The Crimson Crown, page 17
The tinny clang of falling metal interrupts my thoughts. What is going on? Curiosity pulls me toward the sound of shouting. Princess Blodwyn’s suite is large and comfortable, like the queen’s, with huge windows and rich furnishings. And—I pull up short at the threshold to an inner room—every expensive piece of it is currently being toppled, crushed, or thrown.
“Over here!” a woman yells, hoisting up a chair.
“No, it’s here,” another calls, flinging away a canary-yellow pillow from a chaise longue.
“It bit me!” someone else screams.
The other women hurry in her direction like a flock of noisy geese. One trips on a half-curled rug and tumbles to the ground. What are they chasing?
“I’ve got him!”
A girl of about twelve triumphantly lifts her arm, gripping something in her hand. Short legs poke through her fingers, vainly fighting to break free. A chorus of relieved cries follows her announcement. Some of the women collapse onto nearby chairs.
The girl coos at whatever creature she’s captured. “Silly Crumbs. Look at all the trouble you’ve caused.”
Is she…the princess? I expected that the daughter of the mad king would be a younger version of courtiers like Marion, vain and spoiled. This girl seems like she sprung up out of the forest, fully formed. Her white skin is flushed with exertion, and her ebony locks are wild and loose around her face. Her fine dress is rumpled, and various types of flowers litter her hair. She spots me and halts. Her lips—the red of a witch’s cloak—slacken.
“Who are you?”
The other women look up from where they have wilted onto the furniture.
“Ah,” one says. Unlike the others, who must be servants, she’s not wearing a uniform embroidered with the royal crowned apple. Her gown looks more like ours, with the queen’s crowned pomegranate embroidered in gold on her bodice. “The new maiden?”
“I…yes,” I manage, still distracted by the wreckage. Feathers float lazily in the air. Broken glass and porcelain glitter on the floor.
“Excellent.” The woman’s deep sigh suggests that she believes I’m here to rescue her. “I am Lady Margery, head of the princess’s household. Highness, perhaps you might show your new companion around your menagerie?”
Lady Margery flaps one hand absently toward a set of glass doors on the east wall. The princess doesn’t answer, just veers off in that direction, cuddling what I suspect is a hedgehog. The servants peel themselves up and start collecting debris. From their resigned expressions, I gather that these incidents are regular occurrences in the princess’s chambers. And I suddenly have no desire to be alone with that child.
“Perhaps I should help out here?” I offer. “There’s clearly much to—”
“No, no.” Lady Margery steers me forcefully toward the other room. “It really is better if the princess isn’t left alone for too long. Go on, then. Catch up with her.”
I should have escaped when I had the chance. Lady Margery practically shoves me through the doors and into the…
Menagerie.
The meaning of the word blooms wondrously before my eyes. A vaulted glass ceiling towers above me, winter sunlight pouring through the panes. Birds flit among dozens of small potted trees, trading melodies. Bell-shaped contraptions mounted to the ceiling spit out puffs of misty air. The walls are glass, permitting foggy views of the rest of the suite through the fronds of ferns and stems of climbing vines. Flowers bloom on topiary bushes and loll from trellises.
Everywhere I look, there’s a different animal. A goose with her goslings, bathing in a shallow fountain. A peacock struts with his brilliant feathers flared. There’s even a doe poking her head around a tree, her white-flag tail flicking when she sees us. I let myself take a deep breath of the humid air, wrapping a stray vine of honeysuckle around my finger.
“This place is is—”
A bright-yellow warbler flits across my path, followed by a yowl and a smear of black and orange. I blink. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was…
An animal trots out from behind a large fern, the bird proudly in its mouth and its tail swishing in a satisfied tempo. Horror flashes in my veins.
“Nettle!” I rush over to her. “Put that down! And what are you doing here?”
With an annoyed twitch of her tail, my cat reluctantly drops the warbler.
“Here, let me see.”
The princess nudges my elbow. With the surprise of the menagerie and the shock of seeing Nettle, I’d almost forgotten about her. And now she knows about my cat. Damn. I glare at Nettle, who only licks her paw and doesn’t even pretend to be chastened.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, slipping the bird into the princess’s cupped hands.
She gently prods at the injured creature, then inspects its wings. “I think it’s just stunned. I’ve seen much worse.”
A moment later, the bird shakes itself and lifts into the air. It emits one reproachful call at Nettle and then flaps away. My cat sulks, watching it go.
“So, you know that cat?” Blodwyn gestures at Nettle. “I wasn’t sure where she came from. I found her in the garden and decided to keep her.”
Nettle blinks her golden eyes. So she’d swindled her way in here, clever thing. I might have guessed. And despite my irritation, guilt prickles between my ribs. I hadn’t returned to the Sanctum after the pageant. Nettle must have been worried. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m more than a little impressed that she found me.
“I…knew her at the Sanctum,” I explain, the only answer I can summon. “She must have followed me here.”
Blodwyn kneels, stroking underneath Nettle’s chin. My cat lengthens herself, purring like she’s known the princess all her life. Interesting. She’s never friendly with new people.
“She’s a nice cat.”
“When she wants to be,” I add, throwing Nettle a pointed look.
Crumbs, who is indeed a hedgehog, reappears and scampers beneath my skirts, his tiny feet pattering across my slippers. “Oh!”
“Don’t worry.” The princess waves a hand. “No matter what they said out there, he doesn’t really bite. Not unless I want him to.”
Judging from the grin on her face, I assume that Blodwyn was hoping I’d be horrified by her veiled threat. I laugh instead and she frowns, then starts off down one of the paths. Nettle lopes over to me and winds herself around my ankles.
“I’m sorry I left,” I tell her quietly, scratching between her ears.
She swishes her tail in what I interpret as petulance, which I suppose I deserve. Then, already bored of me, my cat flops down in a spot of sunlight. I follow after Blodwyn, still marveling at the menagerie. With so many plants and animals, I can almost imagine that we’ve left the White Palace far behind us.
“Are you here to spy on me?” the princess asks abruptly.
I blink. “No. Do people spy on you?”
A pale narcissus flower floats down from her hair. “My ladies are always reporting on me. Someone pays them, I think.”
“I’m not a lady.”
The princess considers this. “I suppose not. You said you met your cat at a Sanctum. It’s true you lived there, then? I think I’d hate being a Sister. What do you do all day? Pray? That sounds boring.”
I’m not sure which question or comment to respond to first. Blodwyn certainly isn’t afraid to speak her mind, one seemingly as prickly as her hedgehog. Perhaps Jacquetta was wrong to leave. The two might get along.
“I studied a lot,” I tell her truthfully.
“I despise study,” she answers. “I prefer the garden.”
“So do I. Well—the forest.” Back before it was ruined for me.
A rabbit hops up to the princess and she fishes a carrot out of her pocket. “Ladies aren’t allowed in the forest.”
“I already told you—I’m not a lady. And our Sanctum was very remote. We had to go into the forest if we wanted to eat.”
Blodwyn settles herself on a bench. The warbler lands beside her and she pets the tuft of fuzz on top of its head. Nettle reappears, crouching low and watching the bird with interest.
“Don’t,” I warn her under my breath. She grumbles.
“What do you mean, if you wanted to eat?” Blodwyn asks. “Didn’t your Sanctum have kitchens?”
“We had to have something to put in our kitchen. The forest was filled with herbs and plants. Wild game.”
“Wild game?” Blodwyn stops petting the warbler. “Does that mean…you hunted? With a bow and everything?”
“Of course. No one else was going to do it for us.”
A duckling waddles away from its fellows, clicking its beak at Blodwyn’s skirts. The princess ignores it, fixated on me. “Have you ever seen a wolf?”
I think back to when I would accompany the Elementals on their hunts. I’d spotted plenty of wild boar, or foxes. But never wolves. “I don’t—”
“Or a Nevenwolf?”
A Nevenwolf? How does a mortal child—this child—know about such creatures?
“Where did you hear about those?”
“I’ve seen one,” she replies, matter-of-fact. “Prowling the grounds at night. I told my ladies, but they think I’m lying. They can’t say that, of course, but I can tell.”
A shiver races down my spine as I recall the spots of light I’d glimpsed in the forest at Stonehaven, those that I mistook for a pair of glowing red eyes. Could the princess have seen a Nevenwolf? If the Veil is thin enough, it’s possible that one slipped through.
“When did you see it?”
Her brow scrunches. “A few days ago.”
After I arrived at the White City, then. Dread knocks in my chest. It’s just a coincidence, I tell myself. And the princess probably didn’t even see a Nevenwolf. Just a large dog or some similar creature.
“I know what it was,” the princess goes on, as if guessing my thoughts. “I’ve seen pictures in books in the library.”
That catches my attention. “There’s a library here?”
“Of course there is.” She frowns. “Not that I get to visit it very much. I’m not allowed anywhere without an escort, and none of my companions ever want to accompany me. They’d rather play cards or gossip about stupid men.”
“I would like to visit,” I tell her immediately. If the palace has books pertaining to Nevenwolves, they might have information about the Bloodstones as well.
“Princess?” A voice carries through the menagerie. “Your tutor is here.”
Blodwyn groans.
“Not that odious man again.” But then she looks at me and grins. “You said you wanted to go to the library? How about right now?”
The footsteps are closer now. “Princess?”
“Are you sure we can—”
Blodwyn is already up and hurrying toward the back of the menagerie. I scramble to follow the flash of her skirts, disgruntled animals parting in my wake. The princess halts at the far wall—the only one that isn’t glass. She lifts a curtain of climbing vines, revealing a door, then fishes a key out of a hidden pocket on her dress. With a deftness that suggests she’s done this many times before, Blodwyn jams the key into the lock, yanks the door wide, and then rushes through it. I duck in after her. Nettle doesn’t follow, probably hunting the warbler again.
“Just a minute,” Blodwyn murmurs as the door closes behind us.
She rummages around in the darkness and then a match strikes. The princess’s face is illuminated in the light of a half-burned candle. Gradually, our surroundings sharpen into focus. The walls are narrow and covered in cobwebs. A thick layer of dust carpets the floor and rusted sconces line the walls.
“Where are we?”
“Old passages.” Candlelight bobs along the walls as she leads me in the other direction. “They were sealed off long before the menagerie was built.”
It certainly appears that way. And a question occurs to me: How extensive are these passages? More important, could I use them?
“How do you keep track of all this?” I ask the princess.
“Mostly by exploring,” she explains. “But there might be some maps in the library. We can ask the Keepers, if you like.”
This is exactly the sort of help I’ve needed. “I’d like that very much.”
She throws a glance over her shoulder. “You’re different. Perhaps I won’t mind having you around now and then.”
Now and then. What a—
A draft billows down the hall, cold enough to needle through my uniform. Beneath the shuffling of our footsteps, I detect a faint moan, low and ominous and similar enough to a growl that the hair on the back of my neck prickles.
“Did you hear that?” I ask Blodwyn.
She pauses and tilts her head as she listens. “No. What did it sound like?”
Malum, my mind supplies. A manifestation from beyond the Veil.
Faint as the brush of a wing, I sense a tremble behind my left ribs.
“It was nothing,” I say, as much to myself as to the princess. “I must have imagined it.”
“I’ve heard rumors that these passages are haunted, but I’ve never seen a ghost,” she says, sounding disappointed. “Anyway, here we are.”
She stops at a wooden panel and maneuvers it loose, revealing an entrance. The other side is blocked by a tapestry. Blodwyn and I fight our way around the heavy fabric and then I’m blinking at the sudden brightness of—
My breath catches. The library.
Before this moment, the palace’s Great Hall was the largest chamber I’d ever seen, but this place is even more massive. Shelves tower over my head, carved to resemble trees that stretch up into a second-story gallery. Light fixtures arch out from the walls, their bases fashioned to appear as boughs with lanterns dangling from the branches. And there are so many books. Our collection at Stonehaven is paltry in comparison. I could spend years here and never read every volume.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Blodwyn asks.
I turn in a circle, still absorbing the gold-latticed ceiling and glimpses of the upper floor. “Did you say that your other maidens don’t like coming here?”
“That’s right,” Blodwyn confirms primly. “Fools, aren’t they?”
They are indeed.
“Ah, Princess.” A man in purple robes rounds one of the shelves, bowing when he spots Blodwyn. “I was wondering when you might grace us with a visit again.”
Blodwyn pulls herself away from where she was admiring a rather gruesome-looking eel encased in glass. “Mother finally sent me a companion who isn’t an idiot.”
The man notices me. He has deep-brown skin and kind hazel eyes.
“A high compliment,” he says, inclining his chin. “Any friend of the princess is a friend of the Keepers. Can I help you find anything?”
“Another novel,” Blodwyn replies. “And nothing fluffy like last time. If I read about one more princess being rescued by a knight, I’ll toss the thing out the window.”
A smile twitches at my lips.
“Understood.” The Keeper bows again, pressing a hand to his chest. He looks to me. “And for you? Are you as uninterested in romance as our princess?”
I’d like to know what happened to the Bloodstones after the Heirs were murdered.
I tug at my sleeves. This man seems nice enough, but I don’t want to raise any alarms with my request.
“I’m not sure,” I hedge. “Could you point me in the direction of your history texts?”
A record of the early events of the war might mention the Bloodstones. After all, there’s a tapestry dedicated to the massacre.
“History?” Blodwyn makes a face. “Really?”
“Now, now,” the Keeper chides gently. “It’s a passion of mine as well.”
“Passion,” Blodwyn mutters under her breath. “More like torture.”
The Keeper shakes his head at her. “You’ll find the histories in the back right, next to a rather hideous bust of an important person whose name I have forgotten. Let me know if you need help locating anything specific. Will you be occupying your usual place, Princess?”
“Probably.” She waves as she traipses off into the stacks. “And if you happen to have any tarts on hand, I wouldn’t object.”
The man laughs. “I’ll see what can be done.”
Blodwyn’s usual place, it turns out, is tucked away in a far corner of the library. An enormous window looks over the sea of trees spilling down the mountainside, a landscape so vast that I could almost forget that I’m in the palace at all. Blodwyn herself is nestled in the window seat, wrapped in a fur blanket, with a small pile of the promised tarts within reach.
“Yes, gut him,” she murmurs to herself every so often.
I wish I was as satisfied with my own reading. Though I’d located the history section, as well as a dozen titles detailing the start of the Covens’ War, none provide any information about the Bloodstones. In fact, my initial impression of this library is souring by the minute.
“Call these histories.” I slam another book shut after I come upon a passage that suggests the death of a witch is painless, as it releases their soul into the Light.
I snatch up a tart from my own plate and angrily bite into it, unable to appreciate the rich lemon flavor. What did I expect? After what I witnessed at the pageant, it’s clear that the mortals care nothing for truth. Each account of the war is the same—witches used Malum to spell Braxos, and every other White King, into believing their lies. They imprisoned Meira. It was only when the Heirs were killed that the false goddess’s “Light” shone once again upon the realm. Every raid is described as a celebration, a banishment of Malum. But it’s the Veil we witches forged that’s really keeping that sinister force at bay. I think of how the Ancients actually died to create that barrier and my rage deepens. Would that the Five could see what their sacrifice accomplished.
