on the bed were different. It was one of them, to be exact. It was not the body of a girl; it was the body of an angel. Rhianon almost shrieked. Shimmering wings spread behind her sleek back, golden curls covered Hildegard’s dark-haired head, pale lips brushed against ruby ones, almost transparent hands intertwined with human ones.
The violent act of copulation was coming to an end. Rhianon vividly imagined the murals in Madael’s tower and the ghosts in the barn. Before the fire engulfed it, the same thing must have been happening there.
In her hand was a sword. Rhianon gripped the hilt tightly and stepped closer. She could not see the angel’s face. But it could have been Madael, after all. Then why did she feel no pain, only unaccountable anger? There is no treason here, or is there?
The neck beneath the golden curls was finally exposed. Curls like snakes slipped from it. Here was the right moment. Rhianon struck so quickly that no one would have had time to dodge. She heard Hildegard scream deafeningly. She was splattered with blood. Or rather, it was a black viscous slurry that looked so much like blood. The still convulsively moving decapitated body tried to rise on its elbows and found no support. His fingers slid over the sheets, and his head recoiled so far from them that they couldn’t find it. Rhianon grasped the tangle of tangled strands before anyone else could pick it up. Slowly she lifted it in her outstretched hand. The face, still writhing in agony, was unfamiliar to her. It wasn’t Madael. He was not the one in Hildegard’s arms. She should have felt relief, but all she felt was black anger.
Hildegard’s screams still wouldn’t stop. Before the servants could rush to them, Rhianon emerged from the bedroom, carrying the still-living head in her outstretched hand. A liquid that looked like blood dripped from the stump of its neck. It hissed and almost ignited as it fell on the carpet or the hem of her dress. His long hair was wrapped around her arm, tying it into a bundle, but Rhianon kept the strands in place. His face, distorted in pain, seemed pleasing to her. There was even a moment of admiration in his tormented eyes. Maybe that was what made her joke.
«Well, that you still love her and not me?»
The cracked lips quivered, trying to say something, but no words came out, just blood flowing from his lips. The head seemed to choke on it. Rhianon thought that the severed head would begin to grow ugly and rot right before her eyes, but that one remained beautiful, while the body in Hildegard’s room might be turning black and falling apart. If so, it was only becoming what it should be. It was ashes.
Barely reaching her room, Rhianon tossed the head into the fireplace without regret. Orpheus’s shrieking did not distract her. She watched arrogantly as the fire touched the beautiful features, but could not destroy them at once.
She felt no regret. What if this is the same creature that crawled in the ground and drank the remnants of life from her friend’s relics. To many of Madael’s fallen angels, beauty returned only after drinking someone else’s blood or someone else’s life. Setius was a case in point. And this angel she did not know at all.
At least she had managed to do something to spare Hildegard. Rhianon liked to take things from others, just as she had been taken from herself. Perhaps after Loretta she would like to take other people’s kingdoms, such as the Duchy of Rothbert. She found the very idea tempting.
«What have you done?» Orpheus held his own neck in horror, as if she could decapitate him as well.
Rhianon turned to him, still holding the bloodied sword in her hand.
«You’re not happy about something.»
He did not answer, and she added:
«If I am truly their queen, I have the right to take their lives.»
If they are immortal, they can rise from the flames like the phoenix. Rhianon stepped back from the fireplace. Sparks splashed the hem of her dress, but it did not burst into flames.
«See to Hildegard,» she said to Orpheus.
She is the madwoman?» He was clearly dissatisfied.
«I don’t want her plotting anything against us or making any noise today,» Rhianon explained.
«Then it will be done.»
Orpheus disappeared quickly.
Rhianon hid her sword back in its scabbard. She did not scrub the blade because she knew it would absorb blood like a sponge instead of rusting from it. She didn’t need a squire. How would he cope with such a sword that sought to slaughter him? She, on the other hand, was beginning to have the strength she needed to do it.
Strength! What if it were to be tested? No one who spent more than an hour in forbidden towers usually retained their wits. Sometimes convicts were locked up there on purpose. If someone snuck in and stole something, his hands were cut off. For those who tried to read the manuscripts, the punishment was blindness or insanity. What would happen to her?
Rhianon decided to check it out. She knew the secret passage that connected the towers to the castle. She could get there in a matter of minutes. But if she had called her retinue and left the castle gate, the journey to the towers in Loretta would have taken more than half an hour.
Rhianon was unpleasantly surprised to find herself inside. Everything here seemed to retain the memory of Madael. His presence was felt in the crushing emptiness, as if a golden cobweb stretched over the dusty shelves. She could almost see the two of them huddled against the wall. From the outside it looked beautiful and frightening. It was as if the picture was imprinted on her retina. It was there, near that niche… Rhianon went that way.
«They say those towers were built long before the city was built, and that they were never torn down.»
A voice came from behind her and startled her. Rhianon looked behind her and saw no one there, but the voice was still there, seemingly coming from everywhere.
«They had not been torn down because the stonemasons’ hands had not obeyed them. No one wants his hands to be cut off, do they? But the governor, to whom Denitsa later appeared, did not dare to disobey him. He did not want the angel to rob him of his mind.»
She looked up. Douglas was perched at ease on one of the higher shelves. He was folding a scroll in his lap.
«Perhaps this place would someday be assigned a custodian. It would be someone as peculiar as the place itself…» Douglas traced the huge curved dome above. «You don’t find it strange that this tower exists at all. Its contents are valuable, but completely useless to the world. It cannot be touched or read or disposed of at will. It is unusual that a tower that has no function has remained untouched by the rulers of Loretta. It stands there as if it were a curse.»
«Perhaps it is the curse,» Rhianon twirled the globe nestled in the corner. It was unusual. The drawings on it looked more like a map of the stars Orpheus had drawn for her, rather than the usual pattern of bays and continents. It looked quite beautiful. Involuntarily she was fascinated by the symmetry of the constellations and the glittering lines drawn between them. It seemed as if the entire starry sky had been turned into one magical ball. A moment and it began to whirl under her fingers. Rhianon was mesmerized.
«Careful, this thing is capable of captivating your consciousness. Believe me, I almost got caught myself.»
Rhianon nodded reluctantly, but did not take her eyes off the globe. A harpy appeared from beneath her feet and tugged at her hem. Douglas,
