needed to know more—a lot more.
But first he would find out what was going on with Rhianne.
Rhianne had been dreaming, once again of being chased. She ran and ran, but there was nowhere to hide. It was inevitable: in time she must tire, and her pursuer would catch her. She wasn’t sure who he was, only that she must run from him. But someone was shaking her shoulder, waking her with a gentle touch before the dream could reach its frightening conclusion. Not Florian, since he wouldn’t be gentle. Perhaps her lady’s maid. She slept a lot these days. There was little else to do, and unconsciousness granted her reprieve from thinking about her impossible situation. She opened her eyes.
A man crouched at her side.
She scrambled away in a reflex of terror, confusing him with the pursuer from her dream. But it was Janto. He spoke soothingly and reached for her, and as the wispy threads of her dream dissipated, the pounding of her heart eased, and she crawled into his embrace. He held her close, and she began to cry, spilling with her tears the horrors of the past several days.
He settled on the settee where she’d been sleeping and pulled her into his lap. Inspecting her with careful fingers, he found the bandages on her back—so quickly she had a feeling he’d known to look for them. He drew in his breath sharply. “What’s happened, love?”
She wanted to speak but couldn’t stop crying.
He stroked her hair. “When you’re ready. I don’t mean to rush you.”
His warm hands running through her hair began to quiet her in mind and body. What a comfort his gentle strength was! If only she could have him by her side always, not just at these unpredictable moments. She took a deep breath and let it out. Her trembling subsided. “When Augustan came, he spoke in the audience hall. At the end of his presentation, he held up . . . oh gods. You may not want to hear this.”
“Go on,” said Janto. “I think I already know.”
“He held up two severed heads. He had executed the king and queen of Mosar. I’m so sorry. You come from a high family, and you must have known them. Here I am weeping over some stripes on my back, and things are so much worse for you—”
“The days since the return of the fleet have been the hardest of my life,” said Janto. “That does not diminish what you’ve been through.”
She sighed, her breath shaky. “I was . . . horrified by the gesture of the severed heads. So I walked out of the ceremony.”
He looked down at her sharply. “You walked out? When?”
“After he held up the heads.”
Janto shook his head in astonishment. “Then we both walked out. I must have gone before you. I was there, invisible, but when he held up the heads, I ran for the exit.”
“You were there? I wish I’d known—I felt alone up on the platform. But my act of defiance has led to nothing but trouble. Everyone’s turned against me, even Lucien. I’m imprisoned in my rooms, I’m allowed no visitors, and Florian had me whipped. He’ll do it again if I don’t come around. And the worst of it is that while he wants me to wed Augustan willingly, I think that if I continue to refuse, he’ll just forge my signature on the marriage contract and throw me on the ship to Mosar. What can I do then? I can’t fight Augustan. The man’s a war mage.”
Janto’s arms stiffened, even as he held her. “That’s not going to happen. Have you given any serious thought to running away?”
“I’d have run before now if it were possible,” said Rhianne. “I used to be able to sneak out, but Lucien knows my secret route out of the palace. He anticipated me and set Legaciatti to guarding it.”
“I can get you out with my shroud, but we’ll have to wait for your front door to open. When will that happen next? It looks like supper’s already been delivered, although that isn’t your typical supper—”
“Florian’s got me on prison rations. Bread and cheese. My lady’s maid should be in later, but she’ll be looking to help me with my clothes. It’s not a great time to sneak out. Other than that, the door won’t open again until breakfast. But we can go out the secret way, if you can get past Legaciatti.”
“I got past the ones at your door. I came when they delivered your dinner. I was watching you sleep for a while.”
“Then I don’t see a problem,” said Rhianne. “Wait until dark and I’ll show you. In the meantime . . .” Her voice became small. “Will you lie here with me? Hold me?”
“Of course.” Janto stretched out on the couch and pulled her body into the crook of his own, handling her gingerly around her bandaged areas.
She sighed deeply, feeling safe and secure with his hard, solid warmth all around her, and tried not to think about the fact that these might be her last hours of contentedness.
Hours later, after Rhianne had packed her bag and dressed in a sensible syrtos for travel, she moved a chair in her bedroom and shifted a silk rug several feet to one side. Janto watched, his eyes full of questions.
“This is the tricky part,” she said, kneeling on the floor and working her fingers into a seam between two squares of the parquet floor. “Fingerholds. It’s easier to feel them than see them. Ah—here.” She lifted the entire wooden square out of the floor, leaving a hole that led to blackness.
Janto’s brows rose. “Where does it go?”
“Into the hypocaust,” said Rhianne. “You’ll see. I’m afraid it’s not pleasant in there.” She grabbed her bag and shoved it through the hole. Then she sat on the edge and slid in herself, landing lightly on her feet and wincing at the impact. Her head and shoulders stuck out of the hole.
Janto chuckled. “Not very deep, is it?”
“No. That’s part of why it’s not pleasant.” She ducked into the dark, sweltering tunnel, turned around, and sat. “Come down.”
Janto’s legs and torso appeared through the hole, blocking the small rectangle of light that shone in. Then he crouched and turned about, searching for her in the darkness.
“Here,” she called, igniting a ball of blue magelight.
His eyes met hers.
She crawled to him and pushed him lightly on the shoulder. “Move, please.”
Janto dropped to hands and knees and backed up, twisting his head in alarm when his foot encountered a stone wall.
Rhianne reached up through the trapdoor, found the square of parquet floor, and lowered it back into place. The last slivers of illumination from her bedroom disappeared, leaving them in darkness except for the ghostly blue magelight.
A second ball of magelight flared in front of Janto’s face. He eyed a massive heat-glow mounted on the floor. “How did you discover the trapdoor?”
She crawled past him on hands and knees. The wounds on her back flared with new pain at the movement, but she’d have to live with it for now. Once she was free of the palace, she’d find a Healer. “I didn’t discover it. I had it made. Follow me—you don’t want to get lost in here.”
A scrape of fabric on stone told her he was trailing after her. “And Florian doesn’t know about it?”
“No. I’ll tell you the story. As children, Lucien and I had a tendency to get into trouble—”
“You mentioned that,” said Janto.
“We’d done something, I forget what. Oh yes, we put fish in the baths as a prank on Lucien’s older brothers. As punishment, Florian forbade us to attend the Consualian Games. We’d been looking forward to the Games all season, and I was a newly minted mind mage who’d recently completed soulcasting. I was drunk on the power, and I wanted to show off. So Lucien and I came up with a scheme. A carpenter came to repair a cracked seam, and I used my magic to control him. I made him create that door. And then I made him forget he’d done it. It was wrong of me, illegal in fact, but I was a child and not terribly sensible or ethical. We had a fabulous time at the Games, sitting with the commoners and watching Florian up in his box, looking all stern and imperial.”
“The trapdoor seems to have paid off for you.”
Janto’s voice sounded a little hollow and distant, so she paused and waited for him to catch up. “Lucien and I sneaked out so many times together. That was before he went away to war and lost his leg. I never anticipated I’d use it for something like this.”
