Page 145 of A Dance of Lies

I wonder if Anton knows. If he loathes me. If he even still draws breath.

But all I feel is cold.

Cold, and dead, and worthless, just like when Emilia died. I made the wrong choice again. I failed her once more. I am unredeemable, now.

The fire grows taller, a pillar of flame, and I watch it for almost an hour until it finally withers and winks out like my last spark of hope.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Someone prods me, startling me from the prison of my thoughts. “Get up!”

My eyes peel open to find Sana leaning over me. She grips my arm and hauls me from bed. “Your time for wallowing is over.”

“What does he want now?” I ask flatly, though a jolt of fear pinches my chest. But she ignores me, leading me instead into a large bathing chamber with a pool that seems to float off into the sky, held only by a wall of glass. A miasma of steam sends my lungs into a spasm, but she pays no heed to that, either, her rough hands stripping me bare.

The water is hot, almost scalding, the sea-glass roof focusing sunlight into the pool below. Another of Anton’s inventions. I grit my teeth, knowing I’m owed this pain, and wade in until I’m waist deep. I can’t think about why I’m being prepped like a pig for a spit, so I let my mind go numb, empty, not allowing my thoughts to form anything solid.

I am nothing but air, water, and shadows, even as two servants glide in after me, scrubbing then anointing me with oils and perfumes until I’m as raw and primed as a fresh cut of meat. Then I’m pulled out and guided to a divan where they use fans to dry me soas not to smear the oils, my hair twisted up into pins to keep it off my neck. Why they are taking such care of me, I don’t know, nor do I let myself care.

Once I am dry, I am wrapped in violet and crimson silks—a gown that loops around my neck and chest and waist before fanning out onto the floor. My hair is then laced with a ribbon of rubies and braided loosely into an intricate, pinned mass. My wrists are clamped with bejeweled cuffs on my lower and upper arms. Strings of garnets dangle from my ears. Again, a flash of curiosity lights in my mind, but I tamp it down until it’s smothered by emptiness and silence.

After, they paint my face, and I look more like Vastianna Stova, the girl I once was. Young and fresh, devoid of kohl, only a faint smear of rouge atop my eyelids, my lips tinted with fresh roses. Vasalie Moran, the dancer—the temptress with wings—does not exist here. She is unrecognizable. She is dead.

When they are through, they tuck a small sack of millen into the folds of my skirt and tell me that, later tonight, I will perform for Illian alone—just like he’d told me, all those weeks ago.

Then I’m escorted back to Illian’s antechamber.

“His Majesty will be along in a moment,” Sana says more to the other guards than to me. I keep my head down, refusing to meet Illian’s gaze whenever he strides through the opposing doors.

But then a familiar voice calls my name. A tender one, painfully gentle. It reminds me of the way Emilia used to say it. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to picture her, trying to recall the sound of her voice . . .

“Vasalie,” Anton says again, and I snap from my reverie and meet his gaze. He’s across the room, drawn inside by another guard, who then attaches him to the chain dangling from the chandelier once more. At least he has been scrubbed clean, dressed.

And he’s still alive. Still in one piece. Vicious, cruel hope flares within me, but I don’t dare entertain it—

“Vas, listen to me,” he implores, those green eyes holding fast tomine. “Whatever it takes to survive, do it.” Aemon advances, readying his fist, but Anton ignores him. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Aemon lets out a single guffaw. “Look at you, you pathetic fool.”

“Stunning, even in such vile circumstances—yes, I know,” Anton returns.

It earns him a fist in his abdomen. He barely reacts, taking a beat to spit blood before propping his head up once more. “Survive,” he says—pleads.“Whatever the cost.”

All numbness flees me, and I choke out a sob. “I killed him, Anton. It’s over because of me.”

I brace myself for his judgment, his righteous indignation. His fury. And yet I find something else within his gaze, etched into the set of his brows.

It is a wild, frenzied sort of ferocity, and it steals my breath.

“This,” he says softly, “isfarfrom over.”

“Indeed,” croons Illian, a shadow now emerging from the threshold. “There is still much to celebrate.”

My stomach plummets like it did when he shoved me from the balcony.

To my great disgust, he mirrors me in a sleeveless, russet ensemble that fits snugly to his chest, with garnets and rubies rimming the seams. Embellished leather bracers cuff his forearms, matching his boots. But it looks regal rather than martial, as do his styled tresses, one lock dripping across his forehead like a curl of ink.

He holds his arm in front of me, expectant. “Time to go.”