The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [103]
“I don’t usually worry about pregnancy,” Savedra said after a long silence, “but we have to.” Pragmatism dulled the pleasant tingle in her limbs, but she couldn’t ignore it.
“There is the possibility that I’m barren,” Ashlin said, not quite meeting her eyes. “And wouldn’t that be irony fit for an opera. I could have joined a mercenary company after all, and spared everyone grief.” She squeezed Savedra’s hand as she said it.
“It could also be Nikos.” It felt like a betrayal to say the words aloud, but he had acknowledged the chance himself after the second miscarriage. In the dark, in fact, in a scene much like this. She swallowed a bitter laugh. “It’s not as though I’ve borne him any bastards to say otherwise.”
They lay quietly for a while, with the weight of secrets and costs like a blade between them.
“You should go,” Savedra said at last, because someone had to.
“I should.” The shadows hid the princess’s face, but the hurt in her voice was clear. Savedra held herself still and silent while Ashlin dressed, though she ached to reach for her, to call her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, as Ashlin turned to the door.
“So am I,” the princess whispered. Then she was gone.
Savedra wanted to press her face against the pillow and cry herself to sleep. But she was too much her mother’s daughter for that. Instead she rose and opened the windows to the damp and frigid night, then turned to the bottle of brandy on her dressing table. The first glass went down her throat in a single searing gulp. The second she carefully dashed across the soiled sheets. She changed the linens herself, awkwardly hauling a fresh set across the wide bed. When that was done she ran herself a bath and scrubbed away the scent of Ashlin’s skin. Next, wet and shivering in the drafty room, she opened the doors of her shrine and lit a stick of incense to Saint Sarai.
By then dawn was a pale blue wash against her windows, and she ached to the bone with fatigue. She sealed the room again and crawled into her cold bed. The scent of smoke and sandalwood and brandy chased her into the dark, and haunted her through alien dreams.
CHAPTER 13
The dawn chimes found Isyllt in Inkstone, climbing the broad steps of the Justiciary. The hour of tenderness, the first terce was called, but the only tenderness she felt was her bruised and sleepless eyes. White marble soared above her, painted rose and gold with sunrise—fluted columns holding aloft the pediment and its statues. Meant to be historical figures, but everyone looked the same carved in stone; she preferred the gargoyles crouching on the Sepulcher across the square.
At the top of the stairs Isyllt met a young constable fumbling with her keys. Smaller police stations around the city stayed open all night to collect rowdy drunks and careless criminals, but the central office closed with the evensong bells like any respectable bureaucracy. The girl did a hasty double take when she saw Isyllt.
The front room was tall and broad, lit by high narrow windows and many lamps, which the young Vigil moved to light. The space was meant to intimidate more than welcome; past it desks lined the walls, and doors and halls led to the offices of senior Vigils. Other Vigils began to trickle in, muttering and joking and lighting braziers for tea. Isyllt couldn’t imagine having to face so much garish orange at the start of every day.
She must have looked worse than she realized—the young constable brought her the first cup of tea, and was so solicitous that Isyllt wanted to bite her. She smiled instead, though it made her face ache, and took the tea and offered chair and settled to wait for Khelséa. She was staring, she knew—at the ceiling, the Vigils, the leaves swirling at the bottom of her cup. All her thoughts were dark, ugly things with cutting edges. Better to think on nothing and let the noise of the Justiciary wash over her.
The noise was little better: accusations, reports of theft, reports of people missing, tearful demands for aid. No one