Burning Glass (37 page)

The soldier’s beard trembled near his mouth. His aura nearly buckled me over with grief and madness. “The revolution was at a standstill,” he said, his confession pouring out of him. “Nicolai was scarcely persuading any nobles, and you denied Feliks his desire to gather the peasants for a public revolt. Meanwhile, the empire grew stronger, more oppressive . . .” He shook his head in misery. “I found out from another guard that Valko forced himself on Pia,” Yuri finally admitted, as if that were the root of his justification.

I blinked. Had Yuri known all this time what Pia had labored to conceal from him? The truth made my heart ache for my friend.

“I was incensed!” Yuri said, and gave Anton a pleading look. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I swear to you, I never meant to harm your mother.”

The prince’s brows were unflinching. “You didn’t harm her, you
killed
her.”

Yuri dropped his chin. His wretchedness was palpable as he lowered his gaze. “Forgive me,” he whimpered.

Anton’s diamond-hard aura locked my knees and straightened my spine. “You are to leave this palace, leave Torchev,” he
commanded. “I don’t ever want to see you again. And you will
not
lay a finger on my brother.”

“But . . .” Yuri’s eyes rounded. “He killed Pia. He’s killed
thousands.
He deserves to die.”

“Valko will face trial, and his fate will be determined by the voice of the people, not you.”

A wave of hurt crashed over Yuri. He flared his nostrils. “You are not my superior.
You
taught me that. You cannot order me in anything. I will have my way with Valko, and you won’t be at liberty to stop me.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me to the wooden door.

“Let her go!” Anton rattled the bars.

Yuri whirled on him. “We all have a price to pay for this revolution. You taught me that, as well. This is hers.”

The wooden door flew open on its hinges—but not by Yuri. A bleary-eyed hulk of a man burst inside. His gaze riveted on the ring of keys dangling from the prison cell’s lock. Yuri reached for his knife, but the man—no doubt, the jail master—already had his dagger unsheathed. With one clean swipe, he dragged it across Yuri’s throat. I cried out as my captor crumpled over. His knife tumbled across the floor until it clanged against the iron bars.

My body seized with terror. My pulse flooded my ears. I spun to face the jail master. He would show me no mercy. His entrails would be ripped from his body if Anton and Tosya escaped under his watch.

The jail master advanced on me. His dagger dripped with
blood. I had no weapon. Yuri’s knife was out of reach. Still, it was my only hope. I turned to dive for it, but it was gone.

A fleshy thud punched the air. The jail master gave a harsh, stunned grunt. I drew in a shocked breath and clutched my stomach, momentarily feeling his pain. Eyes bulging, the man careened over as his life drained out of him. I shuddered and looked about me, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Anton—the pacifist prince—was on his knees, one hand grasping an iron bar while the other jutted past it, fresh from flinging Yuri’s knife.

Tosya’s expression of amazement surely reflected my own.

“Anton,” I gasped, marveling I was alive and, moreover, that he had actually killed someone to save me.

“You must go.” His face was ashen at what he had done. “Others will soon be coming.”

I knelt before him on the other side of the bars. I wrapped my fingers around his shaking hands. “I won’t leave you.”

A dull roar filled the air. Dust fell from the mortar of the stone-lined ceiling. Anton swallowed and looked from me to Tosya, who glanced upward. “It has begun.”

I regarded both of them, knowing they were trapped here while I was free, that they were willing to die for this mad dream—a dream neither one of them had wanted to end in violence. The least I could do was honor them by trying once more to end Valko’s reign peacefully. I would be risking my life, but it had always been at risk . . . from the moment I’d committed myself to the revolution, and even before when I was brought
to the palace in forced servitude. In truth, my life was compromised when I was born an Auraseer. This was my opportunity to break the chains. Or die trying.

“Do you really believe he deserves to live?” I asked.

Anton knew whom I meant. “No,” he admitted. “But I see in him every day what I could have become if the throne wasn’t taken from me. If I were in his place, I’d like to think I had a chance at redemption.”

I nodded slowly. “Then I will go to him one last time.”

He held steady to my hand, and his gaze searched through me. “Are you certain? Is this
your
choice, Sonya? I don’t want my desires to ever persuade you in anything.”

There was so little difference now between his aura and my own. We both knew what we must do. “Trust me,” I said, and laced my fingers through his. “And trust what is in my heart. My feelings for you are here when I am alone, when you are miles from the palace. I keep you with me. I choose to. You are the most impossibly stubborn person I have ever met. You are also the most honorable, the most caring. I love every part of you.”

A tremor ran across his brow as I said the word
love
. Even now, I felt him guarding himself from me.

“Our souls are fitted for each other, not because an old Romska woman foretold it, but because we
choose
them to be.”

The prince’s chest rose and fell. The indomitable barrier around his heart, at last, came crashing down.

“This feeling inside me is
mine
,” I said. “I am blessed to know you share it.”

Behind him, Tosya softly smiled and turned away, granting us the only measure of privacy he could. Anton reached past the bars to cup my face. Every time he’d beheld me in the past, his eyes carried a measure of pain. And now that pain transformed into the ache of luminous joy, only dimmed because this might be our last moment together.

I would not waste it.

Tears blurred my vision. “I love you, Anton.”

He pulled me close, as close as the bars would allow. The space between them was just large enough for him to kiss me. And he did.

He gave me every breath of his aura. It filled my body with light, with strength, with a beauty I had never known. It couldn’t cleanse away everything I had suffered, every dark mistake I had made, every loss. Nor could mine erase his, all his loneliness, all the betrayals of those he had trusted. But our union was a haven from it all, a place for healing and hope. It felt like home. A home neither one of us had been able to depend on until now.

When he drew away, it wasn’t with any regret for the vulnerability he’d just allowed himself. That same light still sang through my veins and reflected his. “Please go now, while you can,” he said, kissing me briefly one last time.

I nodded and stood with more iron in my bones, more resolve to do what had to be done—and, for the first time, also with unequivocal determination. I removed the jail master’s cloak and Yuri’s cape and draped them over their bodies to give
them what honor I could and what peace I could offer Anton and Tosya, who must share this room with them a while longer. I already sensed the guilt eating away at the prince for having had to kill a man.

Teeth gritted, I slid the knife out from the jail master’s belly and retrieved the dagger from his hand. I took Yuri’s pistol from his holster and tossed the weapons into a bed of straw past the bars. “Swear to me you will defend yourselves, if necessary.”

“We will,” Tosya answered for both of them. “Be careful, Sonya.” His aura held me with brotherly affection.

I nodded and stepped over the dead bodies, my heart clenching for Pia’s lost soldier. At the threshold of the open door, I turned my gaze once more to Tosya and Anton. “I will come back.”

I
STUMBLED THROUGH THE MAZE OF THE DUN
GEONS.
A
BOVE
the stone ceiling, more muffled shots of musket fire rang out. Distant shouts came as a growing roar, like I was nearing a massive waterfall. My heart pounded faster, harder. The auras of the peasant army rushed inside my breast and gave me fierce courage. I hurtled onward through the darkness.

Boom!

A huge blast echoed through the corridor and shook the ground and the very foundations of the palace. I crashed to my knees. The ceiling split apart with fissures. Chunks of stone rained down around me. I cried out as the panic of the servants, guards, and nobles burned like acid through my veins. My hand flew to the wall and groped for support as cramps of nausea racked my body.

The shaking stopped, but my terror still seized me. It seized
everyone. I pressed my fists to the sides of my head and rocked back and forth.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t bear the auras of both the oncoming revolutionaries
and
those fighting in defense of the palace. I couldn’t bear
any
of them.

After a brief lull, the shots fired again. The peasants took up their battle cries.

I fought to breathe, to stop all my limbs from trembling. I wanted to run back to Anton and burrow into his protective warmth. I pictured him in his jail cell, his ankles crossed over each other, his energy calm and assured. But it was his faith in me that gave him confidence. I wanted to be the person he believed in, to see myself as he did. He always trusted that I had inner strength. Once on a snowy troika ride, he’d taught me how to prevent my loss of control. But the power he gave me over the onslaught of city dwellers was more than the distraction of his handsome face. It was an intangible power, rooted in something far more beautiful, which gathered its forces when the prince and I joined in unity.

I found that power now, past my sheer anxiety and racing fear. Deep within my aura, Anton’s radiant light and love still burned brightly. I let his presence fill me, combine with mine, and ground me with self-command.

Setting my jaw, I took a long breath. I got back on my feet.

As I clung to Anton’s aura, the myriad surrounding me abated until I was able to move and think of my own volition—until I was certain my feelings were my own. Rushing forward, I
puzzled my way through the dungeons’ maze and finally reached the stone stairwell. When I ascended to the main floor of the palace and traced my way back through the corridors, I skidded to a halt in the grand lobby. My mouth fell open in shock.

The amber floors were blasted apart in sections and littered with broken glass. Gunfire continued to pour inside and ricocheted off the walls, blowing bits off the marble statues. Servants screamed and ducked for cover, while others abruptly joined the revolutionaries and battled the guards with shards of glass and half-demolished beams.

Moonlight and torch fire flickered in through the shattered windows. Beyond them, I saw the peasants had yet to penetrate the gates of the palace. But they raged a war through its bars, never ceasing their volley of musket fire and screams for justice, for liberty. For the freeing of Tosya Pashkov. For the head of the emperor. The guards shot them down, but more rose up where their comrades had fallen, a ceaseless wave of fury.

The people’s auras were stronger now and attacked my thrown-up barrier with their own war of demanding emotions and sensations. Gritting my teeth, I breathed in slowly through my nose. I filled my lungs with air. I focused on the inner workings of my body, on my aura and Anton’s. And I stayed single-minded to
my
purpose,
my
mission—and not anyone else’s.

I crouched low with my arms wrapped protectively over my head and struggled to keep moving forward. I scrambled up the nearest flight of stairs and passed guards stationed on the steps, their muskets behind the ramparts of the banister, as if
it were the crenellation of an ancient castle. They paid little attention to me. Either they didn’t know who I was and that I was wanted, or they no longer cared.

The muscles in my legs burned as I reached the third floor of the palace and leaned against a wall to catch my breath. Valko’s rooms stared at me from the end of the dragon’s tongue, the red carpet rolling out from his door.

My heart drummed. I set one foot in front of the other to inevitably close the distance to him. As I passed the door to my chambers, I pictured the statue of Feya on my windowsill. I touched two fingers to my forehead, then my heart, and prayed for the goddess to be with me—for Yuliya to lend me her calm peace from Paradise.

I remembered my friend’s bravery in the face of death, the feeling she finally reached past her pain and terror. I’d only tasted that courage the first time I’d touched the blood spatter on Feya. From then on in my self-torture, I’d let go before the comfort could come. I allowed it to fill me now. It was always there, hidden inside me.

I prayed for Yuliya’s forgiveness, for the mercy of all those who had died because of me. The Auraseers of the convent. Pia. Yuri. Even the jail master. Each person had been dealt a harsh lot in this life. Each person tried their best to come out alive. I
wanted
them alive.

Anton was right. The world had seen enough death. I had the chance to stop any more from happening. At least on this day. At least in Torchev.

More than twenty guards surrounded the emperor’s door. Unlike below, here the soldiers recognized me and had me bound in their arms before I advanced any nearer.

I allowed them. They would not kill me. They would bring me faster to the person I must see. He stood where I’d left him, at the doorway to his balcony. Only this time he was dressed in his finest kaftan, his red sash tied diagonally from shoulder to waist, his saber hanging at his side, his ceremonial crown upon his brow. If he were to go down, he wouldn’t go down like a beggar. He would show his power until the very end.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Valko stared at the rampant battle below, watching from a safe distance where no musket could aim true. His only acknowledgment of my arrival was a slight turn of his head as the guards ushered me into the room and his nod for them to depart.

I exhaled and approached him, reaching for his aura like the tentacles of a sea monster closing in on her prey. My fingertips tingled, my brow spasmed as I strove to cast my awareness wide enough to sense Valko, but not the raging throngs of people outside.

“Tell me what I’m feeling,” he said when I was three feet behind him.

I halted. What game was he playing at now? “Pride,” I began tentatively, “in your entitled position as emperor.” His energy puffed out my chest. “Anger at those who question your supremacy.” I balled my fists. “Betrayal from those you had trusted.” My rib cage compressed against my heart.

He turned to face me. “Is that all? A common child could divine those things.”

I came nearer, close enough to touch him if I wanted. My legs trembled as I remembered all the times he had hurt me, how readily he’d executed Pia, how unflinchingly he planned to kill his own brother. Despite that, I had to find empathy for him. A pure connection between us was necessary if I hoped to overpower his aura. I had to bind myself to him no matter how vicious he became.

“Your chest constricts as you fight for air,” I continued, and drew in a sharp breath. “Tension pulls your shoulder blades together.” Pain knotted my back as I stood before him. “Deep within you, the very fibers of your body seem to be shrinking, losing their place to hold you together.” The domed ceiling stretched to a towering height above me and made me feel small and alone. “The hateful curses of the peasants burn in your ears.” I winced at their cries, then clutched my stomach. “A terrible hollowness is overcoming you, like your insides have been gutted and laid bare. Pressure closes around you from all sides. It makes your head ache and your muscles cramp for space. It’s as though everyone is gathering to demand more greatness of you, yet greatness is all you’ve ever labored to deliver, and now you feel you have nothing more to give.”

Valko’s jaw muscle quavered, and his brows hitched together. His armor chipped away, and the pitiful boy in him emerged.

“The truth is you’ve always had room within you to be
wonderful,” I said, offering an affectionate smile for the man he could have become. “Your capability for warmth and tenderness. Your determined mind, fit to help so many people.” I shook my head in mourning. My chest fell as the flickering hope of that version of Valko vanished, eclipsed by the blackening reality of who he truly was. “Instead, you’ve chosen to destroy others in the quest to conceal your insecurities, to put the changeling prince you’re identified with once and forever to rest—as surely as your father attempted when he ordered an innocent boy to be murdered in your place.”

Valko’s eyes flashed with indignation. His aura mounted to unleash his full wrath.

“Your heart is shriveling,” I continued before he had the chance to speak. I grafted onto his anger. Attaining true understanding demanded I share the beast in him, as well. What was more, I had to become beastly. “You slaughter innocent people like they’re dispensable pawns at your chessboard.” My pulse hammered at my boldness. Fear seeped through my pores. I knew how much I was provoking him, but to abandon all restraint, I couldn’t hold back the worst of his traits—the worst of me.

“You care more for prestige and the possession of your throne than the lives of the hundreds of thousands of your people.” My voice rose in volume as I flung the truth at him, every word more spiteful, more impassioned with his escalating rage. “You rip young sons from their mothers, forgetting how you were torn from yours. And when you do remember, you are
glad.” My mouth curled with a savage smile. “They will know your pain, you tell yourself, and they will die as soldiers for Riaznin feeling it.”

I rolled back my shoulders. Valko’s haughty self-importance flooded the length of me. “You mean to spread your reign far and wide upon this land until it scales the mountains of Estengarde and crosses the forests of Shengli, until the world is under your heel and you can grind it to dust. Then the people will believe you are great. They will lift their faces from the muck of the earth and worship you.”

Valko’s lips pressed in a thin line. His eyes went from flint to fire. A thousand dark emotions teemed in a seething undercurrent beneath his faltering mask of indifference. “Is that all, Sovereign Auraseer?” he asked.

“It is,” I bit back, fully aligned with his pent-up fury. “And you were right—even a child could have divined it.”

His hand flew out to strike me. I raised my arm to protect myself, but the force of his blow made my head lash to the side. White stars popped in my vision. My forged bond to him severed.

“You forgot to mention my aura regarding
you
.” His hot breath stung my eyes.

I straightened and met his gaze squarely, despite the pain bursting in my head, the fear swarming inside me that crowded my chest for breath. I refused to give power to the emperor’s favorite trick for belittling me. “Utter disappointment,” I answered him. “Hatred. Made worse by shame because you thought you loved me.”

Valko inhaled with approval, then moved to an ebony lacquered dresser opposite his bed. He opened a small drawer. From within, two metal objects gleamed in the candlelight: a brass key and a thin dagger with a carved bone hilt. He removed the latter.

“Do you know how my father died?” He turned the dagger over in his hand, his rage tamped to a silent storm of darkness brewing inside him.

My heart was in my throat. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the deadly point of the blade. “The black fever,” I replied, recalling what every Riaznian knew.

Valko ambled back to me. “In actuality, my father survived the illness.” He spoke like a tutor giving a history lesson, as if gunfire wasn’t railing on our ears from the massacre below. How many guards were already dead? How many peasants? “However,” he continued, “it left him disfigured, his face covered in pox scars and one of his legs amputated at the thigh. No one but his physicians and my family knows this, of course, but I see no qualms in telling you. Not now, anyway. Open your hand,” he commanded me.

The screams outside grew louder, filled more with terror than scornful curses. I swallowed and darted my eyes to the balcony as I struggled to keep the people’s auras blocked.

“Don’t worry about them,” Valko said. “My guards have things well in hand. It seems no matter the number of peasants, they have a limited supply of ammunition while my men share my plentiful stores.”

Panic assaulted me. My defenses against the myriad auras
weakened. But I couldn’t let them inside me. Fear locked my muscles at the vivid remembrance of what I became when I gave myself over to the feelings of so many. I’d made a mistake by placing so much faith in the peasants. I’d thought with their multitudes and righteous zeal they would be invincible as a whole. But Valko had spoken accurately. I felt the dire truth of it by the horror clawing its way to my heart, the desperation cutting the air from my lungs with every musket blast.

“Open your hand,” Valko repeated.

I hesitated a moment, then cupped it before him with trembling fingers.
Find a common ground with him. Build a bridge between our auras. Truly feel what he is feeling.
Then
end this. Make him call off the guards.

“The blade was never washed.” Valko lifted a brow. “An emperor’s blood, blessed by the gods, becomes something of a relic.” He took hold of my wrist. “If you can feel the aura of the dead, perhaps you can tell me the truth of how my father died.”

My eyes widened with dread. “No, please—”

He set the blade in my palm. A flood of dark misery ripped a cry from my throat. “He was lost,” I gasped. My hand quivered as Valko held it fast. “More lost than you. Alone. More than you can imagine.”
Empathy.
Connection.
I had to delve deeper within Emperor Izia’s aura and discover the linking chain to Valko. “Your father was terrified—of rejection.”
His disfigurement would have made him insecure and apprehensive.
“Terrified of losing his dynasty, even if saving it meant separating himself from his only children.”