Page 5 of A Pact of Blood

I’ve lost both my only true friend here and the men I was falling for. The bedroom around me glitters with gold and shines with satin, but its vastness only emphasizes how alone I am—far from my real home, in the midst of so much brutality.

A faint burn forms behind my eyes. I blink it away with a determined swallow.

I have to hold tight to my purpose and let it keep me steady as it has so far.

When the new dress is in place, my gaze veers to the trunks brought over from the lovely but not quite as immense room I was given before my marriage. The steps of the needed brewing flit through my mind again.

One downside of being empress: it’d look particularly odd if I marched right into the palace kitchens.

I offer my maids another smile. “Thank you so much. I’d like to take a bit of fresh air and then some rest on my own before dinner. Could one of you bring a pot of boiled water and a bowl of walnuts and leave them on the table? I could use some tea and a snack in my repose.”

Eusette bobs her ruddy head with an eager, “Of course, Your Imperial Highness!” and they both scamper out of the room.

As soon as they’re gone, I retrieve my tea box. The upper layer with its multitude of dried leaves and herbs lifts to reveal the more potent ingredients for my craft below.

Worrying at my lower lip with my teeth, I check the packets and vials to confirm what I already have on hand. There’s a decent amount of the rarest ingredients, but depending on Marclinus’s enthusiasm, I may need to make up some excuses to venture into the marketplace before the month is over.

For now, I have everything except for a couple of other common items I expected to find easily at hand should I need them, those best worked with fresh.

Inventing my excuses in my head, I stride out of my room again prepared for the two guards stationed outside to question me. It turns out that the position of empress does come with a few benefits. They simply trail several paces behind me as if assuming whatever I’m up to, it must be for a good reason.

I descend the stairs to the palace gardens. Conveniently, I don’t need to look odd poking around in the herb garden around the side of the building. Carnella is a popular garden plant throughout the continent, and I’ve already seen plenty of its crimson blooms popping up amid the beds. I meander past them, bending to snap off a few of the flowers and tucking them into the pouch on my belt.

The silvervein vine clinging to one of the trellises offersplenty of leaves for me to pluck. I’m just slipping those away too when I turn and find myself face to face with Vicerine Bianca.

The noblewoman looks me up and down with a bemused expression. Her own mourning clothes cling to the generous curves of her voluptuous body. The black fabric and her equally dark hair set off the creaminess of her brown skin, like tea with a dollop of milk, to impressive effect.

“Whatever are you doing out here on your own, Your Imperial Highness?” she asks in a tart voice.

Of course Bianca would nose her way into my business. She’s been a thorn in my side from the moment I stepped into the palace, treating me as an interloper getting in the way of her cousin’s claim on Marclinus’s hand—and her own role as one of Marclinus’s most favored mistresses.

But Lady Fausta, the cousin and friend on whose behalf Bianca has attacked me, died in the horrific trials meant to prove our worth. I’ve told the vicerine that I won’t stand in the way of her relationship with Marclinus. She has no reason to harass me now.

Then again, people like her don’t necessarily need a reason.

I keep my own tone even. “I needed a couple of things for a herbal tea—to help settle the spirits after disheartening events.”

Bianca gives a sniff as if the idea of making any kind of beverage is beneath her—which it quite possibly might be—and swans off with her head held high.

Well, that encounter could have gone a lot worse.

I hustle back to my chambers, reaching them just as Eusette arrives with my pot and my bowl of walnuts. With a quick murmur of gratitude, I leave her and my guards at the door and head inside.

This potion requires a complex process, steeping onething and boiling another, mashing this herb with that pollen for just the right amount of time. As I lay out my apparatus and get to work, the steps unfurl through my head with a tingle of my gift.

Tapping into my magic comes easier the more familiar I already am with a recipe. All the same, I let out a weary sigh by the time I can pour the final mixture of pale pink syrup into a bottle. The top of my skull prickles with a hint of strain.

I cap the bottle and set it among my other supplies in the bottom of the tea box. I’m just gathering my tools when brisk footsteps sound right beyond the door.

My pulse hiccups. I dump the last few pieces into the chest less gently than I’d have preferred and whirl just as my door flings open.

Marclinus strolls into my bedroom as if he has every right to, which by law he does. All things in the empire belong to the emperor—including me.

Thanks to enchantments worked on all relevant surfaces, every lock in the palace will open at the touch of his hand.

I force a smile onto my face to cover the thudding of my heart. “Husband, how good to see you. Are you finished with your business already?”

“It’s dinner time,” he says, holding out his hand to me. “Let us go preside over our court together.”

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