A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

CHAPTER FORTY

Footsteps faint as butterfly wings, yet they pricked as needles in her heart.

‘Again.’ The word she had come to dread.

The footsteps sounded louder, clear and confident on the stone passage. The door opened. Lilla cracked open her red-rimmed eyes, ready for her ordeal. Except she saw a face she recognized, a streak of white in dark hair, a tender voice saying her name.

‘Grusha?’ she croaked, her eyes staring madly, her body limp as they let her down. ‘Grusha,’ she murmured, collapsing into her friend’s embrace. ‘Grusha.’

‘You’re safe now, sweetling. You’re safe.’

No tears came. No sudden rush of relief. She just lay folded in her friend’s arms, Grusha’s tears raining down on her filthy face. Lilla wondered whether Grusha could feel it. Whether the weight of her limbs or the stiffness in her body or the staring gaze of her dry eyes betrayed the truth. That she had become hard as iron. . .

‘How long was I down there?’

‘Six weeks,’ Gerutha said, sponging down her back. The water in the copper bath was beautifully warm and clean. Gerutha had arranged everything well for her mistress’s release.

‘Six weeks?’ Lilla shook her head. ‘You could have said six months and I would have believed you. Or six days, even.’

‘One hour would have been too long. But I know it was as long as Erlan was out of the city, to the day.’

‘He’s alive then?’ The thought of him sent a jolt of relief through her body, but also something else. A kind of anger.

‘He’s coming here soon. He wanted to be here now but I insisted not. I didn’t want you overwhelmed.’

‘So he succeeded?’

‘Aye.’ Gerutha grinned. ‘The Bulgar army awaits to the north. Ready to sweep them Arabs from under the walls. That’s what he said.’

Lilla nodded, digesting each piece of information slowly, like morsels of bread after a long famine.

‘Oh, I’ll never forgive myself – you being in there all that time,’ Gerutha continued, scrubbing busily at the layers of grime that had accumulated on Lilla. ‘I tried to see you but it was hopeless. And the only ray of light I found led to nothing.’

‘What ray of light?’

‘Alethea.’

‘What? The beggar? Why her?’

Gerutha explained what she and Domnicus had discovered, what Alethea had seen and the knife she had found. ‘She was certain the time and place matched the circumstances of the murder. But when I took the knife to Katāros, he dismissed it almost as nothing.’

‘Katāros?’ The name made her wince, like a thumb pressed into an old wound. ‘You took it to him?’

‘He was in charge of the investigation. I was sure it would clear your name.’

‘He’s no friend of mine. What did you tell him?’

‘What I told you. He promised to look into it.’ Gerutha sighed. ‘I only half-believed him but I could do no more.’

‘When was this?’

‘Five, six days ago.’

‘Oh, Grusha.’ Lilla turned and looked up into her servant’s gold-flecked eyes. ‘I think you should not have done that.’

There was a sudden rap on the door that startled both of them. Erlan’s voice sounded through the panels. Lilla rose from her bath. ‘Go to Alethea, Grusha,’ she said hurriedly as he banged again. ‘See that she’s safe.’

‘Yes.’ Gerutha wrapped a robe around Lilla’s brittle shoulders. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then she threw on a shawl of her own.

She and Erlan crossed the threshold with barely a nod, he was so eager to enter the room. When he saw Lilla he hesitated for a moment, and then he ran to her, throwing his arms around her. She let him crush her against his chest, but even then she felt oddly cold against him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he murmured. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘How did you get me out?’ she asked in a flat voice.

‘Does it matter? You’re free.’

‘Yes, it matters. Tell me.’

Erlan held her away from him and looked down into her eyes. ‘We found the plans that the Jewess had stolen from the lampros. The emperor was satisfied of your innocence.’

‘Plans for what?’ she said, but somehow she already knew.

‘The fire.’

‘You mean, you had them in your possession. . . and you gave them back.’

‘Of course I did! I would do it again – a thousand times over.’

‘You gave back what could have made all of this worthwhile.’ Her voice broke with anger.

‘If it meant your freedom—’

‘Do you know how I’ve suffered?’ Her voice trembled with fury.

‘If I could have spared you a single moment of pain—’

‘Oh, words, words. Spare me words!’ she cried. ‘I have died a hundred deaths since you’ve gone and yet you just gave away what could have justified them all!’

‘You would be dying still more deaths if I had not.’

‘Why? Why?’ she moaned, burying her face in her hands. ‘After all I’ve been through. After all I gave up for you. . .’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand this obsession with the fire. What good will come from carrying it back to your land? Evil only multiplies itself. I know that to my cost.’

‘Oh, what do you know?’ she snapped, glaring up at him. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, what I realized in that place.’ She shook her head that seemed to throb in frustration. ‘That I don’t know you. . . Yet here I am. I came all this way. For you. I told myself it was for an alliance with this great king. But it was for you! Don’t you see? Like some lovelorn maiden, I came here and laid down everything because I love you! But what do you give me in return? Nothing of yourself. You hide from me. Do I not deserve you? Have I not suffered enough to deserve all of you?’

‘You have me. You have all of me.’

‘No, I don’t, Erlan! Why do you hold back from me? Why did you even come into my life? Was it only to torment me? Is that all? To make me love a shadow? A ghost? I don’t even know who you