Malice, page 14
“They were—” Rose takes a visible breath, the lace at her neckline fluttering. “Flukes. My enhancements were probably soured.”
Marigold nods. “Exactly. Rose’s gift is as strong as ever, as our standings will prove.”
“Well, I hope you’ve punished the servant responsible. Such accidents could mean everything at the next Grace Ceremony.”
Rose speaks through gritted teeth. “I plan to.”
My heart skips, and I take another sip of wine against my better judgment. It’s smoother than the last time. My head buzzes.
“Even so.” Pearl runs her thumb over her ring. “We can’t ignore the fact that such…flukes could be a sign that your gift is weakening.”
Rose goes perfectly still, the knuckles holding her goblet stretching white. I worry that the glass might shatter. “I’m fine. I worked on Lady Eleanora earlier today. She turned out beautifully.”
“She did,” Marigold chirps. “Absolutely stunning.”
“That’s so good to hear.” Pearl grants them a cloying, condescending smile as she spoons Etherium into her wine. “Briar would certainly hate to lose such a gifted Grace.”
A line of servants marches through a side door. A footman sets a dish in front of each guest, then they sweep away the cloche coverings in one unnervingly synchronized motion. Venison, drizzled in herbed butter, all served on golden plates.
Except mine.
A throbbing starts behind my eyes as I stare down at the silver plate. No one even bothered to polish it. Tarnish dims the edges, mottling my reflection. Like the bell in my Lair.
“Forgive me, Dark Grace.” The man’s voice is close to my ear, shaking slightly. “We had no more golden plates for tonight’s dinner.”
I swallow. This room is pure opulence. The vaulted ceiling is painted as the night sky, studded with what are probably real diamonds. The fireplace is large enough to walk into, carved with intricate designs of ambrosia fruit and Briar roses intertwined with the king’s and queen’s initials. Gilt cutlery and jeweled goblets drink the candlelight. There are less than a dozen Graces here tonight. Three times as many are usually present at a more formal dinner. And so I know that they did not run out of gold plates. That someone told them to deliberately not give me one.
To exclude me.
“And what about you, Alyce?” Pearl’s voice is hardly audible over the rushing against my eardrums. I force my stiff neck to turn to her. “Do you think the incident with the poor duke is any indication that your power is Fading?”
The rapt attention of the table falls on me like a wet woolen blanket.
Without once breaking my gaze from Pearl’s, I pick up my fork and knife and saw into the venison. It’s tender, cooked rare. I can smell the red juices that burst from beneath the skin and pool on the plate, iron and salt and spices. It spills out of my lips and dribbles down my chin as I stuff a hunk into my mouth. My own reflection glares back at me in the gold saucers of Pearl’s eyes, the only Grace plate I’ll receive tonight. My lips are bloody. Crimson tracks down my neck. Smears across my teeth.
I bolt down the half-chewed meat with a sloppy gulp.
“What do you think?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The rest of dinner progresses at the pace of a garden snail. No one says much as the other courses are whisked in and out of the room, although Laurel did raise her glass to me after my stunt with the venison. By the time the herald announces that we should progress to the drawing room, the other Graces can’t remove themselves fast enough.
Endlewild disappeared after a dish of some sort of gelatinous meat, thank the dragon, and so I don’t have to bear his silent, piercing scrutiny any longer. Before trailing after her parents, Aurora locks gazes with me and completes an elaborate series of hand gestures that I take to mean find me later.
A swarm of servants is ready for us in the drawing room, bearing trays of swollen cream puffs piled into pyramids, succulent glazed pastries topped with sugared violets, delicate tarts dusted with slivered almonds, and—if it’s possible—more wine. The Graces are quick to partake, seating themselves in clusters on claw-footed sofas and satin divans and launching into frenzied, whispered conversations. All of which are probably about me. I stick to the darker corners, searching for Aurora. Desperate for some friendly company after the agony of dinner.
“Walk with me.”
But that voice is not the princess’s.
To my horror, Queen Mariel seems to peel herself from the frescoed walls. I’m immediately grateful that I took the time to wipe my face clean of the venison juice. My dress, however, is another matter. I can still smell the gamey spices and there are oily blotches down my bodice.
I sink into a deep curtsy, head spinning with the remnants of wine and the sheer impossibility of this situation. But the queen gives me little time to recover. With a gesture Rose sometimes uses with Calliope, Queen Mariel indicates that I should follow her through a set of glass doors and out into the night.
“My daughter seems to have taken quite a liking to you.” The sounds of clinking crystal and falsetto laughter fade behind us as Her Majesty leads me along a white-and-purple-tiled porch. The palace gardens roll out from the steps in a riot of lilies and topiaries and manicured paths. There’s a clean, sweet scent to the night. Fireflies ride the wind, which is brisk now that autumn is creeping in.
“I—” I fumble. “I am honored to have her favor.”
It seems the right answer. Queen Mariel inclines her head a fraction. “I would like to know your intentions.”
Intentions? No one has ever asked me that before. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
The queen wheels to a stop. “What do you want with my daughter? You are the Dark Grace. There must be some motive.”
“I— I just want—” The air is suddenly too close. The fabric of my gown sticks to my back. “Your Majesty, I only— I want to be her friend.” The words sound so foreign. So utterly unbelievable. I have no friends. No one would choose to be mine.
The queen watches me for a long moment, twisting one of the garnet rings on her slender fingers. I can see Aurora in the curve of her bronze-kissed cheek. The height of her forehead. The way she bites her bottom lip when she’s thinking. Then she turns and keeps walking, leaving me to hurry behind her burgundy skirts.
“My daughter is young. Impressionable. She has not seen much of the world.” She lifts her chin higher, quickens her pace. “And this may be the last year of her life, if—” Her voice cracks.
“I understand, Your Majesty.”
“Do you?” She stops again, so abruptly I almost trip over my own feet. “I’m not sure that you do. Aurora is the last heir. Every moment, every second of her life must be funneled toward securing her throne and breaking her curse.”
A cold, slick feeling sloshes in my stomach and I’m worried the venison will resurface.
“She does not have time for cr—” Mariel catches herself, but I know what she was about to say. Creatures. Animals. “For anything else. For friends. I have lost two daughters to the curse.” She rubs at the inside of her forearm, where her own mark once rested. “I will not lose another. And I will not be the last Briar Queen.”
My jaw aches from clenching my teeth together. There’s a burning behind my eyes, but I will not show weakness. “I want her to rule as well.” And I mean it. Briar needs a queen like Aurora would be. Like Leythana.
“Good.” Moonlight glints silver against the tips of the thorns on her crown. I have no doubt she’d impale me with them if she could. “I do not know what happened with Duke Weltross.” When I open my mouth to respond she raises her voice. “And I do not care to know. Such matters are for the king to deal with.”
So there was a conversation about me. A nightbird sings sweetly from its perch, the sound so incongruous to the tension humming between us.
“But I will not have my daughter, the crown princess of Briar, mixed up in such matters.” She pauses, letting her words sink their teeth deep. “I trust that from this day forward, you will remember your place.”
There is nothing to say. Nothing I can do but drop into another curtsy, the marble tiles blurring. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We will not have this conversation again, Dark Grace.”
I bite my lips to keep my words locked inside them and wait until the clacking of her slippers has faded before I rise from my position. Because that was not a warning. Not a threat. It was a promise.
After the queen is gone, all I can do is seethe. I press my forehead into the cold veneer of a column, but it does nothing to ease my temper. Nothing to extinguish the rage licking my insides like tongues of flame. I want to tear this palace down, stone by cursed stone. Find every heart of human magic and grind them all up like I do enhancements beneath my pestle. I want—
Feeding off my desire, my power explodes out of its cage and dives for the first target it can find. It careens into a rosebush, plump Grace-grown blooms lolling their heads in the breeze. The plant’s magic is nothing more than a wriggling worm against mine, filling my nose with the scent of summer rain and velvet petals.
Dragon take these roses. This entire realm, saturated with its own self-importance and willing to smother the rest of us under its greed. A tingling starts in my toes and surges upward. My blood sings through my veins. The scent of charred stone and flint floods my lungs.
At my slight push, the rosebush triples in size, stems growing as thick around as my arms. The leaves sharpen, edges barbed. Soft lavender petals darken to a red like wet mortal blood. Jagged-toothed thorns cut through the meaty flesh of the stems. The branches sway and groan in the breeze—a sound like a growl. Like the whole bush is a beast waiting to strike. And it would strike, I realize, if I wished it to. I could command one of those branches to tighten around someone’s neck until it snapped. Bid the thorns to shred their skin and arteries to ribbons.
The grisly image startles me back into the present. My magic loosens its grip and ebbs away. What a fool I am, using my power this close to the palace. To Endlewild. The fountain was an accident. But this—this is dangerous. No one can know the true extent of my power.
I turn back to the porch, smoothing my skirts and schooling my face into neutrality. Panic slams into me like an icy wave. A shadow lurks in the doors of the drawing room, huge and hulking and most certainly King Tarkin. His face is in darkness.
But even from here, I see the white gleam of his smile.
* * *
—
I cannot breathe. Not as my feet fly across gravel paths to the waiting carriages, where I demand to be taken back to Lavender House. Not as I hurl myself upstairs and claw off my gown, snapping at the servants to leave me be.
Seams pop. Fabric rips. It isn’t enough. I can still see Tarkin leering at me in the night. Endlewild watching my every move like a wolf about to pounce. The same way he looked at me every day during his “treatments.” I rip the coverlets off my bed and flip over the mattress. Grab one of the pillows, tear the cover apart with my teeth, and yank the feathers out in fistfuls. The washbasin shatters when I heave over its table, the sound of breaking porcelain undeniably satisfying. The wardrobe is too sturdy to take much damage from my bare hands, but I kick and pound at it anyway. Throw open the doors, toss my pathetic dresses to the floor, and attempt to stomp them into the floorboards.
When I have run out of things to destroy, I crumple amid the mess. Sweat drenches my back and neck. Feathers float around the room and stick to my skin. It is only then that I let myself weep. Sobs wrack me for what feels like hours, days. Until my eyes are swollen and my throat raw and my chest aching. It’s been a long time since I cried like this. The last I can remember was when I was a child, after sessions when I was locked in Endlewild’s frigid, dank chambers for long stretches of time. Burned and pricked and reminded with every horrified glance how different I am. How freakish.
I cry until I can’t anymore, nothing but soft whimpers escaping my salt-stained lips. And then there is only darkness.
* * *
—
Before dawn, I push myself up from the wreckage and clean up what I can. Mistress Lavender will dock my wages if she sees the state of my room. For the first time since my appointment with Duke Weltross, a schedule arrives when the servants make their rounds. I suppose word of my invitation to the palace wormed its way through the Grace District. If the king and queen see fit to dine with me, the nobles must feel far more comfortable soliciting my wares. I squeeze the black-sealed parchment in my fist, wanting nothing more than to feed it to a candleflame. But that would only bring more trouble.
Downstairs, the Graces are taking breakfast. Sunlight streams in from the side gardens, searing against my tear-crusted eyes. The tempo of the hammer in my head increases.
“We couldn’t find you after dinner.” Marigold wastes no time, dunking a strawberry the size of her palm into a bowl of whipped cream. “We thought you’d been called for another ‘appointment.’ ”
Laurel’s gaze darts up from the open book balancing on the edge of the table.
“No.” I serve myself a boiled egg and a thick slice of toast. Food is the last thing I want, but I’m weak and dehydrated and know that I’ll need my strength to get through the day. The others watch me closely, clearly expecting me to explain. I don’t.
“Well then.” Rose fusses with the tie of her fuchsia dressing gown, then slips a scrap of bacon to Calliope, who accepts it and trots off in glee. “Where were you? I think I saw the queen spirit you away. And I can’t imagine what she would want with someone like you, if not commanding a service.”
The toast tastes like ash, but I chew slowly, deliberately, breathing so that I don’t visibly bristle. Marigold titters into her napkin.
“Actually, the queen did speak with me.” I dab at my mouth. “It seems one of the Royal Graces is Fading.”
Rose and Marigold suck in a breath in unison. Marigold leans forward, elbows on the tablecloth, oblivious to the way her long dandelion sleeves are trailing into the butter dish.
“Really? Which one?”
“She didn’t say.” I give a noncommittal shrug. “But Her Majesty is searching for a replacement.”
Rose’s teacup is frozen midway to her lips. “Surely she hinted at someone?”
“Oh, yes. She has her mind quite made up.”
“And?” The word sounds more like a creak of rusty iron.
I drizzle honey into my tea.
“She asked if I might be willing to fill the role.”
Rose’s china cup drops back to its saucer. Tea splashes onto the tablecloth. She snatches up her fork so fiercely I think she might stab me with it. “Liar.”
“I suppose you’ll never know.” I pop a few blueberries into my mouth. “Unless you wish to ask the queen herself. At one of your own private audiences.”
Rose’s chair falls over as she launches from her seat. Calliope comes skittering back into the room, yipping at whatever perceived threat upset her mistress.
“One day, you’ll get what you deserve.” Rose’s pink curls vibrate. And then she’s gone in a storm of swirling silk and ribbons. Marigold glares at me and follows, but not before swiping a last pastry from the basket.
“My gift compels me to tell you you’re treading on thin ice.” Laurel doesn’t even look up as she speaks. “You’re a sheep among wolves, Alyce.”
“Am I?” I start in on my egg, hand trembling slightly from the rush of so thoroughly enraging Rose. For a heartbeat, my nails appear as claws as I pick off a bit of shell. “Or am I the wolf, and they’re the sheep?”
Laurel’s golden eyes meet mine, sharp against the dark black of her face. “I imagine we’ll find out soon enough.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Over a month passes without incident. Without any additional invitations to the palace. Not that I care. Aurora sends me several notes, but I feed them to the hearth in my Lair. I’ve no wish to trifle with the queen. Aurora is a princess, and I’m a…someone princesses definitely do not associate with. She’ll forget me in time—just as Pearl predicted. Better sooner than later.
When free from my duties as the Dark Grace, I spend my time at the black tower, practicing with Kal. Things are progressing far slower than I’d like, which makes the day I’ll be able to leave Briar seem nothing but a blur on the horizon. But my abilities, Kal continues to remind me, are improving. And that blur will eventually solidify. And then I’ll never have to bother with self-serving nobles or enhancements again.
I console myself about my extended sentence in Briar by reading the book Kal gave me. The roots of my hair prickled when I first dared to open it. I was certain that Endlewild somehow knew what I had and that he was going to swoop in at any moment and cart me off to the palace dungeons. Or worse. But as the pages and hours of the night flew by, I forgot those fears and became lost in my own history.
The author, Grimelde, dedicates the book to his mistress and lady of the court, Targen. It seems that, like the Etherian courts, those of Malterre were governed by a single, powerful leader and a small inner council. In his book, Grimelde describes pieces of the early history of the Vila and how they contributed to the founding of his own court and the rise of its current leader. But the stories I read here are nothing like the nightmares I encountered in Briar’s books. No stolen children or human slaves.
According to Grimelde, the Vila were iron-willed creatures who could rival any of the light Fae in intellect or skill. Targen’s court even attempted diplomacy with the Etherians. She sent envoys to treat with the High King of the Fae in an effort to establish relations between the courts of Malterre and Etheria. Of course, the High King Oryn rejected their advances, disgusted by the Vila race. But Grimelde states that many of the light Fae did not share Oryn’s sentiment. They craved the stronger power of the Vila and chose to change their blood from gold to green. Humans even visited Targen’s court, both before and after Briar was established, in the hopes of gaining access to the dark magic of the Vila. The groups of mortals formalized, calling themselves the Nightseekers, and they were welcomed among my ancestors. Though they could not be transformed into full Vila, they were taught simple rituals and spells even a human’s small spark of magic could manage.
