Solace Shattered Read Free Page B

important task for you, one that can’t be trusted to Nils.”
    As gratifying as it was that the sovereign had taken him into his complete confidence, Rorke felt like a child whose hand had just been slapped away from the pastry because he had to eat dinner first. “I will undertake anything my Sovereign desires.”
    “We have a special guest for my coronation as divine emperor at the end of the Winter Solemnity. We wish her to have the clothes of an empress, after the fashion of what my mother wore, but finer yet. Spare no expense.”
    Was the sovereign to be married? What if he had a child? Rorke’s rule of a kingdom would last only until the child came of age. He wasn’t exactly in his first bloom of youth, but he hoped to have far more than sixteen years left. “But tell me the name of the lady and I will secure the best materials and tailors.”
    “Breena.”
    The name wasn’t familiar. “Is she a new Lily, or a cabinetman’s daughter?”
    “Neither. She was a commoner.”
    Rorke’s eye twitched trying to suppress the raising of a brow. “Where shall I find Mistress Breena?”
    “Here.”
    The sovereign lifted the tablecloth and meticulously folded it halfway over itself. Underneath it was a gilt box topped with a sheet of the most flawless glass Rorke had ever seen. Inside was a human-sized wax doll wearing the clothes and sapphire braided hair of a Lily Girl. No, not a wax doll. The roasted pigeons from lunch fluttered in Rorke’s stomach with the dawning revelation that the box was a coffin and the figure no doll. It was why this was called the coffin room. Not because it was close and windowless. He choked down the salty, fatty taste of lunch. “This is Breena. You wish the clothes for her.”
    The sovereign bowed over the coffin and gazed down into the waxed face. “She will finally have the coronation denied her.”
    This was one task Rorke would have rather left to Nils. He shuddered at the thought of not just touching, but dressing a corpse. Perhaps the garments could be cut open in the back and tucked under the body. “Must I take any special precautions?”
    “Be gentle. She suffered a painful death. Her clothes caught fire and couldn’t be put out in time. Most of her body was burned.”
    “What a terrible accident.” It wasn’t just a corpse. It was a burned corpse.
    “It was no accident. My mother was arguing with her and pushed her into a candle tree. She hated Breena because she was a commoner.”
    Ah, so that was why all the candles in the room were encased in glass globes. It was why all the Lily Girls looked like the exquisite wax doll. The sovereign had been trying, all these years, to recreate his lost love. It was tender, pitiful, and disgusting. Yet, men of much power could do as they pleased. The thought of power brought him back to his news. But first he must shift most artfully from the sovereign’s preoccupation with the corpse. “I will dress the empress as none other before has been dressed. I know all the best furriers, silk merchants and gem cutters. As always, I am your endeavoring servant—and my endeavors on finding a spy in Acadia have come to fruition. I have engaged the services of a lordly confidant of Prince Lerouge.”
    The sovereign broke his gaze from the wax face and turned it, so intensely blue and penetrating, upon Rorke. “A lord?”
    Rorke imagined the sovereign’s pleased smile beneath the hood. For there had certainly been a smile in his voice. “He is a young man by the name of Sebastion. He often accompanies the prince, was invited to the Lerouge summer palace. His family is ancient, from the time of Lukis, but without money. Our lord makes his way by gaming, sometimes in the less than noble establishments. He lost 2,000 crowns to one of my spies in the longshoremen’s union. This not-insignificant debt will be marked repaid in full if our Sebastion can find the lady in court who wears a certain locket.”
    “And what will your spy do with