“No.” His voice was almost as gruff as the foxgirl’s. “Where did you learn to be kind?”
I shook my head and turned away. “You saved my life. Twice if we include tonight.”
“You paid that debt. Twice if we include tonight. You did not, do not have to—to…”
I wished he would not speak so, not in those tones, not brokenly. My heart was on the verge, if not of explosion than of collapse, hurtling to an inward oblivion, sucking down with it the very ground I stood on. For a moment I believed my bones were Gentry bones, hollow as a bird’s. I was that light. I missed the locket’s weight around my neck. I missed my mother.
Without turning back to him, I confessed, “There is no one here who cares for me. For me to care for. I feel like I’m dying. The parts of me that matter. If you save my life a thousand times it won’t mean anything unless I—unless I can still…feel something. Tenderness.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “That is it exactly.”
I covered my face with both hands, unwilling to sob in front of him.
“Put me out!” I begged. “Now! Please. Like you did before. I am so tired.”
This time his grass-trap was less like a thunder tunnel, all green flash and brash spectacle, and more like a hammock of spider silk and flower petal rocking, rocking, rocking me to slumber on a dozy summer evening. I swear I heard him singing lullabies all the way down.
Another month went by, much like the last: too much satin, too little hope, and only intermittent visits from my friend the foxboy to alleviate the tedium of despair.
It was early morning—not Sebastian’s usual hour for visiting—when I woke to footsteps outside my door. The king strode into my cell, his gold-braided crown bright upon his pale hair, his long red cloak sweeping the tiles of turquoise and lapis lazuli. He leaned one hip against my pillow, stroked a single fingernail down my face, and when I flinched fully awake, smiled.
“How do you feel, Miss Faircloth?”
Should I sit up? Cover myself with the blanket? Dare answer? It seemed safest to bob my chin. The dagger on his belt was very near my cheek. He was not looking at me, but at what the blanket did not cover. My shift was thin, of silk. His cold eyes roved.
“My page boy is in regular contact with his twin at Winterbane. She apprises him of the Archabbot’s movements. Did you know?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t known, but I had guessed.
His hand, as if by accident, drifted from my face to my collarbone. Had I anything of value left, I’d’ve wagered it that he felt my pounding heart even in that lightest graze.
“Just this morning,” said the king, “Sebastian passed me the latest of his sister’s news. Avillius is conscripting an army of his own. He thinks to march on Jadio House, to wreck all I have assembled, and from the rubble rebuild a temple to his gods.” He leaned closer to me, studying my face intently. “But I am favored by the gods. They have turned their faces from him. They have sent me you.”
“Me?” This was no time for sudden movement. His palm pressed me hard into the mattress, very hot and very dry.
“You, Gordenne Faircloth. The Archabbot’s coffers are fat, but they are no match for the treasure troves of heaven. He cannot feed and clothe his army with prayer—especially when by his actions today he proves himself a heretic. His toy soldiers are of tin while mine are of gold.”
They are not toys, I wanted to scream. They are people! Not gold or tin but flesh. And if this war is let to rage, we shall all be crushed to dust between the inexorable convictions of crown and miter. You shall be king of a graveyard realm. The temples will stand empty with no one to worship in them, and the Archabbot will have only himself to pray to.
But I said nothing.
First of all, and obviously, Jadio was bent on this war. Lusted for it. Had done his damnedest to incite it, for all I could see. Secondly, I knew very well (for her brother had told me, not that he could be trusted to keep tail or tale straight) that half of what Candia gabbled were lies so wild only a consummate actor could hear them with a somber face. Thirdly, if Avillius were building an army, it wouldn’t be an army of tin weaklings as Jadio seemed to expect. Pricksters a-plenty did Avillius have already, and zealots. He would hire mercenaries, too, and not hesitate to use those Gentry or Gentry-babes who had fallen under his power, whether from greed or grief or some dark hold he had over them to swell his ranks. He was not the kindly man he appeared, no more than Jadio was as good as he was beautiful.
The king hauled me out of my thoughts and onto his lap, where he proceeded to crush me breathless.
“Therefore, Miss Faircloth. Gordenne.”
“Your Majesty?” I braced both hands against his chest, hoping to keep some distance, but he took it as an invitation for further intimacies. After swiping my mouth soundly with his tongue, mauling my ears, and sucking at my neck, he pulled back and grasped my shoulders, shaking me. His fingernails drew blood.
“Therefore, my darling,” he said brusquely, “today you’ll get to spinning. I have filled the ballroom at Jadio House with all the straw in Leressa. You are not to leave the room until your alchemy is performed. You are not to eat or drink or see a soul until that gold is mine. And when it is, Miss Faircloth”—he crushed me to him again, harder, letting me feel the power of his body and the weakness of my own—“when you give me that gold, I will give you my name, my throne, and my seed. You shall be Queen of Leressa. The mother of my heir. The saint of our people. My wife.”
I opened my mouth to explain how I could not do what he asked, had never been able to do it, how I’d started out a nothing, and now was even less than that. But he dug his nails into the gouge wounds he had made and shook me by the shoulders all over again.
“If you do not!” he whispered. “If you do not!”
I waited in the shadow of the spinning wheel. Dusk came, and midnight, and dawn again. My friend did not come. By the king’s orders I’d nothing to eat or drink, no blankets to cover me, no visitor to comfort me. Dusk, then midnight, dawn again. I cleared a small space on the floor and pressed my face to the cool tile, and slept. High morning. High noon. Late afternoon. Twilight. Night.
Perhaps a hundred years passed.
He held a flask of water to my lips. Quicksilver, crystal, icicle, liquid diamond. Just water. Followed by a blackberry. A raspberry. An almond. The tip of his finger dipped in honey. I sucked it eagerly.
“Milkmaid,” he said.
“Go away.” I pressed the hand that pressed my face, keeping him near. “I have nothing left to give you. And anyway, why should Jadio win? Keep your gold. Go back to the Ways. There’s a war coming. No one’s safe…”
“Hush.” He slipped a purple grape into my mouth. A green grape. A sliver of apple. His scars were livid against his frowning face.
“Milkmaid.” He sighed. “I can do nothing without a bargain. Even if I—but do you see? It doesn’t work without a bargain.”
I felt stronger now. I could sit up. Uncoil from the fetal curl. My legs screamed as I stretched them straight.
He’d been kneeling over me. Now he kept one knee bent beneath him and drew up the other to rest his chin on. This position seemed an easy one. The frown between his brows was not of pain but inquiry.
“I heard how you were…I could not come sooner. I was too deep within the Veil.” He smiled. His teeth glowed. “With the Deep Lords, even—in the Fathom Realms beneath the sea. Do I smell like fish?”
I sniffed. Green and sweet and sunlight. Maybe a little kelp as an afterthought. Nothing unpleasant. On an impulse, I leaned my nose against his neck and inhaled again. He moved his cheek against mine, and whispered with some shortness of breath: