“Why not go to bed, Majesty?”
“So you can get back to your lady’s loving arms?” Her tone waswistful, her gaze resting on nothing. Thana didn’t want to answer, not when itwas true, and Earnhilt’s love was in the ground. How much they’d been inlove—if they’d ever been—didn’t seem to matter now. “Go on,” Earnhilt said.“I’m going to brood a while longer, but I’ll be all right.”
Thana gave her a very awkward pat on the arm, but it garnered asmile. As she was leaving, Earnhilt called her name and said, “I’m glad youmade it out alive.”
Thana nodded. “You, too, Majesty.” As she walked out the door,she was thankful for that, too. The only injury she carried was deafness in herleft ear from a Fiendish scream.
It could have been so much worse.
According to the captives, once the pyradistés had begun to plan,they hadn’t agreed on how to proceed. Some had wanted to eliminate Thana assoon as possible, seeing her as a traitor to their cause for ever working withthe Umbriels and knowing she was the best source of knowledge the crown hadabout what a pyradisté could do.
She didn’t know whether to be upset or grimly gratified by that.
Her visit with Sylph to the academy had been marked, and they’dbeen followed to the manor house. But the pyradistés who’d escaped hadn’tunderstood Sylph’s abilities any better than they understood the pyradistéswho’d also been unfortunately affected by the new crystal, most of whom hadblown themselves to bits.
Thana had spent a great deal of time these past weeks huntingdown any bits of new crystal that remained in Marienne and the surroundingcountryside. Most of the accidents she’d traced had been because shipments ofthe crystal had passed undermanors or towns where pyradistés had been.
It was a sad business and more charges to be laid at thetraitors’ feet.
Thana went through her office without stopping, heading for herbedroom. And Sylph. She opened the door softly. A single candle burned on thevanity table, the flickering light highlighting the gold in Sylph’s hair whereit spread across the pillow. Her eyes were shut, and Thana began to undress asquietly as she could, her mind still processing the traitors’ other plans.
Some thought to flood Marienne with new crystal before acting andhad focused on tunneling. But they’d gotten distracted by the capstone’spromise of power. Luckily, any who’d gotten close enough to try to touch thecapstone were dead, and the secret of the great Fiend remained known only to afew.
To make sure no one attempted to scale the Fiendish prison again,Gunnar had left a message on the walls where the pyradistés had died below thepalace: “Do not seek the Fiend, or you shall die as these.” He’d signed it witha stylized O and V, hoping that a message that came from a clandestine—thoughsometimes storybook—operation would keep people in line.
Thana doubted such a message would be needed, not when Sylph hadfilled in her stone staircase and a great deal of tunnel out in thecountryside, leaving no way for anyone to get under the capstone cavern again.
Still other members of the cabal had wanted to capture theUmbriels before anything else, thinking that holding them prisoner would forceany straggling nobles into line. They thought standing the Umbriels up likepuppets would convince the populace that everything was all right. And theymight have succeeded, but they’d been unprepared for a power like Sylph’s.
So had Thana.
She slipped between the cool sheets, wondering if she couldsnuggle close without waking Sylph, but Sylph opened her eyes, smiled, and drewher in.
* * *
Thana awoke early the next morning and lay still, listening toSylph sleep. The night before came back in a rush, and she smiled, happy herfatigue had fled the moment Sylph had kissed her with unrestrained passion.
They’d spent a lot of time in Thana’s bedroom, with Sylphpreferring to hide where few could find her. Gunnar had stopped by once to talkabout the rumors in court, most of them about why some nobles had vanished, butmany were about that newly discovered creature: the noble pyradisté. A popularrumor tied the stories together, saying that a boatload of nobles had recentlydiscovered they werepyradistés and had retired from court in shame.
That story was easier to cope with than the real one: thetraitorous nobles had been forced to renounce their titles, which were thenhanded to their heirs, providing said heirs were not also part of the scheming.Some ex-nobles had been banned from court or exiled from Farraday. And Earnhilthadn’t pronounced sentence on all of them yet.
Like Sylph’s father, whose assistance saved him from the noose.He’d recovered from the Waltz with only a few dark memories, a Fiendish Aspectrepressed by an anti-Fiend necklace, and a scar on his cheek. And the scarwasn’t even from this transformation but from being punched by a guard forresisting arrest before the Waltz. Thana thought it only fitting that he shouldbe marked in some way.
She slipped out of bed, wanting to let Sylph sleep. Since theiradventure had ended, she’d been, well, desperate to show her appreciation ofThana’s charms. She’d said she was done with putting off showing how she felt.
Thana wasn’t going to argue, though she was getting tired of howthe Order acted whenever she showed her face, like Illis’s chuckles and Ivar’swinks, Gunnar’s leers, and Dina’s proud grins. Even Earnhilt had given her asmirk or two.
Thana donned her robe, lit the candle on the vanity, and sat tocomb her hair into a neat ponytail. She grinned at the number of toiletriesSylph had scattered around. Earnhilt had offered them a maidservant, but Sylphhad ardently refused, fearing spies. For Sylph’s comfort, Thana had agreed thatthey could see to their own things, though she’d forgotten just how many thingsSylph had.
As Thana checked her reflection in her bronze hand-mirror, Sylphyawned from the bed and said, “Is it morning already?”
“I suppose so. Though we’ve spent so much time in here, I’ve losttrack.”
There was a smile in Sylph’s voice as she asked, “Was that arecrimination?”
“Absolutely not.” Thana sat on the edge of her bed, marvelingthat this perfect woman should be here. Her tanned skin