Jeweled (18 page)

A ripping roar of approval that hurt Anatol’s ears rang out through the air.

“No more bloodshed! Time for positive action!” Gregorio pumped his fist into the air. “No more bloodshed! Time for positive action! No more bloodshed! Time for positive action!”

The crowd took up the chant and Gregorio ran in front of the gate, fist pumping, driving the energy of the people higher—in a new direction.

Several of the guards, impassioned by Gregorio’s speech and Evangeline’s magick, took axes to the guillotine. Wood rained down on Anatol, hitting his head. The men who had brought him out to the steps came toward him, intending, perhaps, to throw him back into the dungeon. It appeared his neck had been saved from the blade for the moment, but Anatol was sure a darker, quieter death awaited him back between the walls of the prison.

Gregorio caught sight of him and walked over, holding up a hand. “No, no. This one comes with me. He’s shown an exceptional amount of spirit and I want to talk to him.”

The men hesitated, hands gripping Anatol’s arms and legs.

Gregorio Vikhin straightened and locked his jaw.

The men dropped Anatol and moved away.

Watching him closely, Anatol noticed Gregorio release a pent-up breath. Then he leaned down and helped Anatol to his feet. “Can you walk?”

Anatol grunted and mumbled through his swollen lips, “Just get me out of here.”

Anatol wasn’t a small man by any measure—but Gregorio was even bigger. He half carried him and Anatol half dragged himself to an opening at the back of the palace courtyard. There Lilya and Evangeline waited for him.

Evangeline had her hand over her mouth, her eyes a riot of emotion like he’d never seen in them before. She ran over to him and braced his other side. Suddenly every hurt in his body ebbed away to warmth. That was the power of her touch. “Blessed Joshui,” she breathed into the crook of his neck.

“Get him to the Temple of Dreams. I’ve got work to do here.” Gregorio strode away.

 

 

Evangeline stood in the doorway of the bedroom where Anatol lay. She and Lilya had managed—with much hardship—to get Anatol back to the Temple of Dreams. There she and Lilya had stripped him of his fouled clothes, cleaned him up, and had a doctor attend him.

He had three broken ribs, multiple deep lacerations from a whipping, two black eyes, a split lip, and a concussion. No broken limbs. That was a miracle. Now he was bandaged and had been giving a sleeping draught. He needed rest to heal.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, hating the way her insides heaved every time she looked at him and thought about how close she’d been to seeing that blade come down on his neck. Watching it almost happen had killed a part of her; she couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if it had truly occurred.

The feelings she had for Anatol were deep and terrifying. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Not since she’d been a child. She actually cared if he lived or died, and if he died . . . she couldn’t even think about the possibility. The idea dredged up the remnants of thick, sludgelike grief from the bottom of her soul. It was from her childhood, locked away in a part of her mind she couldn’t open.

She’d felt like a child as well, watching Anatol almost die as she clung to the gate in front of the palace, stomach heaving with emotion. Her magick had taken in the swell of the crowd. She would have used her ability to turn things in Anatol’s favor, but there hadn’t been enough of any opposite emotion to feed back into them and turn their sentiment in another direction. There had only been anger and bloodthirsty vengeance. When Anatol had cast his illusions there had only been fear and confusion—not usable. There’d been no positive feelings at all.

At least, not until Gregorio had begun to speak.

Then pride and elation—hope—had begun to filter into her awareness in drips and drabs from the people. Knowing she was taking a risk, but unable to stop herself, she’d siphoned off as much of that positive feeling as she could and fed it back to them—spawning more and more—until the emotional tide of the crowd had turned in Gregorio’s favor.

And Anatol had been saved.

Footsteps sounded behind her and a warm, strong presence pressed at her side. “Thank you,” she whispered, her gaze still on Anatol’s form in the bed.

“I think I should be the one to thank you. I know what you did this morning with your magick. You risked your life.”

She looked at him. Gregorio would never be called a handsome man, but there was something so very compelling in his brutal face. His eyes were fathomless, full of such intelligence and depth. His gaze rested on Anatol.

She looked back at the bed. “I did it for him.”

“I know you did, but that doesn’t change the fact that what you did . . .
worked
. Helped me and that helped Anatol. You did a good thing today. You may have aided me in gaining the foothold in the people’s psyche that I needed.”

“Your words.” She swallowed hard. “Your ideas. That’s what they need. That’s what they’ll follow. My magick is just a parlor trick, like Anatol’s illusion. It fades fast and leaves nothing of substance behind.”

He shook his head. “The emotion you engineered in them will fade, but people remember an event that’s been paired with such a great emotional response. I need you.”

She looked up at him. “What?”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “I need you both. I need your perspective and maybe your magick.”

Frowning, she shook her head. Ambivalence came off Gregorio in waves. “What are you saying? I wouldn’t feel right about manipulating people’s emotions.” She paused, thinking about what she’d just done at Belai and about the rapist in the alley. “At least I wouldn’t feel right about it in most situations.”

“I don’t mean that I want you to stand in the back of the room and throw magick whenever I speak. That wouldn’t be right.” He paused for a moment as if he couldn’t think of what to say. “Come to stay with me. You’re in danger on your own and I can protect you. In return you can help me, consult with me on the path I now have to walk.”

She bit her lower lip, contemplating the irony of the situation. This man, Gregorio Vikhin, was the one responsible for all their current woes. They were supposed to help him? Everything about this felt wrong. Frightening.

She pushed past him to leave, shaking her head. “No, we don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, but I owe you something.”

“No. You saved Anatol’s life today. Let’s call it even. We’re done with you now.” She walked toward the door.

“Evangeline.” Anatol’s broken voice stopped her a step away from the threshold.

She turned and went to his side. He stared up at her through an eye that was half swollen shut. Gregorio went to the other side of the bed. “Swallow your pride. We need to take him up on his offer.” His words came haltingly.

“Why?”

Anatol swallowed hard. “Revolutionaries know my face. We need to hide. Need protection.”

“But—”

“Evangeline, please. For once . . . don’t fight me.”

Evangeline looked up at Gregorio, who regarded her with a guarded expression. “I’ll agree if that’s what you want, Anatol.” She paused. “At least, for now.”

Anatol grimaced a little, closed his eyes, and appeared to relax.

She glared at Gregorio and stormed out of the room. He caught her with one of his massive hands before she could leave and she shot him a look that could kill.

“I’m not the enemy,” he growled into her face.

She shook him off. “Yes, you are.”

Gregorio lived on the edge of Milzyr in a tall, middle-class town house. It was not a palace, but it was a far cry from the boardinghouse.

A confirmed bachelor far too consumed with his writing and his work to take care of things himself, Gregorio kept a housekeeper and a cook. The furniture of the house was serviceable and comfortable, but had an air of neglect. Gregorio lived inside his head most of the time, Evangeline was sure, and so didn’t pay a lot of attention to his surroundings, and he had no woman to give the house a feminine touch.

Once Anatol had been stable enough to move, he’d been relocated from the Temple of Dreams to Gregorio’s town house, where he was installed in a spacious bedroom at the back of the residence. Evangeline stayed there with him.

It was easy to avoid Gregorio for the next six weeks while Anatol recovered from his injuries. Gregorio was gone most of the day, coming home for lunch occasionally, but always leaving after a scant half an hour. He wandered in late at night looking exhausted, with his tie and the top buttons of his dress shirt undone.

The episode in front of Belai where she had helped to drive the emotion of the people to a more positive place was paying off. A council of citizens had been organized to discuss their next form of government. Gregorio was leading it and, therefore, was spending most of his time in meetings.

The council had decided to appoint a representative from each of the provinces of Rylisk in order to allow the rural areas their say. Gregorio worked with them from first light to star shine every single day of the week.

He hadn’t asked for any more of Evangeline’s help, leaving both her and Anatol to themselves in the big house. Perhaps out of a sense of guilt over their circumstances, he was very generous with them both, having the cook make them meals three times a day and sending clothes makers to them. Evangeline was well dressed, clean, and had a full stomach every day. She’d gained back some of the weight she’d lost, her hair had regained its thickness and luster, and the skin around her jewel had finally completely healed.

She didn’t feel guilty about accepting Gregorio’s generosity at all. After all, he was the one responsible for their being destitute in the first place.

On the second day Evangeline had stumbled upon Gregorio’s huge library. It was a well-used room, filled with all kinds of tomes, both fiction and nonfiction. All of Gregorio’s books were housed there, too, as well as a clearly loved copy of Kozma Nizli’s,
A Future without Royals
. Wanting to entertain Anatol while he was prone in bed, she’d picked some of the fiction up, eschewing the Nizli book and everything penned by Gregorio.

Finding the library in the house had been like discovering treasure. Books had always been her guilty secret, something that seemed so frivolous in the context of palace life. Reading had always been a way to escape, even if she hadn’t realized it back then. After the revolution, it had been the loss of her book collection that had grieved her the most—not the gowns or the small amount of jewelry she’d been able to amass.

So she spent her afternoons sitting at Anatol’s bedside and reading him books about sea captains, warriors from distant lands, explorers who fell off the edge of the world, and tales of valiant princes who waged war against angry tyrants.

Even as the weeks passed, she avoided Gregorio’s political tracts at all costs.

Gregorio apparently enjoyed strategia, a strategic board game wherein pieces had to be moved around on a board. Anatol asked her to bring the board to his room, and they played a fair amount of that, too, after he’d taught her the game. She got good at it. Soon Anatol was losing to her almost every time.

After Anatol was able to move around again they often went to the porch on the back lawn that was enclosed by a high fence, separating them from the bustle of the city streets and alleys. As the weather warmed, going from winter to early spring, they drank tea there and talked about everything and nothing, sharing more in those weeks of healing than they’d ever shared in their years of being together at Belai.

Anatol reached over and caught her hand in his. His eyes held a heat that hadn’t been there in the weeks he’d spent bed-bound. Apparently, he was feeling better.

She smiled and pushed a tendril of hair out of her face, suddenly feeling shy with him for some reason. It was funny how emotion seemed to change everything—made things richer and so much more complicated at the same time.

He tugged on her hand. “Come over here.”

She rose and walked to his chair. They were alone on the porch on this exceptionally warm day. The cook and the housekeeper had both gone to the market. Steaming cups of tea sat side by side on the table between their chairs, but from the timbre of Anatol’s voice, she had a suspicion they’d soon be cold and forgotten.

At his urging, she sat down, straddling his lap. When she leaned over, setting her forehead to his, her long, loose hair made a curtain around their faces. “Is it wrong to say that I’ve been enjoying our time together, considering the reason we’ve had that time to spend?”

He reached up and cupped her cheek. “So have I. Although, it’s true, I would have rather have been well.” His other hand slipped to the small of her back. “I’m feeling better today, though.”