Free Tomorrow's Kingdom by Maureen Fergus

certainly wasn’t this .
    â€œAre you sure this is where you’re supposed to take me?” she asked dubiously.
    The one-footed ancient who’d laboriously ushered her up the winding staircase to the top of the turret silently nodded, so Persephone hesitated for only a second more before stepping through the open door.
    The round chamber was as cozy and welcoming as it could be. The rug in the centre of the room was at least an inch thick, snowy white and so soft that it could only have been made from the wool of the Khan’s beloved mountainsheep. From the high, beamed ceiling hung a five-tiered circular candelabra crammed with so many candles that the room was bright, and the sweet scent of beeswax hung heavy in the air. To Persephone’s immediate right was a table in the shape of a half moon. Most regrettably, it was not loaded down with platters of food. Instead, upon its gleaming surface sat the amethyst pendant Mordecai had given her a lifetime ago, two crystal goblets and a heavy crystal decanter filled with red wine. About ten paces past the table were the room’s only windows. Each was as tall as a man and made of heavy leaden glass decorated with criss-crossing strips of black. From where she stood, the only thing Persephone could see when she looked out the windows was the vast, windswept plain at the bottom of the cliff upon which the castle had been built.
    Promising herself that the moment she was alone she’d open the windows and check the outside wall of the turret for handholds, Persephone turned her attention to the left side of the chamber. Next to a generously pillowed canopy bed hung with gauzy white curtains was a privacy screen—also white, save for the delicate design of swirls and teardrops painted upon it in blackest ink. Draped over the screen was a gown of royal purple that shimmered in the light of the fire that crackled in the nearby hearth. On the floor before the fire sat a sturdy wooden tub lined with a white sheet and filled to the brim with steaming water; beside the tub stood three serving women of indeterminate age. One held a silver comb and matching hairbrush, another held several sponges, a washcloth and a drying sheet, and a third clutched a basket of jars and vials that undoubtedly contained soaps, creams, oils and perfumes.
    Abruptly realizing that there could be only one reason Mordecai wanted her bathed and scented, Persephone was struck by a wave of nausea so violent that she was nearly sick on the spot. All at once, she didn’t know if she had the strength to keep on fighting in the hope that, against all odds, things would work out in the end. Though she wasn’t even sure what a happy ending would look like, she could not help recalling the pretty little thatch-roofed cottage Azriel had once promised her—the one with the yard full of scratching chickens, the pond stocked with fish and the oak tree with the swing hung from a low branch so that on warm summer days Azriel could push her—and later, their babies.
    I no longer seek a destiny that belongs to none but me, thought Persephone as her throat tightened and her eyes began to sting, and yet that is exactly the destiny I shall have, for I am in a place where no one will ever find me, and no one but me shall feel Mordecai’s cold hands upon them, and no one but me shall have to endure—
    Steady, m’lady, came Azriel’s whispered voice in her head.
    At the sound of it, Persephone’s heart turned over. Closing her eyes, she saw Azriel gazing up at her as he had the first time they’d entered Parthania—she, dressed as a highborn lady, he, dressed as her servant. She saw his beautiful auburn curls being ruffled by the warm wind; she saw the calm, expectant expression on his handsome face. It told her that he had no doubt that she was brave and strong and clever enough to do what had to be done; it said he was just waiting for her to get on with