Page 39 of House of Dusk
“We’ll be dining in my—in the queen’s salon.” Sinoe bit the inside of her cheek. “You don’t have to come. You can wait outside. Tami can stay with you. It might be for the best.”
Yeneris arched a dubious brow at the ailouron, just as the bird-beast gave a scornful shriek. Apparently neither of them liked that plan.
“I’ll be safe,” said Sinoe. “These are the most secure rooms of the palace.”
Yeneris had noticed. She’d counted eight guards so far, mostly in pairs, several in stationary positions, others patrolling. All well-armed, in spite of their tasseled ceremonial armor and gilded helms.
“But you don’tfeelsafe,” said Yeneris. She couldn’t risk being left behind now, even if the comment verged on inappropriate. “I’m not leaving.”
Sinoe gave her a wan smile. “You may regret that.” Then she led the way onward, to a heavy wooden door inlaid with a geometric pattern of black and white tile, guarded by two more soldiers. The princess took a bracing breath. “Be good,” she whispered, presumably to Tami, as the guards opened the door for her. Yeneris followed, her skin humming, nerves on fire.
The reliquary was here, somewhere. Little chance of recovering it right now, but she might be able to make plans for a future attempt. She just needed to figure out where Hierax had it hidden.
The room was nearly a perfect, windowless cube, as tall as it was broad, the walls painted with false columns, so it seemed as if they were entering a marble pavilion looking out over a starlit meadow. The dozens of tiny oil lamps scattered about the room added to this effect, providing a shimmering quivery light that made it hard for Yeneris’s eyes to focus.
She blinked, thinking that was the reason she saw double. Two people, seated at the head of that long, imposing table, rather than the one she had expected.
But it wasn’t a trick of her eyes. There was Hierax, with his overlarge eyes and gold-ringed fingers and heavy lips pursed in expectation. And beside him, a veiled figure, her brow clasped by a circlet of beaten gold leaves and crimson gems. Bony wrists jutted from the sleeves of her gown, stiff with gilt embroidery and precious stones. A sash clasped her impossibly narrow waist.
“Hello, Father.” Sinoe dipped her head, her voice tight. Tami gave a tiny hiss.
Hierax’s brow furrowed. “That beast should be in its cage.”
For a moment she thought Sinoe might protest. But she only swallowed, nodding. She turned to Yeneris, her face strained and pale. “Take her, please.”
Impossible to argue, not here, in front of the king. Even Tami seemed to sense the weight of Hierax’s displeasure, and consented to be coaxed from Sinoe’s shoulder onto Yeneris’s arm. Her talons pricked painfully. She gave a low, mournful keen as the princess turned away.
Hierax cleared his throat significantly as Sinoe moved to take her seat at the table. “You haven’t greeted your mother, Sinoe.”
Mother? Yeneris gaped, trying to fathom the words. Queen Kizare was gone, exiled back to her people in Scarthia.
There was a beat of silence. Then Sinoe dipped another bow, this time to the veiled woman. “Hello, Mother.”
There was no response, not even the slightest stir of the gauzy linen veil. Hierax gave a rumble of approval, and Sinoe finally took her seat. She was pale, except for two spots of brightness high in her cheeks.
“There,” said Hierax, leaning back, more relaxed now, almost jovial. “See how happy it makes her, to have you here with us?”
A pit had opened inside Yeneris, and all her sensible thoughts were spinning into it, sucked down by a realization that was too horrible for her to accept. She stared at the veiled woman. Unmoving. Skeletally thin. She could just barely make out a shadowy face through the veil: the pale, sharply cut features, the empty dark eyes, the hint of a leering grimace.
It took all Yeneris’s control to hold herself back behind Sinoe’s chair. A wild laugh snagged in her throat. So much for her fears that she might not discover where the reliquary was hidden. She had found it. Or rather, she had found the sacred bones, the last mortal remains of the revered kore of Bassara.
Here they were, right in front of her.
It wasn’t enough that Hierax had stolen the bones. That he’d slaughtered an entire city to claim them. But topervertthem? To dress the kore like a child’s doll, propped at his dinner table?
She bit her tongue, feeling Sinoe’s eyes. Had she made a sound? Thankfully Tami’s bulk hid her face somewhat. She struggled to regain her composure.Listen, watch, learn.Later, she could be horrified.
And so she catalogued all that was before her. The table, set with a dozen silver platters. Dishes of roasted quail and cheese-filled pastries. Rabbit stewed with prune. Jeweled heaps of pomegranate and fig and ripe apricots.
Hierax made a show of slicing the choicest cuts and setting them on the plate before the kore. “Only the best for you, my love.”
Sinoe took a sizable sip of her wine, then set the cup down with a clink that was just slightly too loud. “Did you hunt the rabbit yourself, Father?” Her voice was a cracked jug trying desperately not to spill.
And there was nothing Yeneris could do to help.You can do your job,she chided herself. The real one.
The king had accepted Sinoe’s conversational gambit, and was now expounding on different techniques for hunting rabbit. Yeneris let the words fade to a hum as she absorbed the layout of the room, fixing the details in her mind.
She doubted that this was where the kore was kept normally. The way Hierax had spoken, the way he acted even now, told her this was no farce. He truly believed that the kore was his beloved, his bride. His queen.
