Page 31 of A Reign of Roses
And I found all my breath was stored tightly inside my lungs as we passed the hulking man and he let out a loud, grating laugh.
The air fled from me in a rush, disappointment and sorrow flooding my now empty lungs.
Not Kane. Not his laugh—
Maddox tugged my arm back, halting my still-moving feet. We had reached the top of the bifurcated stairs, and my heart stopped cold once more against my immeasurably bound, gilded chest. The poor organ could not catch a break, and I blamed months of seeing so few people, so little life or movement…
And now—a gargantuan throne room sprawled before me lit only by red pillar candles and a ceiling rife with glittering faux stars. The walls were bedecked with intricate metal-hewn garlands and bouquets spare of any real flowers, and beneath them, a shiny black-and-white-checkered floor fit for dancing, packed with hundreds of revelers.
All of it, absurd excess with no soul. No spirit.
But the dark, joyless décor was not what stole the breath from my lungs.
Nor the sheer number of people in Lazarus’s court, willing to dance the night away, ignoring the beast they served or the heinousness that spanned outside Solaris’s walls.
Nor was it even the dais, and the banquet table that stretched across it, populated by rich nobles. Or Lazarus, dark and triumphant, seated at its center—his throne behind them covered in someswath of velvet as if he didn’t wish his court to see the thing if he was not sprawled across it.
No, what sent me lightheaded was the empty chair beside him.
Waiting, impatiently, for me.
“I can’t,” I heard myself say.
“You must,” Wyn replied.
“The queen is coming,” Maddox grunted, ushering us away from the staircase. “We’ll proceed after her entrance.”
My brows pulled together under my mask. “What queen?”
A herald wearing a red-and-black-checkered uniform cleared his throat twice, silencing the high-pitched chatter and low horns of the band. The expectant room’s attention landed squarely on him, and he announced at a blaring decibel, “Queen Amelia of Evendell, Ruler of the Peridot Provinces.”
Shock—uttershock—weakened my legs and forced me against the slick banister to remain upright. I’d thought it would be revulsion, or fear, or horror that brought me to my knees tonight. But this—
Queen Amelia. Welcome in Lazarus’s court as a guest.
Amelia was elegance incarnate as she made her way past us and down the broad, glittering stairs unattended. Legs as long as a heron’s, her ivory gown the same color as her braided hair. Like a second skin on her exquisite body, it rolled on and on behind her as she walked, a train others would have to be wary of all evening. A power play, as was everything Amelia did. No jewelry, save for the dozens of colorful gemstone rings on her long, lithe fingers.
But that mask.
A garden of vibrant, bejeweled flora and fauna that began at her high cheekbones and climbed to a corona of stems atop her head. The embroidered plants and creatures—wings and claws and petalsand stems—formed more of a headdress than a mask, and though I could only imagine the weight, Amelia held her chin high, accentuating her fine jawline and elegant neck.
What in the Stones could have compelled Eryx to abdicate his throne to his daughter? Nothing of this world. He was either coerced or dead. But Amelia, here as Lazarus’s ally…It must have been Kane’s doing. A plan of some kind.
Hope like I hadn’t allowed myself to experience in months fluttered aimlessly in my chest. I had to speak to her somehow.
But Amelia was already halfway down the steps, on her way to mingle among the crowd, and eventually take her seat at the elongated banquet table.
“I need to use the washroom.”
Wyn and Maddox both turned to me, an antelope and a beast. Prey and predator. “No,” the latter growled. “We’re already late.”
“But I think…” I gagged. “I’m going to be sick.” I heaved again and clutched my stomach.
“Oh, Gods,” Maddox cursed, scanning to see if anyone had noticed. “Fine, retch quickly. Wyn, take her.”
I heaved again and Wyn dragged me back down the hallway toward the ladies’ salon. “Do you need me to come in with you?”
I shook my head and dashed inside.
