the feast was going on, she couldn’t even think about it. She would deal with everything later.
The table was overflowing with delicacies, and though she wasn’t hungry at all, she had to hand it to the castle’s chefs. Stuffed geese, ducks, slices of flavorful lamb with pieces of pineapple and olives, all on engraved dishes, and each dish was a work of culinary art. Hildegard, however, wrinkled her nose unhappily. Her dark onyx eyes ran restlessly over the table as if she were spotting rats on the tablecloth. Rhianon, too, examined the utensils, the wine decanters and dessert vases, as properly as she could. No, the leprechaun had only hidden near her wineglass, and that was not to steal another piece from her plate, but only to warn her that the wine was poisoned. He might not have known that the poison had no effect on her henceforth, or he might have simply decided to take precautions. No matter. The fact is, the conscientious servant had done his duty of guarding his mistress, and he was so dexterous that it was impossible to see him.
Hildegard! Rhianon met her black as the darkness itself for a moment, and somehow noticed the fear in her hitherto perpetually impenetrable eyes. Then she turned her gaze to the table and almost cringed in disgust herself. Worms! Where once there had been the aromatic smell of fried chicken and smoky punch, now there were disgusting gooey lumps of worms crawling all over the place. They were in balls, in glasses, in pike-perch where the fish lay, ghastly as the entrails that had fallen out of their ripped bellies. Rhianon had seen something like this on the battlefield, too, when she dissected her enemies with her sword. The guts spilling from open bellies smelled just as foul and disgusting, but surprisingly she could smell no earth or worms. There was still the sweet smell of honey and cream and candied cherries in the punch, but only disgusting worms crawled across the table. The guests continued to eat and enjoy themselves as if they were oblivious of the change. Their laughter sounded distant, ghastly and slightly muffled, like the swarming worms. Rhianon saw mouths full of nastiness, spoons with stalks braided with the slimy body of a worm. She was about to close her eyes and whisper a few magic words to banish the vision, but then suddenly it dissipated on its own.
It happened at the very moment when Hildegard jumped up from the table and rushed away. Before that she pushed back her chair so sharply that everyone present stared after her in surprise, and the footmen hurriedly picked up the dishes and food, which she had dropped on the floor.
«It was nice to look at the world through her eyes,» the black burnt hand with excessively elongated fingers habitually not visible to everyone else lay on the naked shoulder of Rhianon and gently squeezed. «He can make you see the world in the same grim tones. And he is already angry with you.»
Leprechaun hid himself in the shadow of the glass. Rhianon tried to pretend not to notice the black creature that leaned toward her ear as everyone else does, but here it was, clawed fingers charred to the color of coal rubbing her long sapphire earring and seemingly capable of leaving a black indelible mark on her skin. But he touched neither her neck nor her cheek, though his claws slid close to hers. That’s right, they were probably forbidden to touch Dennitsa’s face, or rather his perfect replica, now. Funny, contrary to all their expectations, instead of burning it, Madael set a guard around it, as if it were not a replica of his face, but a rare work of art. He loves his twin, though he should have hated it.
«Would you like me to help you regain his favor…»
And those words again. It’s as if they had sounded before, meaningless and hypocritical.
«You don’t have it, I do,» Rhianon said.
For a moment it seemed as if the black claws wanted to claw at her shoulder with rage, and they couldn’t. Asmodeus gave up and stood gracefully behind the back of her chair, but at some distance. His silhouette in the darkness few could make out, but he noticed Rhianon’s gaze sliding over the conspirators. She moved her eyes from one face to the other.
«They are doomed!»
The voice was no longer in her mind; it was Asmodeus who spoke.
«You don’t have to punish them yourself,» he explained. – So abstain from judgment and executioner, or fire, whichever you choose. Their punishment will come to them.»
«Is it destiny?» She inquired with a touch of sarcasm.
«It is in my face, my dear,» he echoed. She seemed for a moment to hear his dry, rustling laughter behind her.
«Why is it yours? Since when have you been on the side of mercy?»
He was silent for a second. She didn’t even think she’d get an answer.
«I only come for the price,» Asmodeus said at last. «It is as death with a scythe comes to take someone’s life.»
Rhianon grimaced, remembering the gray angel. She wondered why he had come to Loretta? Whose lives did he want to take in this city? Hermione, Angus, Darius, Clotter, Roderick, Hildegard… She moved her eyes from one face to the next, and saw no sign of joyful superiority in them. They all seemed to be mortified about something.
«They made a pact with the Devil, not you,» Rhianon reminded her, though it was probably unnecessary. He ought to know. «You’re not his reaper, taking the souls he’s been promised, are you?»
«I’m just his servant.» The black silhouette leaned over her shoulder again. It reeked of soot and ash and a pervasive sense of wonderfully dark emptiness. «But that was only for the time being.»
Rhianon didn’t even have time to call out to him before he disappeared. Once again she was alone with the revelers and the conspirators among them. There was no longer any sign of the supernatural in the hall, except for the leprechaun who had come out of hiding. He didn’t look happy. Rhianon could understand his tiny thoughts, though his head was no bigger than a pea, and his thoughts were open to her. He regretted very much that the queen was left alone at court as in an enemy camp. She has no right even to touch the condemned. And by the time the devil had carried out his own sentence, those scoundrels might have finished off his mistress.
«Well, I’ll have to defend myself as best I can,» Rianon decided to herself. «And wait for the fatal hour.»
Apparently, the conspirators themselves were already waiting. Rhianon did not know what their deadline was, but she could see that it was coming to an end. They knew it, they were afraid.
«You are doomed!» She said it out loud, and though the word was spoken in a whisper, Darius, who was sitting beside her, heard it and shuddered with all his body. What a hunted look he gave Rianon, and she smiled, insidiously and triumphantly. It was her turn to celebrate. And then she put the goblet to her lips…
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