“I think I just had sex with the Gold Queen,” I murmured, more than a bit shaken.
“That was far from an act of love,” Micah said. “Oriana simply favors you. She finds companionship with very few. You should feel honored.”
“What I feel like is another bath,” I mumbled. And to never let my mark within touching distance of that one, ever again. Before Micah could remind me to behave, we were again inside the dining hall. Oriana must have been hungry, since she had decided to take the direct route on our return. The most notable feature of this hall was the entire lack of a table and chairs; instead, there were several long couches gathered in a semicircle. Oriana lounged across one in true Greek-goddess fashion, and indicated that Micah and I should do the same.
“Shall we begin with wine?” Oriana asked, then she answered herself. That’s not a sign of the crazy, no, not at all. “No, first a footbath.”
Without waiting for our response, Oriana clapped and several servants stepped forth, all of them female. They were clad in identical heavy gold belts and diaphanous white skirts, the layers cut to resemble tulip petals. Armed with gold basins and neatly folded linen, they immediately set about removing our shoes and washing our feet. I must admit that, while I initially thought this procedure was more than a bit odd, having a servant girl clean and anoint my feet was an unprecedented luxury.
Once we were cleansed to the standards of the Golden Court, at least to the ankles, a new team of girls stepped forward. One carried a pitcher, presumably the wine in question, and the rest bore surprisingly plain glass goblets.
“Now,” Oriana began, once she had sampled the wine, “I am aware that many things changed while I was…captive. Please, Micah, tell me of the all the good things that occurred. I am all too familiar with the rest.”
13
Our meal with the Gold Queen stretched long into the afternoon, though I must admit that I ate precious little. Knowing that mice—and rats!—could be included in any and all of the dishes laid before us, I stuck to fruit presented in its original, tree-ripened state. I assumed that any rodent I found inside an apple or peach would be the fault of the rodent, and not Oriana’s kitchens.
If the queen noticed my lack of appetite, she didn’t comment on it, though she herself seemed far more interested in liquid refreshment; I don’t think she’d recognize the bottom of a goblet if it snuck up and kicked her in the arse. Just when I was making a mental note to schedule an Otherworldly intervention, Oriana began recounting one of many ways Ferra had tortured her—after stripping all the gold from Oriana’s body, Ferra had kept her chained to the iron throne with golden shackles. It had been hideously painful, yet Oriana had refused to complain, terrified that Ferra would remove her only contact with her metal. That nightmare became a reality when Ferra grew bored with her docile prisoner, and threw Oriana into the oubliette.
Yeah. Oriana gets to drink all she wants.
Once Micah had told the drunken queen everything that had occurred with regard to the Metal Elements, and had shared what bits he knew about the other four Elements, three frickin’ times, Oriana suddenly stood. She declared herself to be both exhausted and filthy, and let her tulip-skirted attendants lead her away, I assumed to bathe and sober up a bit. Or maybe she only wandered off to find more wine, who knew? Having gotten the impression that we’d been dismissed, Micah and I let ourselves out.
“All the floors are gold here,” I murmured. I looked up and down the corridors; everything was gold, with no trace of the multicolored tiles we’d trekked over earlier. “Why is part of the Golden Court not gold?”
Micah pursed his lips, his signal that I was asking about something that nice people didn’t talk about in public. “This site is very old,” he said, at length. “There was magic here long before Oriana.”
“Before Elementals?”
Micah squeezed my hand. “Yes.”
Huh. I’d thought that Elementals had always existed. Before I could ask who was here before, and where they’d gone, we’d reached the bustling courtyard. Micah squeezed my fingers even harder, but I’d already gotten the hint. When I squeezed back, he smiled.
“I’m glad to see our queen so improved,” Micah said, once we were outside the palace.
“That was improved?” A vision of Oriana having a conversation with her wineglass flitted behind my eyes.
“Oh, very much so. Not once did she fall to the ground wailing, nor did she rend her garments or her hair, and she set nothing on fire. I’m quite pleased with her progress.”