“You have to admit that was impressive,” she heard Hadrian say.
If Royce made a reply, she did not hear it. She had frightened him. The expression on his face had said more than words ever could. Lying there, looking up at the rafters, she realized she had seen that look before—the day Arcadius had reprimanded her. She had been leaving his office when he had stopped her. “I never taught curses in this class, boils or otherwise. Did you cause them by mixing a draft that she drank?”
“No,” she recalled saying. “It was a verbal curse.”
His eyes widened and his mouth gaped, but he said nothing more. At the time, she had thought his look was one of amazement and pride in a student exceeding expectations. Looking back, Arista realized she had seen only what she had wanted to see.
CHAPTER 6
THE WORD
As Amilia watched, the playful flicker of candlelight caught the attention of the empress, which briefly replaced her blank stare.
Is that a sign?
Amilia often played this game with herself, looking for any improvement. A month had passed since Saldur had summoned her to his office to explain her duties. She knew she could never do half of what he wanted, but his main concern was the empress’s health, and Amilia was doing well in that regard. Even in this faint light, she could see the change. Modina’s cheeks were no longer hollow, her skin no longer stretched. The empress was now eating some vegetables and even bits of meat hidden in the soup. Still, Amilia feared the progress would not be good enough.
Modina still had not said a word—at least, not while awake. Often when the empress slept, she mumbled, moaned, and tossed about restlessly. Upon awakening, the girl cried, tears running down her cheeks. Amilia held her, stroked her hair, and tried to keep her warm, but the empress did not seem to notice her presence.
To pass the time, Amilia continued to tell Modina stories, hoping it might prompt her into speaking, perhaps to ask a question. After telling her everything she could think of about her family, she moved on to fairy tales from her childhood. There was Gronbach, the evil dwarf who kidnapped a milkmaid and imprisoned her in his subterranean lair. The maiden solved the riddle of the three boxes, snipped off his beard, and escaped.
She even recounted scary stories told by her brothers in the dark of the carriage workshop. She knew they had been purposefully trying to frighten her, and even now the tales gave Amilia chills. But anything was worth a try to snap Modina back to the land of the living. The most disturbing of these were about elves, who put their victims to sleep with music before eating them.
When she ran out of fairy tales, she turned to stories she remembered from church, like the epic tale of how, in their hour of greatest need, Maribor sent the divine Novron to save mankind. Wielding the wondrous Rhelacan, he defeated the elves.
Thinking Modina would like the similarities to her own life, Amilia told the romantic account of the farmer’s daughter Persephone, whom Novron took to be his queen. When she refused to leave her simple village, he built the great imperial capital right there and named the city Percepliquis after her.
“So what story shall we have this evening?” Amilia asked as the two girls lay across from each other, bathed in the light of the candles. “How about Kile and the White Feather? Our monsignor used it from time to time when he wanted to make a point about penance and redemption. Have you heard that one? Do you like it? I do.
“Well, you see, the father of the gods, Erebus, had three sons: Ferrol, Drome, and Maribor; the gods of elves, dwarves, and men. He also had a daughter, Muriel, who was the loveliest being ever created, and she held dominion over all the plants and animals. Well, one night Erebus became drunk and raped his own daughter. In anger, her brothers attacked their father and tried to kill him, but of course, gods can’t die.”
Amilia saw the candles flicker from a draft. It was always colder at night, and she got up and brought them each another blanket.
“So, where was I?”
Modina merely blinked.