I took up the letter and made to give it to her, catching the slight moment of revulsion as she flinched from it. “Any reason to keep this?” I asked, pulling it back.
Her eyes flew up to mine. I glimpsed the fear in them again that she’d buried beneath the icy calm, and something else. Sorrow? Defeat? “No. We know what it says. Destroy it.”
“As my lady commands.” This was something I could do for her.
I felt like a boy again in that moment, back in Oriel when the bits of vurgsten we carried in our pockets were for sparkle and show, all to impress the girls. I pulled out a striker, clicking it to impact the embedded vurgsten and holding the letter against it. It exploded with a flash and a bang! that made Lia jump and exclaim, then press her hand to her heart as a startled laugh escaped her. I grinned back at her. The paper leapt into flame, bright heat and sulfurous fumes billowing. I held it as long as I could, then released it to the sea breeze, watching as the small comet of it wafted away and dissolved into ash.
She watched it go with a look of satisfaction, some of her tension burned away with it. “Thank you. That feels better.”
“Worked for me, too.” I pocketed the striker, shaking the burn away. “Lia, about the prophecy and our getting married, I—”
“Did you burn your hand?” Her gaze had gone to my flicking fingers.
“It’s nothing.”
But she took my hand in hers, turning it over. I nearly pulled away, embarrassed for her to see. The skin of my hands in particular is forever stained with the ash of Vurgmun. Black soot is ground into the cracks, the skin gnarled and rough as the rock embedded in my pores.
“Thick-skinned,” she noted, repeating what I’d said earlier. Her gaze lifted to mine, the blue-gray of her eyes softer in that stark black-and-white frame.
“Yes. The trouble with thick skin is it makes me insensitive. I don’t notice the burn until the damage is done.”
Her perfectly painted lips quirked in wry understanding. Then she dropped my hand and drew on her imperious manner like a cloak. “Walk with Me—and explain these ideas. How are we stronger together?”
Recognizing that as a peace offering, I gave her my arm and she took it, though she might as well have been a whiff of mist against me, and I escorted her back to the palace. “When you married me, you gained access to vurgsten, too. We have powerful weapons to use against Anure. And knowing he wants you intact gives us an advantage.”
“You’re dancing around your meaning. Explain,” she commanded, in her casually imperious way.
Sawehl help me that I found that so … enticing about her. And that I admired how she still refused to admit that she’d been as frightened as enraged when she sought me out. She’d come to me, though, and that was something, too, despite everything else.
“Basic war strategy,” I told her. “If we know what the enemy wants, we can draw him out of his fortress. Wanting something—particularly if it’s obsessive, and Anure is nothing if not obsessive—will make his focus narrow on just that. He tends to forget about everything that’s not his target. We’ll know what he’s aiming for, which means we can lay a trap and destroy him.”
“And you’ll bait this trap with Me.”
“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“For the last few days, I’ve been trying to figure how to keep Anure from simply surrounding Calanthe with battleships and barraging us with vurgsten until we were all dead or too broken to fight when he landed his troops to finish the job.”
“No wonder you have such a morose nature,” she replied, “with such thoughts.”
I flicked a glance at her, unable to tell if she was teasing. I cleared my throat. “My point is that now I know he won’t attack us that way, because he wants you intact. That’s helpful information.”
“I’m so relieved to be useful.”
I laughed, and she made a little snarling sound in the back of her throat. I stroked her hand. “The point is, we can plan now. Before we meet with your Defense Council, I need to confer with my commanders. Get their take. If you agree,” I added belatedly.
She signaled to another of her ladies-in-waiting, Calla, lingering decoratively on the path ahead. “Lady Calla, inform Conrí’s commanders that they should meet us in My private courtyard, please. In a bit, I’ll require Dearsley, Brenda, and Percy. Ask them to be ready to enter at My summons.”
“Not Agatha, Your Highness?” Lady Calla asked.
Lia raised one brow. “The weaver?”
“Begging Your pardon, Your Highness, but Agatha seemed useful to You at the last … session.” Calla’s eyes slid to me and away again. Huh.
“Very well, give Agatha the option to attend if she’s interested.”
Calla curtsied and glided off, and we turned at the next fork, Lia guiding.
“Thank you for accommodating me,” I offered, feeling stupid about what I was trying to say.
“I can be reasonable,” she replied in a tone that was anything but. “If you communicate with Me.”
Ah. She’d tossed me a treat for behaving well. So be it. “So noted. I’m happier with us communicating, too.”
She snorted softly at my emphasis. “Does this mean you’ll stop pacing My gardens like a caged wolf?”
Had I been pacing like a caged wolf? Probably. I’d felt like one. “I thought it would be better for me to stay away from court. I know I screwed up.”
“Hmm. Nevertheless,” she said without moving her lips as a group of approaching courtiers bowed to her elaborately—and gave me the side eye. Once they passed, she continued, “Avoiding Me solves nothing. We need to present a united front.”
I sighed. First Ambrose nagging me, then Lia. “I’ll attend stuff when I can. Unless I’m busy.”
“Truly busy,” she qualified. “No excuses. No lies.” She scraped one long nail along the back of my hand as she hissed the word lies, underscoring our agreement.
“I don’t lie,” I said simply. “I don’t have it in me.”
“Why do you say it that way?” She relaxed her nail and glanced up at me, her gaze penetrating.
“What way?”
She considered. “As if something you once had was lost.”
As from the first moment she laid eyes on me, she saw through me, right to the hollow core. But I guess she needed more from me, words to make up for my clumsy remarks earlier.
“I did lose … everything. The mines…” I had to clear my throat. I focused on the walled garden ahead, one of Lia’s palace guards opening the inset wooden door and bowing us in. Once we were inside, I spotted the flowering tree with its elaborately weeping branches, and the bench beneath where Lia had awaited me the first time we’d been alone. It seemed much longer ago than a week. But it hadn’t been, so no wonder we were essentially still strangers. A big step up from enemies, anyway.
I took a breath, knowing I needed to get through this. “Vurgmun killed everything human in us, Lia. You should know that. We look like people, but we’re not. We’re empty inside.”
“Surely there’s something.” She spoke as fluidly and elegantly as always, but with a slight scratch in her voice, as if bothered by what I’d said.