Embarrassed with the prince in the room and still trembling from the rage I had felt at the emperor’s rebuke, I willed my body to turn to stone. Inside me, however, was a cacophony of feeling, loud and forceful, midnight-dark and seductive. I longed to fall into the violent path of its rhythm.
Valko didn’t seem to notice my struggle. He pulled away from my lips with a gratified smile and smoothed the hair from my face. “What did I tell you?” he said, kissing my nose. “The gods foresaw my destiny. Under my rule, the empire will stretch from sea to sea.” He patted my arm. “Go and lie down, Sonya. You will need your rest. And I will need you to be more watchful than ever once the emissary arrives.”
Afraid to speak or even breathe in case I broke the thin wall holding the racketing chaos within me, I only gave Valko a small nod.
Placated, he turned away, and in doing so revealed an unobstructed view of Anton. Our gazes locked. The prince’s brown eyes held misery, a wound gaping open, as if it had been growing larger every day. My chest ached with it. I didn’t understand how I had hurt him, how that was even possible when he’d spent weeks closing himself off to me.
“Come, Anton.” Valko motioned for his brother as he approached the door. “We have much to do.”
With one last pained look in my direction, the prince left me standing in the council chambers alone, my back bruised where it was still pressed against the table Valko had pinned me to, my hands clenched on its edge. The only sound was the rainfall, washing away every aura but my own.
It was enough to bear.
Later that night, I lifted the knotted plank of wood in my bedchamber, and I picked up the key.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I THRUST MY WEIGHT AGAINST THE BOX BED. FOR SUCH A SOLID piece of furniture, it glided away easier than expected. Slick casters and a perfectly smooth floor made the job simple. As Anton had promised, the hidden door revealed itself—smaller than most doors, its height coming to my shoulders. Faded red paint with yellow daffodils peeled away from it in sections. It was a door meant for little girls. Sisters. Anton’s great-aunts. The Ozerov family who had rebuilt this palace.
I ducked my head, opening the door inward, then entered the decaying ballet practice room. It was plain and empty with pinewood floors and varnished oak paneling. The only embellishments were a tarnished, wall-sized mirror and a ballet barre fastened onto it. I held up my candle and inspected my dim reflection in the mirror and the dust that coated everything in the room. Izolda must have not known about this place. Perhaps no one but Anton did.
The strangeness of my bedchamber made better sense, seeing its almost-twin here. Perhaps my room had once been a private performance hall for the royal family, and my antechamber the receiving area. I pictured the girls, like ghosts from the past, flitting through the door to their practice room to change costumes and powder their noses.
This room, unlike my own, didn’t have a door off the main corridor. There was another door, however, on the other side of the room—the same size as the red door, only painted lavender with white daisies.
I bit my lip and turned the key over in my hand. Anton had told me there was a ballet room, and that my bedchamber connected to it. I didn’t realize there were adjoining rooms beyond the ballet studio. Did the rooms link all the way from my room to the prince’s? Surely this lavender door couldn’t be his; it was too close. How many hidden chambers separated us?
I had come this far wanting a safe place to hide from Valko. His attentions were growing more suffocating, more irresistible by the day. I didn’t trust myself. I had to do something beyond shying away from his advances. They needed to be thwarted altogether. Over the past hour, I had devised a solution. I needed to share it with Anton. After his reaction today in the council chamber, I hoped he would be willing to help me.
With a rush of determination, I hefted the box bed and pulled it flush to the wall with the red door. That way Lenka wouldn’t find me if she entered my rooms. I stood, swiveled around, and swept across the ballet studio, next trying my key in the lavender door.
Once I entered, a child’s playthings confronted me, all sleeping beneath a thick layer of dust. A rocking horse. Clay pennywhistles and marionettes. Nesting dolls with their gradually smaller companions, all lined up in a row. Riaznian fairy tales displayed in flaking murals upon the walls. The Armless Maiden growing her limbs back to rescue her son from a well. Father Frost admonishing the Impolite Child.
Again, no door existed to the outer corridor, only another door to yet another room.