Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,80
will stake our claim to the kingdoms of men and she will not stop us.
Restraining a smile, I took my place for the portrait and rested a hand on Navara’s shoulder. I felt her trying not to squirm under my touch.
The artist turned around and studied us. He peered into my eyes and shifted a step back in surprise. “I mixed shades of green and blue for your eyes, my queen, but now I see that’s not quite right. They’re more of a gray…no, silver. Pardon me for a moment.”
TWENTY-FOUR
KADRI
BY nighttime, snow fleeced the vineyards, but the storm had abated.
I didn’t know if it meant that Glisette had defeated whatever darkness she had faced…or something much worse.
Tucked into bed with the cat, I read the final chapter of the Book of Belief between bouts of sleep brought on by the tincture. The figurative, flowery language frustrated me. I encountered obsolete words retired from everyday Perispi vocabulary and found no further descriptions of the scourge of mold and rot that had brought to mind the infestation in the Forest of the West Fringe.
The meatiest parts must have resided in the blank pages, untranscribed, scrawled only on a sealed scroll.
Regardless, I felt silly for thinking the fictional scourges and the forest rot could be related in the first place. Never in my life had the teachings of Agrimas resonated with me, beyond their encouragement of self-edification. But even clear and simple principles could somehow be warped to suit a selfish agenda. Loyalty to the wrong causes was hardly a virtue.
Embittered and wracked with pain, I flung the book at the nightstand, startling the cat and knocking over the effigy of Hestreclea that Orturio had given me.
I climbed out of bed and limped to huddle by the fire again. I couldn’t help Rynna. I couldn’t help Glisette. I was trapped here, held hostage by a powerful man who had only spared me thus far because I had agreed to help him.
I’d learned from the Moth King’s rise to power how quickly a small insurgency could grow. If Ambrosine’s reign stoked outrage among the remaining Agrimas faithful, the Uprising might expand from a secret sect of radicals to an entire country bent on our destruction. Elicromancers could defeat a mortal army from Perispos, but such a war would be costly in terms of mortal life and would tear down whatever trust remained between the two sides.
A loud crash jolted me out of my thoughts. Lord Orturio had been too distracted by his misfortune to pay me much mind today.
I heard a distant hum of voices in spite of the late hour. One of them was no more of a lazy purr: Mathis. Wincing at the pain, I limped to the door and crouched down to look through the keyhole, straining to make out figures in front of Lucrez’s chamber across the dark corridor.
“Tomorrow, Mathis,” Lucrez said.
“Let me just get a peek of what I have to look forward to,” Mathis said, sliding the sleeve of her black dress off her shoulder.
“Are you mad? I just came home empty-handed and had to tell Orturio that my informant fled Givita for the woods before I got there,” she whispered as he kissed up her throat. “His harvest has been destroyed, and he’s been drinking heavily. He broke a chair when I told him, for Holies’ sake! Do you really want to stake a claim to me right now?”
“Absolutely, more than ever.” I grimaced at the hungry way his top lip moved away from his teeth like a horse biting off blades of grass.
“Why right now, tonight, when you haven’t come to me in weeks?” she asked, pushing his blond head away. “Is it some sort of revenge, reveling in his misery? I won’t be used like that.”
“Revenge?” Mathis asked, looping his arms around her waist and yanking her close. “Whatever for?”
She did not adopt his playful, mischievous tone. “Your brother.”
I bit my knuckles to hold back a gasp.
“His brothers killed my brother, and the king killed them for it.” Mathis recounted this dismissively, as though it were old, boring news. “We’re more or less even, don’t you think? Please, spend the night in my room. The thought of you juicing an informant made me wildly jealous, and now I must have you.”
Lucrez sighed. “After he goes to bed. It shouldn’t be long now. He’s had the strong spirits.”
Mathis lifted her hand and kissed her palm as if to devour her flesh. “I’ll see you soon.”