Malice, page 30
Panic blooms bright in Mariel’s eyes as understanding sinks its teeth into her. She did this. Every Briar Queen who surrendered her rights to her husband did this. “They will not vote against me.” But she does not sound certain. “They will not support something in direct violation of the Etherian treaty.”
The king sighs through his nose. “Perhaps not all of them. But it’s such an interesting turn of events.” He taps his chin. “Every council member who would not support the edict is somehow—indisposed.”
The sleeping sickness. What did that woman say last night? That her husband was a valued courtier. A council member. “That’s what the brooches were for. You poisoned your own advisors.”
“You poisoned them, Dark Grace. And not even properly. They should be dead, the mutinous snakes. Don’t think I don’t know your slip was intentional. A deathlike sleep.” He snorts, his mustache twitching. “Creative, I’ll grant you that. But defiant. I’ve yet to decide what to do with you for that little stunt.”
Mariel clutches at the king. “What have you done?” When Tarkin doesn’t answer, she wheels to me. “What is he talking about?”
“He bid me”—I struggle to find the words inside the riot in my head—“to cast a death curse on some brooches. But I cast one for sleep instead.”
“A…sleeping curse,” she repeats. And then an idea sparks in the queen’s eye. “Boy!” she barks at the servant who escorted the Graces. He steps forward cautiously. “Find those ill with the sleeping sickness and remove every article of clothing they wear.”
The servant glances furtively at Tarkin, as if for permission. Mariel claps her hands. “Now, I said! It is the command of your queen! See that it is done or I will—”
“It will not matter.” Tarkin dismisses the poor boy and he returns to his post. “You believe I am naïve enough to stake my plans on a piece of jewelry?” He laughs. “That I was not informed immediately when those who should have been dead suddenly woke—after what was attributed to a ‘fainting fit’? Exhaustion?” He glares at me. “I visited those early victims personally to inquire after their well-being. Which is when I discovered that the brooches were not needed at all. Not when those council members were pricked with the cursed item. Sleep set in instantly—and hasn’t yet lifted.”
Because my curse entered their bodies directly. And my intent was clear. The nobles will be asleep for a long time.
“But they aren’t dead,” the queen attempts. “And so the healing Graces…”
“Cannot undo her magic.” Tarkin grins.
Dragon’s teeth. I could almost laugh at my own stupidity, thinking that crafting curses for the Briar King would come without consequences. I’ve put us in this position. Jeopardized Aurora’s throne.
“You are forgetting something, husband.” The queen gathers her strength. “My crown is blessed by the Etherians. It will only rest on the head of Leythana’s heir. It will kill anyone else.” She rips the crown free of her arrangement of coiled braids and thrusts it at Tarkin. “Try it on yourself, if you want it so badly.”
The king glowers at the circlet of golden brambles, its thorns like so many gilded teeth. “Then we will get a new crown. For a new Briar. It’s time.”
A new Briar.
A hundred minuscule details sharpen into horrible focus at once. The war room, with the maps of Etheria spread over the table. The strategy markers strewn across them, indicating routes through the mountain range. The books Aurora told me the king collects, where she’d read about how the light Fae hold their magical hearts in their staffs.
The wheels of my mind begin to whirr.
Tarkin hates Endlewild. I recall the dinner here, where he asked the Fae lord about purchasing Etherian-made sails. His obsession with his army and ships and frustration with the limited scope of Grace power. His promise to grant me rank and prestige in return for my curses.
One of the shackled Graces whimpers. Dragon’s teeth. I thought he was using Graces to test my curses because they’re bound to obey him. Wouldn’t be missed. But it’s because they carry the light Fae magic. He wants to see what I could do against the Etherians.
“You’re going to invade Etheria.” The thought tumbles out as soon as it forms.
The Briar King looks at me like he sees me for the first time. One thick eyebrow raises. “Perhaps I misjudged your intelligence, Dark Grace.”
“Have you gone mad?” Queen Mariel lunges at him, swinging her crown like a weapon. “The alliance. The Graces. The Etherians will flatten us into the earth. The treaty with Leythana—”
“Is over.” Tarkin shoves her back. She stumbles and the Briar crown sings as it hits the floor. “Or it would have been. Once our last heir fell victim to the curse. Then there would have been no choice but to invade the Fae courts.”
The king sounds like a child denied his plaything. Mariel hears it, too. She shades impossibly whiter. “Are you saying—you wanted Aurora to die? Your own daughter? Your blood?”
He doesn’t deny it. Every inch of Aurora’s body stills.
“Something needed to be done,” Tarkin continues. “I knew it as soon as I arrived in this realm. Heirs dying off one by one because of that curse. There’s only one way to end it properly—start a new line.”
“A new—” Mariel swallows. “Seraphina and Cordelia. You wanted them gone, too? I always told you they didn’t have enough suitors. Begged you to invite more eligible men to the palace. I even agreed to let Seraphina kiss those from the Common District, when she came to me in her final days. But you refused. I thought your lack of concern was because you didn’t understand. You thought some miracle would happen at the last moment. But you…you isolated them on purpose. Sent them to their graves because of some—some bid for war?”
“What I understand, wife.” If Tarkin feels an ounce of remorse over what he’s done, he doesn’t show it. “What every son of Paladay understands, is how to strengthen a kingdom. You have no idea how to rule.”
“This is not a kingdom.” Pride swells in my chest at Aurora’s voice. Small, but laced with iron. “It belongs to a queen. And the curse was broken. Leythana’s alliance remains intact. I will be the next Briar Queen. Your plans will come to nothing. And I will see you answer for what you did to my sisters.”
“You will mean nothing soon enough.” Tarkin narrows his gaze at his daughter. “If my edict passes in council. And I’ve made sure that it will. Then Briar will be mine. Etheria next.” He jerks his chin at the line of prisoners. “The Graces are trinkets compared to the magic that’s beyond those mountains. Magic that should be Briar’s. Think of what we can do with sails that need no wind and ships that never sink. Lakes that grant immortality.”
The story Aurora showed me in her book. Tarkin knows it, too. “That’s what you want. To live forever?”
“To rule forever,” Tarkin corrects.
The queen half laughs, half shrieks. “We’ll be dead as soon as they suspect it. My people will never follow you. You’ll have a civil war on your hands if—”
“We’ve beaten a Fae race once, wife. Or do you not remember the war?” He twists his signet ring. “Besides. We have something now that we’ve never had before. That no realm has ever possessed.”
His attention spears through me.
“A Vila.”
Something. The word slithers across the floor and into my blood. Because I am not a person. Not here. Not to him. Queen Mariel gapes at me.
“Yes.” Tarkin watches me like I’m a meal to be devoured. “The Vila would have won the war were it not for human interference. And now we are the ones in control. With your dark magic, we will quash the Etherians. They cannot stand against you.”
The cord of my power ripples. “I will not be your weapon.”
Tarkin laughs, a low, lethal rumble. “And how will you stop me?”
I know exactly how.
My magic springs from its cage. Slams into the king’s chest and finds his human power. The fragile thing quivers at my touch. The Briar King falls to his knees, eyes bulging and mouth flopping like a caught fish. His huge fingers dig at his neck, jowls going purple as his strangled gasps fill the chamber. I will end him. As I should have done in the war room. As I should have done as soon as I knew I could do it.
“Alyce.”
My name knifes through the air. Aurora’s eyes are glassed over and shining. A tear streaks down her cheek and hovers at her jawline. It trembles in the sunlight before it drops to the floor.
“Don’t.”
My hold on the king’s magic loosens.
“Please.”
And then it unspools, slinking back into my body like an injured dog.
The way she’s looking at me. A crack forms in my heart and fissures outward.
I am a monster.
Tarkin heaves his mountain of girth to stand. No one helps him.
“Try anything like that again,” he snarls, gesturing at Aurora, “and she’ll be the one who pays for it. It’s time to learn your place.” He wheels to his daughter, his own heavy crown askew on his balding head. “And yours.”
Aurora’s jaw sets. A maiden facing a dragon and refusing to back down. “I will never—”
He doesn’t let her finish. “You will.” The king brushes his knuckles against her cheek. She slaps him away. “It’s true. Things would have been easier if you had perished as your sisters did. Without another heir, the realm would have gone to war gladly in order to preserve the Etherium trade and gain access to the Fae courts.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she grinds out.
Tarkin shrugs. “But what does it matter if Leythana’s line is intact? You have no children. Perhaps you will have none. And it’s clear enough that the Etherians will be of no help to us regarding the matter of succession—Endlewild refuses to discuss the matter with me, and the High King of the Fae ignores my letters. I know the tactic well enough. They’re stalling. Waiting to reassert their control over these lands as soon as the last heir is dead. But I mean to take what is ours.”
“The magic in Etheria is not yours,” Mariel fumes. She picks up the crown and brandishes it at him. “And it will be a death sentence if you—”
“Obviously, your mother does not support my plan. But you.” Those beady eyes comb over her and I want to pluck them out of his head. “The realm adores you. Young, beautiful, headstrong. They will follow your lead. It’s a good match with Prince Elias. With a silk trade to supplement our coffers. If you dislike him, he can be on the front line during the war.”
The implication worms its roots into my guts. Even Aurora cringes.
“There are riches beyond your wildest dreams on the other side of the mountain. Magic far more potent than the petty party tricks that keep your hair soft and your skin supple. In return for your support, I will let you rule beside me—forever. The whole world will be at your disposal.” He takes her chin in two fingers. “Or you can fight me and die for it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
In the end, I am carted off to the dungeons.
The Vila in me yearned to attack the magic of my guards. To Shift and bolt from the palace, never to be seen again. But Aurora. I have no doubt the king would make good on his threats. And I will not let her die because of me.
So I find myself locked in a tiny cell, far below the opulence of the palace. It reminds me a little of my Lair. The slimy stone walls, smelling of mold and damp, rotting earth. The cold that seeps through the delicate silk of Laurel’s pilfered gown and into my marrow.
The dungeon is worse than the Lair, though. By far. Rats have taken up residence in the mess of straw piled in one corner, their tiny claws scratching at the stone. And there’s the awful stench—like perhaps the royal sewers empty nearby. This far inside the mountain, they might.
I try to think of other things, like counting the time in the dripping of distant water and the intermittent echo of footsteps. The guard changing, I assume. But they do not come to bait me, as I guessed they would. The Briar King’s Vila pet must be considered too dangerous. And there are no other prisoners close by.
There’s nothing to do but think and sleep. But sleep is as far from me as one of the realms across the Carthegean Sea. Instead, every conceivable thought burrows into my brain like the rats into the straw. How long before Tarkin starts to use me? He’s been planning this invasion for some time. I was just the missing piece. The secret weapon he didn’t even realize that he had. Until the duke. I curse myself again for my idiocy. I should have known this day would come. How many Etherian lives will I take? How many of Tarkin’s enemies will I put down? My skin itches, as if it is already covered in their blood.
Every time I close my eyes, there’s Aurora. The sound of her voice when she asked if I was using her to take over Briar. The look on her face when I had her father in my thrall. It had been as if she was seeing me for the first time.
I rest my forehead against the gritty iron bars of my cell. I must get to her. Explain—
What? A savage voice tears through me. That I didn’t take her father’s gold in return for curses? That I wasn’t lying to her every time we met, making it easy for the Briar King to steal her throne and raze her realm?
Unbidden, a new image of Aurora seems to emerge in the darkness. Her kneeling and looking up at me like I’m a fallen star come to earth. Her skin gloved in moonlight. The taste of her mouth on mine. Our limbs tangled together in sleep. Tears burn down my cheeks as I crumple to the filthy ground. That night was my one slice of happiness. I’ll never have another.
* * *
—
The sound of metal screeching against metal jerks my eyelids open. For a moment, I’m lost in the suffocating blackness, the place between waking and sleeping, and I don’t understand why my back aches and I’m freezing and my head feels filled with lead.
And then it all comes careening back.
I’m on my feet as fast as my sore body will let me move. Rough stone nicks my palms as I wedge myself into a corner.
“Alyce.”
My brain must be addled. I’m hallucinating. Because I know that voice. And it can’t possibly be her. My cell door opens with a squeal and a cloaked figure slips inside. Another behind it. My eyes begin to adjust in the gloom.
“Laurel?”
She tugs her hood down around her shoulders, polished black skin drinking the light of her lantern flame. My arms are around her before she can answer.
“What are you doing here? How did you—”
The second figure registers. My veins flash fire and ice.
“Hello, Alyce.”
I let go of Laurel.
“Aurora.” Her name on my lips is a tenuous, fragile thing. But once I’ve spoken, everything else pours out in a fury. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to make the curses.” I choke on a sob. “I didn’t realize. I just needed a way out of Briar. Of my life here. The whole world was closing in and I— I…”
She stays me with a raised hand. “I’ve had time to think. And I remembered what you said. About being at the mercy of someone who has the power to take everything.”
Shame scalds down my throat. I’d been harsh with her that day.
“I don’t forgive what you did.” The fractures on my heart expand. “But I know my father. And I know you likely had little choice in the matter.” She pauses. And her next words are so soft I almost miss them. “You did have a choice, though.”
I clench my teeth against the truth that crackles between us.
“I know.”
Now she will turn and go—leave me to the mercy of the Briar King. But then, “I want a new beginning for us. For Briar. One in which choices like that don’t exist at all.”
Hope wriggles in my chest. “You mean you still…”
She steps impossibly nearer. One hand cups the back of my neck. Her thumb trails my jawline. “Of course I do.” Her lips brush mine and I am reeling. “This is the only thing I’m sure of. You aren’t the Dark Grace. Not anymore. You’re Alyce.”
Carefully, as if she might disappear at my touch, my fingers bury themselves into the silk of her hair. And then I am kissing her again, gulping her down like sweet, fizzy wine. Desperate to be drunk.
“As much as I hate to interrupt.” Another voice startles us both.
Mortification smears up my neck as I realize how close Laurel is standing, the three of us pressed together inside this tiny cell.
Cell.
“Wait.” Beyond the iron bars, the passage is empty. “How are you two here?”
Aurora grins. “After I decided you needed rescuing, I sent for Laurel myself. It was easy enough to summon a wisdom Grace while I was supposed to be considering my father’s offer.” Her gaze brightens with that mischievous glint that lets butterflies loose beneath my skin. “The rest was your own doing. You know the sleeping potion you gave me for my guards? You were right. A jab of my sewing needle did the trick.”
The draught I crafted when she first came to my Lair. Dragon’s teeth, that feels like years ago. I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of this situation.
“Keep your voice down,” Laurel warns. “We don’t have much time. Here.” She fishes something wrapped in cloth out of a pocket of her cloak and presses it into my hands. “I thought you’d be hungry.”
Bread and cheese. I could kiss her. But I stuff the heel of the loaf inside my mouth instead, groaning as flecks of butter melt on my tongue.
Laurel doesn’t waste any time. “It’s been just over twelve hours since your arrest.” My stomach grumbles, arguing that it feels far longer. “The princess told me about the Briar King’s plan. He’s made no overt declarations, but the guards have increased in the palace. And I heard there was a secret council meeting. I imagine things will progress quickly.” She watches me, expectant. “Do you have a plan?”
