“Leave us,” Valko told the guards.
My throat ran dry as I tried to swallow. I already dreaded being alone with him. The large guard holding me scowled with confusion at the emperor. He surely expected him to send me straightaway to the dungeons. But I knew Valko. He would privately rebuke me first. His obsessive nature required nothing less. I would be lucky if I survived his wrath to even make it to the dungeons.
“Go!” he barked at the guards.
Reluctantly, they bowed and retreated, then shut the door behind them.
I blinked at the emperor and inhaled a shaky breath. I didn’t know what to do now that we were alone together. I shouldn’t break protocol by speaking to him first, not when I sought to appear penitent. Rooted by the door, I waited for Valko to approach or permit me to advance. He did neither. He only watched me silently from the other side of the room.
As his coldness slowly subsided, heated rage began to twist and coil inside him and churned a pit of dark and molten energy building pressure to erupt. My nerve endings flared with it. My muscles spasmed and cramped. I fought not to panic as I imagined all the ways he could torture me.
“Come forward, Sonya,” he said at length, his voice strangely calm.
Heart pounding, I made my way toward his magnificent bed. I had to skirt around it to reach the balcony doors where he waited. Such a large bed could only make a person feel minuscule and inconsequential. I clung to that pitying thought and scrambled to summon more like it—anything that would help me feel the tiniest sliver of empathy toward the person who had destroyed my friends.
Valko was justified in his anger for me. Beneath it, there was surely hurt. I was someone he’d held in his closest confidence, given up alliances for, showered with praise and affection, even though I ranked far below him. Why would I betray him after all we’d shared together? Why had I protected his brother? Why side with Anton of all people—Anton, his utmost rival, the brother so many would choose over him to be ruler?
I curtsied once I reached Valko, but try as I might, the words My Lord Emperor stuck in my throat. My teeth ground together with my own anger, my own reasons for feeling betrayed. All the times Valko had professed his admiration only to bruise me later. His small kindnesses followed by stark reminders of my inferior place in his life.
“Sonya,” he said with that same false calmness as he unhitched himself from the doorframe and moved closer. His fingers skimmed the sapphire at my neck.
Every cell in my body screamed to recoil from him, but I held statuesque. His touch would be useful to me. It would heighten my awareness, help me understand what he was feeling.
“Your eyes are red,” he observed coolly. “Has it been such a terrible day?”
My brows lifted. What was he playing at? He knew I must be suffering after Pia’s death and Anton’s arrest. “Has the day been terrible for you?” I asked, and kept my voice soft and high, so as to not antagonize him. “I sensed your grief when I first entered.”
He grinned, and his gaze explored my face. “Such a clever Auraseer.” As his fingers stroked my collarbone, I sensed his rage recede to a secret chamber of his aura, where he kept it within careful reach.
My perplexity over his mood change made my heart race with trepidation. Where was his retribution? How could he tease me with a provocative touch when he’d been so monstrous?
The only recourse I could think of was to play along with him—pretend my life wasn’t forfeit, as he’d told Anton it was. On the off chance this wasn’t a game and the emperor could grant me mercy, I might connect with that measure of compassion in him and use it to build a bridge between us. I could widen it to benevolence for all people and persuade him to relinquish the throne.
“Your grief is warranted,” I replied, and labored once again to show him my understanding—and find it for myself. “It must be a great blow to learn the only person left in your family may have plotted against you.”
Valko’s smile fell away. His hand withdrew from my collarbone. “There is no ‘may have,’ Sonya. Anton did plot against me.”