Page 126 of The Stolen Throne
“Uh-huh.” Every doubt and accusation lives in that one sound.
Leaving them to square off, I check on Tabra, who seems to be sleeping peacefully. She’s still chained to the ground, but Achlys has made her comfortable with soft cloth around the shackles to protect her skin, extra pillows, and a thicker pallet to sleep on. I want to believe that Tabra looks a little better, but I would be fooling myself.
I won’t wake her, not when she’s sleeping so soundly. I know we can’t stay long. It’ll be dark soon, and not as safe, but I can take a moment to just be with her. I look up at Achlys and pat the floor at my side. After a small hesitation, she joins me, and we both watch my sister sleep.
“Will you tell me about the two of you?” I ask.
Given the way she stills, she probably thinks the question came out of nowhere, but I’ve wondered for a long time.
Achlys draws a pattern in the sand with her fingertip. “I knew I loved Tabra when I was twelve.”
Blinking, I stare at her. Tabra hasn’t even admitted the true status of their relationship to me yet. Achlys has never openly acknowledged it, either. “Twelve?”
She nods, not looking at me. “When I was ten, I was brought to the palace by my mother, who served the queen until her death.”
“Why Aryd?”
“Mother had a disease in her chest, like she was drowning, and the dry air here was supposed to help. Though I grew up in a small village my entire life, my mother had served the queen in Tropikis. We rarely saw her in those days. When she got sick, that domina sent her here. Mother brought me because I was finally old enough to learn her skills.”
I remember that much. Achlys was “given” to Tabra…and therefore me…at the time. Grandmother felt that she’d grow with us. I even remember her mother, also a redhead, who would often come show Achlys how to do things.
It’s hard to imagine, but Achlys was even quieter then, with big, fear-filled eyes and freckles that stood out in stark relief against her pale skin. “You reminded me of a timid ghost.”
She huffs a small laugh. “I was scared of everyone and everything. This place and the palace were so different from my village, and because I was assigned to the princess my first day, the other servants resented me.”
“I remember Tabra hating that. She was worried for you.”
She blinks at me. “She knew?”
“We both did.” I grimace. “She tried to fix it once, talk to the woman who headed the servants at the time, but it only seemed to make it worse for you.”
Achlys nods.
“So what happened with you and Tabra?”
“I was doing Tabra’s makeup. By then I’d started to figure out there were two of you.”
I smile, laying my cheek against my knees.
She goes back to tracing the sand. “I dropped an expensive tin of gold dust, and it broke on the marble floor. One of the other girls got so angry she tried to hit me.”
I straighten. “Who?” I’ll kick them out of the palace as soon as this is over.
“It doesn’t matter.” Achlys’s smile is the closest to self-satisfied I think she’s ever shown in my presence. “She’s gone now. Tabra jumped between us so that she was the one who took the hit.”
I whip a startled gaze to my sister. She’s still sleeping, though, and Achlys chuckles.
“I’ve never seen your sister—even when it was you pretending to be her—so angry. She was only twelve, and the other girl was fifteen and quite tall. But Tabra backed her into a corner using the softest, scariest voice.” Achlys smiles to herself, gaze going hazy, clearly lost in the memory. “I didn’t know she could sound like that. Like a little angry, buzzing bee. I haven’t heard it since.”
“I can’t even picture it.”
She shrugs. “That girl was dismissed from the palace. None of the other servants ever bothered me again. But the fact that Tabra would put herself between me and harm…for a servant, a nobody… I knew I’d love her the rest of my life.”
I give a hum of contentment. That’s how love should be. At the same time, a deep sadness wells up that I didn’t know this before. My sister and my friend have had this secret life that I only flitted in and out of, oblivious most of the time. I wish…
No. It’s too late for wishing, which changes nothing. I can only change how I go forward. “Did Tabra feel the same?”
Achlys hesitates. “I don’t know when she fell in love with me. I didn’t let myself show her my feelings for years or ever believe she could feel the same. But on your sixteenth birthday, I was getting her ready for the name day celebration. The other servants had left the room on her order as I finished her hair. When I was done, she placed her hands on my face.”
