The Crimson Crown, page 3
“A survivor,” I say.
At the start of the war, as many as a dozen witches would find their way to our gates in the span of a month, drawn by the magic of the wards. Now we’re lucky to see two or three in as many years. Those who do reach us often don’t remain once they realize the price of life at our Sanctum. Mother’s rules apply to everyone.
Eden clicks her tongue, sympathetic. “She’s alone, poor witch.”
We can all guess what happened to the rest of her coven. The wind picks up, whistling through the cracks in the Sanctum. Again, the screams from the night of the raid haunt me. I can almost see the Hunt’s arrows soaring over our walls, iron tips bright with flame.
But if this witch endured a similar ordeal, it doesn’t show. She walks straight-backed and seemingly unharmed. She’s older, her deep-brown skin wrinkled. Her white hair is coiled in a tight bun. As she nears the Sanctum, her face tilts up. Her eyes are a rheumy, solid white—sightless. And yet I swear they’re pinned directly on me.
Another crow calls, so close that I feel its resonance in my bones.
* * *
—
“That went well,” Eden comments dryly as soon as the door closes behind us. “I don’t remember them being so…”
“Insufferable?” I finish for her, rubbing my temples where my headache from the morning is throbbing. Nettle trills her agreement.
“Della wasn’t too bad. But that Sindony.” Eden huffs. “If she hates it here so much, I’m sure we can find alternative accommodations for her.”
“The stables?” I suggest.
“Perfect.” She nods. “Straw might be her best option, given the state of her mattress.”
Nettle meows proudly and I reach down to scratch between her ears. “Let’s get you some cream, shall we?”
“Oh, and some contortion potion for dear Sindony,” Eden chimes in.
I can’t help but smile at the idea of Sindony’s face transformed into that of a lizard or some other creature. “Yes, Mother will appreciate that.”
Eden shrugs. “We just won’t get caught.”
Such has been her motto since we were witchlings, and it always ends in disaster. Eden is a couple of years older than me, having Ascended two summers ago. Her white skin is smattered with freckles, and her eyes are a unique shade of lavender. Like her mother, Eden is about a head shorter than me, and her figure is all soft curves beneath her uniform.
She winks at me, and I follow her through the halls, which are buzzing with talk of the arrival of both the Heirs and the newcomer. I catch snippets of conversation centered on me as well, and I’m grateful when Eden and I retreat into the kitchen, where there is only the smell of food and the sound of Willa’s humming.
“Here you are,” Willa calls to Eden as we enter.
Willa’s sleeves are rolled up, forearms dusted with flour as she works dough on the table, kneading in fragrant herbs for health and protection. To my immense delight, several pies are cooling near the window, their sugared crusts an enticing golden brown.
“All these visitors and you think to slip away?” Willa scolds her daughter. “I’ve had to enlist poor Nesta’s help. Keep stirring that pot. I can smell it burning.”
The younger witch stands at the hearth, minding a huge kettle of what I suspect is fireroot, given the faintly charred scent lingering in the air. Nesta’s light-brown cheeks are flushed. The fine black hairs at her forehead curl with sweat from the steam.
“I was helping Ayleth.” Eden veers over to the rows of potted plants near the windows.
The kitchen is by far my favorite place in the Sanctum. I hardly remember a time when I wasn’t perched on a stool beside Eden, entranced by Willa’s fantastical stories about trolls and fairies and other magical creatures that once dwelled in Riven. Drying herbs hang from the low-beamed ceiling. Pots line the walls and are stacked on shelves, which are stuffed with various jars of ingredients, bags of flour, and everything else that’s needed to feed the sixty or so witches living in the Sanctum.
“And how are our visitors?” Willa asks. “I wasn’t able to attend the reception.”
Would that I could say the same.
“You didn’t miss much,” I tell her, shoving a handful of walnuts into my mouth.
“Selene gave Ayleth a mirror,” Eden says, waggling her eyebrows.
I shudder at the reminder, making a note to stuff the unsettling thing inside a closet at the earliest opportunity.
“A witch’s mirror,” Willa repeats, impressed. “They must think highly of you.”
Somehow, I doubt that. Nettle leaps up onto the counter and meows at Willa, expectant.
“Nettle,” I scold, “get down from there.”
But my cat doesn’t possess an obedient bone in her body. Willa laughs.
“Stubborn creature. I know what you want.”
She pauses long enough to pour out a dish of cream. Nettle descends upon it immediately. I can’t scold her for that—she’s earned it.
“And what about you, Ayleth?” Willa asks. “How are you faring with all this fuss?”
Like a nest of hornets has taken residence beneath my skin. “Fine.”
Willa tilts her head, scenting the lie as always. Like Eden, she’s a Blessed, which heightens her awareness of others’ emotions. “Nerves are expected before a witch makes her vow. And when it comes to Seconds, I imagine it’s tenfold.”
Not for Rhea. My sister faced the coven fire with the determination of an Ancient. I can still picture the firelight illuminating her expression as she stood before the coven and offered her blood. Her voice had been firm as stone as she made her vow to Millicent and accepted her place as Mother’s successor. It had been meant to be. Her destiny. And mine…
“Oh, that’s lovely.” Nesta points, interrupting my thoughts.
At the window, Eden coaxes a small pot of roses to life, their petals a brilliant shade of lavender, the same color as her eyes. White light limns her hands as she works, teasing the blossoms. A thorny, unwelcome feeling twists in my gut, the same one I always experience when I watch the others work. Like they’re real witches and I’m…
“Eden. Stop that.” Willa swats at her with a towel. “You know better.”
The light dissipates from Eden’s fingers. “It was for our guests.”
“Yes, and I’m sure they’ll thank you if you summon the Hunt with a pot of roses. No more dallying. I need you to—”
A telltale pop sounds from the hearth.
“Oh no!” Nesta yelps.
A cloud of smoke erupts from the hearth as the contents of the kettle explode, rattling the windows. Nettle yowls and bounds out the door, abandoning what remains of her cream. Several jars tumble from their shelves and shatter, various oils and powders leaking over the stones.
“By the Spirits.” Willa covers her nose with her apron as the rancid smell sets in. “How many times did I tell you to keep stirring?”
“I got distracted,” Nesta whimpers, wringing her apron. She’s covered with soot, and her eyebrows are all but singed off.
“See what you’ve done?” Willa brandishes an empty jar at Eden. “And that was the last of it. Go and fetch more. And don’t go alone. Take Ayleth with you.”
“To the forest?” I balk. I don’t go there—not anymore.
But I don’t get the chance to argue. Before Willa can catch her, Eden snatches a whole pie and slides it into a basket, then pulls me along through the side door and out into the front courtyard.
“I should really stay,” I attempt, gesturing at the other witches, who are tending the larger front gardens, feeding chickens, or brushing the horses in the small stable. “There’s too much to do around here and Mother—”
“Won’t notice you’re gone until dinner.” Eden loops her arm through mine. “When else are we going to get the chance to have a little fun? It will be just like old times.”
Old times. If only it were so simple to return to those days. I can practically feel the walls of my life narrowing—the looming flames of my Ascension edging perilously close. Perhaps Eden is right. I should take this opportunity while I have it.
I glance back at the Sanctum. Its arched windows gleam gold in the autumn sunlight. Trails of ivy track along the façade, reaching from the ground all the way up to the highest point of the south tower. At this time of the year, the leaves have transformed from verdant green to a deep garnet. The color causes the snaking vines to appear more like wounds—like the walls of the Sanctum have opened and are dripping with blood.
The forest floor blurs beneath my feet. Ahead, the stream glimmers like a silver vein cutting through the forest. Eden is a hand’s breadth in front of me, her white-gold curls springing with every step. I hitch my skirts up higher and urge myself faster, refusing to let her win. My muscles burn, every worry and doubt melting away in the pounding of my heart and the sawing of my breath through my lungs. After the strain of the morning, the distraction is glorious. I give one last push, bounding over a fallen log, and skid to a halt near the water’s edge. Eden pulls up beside me an instant later.
“You used a spell,” she says, panting, hands on her knees. “I don’t know how, but you did. No one can run that fast without magic.”
I laugh, breathless. “And here I thought you’d be accustomed to losing by now.”
Her mouth flops open and she bends down to cup some water in her hand, tossing it in my direction. I yelp, dodging, then splash her back, soaking the front of her dress.
“All right!” Eden holds up her hands in surrender. “I give up!”
I grin, wiping at my face with the hem of my skirt. Why had I put up such a fuss about coming? I forgot how much I love the forest, with its trees dressed in climbing vines so thick I can hardly see their trunks. A familiar, cedar-sweet tang hangs in the air and I drink it in like a tonic, reveling in the utter freedom of this place.
Wind rattles the branches, pushing in from the direction of trees beyond the stream. The Other Forest, I’d dubbed it as a witchling, an area as mysterious as it was forbidden. This stream marks the border of our western wards and the boundary of our land. A small pile of stones nearby indicates the spot where a leaden tablet is buried, engraved with runes for protection and concealment. Only the Elementals are permitted to cross this barrier on their hunts, or the witches who Mother sends for supplies—but even they wear Casters’ glamours to further disguise themselves. The shadows shift, the clacking of the branches hollow and ominous. Two spots of light appear in the distance, like eyes.
“Do you see that?” I ask Eden, pointing.
“What?” She steps closer. “Is it a boar? Or a wolf?”
The spots of light glimmer, the color deepening from yellow to red. My pulse drums. If it is a wolf, it’s not one that belongs on this side of the Veil.
“It might be a Nevenwolf,” I whisper, hardly daring to move.
Eden inhales sharply. Before the Age of the Covens, such creatures ran rampant in the realm—supernatural beasts that are twice the size of normal wolves and a hundred times deadlier. And not just them. Willa’s stories warn of other monsters—demons and ghouls and banshees—all spun from the inky tendrils of Malum, the dark and sinister force opposite that of our own magic.
As it’s been so long—over three thousand years—since Malum was contained, not even the oldest witches have directly witnessed its horrors. But there are plenty of tales relaying the time before the Veil was forged, when Malum gave rise to shadow creatures—like Nevenwolves—as well as blights and plagues. There are legends of entire towns being swallowed by darkness, or worse. I vividly recall a story about a village whose citizens simply walked into the sea and drowned because Malum compelled them to do so.
Malum could poison a witch’s power, as well—sink its hooks into her soul and feed off of her abilities until there was nothing left of her but a hollow shell. It was the threat of this malignant force that brought the Five Ancients together. They were not Ancients then, of course. They were simply five witches, brave enough to devise a spell that would craft the Veil—the barrier between our worlds that holds Malum back.
But those witches understood that a single ritual would not be sufficient to sustain such a barrier. They needed a way to preserve the spell so that the Veil held long after they were gone. And so the Five created the Bloodstones. Like their name suggests, the stones were forged from blood itself, rendering them living vessels capable of holding magic. The witches funneled their spell into the Bloodstones, whose power fueled the enchantment, and thus the Veil itself. But such an act—the strongest spell any witch has ever cast, before or since—required every drop of the witches’ latent magic. It should have killed them.
However, as the legend goes, when the final dregs of the witches’ power drained into the Bloodstones, the Spirits themselves—the souls of those witches who have perished—intervened. Touched by the selflessness of the Five, the Spirits defied all laws of nature and returned those witches to the Realm of the Living, granting each of them a single, exceedingly powerful gift.
With their amplified abilities, the once ordinary witches ascended into the Ancients, forming the pillars of the covens. From that day forward, each of the Five carried her Bloodstone, a symbol of her sacrifice and the beating heart of the Veil itself, passing it down to her Heir, so that we may always be protected from Malum.
Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to happen.
Every year, the Heirs are meant to bring the Bloodstones together and repeat a version of the Ancients’ ritual, adding more power to the stones in order to maintain the Veil. But the Bloodstones are gone—stolen in the massacre that ignited the Covens’ War. And now the enchantment housed inside the stones is fading. The Veil is thinning. We’ve all noticed the signs—blackened egg yolks and blighted crops and an unshakeable feeling of wrongness. Malum is seeping into our world again. Crows and shadows are just the beginning. If something doesn’t change…
The brush rustles behind me and I whirl, bracing for the Nevenwolf or some other shadow-spun creature of Malum. Instead, a dark calico shape emerges from a bush, tail swishing.
“Nettle,” I gasp, pressing a hand to my chest. “You nearly scared me to death.”
The stubborn cat sits in a patch of sunlight and licks her paw, utterly unperturbed by the prospect of my demise. When I look back into the trees, the spots of red have vanished.
“I don’t see it anymore.”
“Good.” Eden exhales. “It was probably nothing anyway. With your mother and the other Heirs here, we couldn’t be safer.”
She’s right. But why don’t I feel safer?
“Come on.” Eden nudges me. “Let’s find that fireroot. It’s getting late.”
I throw one last look over my shoulder, into the shadow-steeped depths of the Other Forest. Wind rattles the branches, like finger bones knocking together.
Ayleth, I think I hear amid the clacking wood. Ayleth.
I’ve been spending too much time indoors. I give myself a shake and follow after Eden. Nettle lopes along beside us, swatting at insects and investigating giant ferns. Eden pulls out the filched pie, scoops out a healthy slice, then passes it to me. Blackberry—my favorite. Willa mixes lavender into the filling, and the taste is magic in and of itself.
“So,” Eden starts around a mouthful, “have you made up your mind about your vows? Will you swear to Millicent or another Ancient?”
I pause, mid-bite. When joining with a coven, a witch offers her blood to the fire at her Ascension, just as the Ancients did to forge the Bloodstones. We don’t drain ourselves, of course. Instead, our offering is meant as a demonstration—to prove to the Spirits that we are as selfless and dedicated as the Five. To seal our intention, we then swear to one of the Ancients, binding our lives to the covens and the Spirits, and even the Veil itself. In return, the Spirits grant us a gift—an affiliation. It’s not as large a blessing as the Five received, as our sacrifice is nowhere near as great as theirs was, but it amplifies our abilities in a specific area of our craft and protects our magic against the forces of Malum. In normal circumstances, a witch can follow the path of any of the Five—Caster, Diviner, Potioner, Blessed, or Elemental.
But my circumstances are anything but normal.
Eden winks, and I realize she’s joking. “Could you imagine your mother’s face if you swore to Isolde?”
The first Elemental. I can’t help but laugh, picturing actual steam coming from Mother’s ears. “Don’t tempt me.”
Nettle trills in what I interpret as amusement.
“Really, though,” Eden says, gesturing with what’s left of her piece of pie. “Nothing says you have to swear to Millicent. Perhaps you’re not supposed to be a Caster. It could be why you’re having…trouble.”
The blackberry filling of the pie loses its sweetness. Eden is the only witch privy to even a sliver of truth about my gift—or lack thereof—and that’s only because she caught me crying in the workroom after a particularly disastrous lesson. Even then, I only admitted that I felt I wasn’t as talented as Rhea.
The real truth is that, though I’ve memorized every spell and rune Mother throws at me, I haven’t demonstrated so much as a hint of natural ability. That’s why Mother started “training” me in private, to hide my faults until my Ascension, which is when she’s convinced my gift will finally manifest. Even to me, her certainty is starting to feel more like desperation.
“Maybe,” I hedge. “But I’m the last of the line.”
A line I’d nearly broken once before. Somewhere in the forest, a crow calls.
“There’s the fireroot.” Eden gestures ahead.
The patch of scarlet stems is easy to spot where it crawls along the base of an ancient oak. But as we approach, I notice something odd about the tree itself. Where the surrounding foliage is practically glowing in the golds and reds of autumn, this oak is bare. The wide, gray trunk twists into the forest canopy, its branches like skeletal hands grasping for life. They clack together in the breeze, ominous.
