Lethe gaped up at me. “No one has ever asked me that,” he confessed.
“Well, you should start to ask yourself,” I snapped. “Stop waiting for other people to ask you what you want. You live in a world where people will tell you what you want, and if you don’t fight, you’ll end up living their life—the life they’ve assigned you—not your own. If you don’t want this crown, Lethe, reject it. If you don’t want this island, reject it. There are people out there who really do want those things.” Theon flooded up into my thoughts, but I shoved him away. It hurt too much to think about him whilst we remained separated. “If you don’t want the wife you have, particularly if you never did, particularly if you were coerced into the arrangement, for the gods’ sakes, leave. Because no one is ever going to ask you. You have to tell them. Tell them you don’t want this crown. Tell them you don’t want this woman. Tell them you don’t want this life.”
Just as I had finished my diatribe—and perhaps, as my passions flamed, my voice might have risen with them—a throat cleared, and my eyes flew wider. I turned to where Michelle had been lying fast asleep. But now she was awake. She was awake, with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the two of us. The window behind her had turned black with night, and the wind howled at her back.
“Hello, Lethe,” she greeted. “Did you come to visit me, or her?”
“I—I came to visit you, of course, my love,” Lethe stammered. If I wasn’t terrified for my own neck, I would’ve been disappointed in his gutless response. “We were just… talking.”
Michelle smirked. “I heard,” she said. “My slave seems to know you very intimately, Lethe. Perhaps she would better serve us if she worked in some other capacity. After all, I apparently cannot even trust her to turn a simple crank while I sleep, can I? So, Lethe, darling, why don’t we assign Penelope here a task at which she might excel?”
Lethe frowned. “And what would that be?”
“Let her join the maid staff which cleans the bed pans of the royal family.” Michelle’s mouth split into a cruel grin. “If she knows you so well, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. It sounds as if she would treasure the position. I can’t imagine any way to get her nose deeper into other people’s business than to scrub it off of porcelain, can you?”
I winced and glanced at Lethe, torn between hoping he would stand up for himself—and me—and hoping that he would not, for fear of even worse retribution from this hellish queen.
But one look at Lethe, and I knew where this was going. He sighed and his eyebrows lowered like a dog caught in the act of destroying the house. He didn’t even look at me. “Yes, my love,” he agreed. “I think that would be a wonderful place for her.”
Theon
The journey to the castle, even by sky, was still of considerable length. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Parnassia finally arrived at the gates. I stayed hunkered down within a fur, praying that her bag would not be searched. “Halt,” a gruff voice called out, then paused. “Harpy?”
“What do you think?” Parnassia snapped. “I’m either a harpy, or a small, feathered dragon. Or a large, feathered human with wings and claws. Do you know nothing of your own cosmology, you fools? No wonder you are guardsmen.”
Parnassia, I chastised her silently. We’re trying to get into the castle, not murdered at its gate.
“And what business do you have in the castle?” the muffled voice demanded.
“Why don’t you ask your master, Lethe Eraeus? He will remember. We have made a deal. I have come to discuss its terms. I was very useful to him during a time when his power was not so great, and still quite precarious. He would not forget an instrument so useful as Parnassia Thundercliff.”
The guards murmured together, considering. “You may pass,” the gruff voice announced. “We will show you to the throne room, where King Lethe will receive you in a few moments.”
“Marvelous,” Parnassia said, and we began to move again.
A few minutes later, we settled, the guard commanded that we stay in the room and await further instruction from the king, and then all went quiet. A distant door closed, and Parnassia dumped me off her back.
“My gods, you are heavy,” she snarled, stretching her neck and shaking her head. “What are you made of, bricks?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, stepping out of the bag and slinging it over my shoulder. I slipped to the side of the room, where plants, tapestries, and suits of armor were lined up. “I’ll find you soon if I’m successful… or if I’m not,” I amended. “And if I don’t find you, well, then I was very, very unsuccessful.”