Heart of Flames, page 23
Kade filled in the gaps in Sev’s knowledge, doing his best to settle back into his old role among the estate’s bondservants, many of whom were likely acquainted with Ilithya one way or another. The problem was, Trix’s allies—especially those who had been on the Pyra mission—didn’t have a high survival rate. If any of her surviving associates knew anything of value, they weren’t talking. Kade also reported that the servant passages that led directly into the governor’s suite of rooms were cut off from the rest—likely to avoid potential assassination or, even worse, common servants coming and going—and Bertram, Lord Rolan’s personal attendant, was the only member on the staff who had access to them. He slept in an adjoining chamber, took his meals alone, and never left the estate for personal matters.
“He’s actually a bondservant,” Kade had said, when they met on the third night since their reunion. “A freed one. Rolan forgave all his transgressions and offered him a paid position.”
Sev’s brows rose, impressed, but Kade shook his head.
“Don’t get too excited. He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. Bertram is apparently a cousin. From what I’ve overheard, Rolan only freed him to remove the stain from their family, and he offered the job as attendant so he could guarantee Bertram’s loyalty. One false move and he’ll be back in bondage again. He also personally manages Rolan’s messenger birds, so there’s no chance of intercepting any, like we’d hoped.”
Sev cursed. He’d thought they could tap one of Ilithya’s best sources of information, the mail, by bribing or making friends with whatever bondservant currently managed the messenger birds. But if they were handled entirely by Bertram, Rolan’s loyal attendant and cousin, they’d have very little chance of plumbing that resource. Or of gaining access to Rolan’s chambers through the servant passages.
Despite the fact that Rolan had put his stamp on things, the house seemed haunted by the ghost of the exiled governor and his family, no matter how many Stellan rugs and family trees Rolan hung up. The gardens were the legacy of Cassian’s Pyraean—and fellow Phoenix Rider—wife, Olanna, planted with orange and lemon trees and clusters of bright Fire Blossoms. The ironwork benches were wrought with phoenix motifs, and the stonework paths swirled and coiled like plumes of fire. There was a fresco in the west hall that featured King Damian, an ancestor of Cassian and consort to Queen Elysia, which had been concealed behind a heavy tapestry depicting Lord Rolan’s ancestor King Rol, and a wooden doorframe outside the private dining room was notched halfway up, marking the increasing age and height of Cassian and Olanna’s son, Tristan. Though Sev hadn’t yet seen it firsthand, there was apparently a phoenix roost atop the highest tower of the gleaming plaster-and-white-marble estate, enclosed with ornately carved columns and attached to an upper-story balcony, where phoenixes could perch and Riders could easily mount up.
Sev couldn’t help but notice the fact that Lord Rolan and Commander Cassian were the descendants of King Rol and King Damian respectively, and that just as their ancestors had fought over lands and titles before the empire, so too did Rolan and Cassian clash. First, in a smaller way over this estate and its legacy, but also in a larger way over the lands they occupied and the borders that divided them. It seemed that all wars, no matter how ancient, never really ended.
While the building itself clung to the past, Sev wondered if its inhabitants besides Lord Rolan did too. Surely some of the servants had been here since Cassian was governor? And what of the soldiers? Could any of them be bought or convinced to divulge important information?
Sev had plenty of questions but no answers, and his frustration grew with every unoccupied room he found and every shift he spent watching Rolan attend to the dull affairs of state expected of any governor—paying wages, approving supply orders, ensuring they stored enough grain for the winter—and not defense strategy and warcraft. The most exciting thing Sev overheard was that there would be an order of Ferronese steel shipping in a few days. But those weapons were going away from Lord Rolan, not toward him. Another dead end.
The Grand Council was looming, and every day that slipped by without discoveries or breakthroughs felt like a failure. Sev needed time not only to get the information, but to send it to Cassian and for Cassian to act on it.
Sev needed to be more proactive. The question was, how?
Early one evening, he was waiting dutifully in his rooms after dinner for Hestia to come apply her nightly poultice. She’d told him he was doing well, and they would likely switch to a once-weekly application soon.
Sev had learned over the course of his treatment why Hestia was taking such “good care of him,” as Kade had said. Sev had seen more seasoned and valuable soldiers receive much less, and he thought he’d finally begun to understand why.
Not only was Hestia a Ferronese local, but she’d lost her two sons during the Blood War. Every time she looked at Sev, something in her brusque face softened, and he was glad for his father’s light eyes and his Ferronese name. She’d taken a liking to him at once and diligently cared for his wound, her affection gruff and no-nonsense, but also unwavering, as if he were as important to her as her own children. Sev wondered how they had died… if she’d treated them and failed, or if they’d never returned home from some faraway battlefield.
It was clear that she held sway within Lord Rolan’s household. Not only did she give Sev top-notch medical treatment, but she showed her preference for him in ways that might go unnoticed if Sev weren’t the sort of person who paid attention to details. The medicine she gave him was expensive, the bandages softest linen, his bed made with plump down-filled pillows and finely embroidered sheets. His rooms were cleaned every single day, and his laundry washed and pressed.
As a soldier, those last responsibilities should have been his own, but Sev suspected Hestia was getting him the kind of perks a sick or wounded member of the household would receive—not a lowly foot soldier. Lord Rolan’s estate had an infirmary, but it was meant for wartime, when dozens of beds would be filled. It didn’t make sense to put Sev there, alone, when treating him in a room like this was likely easier for Hestia and her assistants. Even still, she could have treated him in the soldier barracks at this point—but for some reason she kept him here, in comfort.
When Hestia found out Sev didn’t have a “sweetheart,” she took it upon herself to send very pretty serving girls instead of assistants to his rooms—always locals from Ferro—delivering teas or tinctures with a deep bow and a sweet smile. Hestia hadn’t known Sev had no interest in blushing maidens, but she was no fool—before long she was sending handsome serving boys instead.
Sev would turn them away, red-faced and stammering, relieved when he was alone again and he could light his lantern and wait for Kade.
That night, Hestia arrived a bit later than usual, knocking on the door before letting herself in. One of her assistants accompanied her, delivering a tray of materials Hestia would need and then departing.
“I was wondering if you’d forgotten me,” Sev teased after the door closed behind her assistant.
Hestia rolled her eyes. “So needy,” she lamented, though her lips twisted in a smirk. “I’ll have you know, I had a last-minute request from the governor himself. Mosquito bite ointment, so he can entertain on his terrace tonight,” she added with a long-suffering sigh. “The man looks like he has a pox, but he refuses to dine indoors. He’d never admit it, being from Stel, but Ferro has the most beautiful summers in all the empire.”
Sev had been around long enough to know that Lord Rolan took almost all his meals outside on his terrace. Sev assumed he did it for privacy—he closed the doors to the courtyard whenever he entertained, at any rate, leaving his guards to protect him from inside—but maybe Hestia was right and Rolan had a soft spot for the temperate weather.
What Sev wouldn’t do to overhear some of those meetings—like the one that was probably happening tonight. No doubt that was where much of his scheming and plotting took place.
“So, how is the swelling tonight, Sevro?” Hestia asked, dusting off her hands—she’d been separating poppies from their stems and placing the flowers into a pestle and mortar for grinding—before peering down her nose sternly at Sev.
Sev was seated on his bed, legs over the side, and tried not to squirm under her watchful gaze. “It’s not as bad as yesterday,” he hedged. He was quite certain it was exactly the same as the day before and that Hestia would call him out on it at once.
“Hmph—a likely story,” she said, sliding a pair of spectacles onto her nose and leaving her tray to come have a closer look. Sev was already shirtless, and it didn’t take her long to spot the flushed redness of the skin—particularly around the scar tissue—and the limited movement of the joint as she lifted Sev’s arm forward and to the side, one hand holding his wrist, the other gently supporting his elbow. “Were you straining yourself again?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sev said, shaking his head earnestly. Really, with the state his arm was in, putting on his tunic in the morning pushed his limits. He was fortunate to be posted to the estate, but even still, there were weapons to wield, doors to open, and duties like cleaning armor and sharpening blades to attend to. He was a soldier, after all.
After poking and prodding at his swollen joint, Hestia shook her head with obvious affection and returned to her tray. She added seeds to the heavy stone bowl, grinding them into powder along with the flowers, then poured in water from a jug. “You men are all the same—refuse to heed the healer’s advice, no matter how practical.”
Sev bowed his head, behaving appropriately chagrined.
“I remember—oh, nearly thirty years ago now—when young lord Cassian was bedridden with phoenix fever, he stayed in this very room,” she began, and Sev listened intently. He didn’t know that Hestia had served the previous governor as well. “Didn’t matter that he was burning up, covered in sweat and not keeping food or fluids down; he still snuck out that window”—she jerked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the window Sev used to send his letters to Cassian in the present—“every gods-cursed night, shimmying up a drainpipe and onto the roof. He’d climb halfway across the estate on those tiles just so he could spend a bit more time with his phoenix.”
Sev’s pulse jumped at her words, but she spoke them at the exact moment she’d taken a washcloth to his shoulder and clearly assumed his reaction was due to the cool water against his hot skin. Her brisk touch grew gentler, but Sev’s thoughts were elsewhere—on the window and the drainpipe and the roof. He tried to picture it, the rough layout of the estate and how every wing and courtyard—like the one Rolan had private meetings in—were connected by those bright terra-cotta tiles.
“The creature was just a hatchling then,” Hestia continued, oblivious to Sev’s revelation. “Barely able to fly—and it’s a good thing, too. If he’d have been older, no doubt Cassian would’ve flown him and fallen to his death. On my watch, no less. Governor Lucian would’ve had my hide. I told him to put locks on the outside, but he had a soft spot for his only child. Luckily, Cassian survived the fever unscathed.”
Sev wrenched his mind back to the present and scrabbled for a response. “Luckily, or because of your expert care?” he asked, smiling sweetly.
She snorted. “Take that charm and flattery elsewhere, Sevro,” she said. “It is wasted on me.”
But Sev didn’t think it was. Her treatment was careful and thorough—no cutting corners or rushing through—and she seemed happy and content as she chattered on about Cassian and his son, Tristan, and how all young Ferronese boys loved to run around wild and barefoot, no matter their birth. As she spooned the poultice paste onto a square of bandage and applied it to his shoulder, Sev listened, understanding that Hestia was really talking about her own sons, and doing it this way allowed her to remember them with less grief.
Finally his poultice was in place, and Sev allowed himself a small stab of guilt at all the hard work Hestia had put into it and his plans to rip it off almost as soon as she left the room. He’d hear it from her tomorrow when the swelling was worse than ever.
She apparently sensed something in Sev’s edgy, slightly agitated mood, and favored him with a long look as she prepared to leave. “Another night alone in your rooms, Sevro?” she asked. “No plans to take a stroll into the city, or spend time in the soldiers’ mess?”
Sev shook his head—he never truly spent his nights alone, but he obviously couldn’t tell Hestia who visited him through the secret passage.
She frowned, then nodded, as if coming to a decision. “I’ll send something for the pain so you can sleep,” she said, standing in the open doorway, tray in hand. “Have a good night—but no… overexertion, okay, Sevro?”
She left, and something in her expression made Sev think she knew exactly what he planned to do—but how could she? A few minutes later he realized his mistake.
Another knock sounded—Hestia’s promised sleep aid—and Sev shrugged into his unlaced tunic to answer it, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Kade wasn’t emerging from behind the tapestry before opening the door.
It wasn’t an assistant, however, but another of Hestia’s handsome serving boys. Suddenly her questions about spending the night alone—and her warning not to overexert himself—held new, mortifying meaning. Had she gone straight to the servants’ hall and sent him here?
He was familiar—having already been to Sev’s rooms before—and the embarrassment Sev felt at the sight of him was enough to drive every other thought from his mind.
“Y-yes?” he asked.
The boy bowed slightly, his lithe frame elegant and sure—like an acrobat or a dancer. He raised a silver tray bearing not a medicinal tea or potion, but a bottle of orange-flavored liqueur. It was a popular drink in Ferro; Sev had never tasted it, but he could remember the smell of it on his father’s breath when he’d uncorked their small, far less fine bottle the day Sev’s grandfather died.
“Hestia advised that this would help with the pain—so you can sleep,” the servant said, straightening and offering a knowing smile. That was when Sev realized there were two glasses on the tray. The boy moved to step into the room, but Sev panicked and cut him off, seizing the tray from his hands. The entire contents rattled dangerously, the boy’s graceful movements making it all look far easier than it was.
“I—thank you very much,” Sev said, struggling to keep the bottle steady. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Please, sir, it’s my job to serve you.”
Sev’s eyes practically bugged out of his head at the double meaning in the boy’s words.
“At least let me carry…,” the boy continued with a smile, but Sev hastily drew the tray out of his reach.
“No,” Sev practically shouted. He swallowed. “I prefer to be alone tonight. Antony, was it?” he asked, trying to remember their introduction from earlier in the week.
The servant dropped his outstretched arms and nodded. “Yes, sir. Antony.”
“Thank you for delivering this, Antony, and please send my… appreciation to Hestia. If you’ll excuse me,” he said, clumsily shifting the tray to one hand while closing the door with his other. Antony’s smile was gone, replaced with a puzzled frown as the door swung shut. A boy who looked like that probably wasn’t used to being turned down by anyone—never mind someone as bumbling and awkward as Sev.
He’d barely set the tray on the low table in the sitting room when Kade’s voice spoke from behind him.
“Entertaining someone?” he asked, slipping silently into the room, the tapestry swishing inaudibly behind him. He glanced toward the door. “Did I interrupt?”
“Of course not—it was one of the servants.”
“Antony?” he asked, and Sev was surprised at how well he could hear behind that wooden panel.
“Yes,” Sev said, frowning slightly. Kade seemed… not angry, exactly, but agitated? And his amber eyes roved Sev’s face before lowering to see the laces of his shirt hanging open and his chest exposed.
Sev cleared his throat, resisting the urge to tug his tunic closed. “Would you like some?” he asked, gesturing to the bottle—then grimaced. Sev had forgotten about the two glasses on the tray, and how that would look considering they’d been delivered by a handsome serving boy.
Kade’s lip curled. “I don’t think that was meant for me.”
Was Sev imagining it, or was there jealousy in Kade’s tone? He fought to keep a stupid grin from splitting across his face. “What does it matter?” he asked, his voice light. “I’m offering it to you.”
“I’d rather not meet with you at night if that’s when you prefer to have… guests,” he said, as if the word were distasteful to him.
His tone was accusatory, but also questing, asking Sev to confirm or deny something.
“What’s it to you if I have guests or not?” Sev countered.
Kade reared back slightly. “I don’t—I’m not—” He was clearly flustered. He pointed to the table. “The lantern was lit! I could have walked in on you.”
“Walked in on me doing what, exactly?” Sev asked. He wanted Kade to say it, to say what he suspected and admit that it made him jealous.
Kade looked down, straightening his shoulders and expelling a breath in a huff. “What you do in your rooms is none of my business,” he began, and disappointment settled in Sev’s bones, making him feel heavy and tired. His shoulder throbbed. “But if I had been seen coming out of that passage…”
“The only thing I do in these rooms is sleep and wait for you,” Sev said honestly. “And have my shoulder treated. Antony wasn’t here as a guest, or at my request. Hestia sent him with the alcohol to help me sleep. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I turned him away.”
Sev took a step closer to Kade. How could he not see that Sev wanted nothing to do with the servant and everything to do with him?
“Only because you knew I was coming. If I wasn’t…”
