“What about me?” I asked. “Am I supposed to wait, stuck in a dress full of pins until he decides to come back?”

“Yes.”

I grumbled a seething breath.

Calantha smiled. “So much hostility. Isn’t an uncomfortable wait worth it for your beloved?”

I looked at her, tired of her sarcasm, and formed a biting reply, but it suddenly stalled on my lips as I stared at her. She was always trying to hate me. My own words circled back to me. I think you’re dabbling with a bit of power. A power she was afraid to exert. She was like a wildcat circling a hole, trying to find a way to get the bait without falling into the trap.

She turned to go abruptly, as if she knew I had glimpsed her secret.

“Wait,” I said, jumping down from the block. I grabbed her wrist, and she stared at my hand as if my touch burned her. I realized that, other than a stiff poke to my back, I had never seen her touch anyone.

“Why did you help the Komizar kill your own father?” I asked.

As pale as Calantha already was, she blanched. “That’s not for you to ask.”

“I want to understand, and I know you want to tell me.”

She yanked her wrist loose. “It’s an ugly story, Princess. Too ugly for your delicate ears.”

“Is it because you love him?”

“The Komizar?” A small laugh escaped her lips. She shook her head, and I could almost see something large and numbing jar loose inside her.

“Please,” I said. “I know you’ve both helped and hindered me. You’re battling something. I won’t betray you, Calantha. I promise.”

The air was taut. I held my breath, afraid the slightest move would push her away from me again.

“Yes, I love him,” she admitted, “but not in the way you’re thinking.” She walked across the room and stared out the window for a long time, then finally turned and told me. Her voice was detached, vacant, as if she spoke of someone else. She was the child of Carmedes, a member of the Rahtan. Her mother had been a cook in the Sanctum who died when she was small. When she was twelve, Carmedes seized power and became the 698th Komizar of Venda. He was a suspicious man with a heavy hand and short temper, but she managed to mostly avoid him. “I was fifteen when I fell in love with a boy from the Meurasi clan. He told me clan stories of other times and other places that made me forget my own miserable life. We were careful to keep our relationship a secret and managed that feat for almost a year.” Her chest rose in several slow breaths before she went on. “But one day, my father caught us in the servants’ stable together. He had no reason to be angered. He cared little about me, but he flew into a rage.”

She sat on one of the dressmaking stools and told me that back then our current Komizar was the Assassin. He was a young man of eighteen, and he had found them both bleeding into the straw. The boy was dead, and she was half dead. The Assassin scooped her up and called for a healer. “The bruises faded, the bones mended, the torn patches of hair grew back, but some things were gone for good. The boy and—”

“Your eye.”

“My father came to see me once during the weeks that I lay bedridden. He looked down at me and said if I ever did anything like that again, he would take out my other eye and my teeth as well. He wanted no more bastards running through the Sanctum. When I could walk again, I went to the Assassin, opened his palm, placed the key to my father’s private meeting chamber in it, and pledged my loyalty. Forever. The next morning my father was dead.”

She stood, pulling back her shoulders, looking drained.

“So if you see me both prod and thwart, Princess, it’s because some days I see the man the Komizar has become, and some days I remember the man he was.”

She turned and walked toward the door, but I called after her just as she opened it.

“Forever is a long time,” I said. “When will you remember who you are, Calantha?”

She paused briefly without responding, then closed the door behind her.

*   *   *

I had been waiting so long I hardly noticed the door easing open. It was the Komizar. His gaze landed on the dress first, then rose to my face. He closed the door and took another long look.

“It’s about time,” I said.

He ignored my remark, taking his time as he approached. His eyes skimmed over me, touching me in ways that made my cheeks grow hot.

“I think I chose well,” he said. “The red suits you.”

I tried my best to make light of it. “Why, Komizar, are you actually trying to be kind?”

“I can be kind, Lia, if you’ll let me be.” He took a step closer, his eyes molten.

“Shall I call the dressmakers back in?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he said, strolling closer.

“It’s not easy to move in a dress held together with pins.”

“I don’t want you to move.” He stopped in front of me and ran a gentle finger down my sleeve. His chest rose in a deep controlled breath. “You’ve come a long way since the burlap dress you wore on your arrival.”

“That wasn’t a dress. It was a sack.”

He smiled. “So it was.” He reached up and pulled a pin from the dress. The fabric at the shoulder fell loose. “Is that better?”

I bristled. “Save your charming seductions for our wedding night.”

“I was being charming? Shall I take out another pin?”