Page 64 of A Reign of Embers

“Oh, well, with all the dissent being stirred up… I can’t imagine they had the warmest feelings toward the imperial family that insisted they grow up here rather than with their birth families…” Bianca hesitates, studying my face, and seems to shrink in her gown. “Mostly I was making a joke.”

I school my expression into total serenity and manage a chuckle. She’s given me the perfect diversion. “I certainly hope you haven’t observed any signs that they’d turn against me or my daughter.”

“Oh, no, I’d have told you right away.” The vicerine shakes her head, but her energy still feels deflated from the usual. “It’s hard to get a good read on that bunch, though, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to give you false confidence.”

She has no idea how well my lovers have earned my confidence in them. Of course, she also has no idea that in a matter of days, my gamble could go wrong and she’ll see me as the greatest enemy the empire has faced.

I swallow down my fears—for my princes, for myself. The course ahead may not be the safest one, but if I’m not brave enough for it, I don’t deserve to be empress.

“Don’t trouble yourself about that,” I say. “I’m hardly one to throw caution to the wind.”

“Of course.” Bianca gives a brief laugh.

She stays oddly quiet through the rest of dinner, letting Hivette and Damina across from us lead the chatter. When the meal is finished, she slips away before I have a chance to speak to her privately. I watch her go, my smile stiffening.

Perhaps she’s simply feeling under the weather. I’d like to believe it’s only that.

I make a short appearance in the hall of entertainments but manage to duck out before too long with the excuse oftending to Coraya. With every passing minute taking me closer to the moment when my lovers will have to leave, my heart thuds heavier.

I do check in on my daughter, and then I make my way to my apartment. When I pause on my bedroom rug to gather myself, Marc touches my arm.

“Come with me,” he says with a hint of his old imperial confidence, and moves to open the hidden panel in my wall.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Aurelia

Maintaining his mysterious silence, Marc takes me on only a short trek through the secret passages in the walls. I haven’t traversed the narrow wooden halls enough beyond my few usual routes to decipher where we’re going until we step out into a vast, shrouded sitting room.

“There you are,” Raul mutters from where he’s standing in the middle of the room with Bastien and Lorenzo, his massive form tensed. A lantern casts its amber glow over the three princes from where it’s sitting on the floor near the wall. “Now are you going to explain what we’re doing in this blasted spot?”

My gaze slides over the chairs and tables draped with protective sheets, the gilded wallpaper and dark wooden paneling, the thick rugs that’ve been rolled and leaned against the walls. A tang of tartly smoky cologne prickles mynose, thicker than it lingered in the temporary apartment I used while my own was restored.

Even with most of the furnishings packed away or concealed like ghostly silhouettes, even though I’ve only been in this apartment once, an uncomfortable twinge of recognition ripples through my gut.

I cross my arms over my chest instinctively, as if the room’s contents might attack me as its occupants did more than once. “These are your old chambers.”

This is the panel my princes and I stepped through that fateful night several weeks ago. Through the doorway across the room lies the bedroom with its different secret doorway behind the bookcase next to the hearth.

It’s there that I called to Marc in a feigned panic to bring him out of the hidden room the twins shared, to drug him and carry him off to the basement where we interrogated him and meant to murder him.

Does he really want to stir up those memories now?

From Marc’s faint wince when he takes in my expression, I have to guess not. “This isn’t— I just assumed it was the safest setting for us to remain undisturbed, while still fitting my purpose.”

Bastien tilts his head to one side. “Are we finally going to hear what that purpose is? We came as you requested—because you said it’d be for Aurelia.”

Marc opens his mouth and closes it again. His expression stays mild, but when he takes a few steps away from me, more tension shows in his movements than even Raul’s braced stance holds.

He stops between me and the princes and looks as if he makes a conscious effort to relax. His shoulders come down slightly.

He glances back at me. “You shouldn’t think of these chambers as mine anymore. I don’t. They’ll be Coraya’s whenshe’s grown. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people insist that you take them until that time, once you’ve crushed Valerisse’s rebellion and proven yourself the rightful empress yet again.”

I can’t keep the tart note from my voice. “I’m perfectly happy with the apartment I have. What’s going on, Marc?”

He shifts his attention to the princes. His hands twitch at his sides as if he’s resisted the urge to clench them.

Despite that, his voice comes out even enough. I might even call it… warm.

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