Page 23 of A Court of Masks and Roses
Master Tril sighed, writing a new set of sums on the slate. “If I might ask you to concentrate, my lady.”
Violet looked. The numbers wouldn’t stay still, as difficult to interpret as the pages of the books surrounding them. She hated this place. The dusty smell of paper, the shelves ofstories she could not read, the pressure of knowledge that hung in the air and mocked Violet’s every mistake.
“My lady—”
“Why?” Slamming the chalk down on the table, Violet forced Tril to meet her eyes. “Why does this matter? Give me one reason why you and I are here, wasting each other’s time.”
Tril flinched, for once losing the veil of patient suffering he wore like a second skin. The stunned look on his face was satisfying, if only for its honesty. Hewaswasting his time, as well as hers. “You are a princess, my lady.” He cleared his throat. “One day, you will—”
“I’ll be a valuable bride and a fruitful mother?” Violet finished for him, wiping her chalky hands on her skirt. “And will my value increase by virtue of knowing these sums? Dansil is at war with Everett. People are dying. Crops wither for lack of hands to work the fields. Infants are stillborn. And you think my knowingsumsis going to change that?”
The bell tolled a late evening hour and Violet rose from her seat without waiting for Tril’s answer. She had no more time to waste with him, not when there were people waiting for her in the one place where she mattered for more than hervalueas fertile royalty.
“What would your mother say?” Master Tril said to Violet’s back.
She spun on the plush carpet to glare at him and buried the pain behind a growl. “As you well know, my mother has been dead for three months. When the spirits decide to speak to me from the underworld, I shall be sure to enquire.”
After the grandnessof the library, with its thick rugs and delicate books, the temple courtyard was wonderfully uncluttered. Gray cobble, circular benches, a statue spurtingwater, all bathed in the Eye’s orange light. A flock of pigeons took flight from Violet’s path as she approached the fountain where Dasha and Zalia waited for her, their unshapely red skirts billowing in the wind. A knot in Violet’s chest loosened. Despite their promise to meet her, Violet had half expected to find the courtyard empty.
But it wasn’t. The temple girls rushed forward, crushing Violet in a group hug. Dasha, the plumper one, bounced on her toes. “I’m so glad you came,” she chirped.
“We’ve missed you, sister,” said Zalia with more dignity but no less sincerity. Pulling a crown of wilting carnations from her basket, she held it out to Violet, as if presenting the rarest of roses. “I made this for you. So you’d know you are thought of even when away.”
Violet bit her lip, weighing the distaste of laying the dying things on her hair against the offense a refusal might give. Plainly, Zalia was proud of the gift, and Violet felt obligated to reciprocate the kind gesture. Especially after Zalia had called her sister—not Princess or Highness, butsister.
“It’s perfect. Just perfect!” Dasha squealed as Violet settled the monstrosity onto her head and inclined it in gratitude.
“I apologize for my lateness—”
Zalia placed a finger against Violet’s lips. “That was the Dark God’s fault, not yours,” she said, linking her arm through Violet’s elbow. “He felt the Goddess’s pull on you and tried to impede your coming. I’m pleased to see you fought him off.”
Violet blushed. She’d meant to leave directly after Tril’s lesson but had started working on the stuffed pup’s nose to calm herself and lost track of time. In the end, she’d missed the candle mark by a whole finger’s width. “I don’t think I can lay blame too far from my own feet this time,” she confessed sheepishly. “I was in the middle of something and forgot myself.”
Zalia patted her arm. “That’s how the Dark God acts, sister. Interfering with us through things and thoughts and, worst of all,” her voice dropped, “through the people we love. The Dark God is cunning, you see, but the Goddess is stronger. And so are you.”
Violet thought of the puppy, now securely hidden in a wooden box beneath the loose floorboard in her bedchamber. Whatever schemes the Dark God meddled in, they could not possibly involve tiny plush puppies with happy eyes. Not that she was about to argue the point.
“Come on, you two,” Zalia tugged on Violet’s arm. “Brother Joshua is waiting for us and we should not keep him longer than we must.”
Violet stopped, her brows knitting together. “Who is Brother Joshua? I... I thought it would be just us three. That you wished to talk together again.”
Zalia pulled her arm free of Violet’s elbow and frowned. “Of course we wish to talk with you. You are open minded and smart, and you catch on fast as a hawk. But do you not wish to hear our thoughts as well?” Hurt flickered in Zalia’s eyes.
Violet held up her palms. “Of course I do, Zalia. We are friends. But who is Joshua?”
“Just someone who leads evening discussions.” Zalia smiled, putting her arm back through Violet’s. “We listen and we talk. And we want you to be a part of it too. Please?”
“It will be interesting.” Dasha’s voice was a warm, husky alto to Zalia’s soprano. “Plus, the other sisters and brothers have been begging to meet our new friend for days. Won’t you indulge them for a bit?”
Shrugging with resignation, Violet followed the girls to the wooden temple doors. Zaliahadmade her a crown, hideous as it was, and the need to do something nice in return chafeduncomfortably. If her joining them for an evening talk would make Zalia and Dasha happy, Violet was willing to try. For her friends.
The temple being the roses’ domain, Violet’s royal guard detail unhappily peeled away to remain outside.
“The Goddess’s love and soldiers will protect us all,” Zalia said to the guards as they walked past. “Fear not.”
The door shut behind them with a windy thud that made Violet jump. One moment she was in the open air with her guards and the pigeons and the sun, and the next she was here, in this quiet sacred place that cocooned her in its damp, dark womb. Violet traced her fingers along the cool stone wall as she followed the girls down flight after flight of stairs that she’d never imagined existed in the temple. Living stones the size of ripe grapefruits bathed the passage in rich, colorful lights of orange and red and green. Stopping on a landing for breath, Violet frowned at the still-descending stairway. “Where are we going?”
“To the Order’s sacred rooms,” Zalia said, offering Violet her hand. “They are below ground, and only those invited may go inside. It’s only a bit farther.” A single door waited for them at the bottom of the steps. Zalia opened it with a key, revealing a long hallway with doors and corridors bending from it like branches. A temple beneath a temple. “This way,” Zalia said, herding Violet into a room beside the entrance. “We call it the Revelations Room.”
