Prince and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #2)

2. Rosewater and Sunshine

two

Rosewater and Sunshine

The Red Den was the size of a mountain. Its high walls wrapped around the hill like a titan snake, around and around for miles. It had appeared daunting from afar, but the monstrous size made Sofia feel like a fleck of dust or a grain of sand, as the prince’s entourage waited an unpolite amount of time for the draw bridge to be lowered over the gap in the earth deep enough to be black in the afternoon sun of a clear day, and perhaps even reach the necromancy hell.

The fortress housed tens of thousands was Sofia’s guess, when the bridge was finally lowered for the prince and the royal carriage, and she looked out the window at the ivory walls touching the blue skies.

The ascent to the main castle took a long time and felt as though they were voluntarily riding into the mouth of a beast. The battlements were lined with soldiers, and Sofia closed her curtains when she’d seen enough of them. Now she also understood why the throne was bankrupt, for the stomach of this serpent must be a bottomless pit for silver, copper, and grain.

As alarming as it should have been, unable to shake off the melancholy Sofia could hardly be bothered. The world seemed so heavy just then, and feeling as though slogging through water she was dying a bit at a time. Her chest was tight and her physical heart hurt. She’d been looking down and staring at the codex, reading the same line over and over and not comprehending it, when her door opened and Aleksei came in.

He took a seat across from her, propped his restless leg’s ankle over his knee, and sat vibrating both. “It’s a lot larger than I thought. If this turns shit, I might not be able to get us out of here.”

“Mmm.” Her mind blinked blankly before coherent thoughts trickled in painfully slow.

“Are you all right?” Concern knotted his brows.

“Ah, yes.” She sat up. “Um… yeah.” She couldn’t remember what he said. “It’s large, the den.”

“Look, Sofia, there’s no need for you to be here. I’ll have Ignat take you to Usolya.” He nodded to himself and reached for the door. Then his face dropped. “I’m so sorry.” He didn’t know what to do and looked afraid because she’d cried. She couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t mean to hurt her but kept doing it, and she didn’t want to burden him but now he was apologizing, begging, holding her hand when he should be minding the den and the duke. This wasn’t working.

“It will look strange if I turn around at the gate,” she managed to say after calming down. “I’ll go in and greet the duke and stay for the customary pleasantries, but I’d like to leave tomorrow. If Niko wanted to send a letter to my brother, would you make sure it’s drafted by then?” She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and sniveled.

“Yeah,” he said initially, but deflated completely. “I… I keep making you sad, and that’s not my intention. Will you please tell me what you want? I thought you wanted intimacy, but you turned me down. I don’t understand what you want. Please just tell me.”

“Is that what you want? To be with me?” she asked.

“I’m going to say the wrong thing.” That was answer enough.

“Never you mind,” she said. “Worry about…” Twirling her finger she gestured ‘around’. “I’ll speak with you later. I suppose I’ll be expected to stay for dinner.”

After Aleksei stepped out Sofia shook her head, trying to see if that would wring out the sadness—it did not. So she tried to stuff it full of current concerns to distract herself and failed at that too. It was hard to care about Niko’s throne when the thought of dying at the den sounded like a relief.

It took nearly an hour of climb before they reached the castle, and the sun had passed its peak and begun its westward arc by the time the prince and the highest esteemed members of his entourage, which included the Chartorisky and Sofia, found themselves in the duke’s courtyard.

The garden was meager with some shrubbery which had died in the recent blizzard, and there was a hole at the center of the attempt at greenery where a fountain used to be, but the keep, the towers, the wall, all the stone structures were tremendous. The den was bigger than Raven and Sofia had never seen such a large castle.

The Shield red banner hung behind the duke who was dressed in all black. The darksteel gear he wore glinted. His long thick hair and the beard touching his breastplate were salt and pepper, but the grey strands of age didn’t soften his stern red eyes. The years had made Papa kind, but this man had gone the opposite way.

He had men standing to either side of him, and from the expensive gear, Sofia assumed they were generals or captains—highborns. The red tint in their eyes was a dead giveaway even if their darksteel hadn’t been embellished with gold enough to be a fortune. They stood on the tall granite steps and did not come down to welcome the prince.

The duchess, the blonde Chartorisky, fluttered down the stairs. She greeted her own, Zoya and Daniil with an embrace, and curtsied to the prince, a passing cold smile as sharp as a knife’s edge.

The courtyard was surrounded by armored soldiers, purposefully, Sofia thought. Their uniform was different than that of a sentinel, and they wore red tunics and leather armor over black trousers and boots. Their weapons were plain steel and they carried no alchemy.

Three lords and a lady stood below the granite steps, and the woman with them was puzzling. Darksteel gear on her, including exoskeletons on both hands, she wore trousers as though she meant to go riding, hardly appropriate attire for greeting the prince. A soldier, Sofia would have placed her, had she not been standing next to lords. A woman soldier wasn’t heard of in the Guard ranks, but Sofia had heard Queen Kseniya had been a warrior when she was younger… So, perhaps they had female soldiers at Shield.

The woman confused Aleksei as well, walking up to him and giving her hand as a lady would, but when he bent to kiss her hand, she yanked him forward and laughed because she’d thrown him off balance.

“I’m Oleksandra, but just call me Sandra.” She patted Aleksei on the back. “Welcome to the den, cousin.” She bowed to Niko as a lord would. “Your Highness.”

Then she turned her back on the prince and strutted back to her group, the three lords and the young lady all laughing now. Oh, this was trouble, Sofia realized at once, because they were Rodion’s children. The duke had three sons all bigger and older than Aleksei, and even one of his daughters was larger than the captain of the sentinels. The younger one, well she was Zoya in another form—a brat—and without the subtlety of the Chartorisky to soften her crooked sneer, she looked like a rat.

The duchess completely ignored Sofia. Pity, because then she would have remarked on the sorry state of her garden.

Then came the false pleasantries of everyone greeting each other, and Sofia was announced as Lady Sofia of White Guard. All eyes turned to her, but she would take the time and decide how she would proceed. The throne of Fedosia was a weight on Aleksei’s back, the fate of tens of thousands as they were at war, but Niko wouldn’t carry his share. He walked around waving, and saying, “Hello.”

Sofia was a Guard and not just some woman accompanying Aleksei. Rejected by her lover, she’d been crying earlier but they didn’t know that. She had to gather her scattered self because she was representing her house as well.

She greeted the men as though they were courtiers, and held out her hand to whom she thought was the oldest son of the duke.

“My lady.” The lord kissed her gloved hand.

To the others, she gave a passing, “Hello, and how are you?”

She climbed the stairs and curtsied only to the duke, “Your Grace.”

Turning her back on everyone in the courtyard, she carried herself into the keep leisurely. Any other day she might have been terrified, but at the moment she couldn’t give a damn. She was carrying her brother’s name and would take care not to drop it, but the hell with the duke. Had Aleksei turned on a copper coin like this on his own, she’d say the hell with him too, but he hadn’t. He’d loved her with all he had, and she couldn’t get out of her mind how terrified he had been that morning in the narthex of the Church of Murmia.

‘What am I to do without you?’ had been the last thing he said before the archmage called him a whore and threw him out.

Oh, how she hated that old man even beyond death. On second thought, she wasn’t sorry at all she killed him… probably.

Inside the castle everything was large, the tables, chandeliers… and the arched doorways were so tall Sofia had to wonder if the den had been designed for giants. Intricate woodwork on the high ceiling and the overlay of the beams gave the den the aura of a church, but in the Shield fashion, they had a lot of red, including crimson wool carpets and heavy curtains.

In her quarters the walls were saffron, pleasant though the paint was old. The well worn carpet warmed the floor and the windows were arched and slender. Sofia complained about a headache and was told it was the high altitude, though she suspected the copious amount of wine she’d guzzled to mend her broken heart had something to do with it.

She’d been hiding in her room, sitting on a satin settee with her eyes closed, when the steward came in to ask if she’d be joining the duke for dinner and dance. She had to attend, she supposed, and informed the thin man she would indeed be coming down for ‘dinner and festivity’ whilst wondering where she would find the energy for such a thing.

A knock came on her door, and she yelled, “I’m indecent!”

“I’ll wait.” It was Aleksei.

She had to take a moment to decide if she wanted to see him, but in the end, as sad as it was, he was her darling. “Come on in.”

Aleksei entered and closed the door. “They told me you weren’t feeling well.”

“I’m all right. I just didn’t want the maids in the room and told them I had a headache… What should I wear for the dinner?” She looked at the wooden trunk which she hadn’t taken the dresses out of. No point since she was leaving tomorrow.

“Whatever you wish,” he said.

“Can I be naked, then?”

He frowned. Perhaps he’d forgotten his sense of humor too. Since she would be attending a grand total of one event, Sofia thought to go straight for her ivory dress embroidered with gold threads and asked for Aleksei’s help since he was there anyway.

He took out the dress she’d asked for, stretched out the fabric on the bed, and proceeded to release the travel wrinkles with an alchemy iron, as she watched with some fascination.

“What do you iron?” she asked because he’d had that on him. Apparently, one of the settings of his darksteel was an iron.

“My cloak, trousers, and shirt,” he said.

“No wonder you look so sharp.” She couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, I should probably brew a few portions of tonic for you before tomorrow.” She thought to get up but she was truly tired from traveling in coach for three weeks and running around in the forest instead of sleeping the only night she’d had a bed since they left Krakova. Now, she’d be on the road even longer. “How far is Seniya?”

Aleksei thought, lifting the iron so as not to burn her dress, then said, “Nearly eight hundred miles. You were far closer to it in Krakova. From the capital, it’s only two hundred miles through flat terrain.”

“Eight hundred miles?” The thought exhausted Sofia. “Is it closer if I just ride to Usolya rather than go to Seniya?”

“That’s over four thousand miles,” he said. “You have to take the train. There is no other way in the winter.”

Disheartened at the whole thing, Sofia dropped her gaze to her lap and twirled the loose thread she pulled from her dress.

“All done,” she heard him. “Rosewater and sunshine,” he mumbled.

She stole a look and saw him sniffing the bodice of her dress. “What does sunshine smell like?” she asked.

“Outside,” he said. “When you dry clothes on the line out in the sun, it smells like this, like clean…” He flicked his gaze, saw her watching him, blushed, and set her dress down. “It’s ready.” He gestured.

“Thank you. Do you know what you smell like?” she asked.

“Is it bad?” He pressed his sleeve to his face, wrinkling his nose.

“No,” she whispered, watching the evening light, gold and warm, trace the curves and the angles, the sharps and the softs of his face, neck, collarbone… “You smell of leather and steel, clean attire too, and earth.”

“Dirt?” he asked.

“Dirt is only but a part of earth,” she said. “Aleksei, may I ask you for a favor?”

“Anything, my lady.”

“I hear there will be a dance tonight. I don’t want you to dance with Zoya.” There she’d said it and now she puffed her cheeks.

“I wasn’t going to,” he said. “I can’t dance.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s going to ask you, and I want you to decline. You can do whatever you wish after I leave, but tonight, I want you to stay by my side. Is that all right?”

“Of course,” he said. “Are…” He hesitated, scratching his head. “Are you… jealous of Zoya?”

“I’m jealous of anyone who has your attention.” She was petty, but so what.

“She doesn’t, but all right.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to go check on Niko.” He turned for the door. “I’ll see you tonight. I’ve posted sentinels at your door. If you need anything, please let them know.”

“Sure.”

He left and instead of getting up to get ready, she closed her eyes thinking it’d be for a moment, but she’d fallen asleep and dreamt of home, Elfur, of a castle and the frozen lake beyond it. She was running after her father, she thought, but he turned, and it was Grigori. She ran away from him, then it was dark and she heard voices.

“Give me a name to feed the darkness, give us his name. Give me life, Yeliza, so we can be together.”