The pained look in his face twisted the fibers of my heart and made me relent. I groaned with frustration for allowing myself to pity him, but that didn’t stop me from stepping back to grant him entrance. He strode past me and shut the door behind him. Then he noticed Pia. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” He gave her an awkward little bow of acknowledgment. I bit down a grin that he should excuse himself or be flustered by a maid.
“I was just leaving,” she replied, and dipped into a curtsy. Anton opened the door for her and as she exited, she waggled her eyebrows at me in the brief moment before he shut the door again.
This time I did roll my eyes.
Anton proceeded to pace about my antechamber. He rubbed at his jaw and mouth. He raked his hands through his disheveled hair. I stood barefoot in the center of the room, my nightgown fluttering as his movements stirred the air. His gaze was cast on the floor, on anything but me.
“What is it?” I asked. Now that Pia’s radiant aura was gone, Anton’s swept into mine. My nerves tangled together. I didn’t know if I should sit or stand. I had the growing urge to hide away in my bedchamber, but I couldn’t make myself leave. Why was the prince so distraught?
He wandered to my tiled furnace and absently kicked at the grate. His breaths came quickly. His fingers clenched into tight fists. My emotions expanded then contracted in a dizzying cycle I couldn’t interpret.
“Anton?”
He whirled on me, eyes on my gown, not my face. “How could you be so foolish?”
I flinched. “What have I done?”
He laughed forlornly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can never defend me to Valko like that, do you understand?” He turned back to the grate and kicked it harder.
My lips parted in astonishment. My mind churned sluggishly to comprehend his anger. “I only spoke what I knew to be true. Would you have me be false?”
“I would have you take care for your life!” His voice rose, and mine rose with it, grafting onto his heated emotions.
“You should take care with yours! The emperor accused you of murder today—of treason. Even princes hang for such a crime.”
“I did not kill my mother.”
“I believe you! I also want your brother to believe. I want peace between you.” A heaviness, like a full winter’s snowfall, fell over me. Anton finally met my gaze, the anger snuffed out of him. Something about his helpless expression and the depth of his sorrow made me forgive him for ever disregarding me. Why would he come here like this, be so upset, if he wasn’t concerned with my well-being?
“Sonya, don’t you see?” he said. “I will never have peace with my brother. And you cannot make it so.”
The fire snapped behind the grate. Embers flickered in the air. I wrapped my arms around myself, but not because I was cold. I felt hurt. No matter how much I felt the prince’s concern at the moment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I displeased him. I tried not to let it affect me, but that was becoming impossible. Today, as he spoke in the council chamber, I saw a measure of his greatness, his devotion to the welfare of Riaznin. He would make a fine emperor, though it was treasonous to think it. Was it wrong that part of me wanted to be just as great, just as noble in the cause of helping the empire, in helping anyone—even him? So despite my bitterness at his barging into my rooms to tell me I’d disappointed him yet again, his words stung.
“Why did you come here, Anton? Why did you say I must take care for my life?”
His eyes, having found mine, didn’t leave. They glowed warm and soft, illuminated by the candles. He shifted closer, and my heart pounded—in warning, in yearning, in the pangs of his frustration with me. He stopped only inches away. I swayed a little on my feet, caught between wanting to step back or move forward into the swirl of energy surrounding him.
“My brother craves power,” he said. “Above all, power over me.”
I struggled to grasp the meaning behind his words. His scent drifted nearer, dark and masculine, yet also fragile like dried pine needles, like a bed of kindling. All he awaited was a match.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, my arms still wrapped around my chest, my fingers curled around my elbows.
Anton’s brows gathered together, rife with the pained look he wore a moment ago. My stomach tightened and warmed, as if I’d tasted something bittersweet and wanted more of it. Pulled by invisible threads, my gaze dropped to his lips. The warmth within me blossomed. A rush of blood trailed up to my neck and face. My balance faltered again. My eyes flitted to his, brown and deep and full of endless mystery.
Did this overpowering feeling come from him? Or was this me, enamored beyond reason with a prince whom I never ceased to annoy and disappoint? I searched his gaze. Did he still see me as a burden, the Auraseer he so reluctantly fetched from the convent?
The tendons in his neck remained taut as he swallowed. “Valko has asked that you attend him tonight in his rooms.”