He reached out with his right hand, but couldn’t see it, even when he was sure he held his palm a scant few inches from the tip of his nose.
A man stood in the open door of the bedchamber, and Pristoleph had the uneasy sensation that they had made eye contact. Something was wrong with the pince-nez, though. The man appeared transparent, as though made of deep violet light. He didn’t seem to entirely belong in the scene, and Pristoleph realized maybe he wasn’t in the scene at all, but
He flipped the pince-nez off his nose, stood, and whipped his head from side to side. He’d thought perhaps the man was in fact standing in his own bedchamber, and Pristoleph saw him filtered through the magenta lenses.
But Pristoleph was alone.
“Whose eyes am I seeing through, Marek,” Pristoleph whispered, “and why?”
Seeking the answer in the item itself, he put the glasses back on. His host had moved from the bed to sit in front of the dressing table. He saw a woman’s delicate hand where he thought his own should be. She took a silver brush from the dressing table and looked up into a mirror.
Pristoleph gasped.
She was beautiful.
As she brushed her long, straight black hair, Pristoleph found that he could hardly breathe. He watched her, fixated by her deep blue eyes that were so sad and so troubled and so full of promise.
No woman had ever had that effect on him. No woman had ever stopped him cold.
A tear fell from one eye and she let it trickle down her smooth, flawless cheek without wiping it away. He felt uncomfortable watching her cry, but it was as though he’d fallen under the influence of some spelland perhaps he had done just that, but he didn’t care. He not only couldn’t, but didn’t want to look away.
Still looking deeply into her own eyes, she picked up a little cuticle knife from the dressing table and ran the sharp blade along the inside of her arm. He couldn’t feel any pain, but he could see her wince in the mirror. The little line of red sat among scars and still-healing cuts on the same patch of skin.
When she looked at herself in the mirror again, she was smiling.
Pristoleph grabbed the pince-nez off his face and threw them to the floor. He stood, nearly falling back over his chair, but stayed on his feet.
The door opened, and the guard posted outside stuck his head in, looking around.
“Senator?” he said, seeing nothing amiss.
“It’s all right,” Pristoleph told him, and waved him away.
The guard nodded and closed the door.
With a deep breath to calm himself, Pristoleph knelt and picked up the spectacles. One of the lenses had broken into tiny shards that were no longer magenta, but ordinary clear, colorless glass.
“Why?” he whispered, though the man he was asking Marek Rymiitcouldn’t hear him. “Why show me her?”
Hours later, Pristoleph finally collapsed into bed without an answer to that question.
57
24 Marpenoth, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
The meat had not been cooked at all. Willem stared down at it, trying to find it in himself to be disgusted, but he couldn’t quite muster it. He kept his hands in his lap.
“I told you, no,” Phyrea whispered.
She sat at the other end of the dining table, and had no place setting in front of her, just a crystal tallglass of red wine that she wasn’t drinking. She looked off through the arched doorway to the sitting room, staring at empty space as though someone stood next to the sava board between the two wingback leather chairs.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked. His voice, pitched no louder than normal, seemed to boom in the still, heavy air of his dining room.
Phyrea shook her head, still looking at nothing, then turned toward him. Her eyes blazed with what Willem could have sworn was fearbut what could she possibly have to be afraid of?
“Were you speaking to me?” he asked.
In an instant the fear turned to contempt, and she said, “No. You aren’t hungry?”
He glanced down at the raw meat and said, “No, thank you. Are you sure you don’t want me to recall the cook, or perhaps you would feel more comfortable hiring someone elsesomeone of your choosing?”
“I told you I don’t like people buzzing around me,” she said.
“Then tell her to stay in the kitchen.”
“I might want to go into the kitchen,” Phyrea replied. She put a hand on her wine glass but didn’t pick it up. “I suppose you miss the maids and cooks and little girls you can take to your bed whenever you choose, but things have changed, and it’s time for you to grow up.”
Willem blinked, both at the accusation, and at the sudden turns her temper took.
“I never…” he started, but trailed off when he realized she wasn’t listening, and wouldn’t care either way. “It’s good to be home,” he lied instead.
They’d been married for twenty months, and in that time she’d fired his household staff and scared his mother all the way back to Cormyr. He’d spent fewer than one night in twenty at home, having been overwhelmed by the process of restarting Devorast’s project with the aid of two people even less competent than himself. In most ways that mattered he and Phyrea were still strangers, but Willem remained unable to look at her without reeling at her perfect beauty. Even as tired as she looked, even when she twitched and glanced away at nothing, startled by silence, Phyrea was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“The fresh air agrees with you,” she said. “You’re a very handsome man.”
He nodded in thanks, but couldn’t keep the suspicion from his eyes.
“Eat your dinner, now, before it gets cold,” she said. Phyrea, leering, glanced at the bloody red meat on the plate in front of him. “Be a good boy now. If you eat it, I’ll let you touch me. I’ll take you to bed, but you have to eat it all.”
He looked down at the raw meat again, and swallowed. She shushed him, though he hadn’t said anything, then she whispered, “He will.” “Will I?” Willem asked her. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
He picked up his knife and fork, and she laughed at him.
“Go on, now,” she said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
He cut a little square off the side of the meat and held it up. Blood the consistency of water ran down the tines of his fork and dripped off the meat onto his plate.
She looked at him with wide eyes, and her open mouth was turned up in a trace of a smile.
“I will have to leave again tomorrow,” he said.
She shrugged.
“I’m not entirely certain when I’ll be back.” Phyrea looked to her left and nodded to no one. Willem put the raw meat in his mouth and started to chew. It wasn’t bad.
58
29 Marpenotk, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) The Canal Site
Willem had no idea what the man’s name was, but he assumed he was some kind of foreman. Anyway, he was the one who talked to Willem most often, told him what was happening and asked for things. He was a short man, barely taller than a dwarf, but stocky and solid. He had a face like worn leather and dull eyes the color of mud. His greasy hair was always ragged and unkept, even falling out in patches. His clothes were spattered with holes
