Project 2

“In here, Viviana.”

At the sound of his voice confirming his presence, she stepped across the threshold of the parlour and shut the door behind her, moving carefully and quietly, as if she could blunt the violence humming in the air. The large chamber was so dark she could scarcely see him; only a few twitching sconces and the occasional snap of flame from the low-burning hearth guided her gaze. After a moment, her eyes adjusted.

Her lord and master, her husband, was pacing.

Not stalking, not storming, but pacing, like a caged panther kept in a cruelly small space. He seemed a slow, fluid, radiating menace, every shift of his shoulders and the faint twitch of his long fingers exuding danger. He had removed his outer robe and rolled his black linen sleeves to the elbow, and the bottle he clutched in his left hand. Plum brandy, not the costly reserve he preferred when he did drink, glinted weakly in the firelight. The tumbler of tzoi in his right hand was empty, though whether untouched or drained, Viviana could not tell. His features were unreadable, his shoulders squared as he paced, and he had not yet spoken.

Viviana remained where she was near the door, abruptly terrified of him in the old way. She did not dare sit or speak; she only folded her hands in a wordless gesture of submission and bowed her head, effacing any claim to equality.

Caradja turned only slightly so she could see the bone-pale cut of his profile in the gloom, and then, at last, his voice cracked through the parlour like a whip.

“Have you any idea what they could have done to you?”

The words landed like a blow to her abdomen, but Viviana did not reply aloud, and she managed not to flinch. He did not wait for an answer.

“How absurdly foolish to follow a trail of breadcrumbs to… a letter? A letter sent here by your sister, Viviana? You don’t suppose they might have intercepted it? Or forced her hand? Made her write under threat? Hmm?”

He stopped his long, measured steps at last and turned fully toward her, the brandy bottle swinging low in his hand like a cudgel not yet wielded.

“You are now the most valuable woman in all the world, Viviana.”

He spat her name like poison, his dark eyes blazing and then narrowing with fury he barely leashed. He took one step toward her and lowered his voice to a growl.

“You are mine, and they know that well.”

“My Lord,” she whispered, breathless, closing her eyes for an instant as the room tilted.

“You are mine,” Caradja hissed again, but this time there was no poetry in it at all. Not a declaration: a correction. A warning. Viviana’s breath locked; her lungs seized. She heard him advance and her eyes flew open. His boots came on in slow, even beats until there was no space left between them.

With a flash, vivid as lightning, she thought he might strike her. She braced and winced—but the blow did not come. He only leaned in, close enough that she heard the ragged pull of his breath and saw the rigid clench of his jaw.

“I finished my meeting with Dorobanțu and Averescu,” he said, voice flat and unhurried. “You were nowhere to be found. When I asked where you were, Yatta informed me—far too calmly, I might add—that you had gone to the manor. To see your sister.”

Viviana’s stomach dropped like a stone into her boots. Her lips parted helplessly, silently.

“She’s been eliminated,” Caradja added, as if reporting the weather. “I tired of that wretched servant being a security problem.”

Viviana’s blood went to ice. Of course—first Yatta had chatted at length with Anca Tzamplakon at the wedding, and now this. She felt no tender pity for servants—they obeyed, that was all—but still… if Caradja could discard Yatta so coldly, none of them were safe.

Her knees wobbled, but she held. She lifted her chin a fraction.

“Have you any idea what they could have done to you?” Caradja repeated, louder now, fiercer, stepping so close she could smell the burn of cheap plum brandy along with his usual black pepper and leather. “Viviana!”

She flinched at the strike of her name. He sniffed, displeased, and lowered his voice again.

“Do you imagine my enemies too noble for a hostage plot involving my wife? Do you think they would hesitate to use you to trap me?” His voice caught on that word—wife—as if venom had slipped from behind his teeth.

Viviana’s lips trembled; grief spilled out in a strangled murmur. “I’m sorry. So stupid. A fool. My Lord—”

It was far too late.

He hurled the bottle toward the hearth in a sharp, decisive arc. It did not shatter; it thudded, thick-glassed, into the carpet, but the gesture itself was deafening. Then he seized Viviana by the shoulders and slammed her back against the parlour wall. She cried out with a wordless gasp of shock.

“Mine. Viviana. You’re mine,” he hissed again, and this time his hands gripped so hard she gasped. “You are not stupid; do not behave as if you are. They know you are mine, and they will use it, and if you think for a single moment that your recklessness will endanger only you —”

“I’m sorry,” she choked, daring to interrupt, even if it killed her. She was already sobbing, shaking, breathless. “I’m sorry, my beloved husband… so sorry… I didn’t know… I should have told you… she was pregnant. Was. She isn’t now. I don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter… but I didn’t know… and I didn’t think—”

“No,” Caradja snapped. “You didn’t think. And now my damned servant is dead, and you —”

He stopped. His grip eased. Something in her face, or her voice, or perhaps the single word please, diverted him.

A cracked breath escaped him, and his hands shifted. One slid to the small of her back, drawing her in; the other rose to her jaw, the touch light. Viviana stared up at him, eyes wide, wrecked and afraid. When he bent and kissed her, she collapsed against him, stunned.

“Foolish girl,” he murmured against her mouth when he drew back. “You frightened me.”