

  In the mirror, Feyn’s eyes lifted to Nuala’s face. She was too round, too broad across the forehead, too short to be considered beautiful by the masses. But Feyn found her pleasing. The sight of the maid could often quell her anxiety. Was that not beauty? Nuala didn’t possess the paleness of eye or the translucent skin of the Brahmin, although like many she highlighted her veins by tracing them with blue powder on her forearms. Did her opaque skin make her less evolved? Less beautiful?

  It didn’t matter. Nuala was one of the wisest people Feyn knew, and this was the primary reason she’d selected Nuala as her maidservant years earlier.

  Feyn reached up to rub her neck. Nuala gently pushed her hand away and began to knead the muscle for her.

  Feyn sighed and closed her eyes.

  “I wonder sometimes, Nuala…I was born closest to the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month in all the eligible birth cycles during Father’s reign. So I am elect. But if my parents had copulated a day later or a month before, would I even exist? I certainly wouldn’t be the next Sovereign.”

  “The Maker makes no mistakes.”

  Feyn opened her eyes and looked down at the black liner on her vanity table, at the rouge and powder, the brushes and the hair combs, all the implements of Nuala’s craft.

  “I am the artist and you are my perfect clay,” Nuala liked to say.

  Clay. It was more true than the woman knew. We are all molded into something. I only wonder how much the Maker truly has a hand in any of it. It was a blasphemous thought, one she’d never dare voice. But the thought had woken her many nights, sending her to stare at the thunderclouds from her balcony.

  To even think such things was so unbefitting a future Sovereign that she could confide in no one. And so the solitude, too, had become as familiar to her as the late nights gazing out at the rain.

  She must learn to put idle ponderings aside, at least for now. Whether being chosen was the will of the Maker or the error of mankind, it made no difference. She would soon be Sovereign, and that would be her course for the next forty years.

  She gave a little laugh. It was mirthless, the vestige of a baser life, a conversational nicety with a soothing sound.

  “I’ll be sixty-five by the time we sit like this again, before this mirror, and talk of life without the office. Do you realize that, Nuala? And there will be lines by then—here, beneath my eyes, and here.” She touched the corner of her mouth.

  “You will be beautiful beyond the age of one hundred, lady. And you’ll live to a hundred and thirty.”

  “Hmmm,” Feyn said, sitting back. If her father was any example, Sovereigns aged far faster than their constituents. Feyn sighed and got up.

  She wore her customary black leggings and snug-sleeved tunic and would have thrown on a simple overcoat were it not a public day for her—her last until her inauguration. Tomorrow she would leave for Palatia, her family’s country estate, to spend the prescribed days of solitude before her inaugural entry into the city. They would be her last private days for forty years.

  When Nuala went into the adjacent closet to choose a gown for her mistress, Feyn made her way into the front room of her quarters to pick at the breakfast tray on the table there. The food was cold. She pulled at a few green leaves and left most of the meat on the plate. The kitchen had begun to undercook it of late.

  Nuala came into the room carrying a cobalt gown trimmed in silver. The blue was the color of the sky on a bright day, Nuala had proclaimed, the day the tailor had first shown them the bolt of fabric.

  “My lady?”

  Feyn slid her arm into the sleeves, shrugging the heavy garment onto her shoulders. The business of fastening it took several minutes, with Nuala securing each of the small buttons up the front before coming around to smooth her hands down the back. The bell sleeves revealed the tight undersleeve of the black tunic. Feyn felt no inclination to reveal the smooth skin of her forearms; the coveted translucence of her skin was evident enough in her neck and face.

  Nuala sniffed in the direction of the table.

  “Undercooked again. I’ll say something to the cook. This is your brother’s doing. He’s decided he can hardly stand cooked meat. I saw a whole rabbit prepared for him just the other day and it bled so much when he cut into it that I wondered if the heart had fully stopped beating.”

  “Royals do tend to like their meat rare,” Feyn said.

  “I heard that another dead woman was taken from his chamber this morning.”

  The revelation sent prickles down the back of Feyn’s neck. She didn’t know what to make of these recent rumors. But to Nuala, she said, “Death is everywhere. It is with us, and that’s simply the fact. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

  Nuala shifted her eyes but held her tongue. Feyn couldn’t blame the woman. Everywhere or not, no one wanted to view the specter of death. Not even one as orderly and wise as Nuala.

  A low voice spoke from across the chamber. “What do you care what they carry from my chambers, maid?”

  The women turned toward the sound together. Saric stood next to the silk drape that shielded the drafty back stair, dressed in an overcoat so rich it put the curtain to shame.

  “Brother,” Feyn said as Nuala backed a step away.

  Saric had stood behind the drape in silence for several minutes after descending the stair. He’d done so on several occasions these last few days, but this was the first time he’d made his presence known.

  He dismissed the ever-present maidservant with a nod and watched her take leave of her mistress. The she-dog would ordinarily be far too common and uninteresting for his tastes, but as of late he wondered what it might be like to take her too-round body.

  When she had gone, he returned his gaze to his sister. Had he ever really seen the pale of those eyes until lately? He could smell the heavy scent of her perfume. More than that, he could smell the skin of her neck and face and the blue veins running with her life.

  Though in this last week he had seen himself more beautiful, more singular in all the world, he felt positively earthen beside Feyn.

  He wouldn’t have it any different.

  Saric stepped forward, eyes on her. “Hello, Feyn.”

  “Is there something wrong with my door?”

  “I’m your brother, not your servant. Can’t I come as I please? You never minded when we were younger.”

  “My half brother,” she corrected. “And that was a long time ago.”

  She walked to the floor chest where she kept her jewelry. She had so much of it, and even more of late. He’d seen the accessories come in with the other gifts, heard the way the servants scuttled around them, fearfully handling the tribute of nations. Yet he knew without looking that she would choose from that considerable treasure the same simple rings she favored every day: a moonstone and a large aquamarine given to her by
their father at the announcement of her inauguration nine years ago.

  He strode to the small table and examined the remains of her meal, which only disgusted him. “Forgive me.” He helped himself to the cup of water on her table, ignoring the meat, which smelled like a corpse. He nudged the tray aside; a stack of charts lay on the table beneath it.

  “So many stars, so many figures. How do you keep so much in your head, sister? I’ll never understand you mathematicians.”

  “What’s this about a dead woman in your chambers?”

  He dropped the cup back on the table, sloshing water onto the stack of charts. “A woman they ran some experiments on. Can I help it if they practically killed her by the time I got to her? I try to content myself with their castoffs but find myself traumatized by morning.”

  She hesitated as if considering whether to voice her disapproval of his activities again. But she resisted.

  “By they, I assume you mean the alchemists,” she said.

  “I do.” He drew in a steadying breath and approached her.

  “There are proper concubines, Saric. Make use of them.”

  “Yes, sister. But here now, let me help you. You should wear the favors of your constituents.” He opened the doors of the jewelry chest and slid out one of the drawers. It was full of jewels of every kind. He pushed the drawer back in and pulled out another. She stood watching him rather than the chest.

  “I mean it, Saric. It isn’t fitting.”

  “Fine.” He stirred through the assortment of baubles, each of them valued at several years’ worth of any ordinary citizen’s wages.

  “Once is terrible enough, but twice in the same week? Where do these women come from? Are they ill and dying? How do you stand it—how can Portia?”

  He could smell the fear on her. It was as heady as her perfume.

  “Yes,” he said. “They are ill. Here.” He lifted out a pair of large diamond-and-sapphire earrings and held them out to her.

  She turned away. “They’re garish.”

  “They’re the best stones in the lot, and they still do you no justice.”

  She flicked a glance to him.

  Her eyes were like the sun and ice at once. He felt his breathing thicken.

  “What is it about you, brother? You look different. Are you sweating? You seem unwell these days.”

  “I’m not unwell.” His gaze fell to her lips. “I am very well. In fact, I’m more full of life than I have ever been.” He found himself wanting to touch her cheek and was fascinated by his own restraint. He reached for her hand instead.

  This was the hand that had gathered Vorrin’s just yesterday, that had held it as she touched her lips to his palm. He turned her hand over, traced her palm with his thumb, briefly considering doing the same. But she was not his Sovereign yet.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “At any rate, it can’t be good for you—”

  “Do you remember when I used to come down in the middle of the night?” He looked into her eyes, and she shifted her gaze away.

  “Of course.”

  “You used to let me lie beside you and tell me there were no such thing as monsters, that the shadows did not move.”

  “I remember. What do you want, Saric?”

  There was no tenderness in her voice. Not even pity. She was capable of neither.

  “You saved me from a thousand terrors every one of those nights,” he said. “But now perhaps I’ll be able to repay you. By helping to quell your fears before you become Sovereign. Or in the very least by giving you a gift that will allow you to mitigate those fears.”

  She gave a short laugh. She had mastered the sound, even if she knew nothing of the emotion that caused it. “What you speak of isn’t possible.”

  He turned her hand over, stroked a line upon her palm lightly with his finger. “But what if it were? Possible, I mean.”

  “Saric, I’ve never known you to be given to dreaming.”

  “Only of monsters and shadows.” He forced a smile, irritated by her response. He released her hand, reached for the earrings in her open drawer, and held them up. “May I?”

  She turned so that he could slide the small hook through her earlobe, indulging him with the same forbearance that she indulged Nuala, he thought. Perhaps less.

  “Beautiful,” he said. “The other?”

  She let him affix the second earring. The prong pricked his finger.

  “I see great fears on the horizon,” he said.

  “Then your fears run away with you again, as they did when you were a child.”

  “And would you champion me again, as you did then?”

  “You have Portia for that.”

  “Yes, I have Portia,” he murmured. He stepped back and rubbed dry the bead of blood between his finger and thumb. “Still, you must admit it’s an irresistible thought.”

  “Please, Saric. I’m not one of your concubines to bring you comfort. I’m your sister.”

  “Half sister,” he corrected. “As you pointed out. You know as well as I that I could legally marry you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Sovereigns don’t marry.”

  He was surprised by his sudden urge to strike her as he might strike Portia for speaking in such a tone.

  Saric sighed. “So you will be. Sovereign. In four days all the world will bow to you, as will I.” He dipped his head.

  “Yes, well, I’m not Sovereign yet.”

  “No, but in my eyes, you’ve always been Sovereign, Feyn. We both know that. I’ve always stood by your side.”

  She hesitated but then nodded. “Yes, you have.”

  “Which is why I’d like to ask you one small favor.” He let it stand.

  “I’m not sure I’m in any position to grant favors.”

  “But you will be. And I’ll still be your flesh and blood. Surely you can’t deny that much.”

  She studied him. “I don’t deny it.”

  “So you could grant me a favor when you become Sovereign. A trifle that would forever indebt me to you beyond my loyalty, which you know you already have.”

  “What trifle?” she asked.

  So then, here it was.

  “Let me serve you as your senate leader.”

  For a moment she didn’t move. Then, a smile. And he thought he might have won her confidence in the matter.

  “Wait.” He laid a finger against her warm lips. “I will give you something in return.”

  Still smiling, Feyn brushed his hand away and pulled her hand back. “You will, will you? And what’s that?”

  “I will show you that the monsters are real.”

  Her smile faded. It had never held any warmth. He continued before she could speak.

  “That there’s more to this life.” His heart accelerated as he spoke; the words alone sent adrenaline thrumming through his veins.

  “Saric—”

  “I’ll show you that there is far more power to be had than the power any Sovereign has yet seen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can give you a life overflowing with desire, rich with new sensibility, dear sister.”

  “Stop this.” She stepped away. “I don’t know what’s happened to you or what you’re talking about. But we stopped playing games when we became adults.”

  He stiffened. “I can assure you, I’m not playing games. On the contrary, I’ve learned something that you have to know. The question is whether you have the stomach for the truth.”

  She eyed him, obviously uncertain, disturbed by fear.

  “What truth?” she asked.

  “That in our so-called evolution, humanity’s loss of the baser sentiments wasn’t advancement at all, but the casualty of a virus called Legion. It was let loose on the world four hundred and eighty years ago at Null Year by the alchemists. Alchemy—not the Maker—has defined our fate, and it will again.”

  Saric paced to his left, leading her stare. “You’ve been taught that we exist in the only Order. But
there’s another order. There is an anti-Order. There are the vestiges of Chaos living among us today.”

  “What you’re saying is sacrilege!”

  “It is. It’s also the truth. This very moment the alchemists have in their custody the last surviving member of the Order of Keepers—a man, a historian they call the Book, who carries in his memory every known fact of these keepers. His anti-Order would bring back every emotional vice that led to the zealotry that nearly destroyed humanity.”

  She blinked. “The keepers.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re saying they’ve lived among us all this time?”

  “They have. And if this last one has his way, the world will be thrown back into a second Age of Chaos.”

  “You say your gift is new sensibility. And yet you speak against Order and for Chaos?”

  Saric stepped closer. “There is so much you don’t know, sister. I can teach you. Bring me into the senate to stand at your side. We’ll be like Rowan and Father. Together. You will never be afraid to be alone, because you will have me. Entrust me with this duty. For the sake of your rule. For the sake of the people.”

  For an impossibly long moment, she searched his eyes. The beat of his heart struck a single and unfamiliar note.

  “Don’t be absurd. Even if all of this is true, you know it doesn’t work that way. I could never just turn the senate over to you, not without their full support.”

  “Are you so naive? The law gives you the power to appoint whomever you wish. To do whatever you wish. The senate exists only for the comfort of the people and the symbolic participation of the continental nations. But you and I know the truth. Sign the decree and it would be done.”

  “For that reason—for the comfort of the people—it must always be done properly. I will uphold my commitment to Order. I won’t have it any other way.”

  Her words cut deeply. It surprised him how much.

  “As for this so-called keeper, you can be sure that I’ll look into it. From what you’re saying, one could assume that you yourself have practiced his dark alchemy. You must stop immediately. If you haven’t given it up and reported your every association to it by the time I’m Sovereign, you’ll answer for it. To me.”