Page 12 of Haunted

The goose is brought in on an open platter. As enticing as it looks, I wager most of the guests have lost their appetites.

We are served, and although the empress chews her food with little enthusiasm, she carries on conversation with her lord’s without awkwardness. Her face is not tinged with color, and her hands do not falter in their movements. Is the woman unshakeable? If the death of her dog doesn’t move her, then what will?

10

“Caedryn.” The empress finds me in my study. “I’ve identified the malefactor.”

“Your Highness?”

“The imbecile who chopped off my dog’s head.”

Her response has me intrigued. “So soon?” While I only relayed my suspicion about Drago as a possible weakness to my dragon, who then must have taken it to the lords, I don’t know who acted on the information. Lord Siarl warned me to protect my innocence at all cost, so to maintain my ignorance, I am not to be involved in schemes. Neifion remains an excellent buffer.

The empress narrows her eyes, daring me to impugn her ability to ascertain the truth in such a timely fashion. “Come with me, Caedryn.”

“As you wish.” I shut my book and leave it on the table beside myself.

The empress scoffs but strides from the room with me and two guards close behind. Although I despise the woman, I admire the way she moves with confidence, with command. Her heels strike the ground on the tile floor, demanding the earth to conform to her desires.

We descend into the depths of the stronghold, but we turn past the dungeons, to a more welcoming place, to a warmer place, the hot springs the stronghold is built around.

The empress pauses outside her personal spa room. “I invited the lord’s daughters to bathe in the privacy of my sanctuary, to protect them from leering eyes in the public bath. I need you to feel out the intentions of the women in the room. Tell me who’s guilty and who’s innocent.”

“Your Highness, you can’t possibly think one of the young women killed Drago.” I think of the faces of the girls during the evening’s entertainment. Pure innocence. None of them would ever dream of harming a living creature.

“Do as I ask.”

“I’m only curious as to why you suspect.”

The empress smirks and doesn’t answer my question. “You may watch from the passage over there. There’s a seam in the panel.”

“I don’t need to watch. I can feel everyone in the room and tell you now.”

“Watch.” The empress pushes the doors open and heat blows into my face. As she strolls into the room, her guards usher me into the passage where the panel is.

I roll my eyes. This is unnecessary. I scan all the girls in the room with my light, without looking at them. Most of them drown with fear now that the empress is mere feet away.

A guard pushes my face toward the crack. I wave him back but look through the gap so I don’t end up with a broken nose because of disobedience.

Ten girls lounge in the water. Most of them are submerged up to their shoulders and huddled in the corners. The pool’s surface ripples, suggesting that only moments before the girls were playing.

The empress holds her arms wide, and the servants dressed in cream-colored shifts begin relieving the empress of her cumbersome clothes. After her cloak comes off and her heavy leather shirt, a tiny girl unlaces the empress’s bodice and peels it away. The empress is left in a black shift.

I turn my head away, but the guard clears his throat. I force myself to watch. The empress drops her shift to her feet, and she steps onto the first stair. As she descends into the pool, I realize every inch of her body is hard muscle, except for her breasts, the only soft spots, the only smooth rounds of flesh possible on such a ferocious woman.

“Ladies, please, delight me with your chatter.” The empress submerges herself up to her chin as she slips through the pool toward the cowering girls. “Speak to me of the latest gossip.”

A servant at the pool’s edge hands a vial to one of the lord’s daughters. Another servant passes a comb to a younger girl. One is handed a sponge.

The empress spreads her arms wide. “Come, I wish you to attend me. While you are at Caer, do not deny me the pleasure of your attentions.”

An older girl with sweat-dampened curls pinned atop her head drifts through the water toward the empress. She takes the empress’s arm and carefully runs a sponge up its length. The empress tips her head to the side when the girl reaches her neck. The other girls come closer. The poor girl with the bottle of shampoo, timidly, on the verge of tears, coaxes the empress’s head back to wet her locks in the water.

The spectacle sickens me.

A guard nudges me in the back. “Do you sense anything?”

“Nothing of significance. Nothing that would indicate betrayal.” Besides the fear and animosity leaching off every single child—wretched little mice bathing a bloodthirsty cat, but unable to deny the cat for fear of her claws.

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