“They brought it in this morning.”
“I’m surprised it survived the day.” Amilia turned her back on the mirror to face the empress.
“I’m in no hurry, Amilia. I still have some weeks yet.”
“So you’ve decided to wait for your wedding?”
“Yes. At first I didn’t think it would matter, but then I realized it could reflect badly on you. If I wait, it will appear to be Ethelred’s fault. Everyone will assume I couldn’t stand the thought of him touching me.”
“Is that the reason?”
“No, I have no feelings about him or anything. Well, except for you. But you’ll be all right.” Modina turned to look at Amilia. “I can’t even cry anymore. I never even wept when they captured Arista… not a single tear. I watched the whole thing from this window. I saw Saldur and the seret go in and knew what that meant. They came back out, but she never has. She’s down there right now in that horrible dark place. Just like I once was. When she was here, I had a purpose, but now there is nothing left. It’s time for this ghost to fade away. I have served the regents’ purpose by helping them build the empire. I’ve given you a better life, and not even Saldur will harm you now. I tried to help Arista, but I failed. Now it’s time for me to leave.”
Amilia knelt down next to Modina, gently drew back the hair from her face, and kissed her cheek. “Don’t speak that way. You were happy once, weren’t you? You can be again.”
Modina shook her head. “A girl named Thrace was happy. She lived with the family she loved in a small village near a river. Surrounded by friends, she played in the woods and fields. That girl believed in a better tomorrow. She looked forward to gifts Maribor would bring. Only instead of gifts, he sent darkness and horror.”
“Modina, there is always room for hope. Please, you must believe.”
“There was one day, when you were getting the clerk to order some cloth, that I saw a man from my past. He was hope. He saved Thrace once. For a moment, one very brief moment, I thought he had come to save me too, only he didn’t. When he walked away, I knew he was just a memory from a time when I was alive.”
Amilia’s hands found Modina’s and cradled them as she might hold a dying bird. Amilia was having trouble breathing. As her lower lip began to tremble, she looked back at the mirror. “You’re right. It is a shame they brought such a pretty one.” She put her arms around Modina and began to cry.
CHAPTER 5
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
Several miles from Medford, Royce saw the smoke and prepared himself for the worst. Crossing the Galewyr used to mean entering the bustling streets of the capital, but on that day, as he raced across the bridge, he found only a charred expanse of blackened posts and scorched stone. The city he had known was gone.
Royce never called anywhere home. To him the word meant a mythical place, like paradise or fairyland, but Wayward Street had been the closest thing he had ever found. A recent snowfall covered the city like a sheet that nature had drawn over a corpse. Not a building remained undamaged, and many were nothing but charcoal and ash. The castle’s gates were shattered, portions of the walls collapsed. Even the trees in Gentry Square were gone.
Medford House, in the Lower Quarter, was a pile of smoldering beams. Nothing remained across the street except a gutted foundation and a burned sign displaying the hint of a rose in blistered paint.
He dismounted and moved to the rubble of the House. Where Gwen’s office used to be, he caught a glimpse of pale fingers beneath a collapsed wall. His legs turned weak and his feet foolish as he stumbled over the wreckage. Smoke caught in his throat, and he drew up the scarf to cover his nose and mouth. Reaching the edge of the wall, he bent, trying to lift it. The edge broke away, but it was enough to reveal what was underneath.
An empty cream-colored glove.
Royce stepped back from the smoke. Sitting on the blackened porch, he noticed he was shaking. He was unaccustomed to being scared. Over the years, he had given up caring if he lived or died, figuring that a quick demise spared him the pain of living in a world so miserly that it begrudged an orphan boy a life. He had always been ready for death, gambling with it, waging bets against it. Royce had been satisfied in the knowledge that his risks were sound because he had nothing of value to lose—nothing to fear.
Gwen had changed everything.
He was an idiot and never should have left her alone.
Why did I wait?
They could have been safe in Avempartha, where only he held the key. The New Empire could beat themselves senseless against its walls and never reach him or his family.