The Crimson Crown, page 32
King Callen circles me.
“The gown suits you.” That gray gaze roves along the lines of my body. “My phoenix.”
His phoenix? Understanding slams into me. I was wrong. The queen didn’t gift me this dress. “It was you.”
The king is behind me again. He bends close to the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. “Don’t you like it?”
No. I don’t. “You should have given it to someone more deserving.”
“There is no one more deserving.” The king’s circle around me narrows. “Surely you can see that.”
All I can see is that I need to be as far from this man as possible. I step back, but the other dancers box me in, as if I do not exist at all. Not one of them would help me if I cried out, I realize. If the king wants to dance with me, they will let him. They will let him do anything. That invisible tether vibrates like a plucked cord.
The king seizes my hand, spinning me wide. The manufactured menagerie smears into a blur of faces and colors, like the whole world is tilting on its axis. Shadows slink toward me. Darkness peels from the costumes of the other dancers, shades of midnight. Panic drums in my chest as the tether cinches even tighter. What’s happening? Is it another creature emerging from beyond the Veil, come to devour me whole? I half wish it would.
“Is something wrong?” The crimson eyes of the king’s mask glimmer. “You seem frightened.”
He draws me back to him, holding me so that I’m pressed against his chest, drowning in his scent of leather and smoke. My heart pounds, and I sense that the horrible force inside me is feeding off of my terror, stronger with every breath. Something in the gray of the king’s eyes tells me that he senses it too.
“What is this hold you have on me?” the king murmurs. “Who are you, Ayleth?”
I’m not sure I know anymore—if I ever knew at all.
“No one,” I whisper.
Glass shatters, breaking the spell between us. The tether mercifully slackens, and my attention snaps to the High Table, where a servant has dropped a bottle. Wine spills like blood over the floor. A cloaked figure hurries around the mess. So quickly I almost miss it, they scoop up a box and rush away with it. Not just any box, my mind processes—the one containing the crown. The person is stealing it.
And that’s when I know—the stones are real.
No. Not again.
Mustering my strength, I wrench myself out of the king’s grasp and race after the thief. But I don’t get far. The hall is overcrowded, its glass walls acting like mirrors, repeated reflections of myself staring back at me in an endless, dizzying loop.
Ayleth, I hear beneath the music and laughter. Ayleth.
I run away from it, plowing through the sea of courtiers, trampling hems and smacking wings out of my frantic path. By the time I stumble through the outer doors of the Great Hall and into the corridor, the only sign of the other person is the echo of footsteps against stone. I race after them, but hampered by my corset and skirts, the thief easily outpaces me. Before I even round the next corner, the hall is quiet.
Breathless, I pivot left and right, cursing as I throw open the nearest door in the wild hope that the thief is hiding behind it. But there’s nothing—only an outer courtyard. An apple tree stands in the center, frosted with ice. The crown—the Bloodstones with it—is gone.
“Damn!”
Who’d taken it? And why? Had it been the same person who ripped the pages from the Dwarvian records? Are they following me?
Wind pushes into the courtyard, strong enough that the apple tree groans under its pressure. A murder of crows swoops overhead, their calls crashing together in a sinister chorus. I stare up at the dark cloud of their formation, heart thudding. That place behind my left ribs trembles. Again, it feels like laughter.
I’ve had enough of this. Enough of Malum and Nevenwolves and mad kings. Rage crackles in my veins, that deep impulse rising up—to do something, fight back. I’m tired of tamping it down. My focus lands on the apple tree, its limbs glistening with ice. Bellowing a cry, I descend upon the tree, clawing at the bark and yanking on low branches. The answering snap of wood is immensely satisfying, and I jump up to try to snag another. It’s too high and I miss, promptly falling onto the flagstones. Pain shoots up my hip and I snarl a curse. Even the apple trees in this wretched place are conspiring against me.
“What are you doing?”
Heat flames in my cheeks at being caught attempting to hack apart a tree with my bare hands. But it’s not the king, or even Marion, who has followed me. Instead, Jacquetta leans against the doorframe, her brow pinched as she observes the scene.
“I was…it doesn’t matter. Did you see anyone in the halls?” I ask, pushing myself up. “Someone running with a box?”
“A box?” She’d clearly found her way to a wine pitcher, for the words are slurred.
“Yes, a box,” I repeat, impatient.
Jacquetta looks back at the palace, bewildered. “I didn’t see anyone. What do you care about a box anyway? And what did that tree do to you?”
She must be drunk if she cares enough to ask. I shake my skirts free of the bits of bark and ice. “The Bloodstones might have been inside that box. Now they’re gone. Again.”
This is too much to be coincidence. Someone wants those stones. But who? And why? A crow calls in the night.
Jacquetta sways slightly where she stands. “Stop wasting your time with those magic rocks. Just…”
“Don’t call them that!” I shout. Jacquetta doesn’t get to pretend to help me one day and then discard me the next. “You’ve made your feelings about the Bloodstones and the Ancients abundantly clear. Not to mention your feelings about me.”
Jacquetta swallows but remains silent.
What could she say that she hasn’t already? that voice asks.
“Just leave me alone,” I barrel on. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? You said you were relieved when you walked away that night in the clearing? Good. You were right—it would have been madness for us to run away. There’s nothing holding us together. There never was.”
The branches of the apple tree creak in the quickening wind. There’s a storm coming. I sense its heaviness in the air.
I expect Jacquetta to snap back with some cutting remark, but she just stands there. Perhaps it’s the wine, but her expression softens. She almost looks…fragile. Vulnerable. The pulse at her throat is rabbit-quick. Her smell of juniper drifts beneath that of the ice and snow. For the briefest instant, her gaze twitches down, to my lips. Much as I try to smother it, that part of my heart that has always been hers aches.
Don’t, that voice whispers.
But what if I did? What if I want to? My blood hums.
A piercing scream rips between us.
I whirl. “What was that?”
Another scream answers, coupled with a stampede of racing footsteps inside the palace. Jacquetta and I rush back through the doors to investigate. The hall is flooded with panicked courtiers fleeing the banquet.
“She has the plague!” a woman shouts, nearly tripping over her hem in her haste.
Plague? Jacquetta and I shove our way into the Great Hall, until we’re close enough to spot the source of the commotion—Marion.
The courtier is on her knees, her skirts pooled on the floor and the snow-wolf mask discarded. She’s yanking silver and jeweled combs out of her dark hair as if they’re burning her. One of them spins toward us and collides with my foot.
“Help me!” Marion wails. “I don’t…I can’t…”
By the Spirits, what happened? I bend down to pick up the comb. Had someone poisoned it? I inspect it, careful not to let its teeth pierce my skin. Sapphires and opals sparkle in the candlelight. But it’s not poisoned. Instead, etched into the metal of the comb is a marking.
A rune.
“Jacquetta,” I whisper, nudging her.
She immediately spots the symbol and sucks in a breath. “What does it mean?”
I shake my head. Mother forced me to learn hundreds of runes during our lessons, but I’ve never seen one exactly like this: Four lines drawn in a box, with three slashes through the center. Where had it come from?
“What’s going on?”
The buzzing hive of courtiers parts for the king.
“Keep your distance, Sire.” Ignatius pulls him back before he gets too close to Marion. “She may be contagious.”
She’s not. Marion’s condition has nothing to do with mortal illness. I study the rune again, still trying to guess its meaning. What is it doing here? And who put it on the comb?
“Take her away,” Ignatius commands the guards. “Isolate her. And burn her clothes, in case…Mistress Ayleth.”
I’d been so absorbed with the rune that I hadn’t noticed the High Priest’s attention. Horror flashes in my veins as he approaches.
“What is that?” He beckons for the comb.
My mouth goes dry, instincts warring in my mind. Run, hide, stab him with the comb. But panic wins out. I pass him the comb. Maybe he won’t notice—
“Witchcraft,” he sneers.
The word rolls like thunder through the hall. I hardly register the cries of the other courtiers above the pounding of my own heart. Jacquetta’s shoulder brushes mine.
“We knew there was a witch lurking near the palace”—Ignatius gestures around him—“but apparently she is much closer than we imagined.”
This is it. I was caught with a runed comb. I’ll be burned. I brace myself for the guards to descend. To be dragged away and strapped to a pyre. The High Priest’s robes ripple like flame. But his amber gaze does not return to me. Instead, he looks to Marion.
“This is your comb, Countess? One that has been in your possession this entire evening?”
“It is,” Marion stammers. “But I didn’t—”
“You tainted it with your sorcery.” The High Priest brandishes the comb. Its silver teeth gleam like knives. “Used it to spell the king.”
By the Spirits. Ignatius is accusing her?
King Callen blanches. Marion gapes between the two men, her hair falling in inky tendrils around her face, her pupils blown wide.
“No. No, Your Majesty. Your Illuminance. One of my servants must have done it. Or someone, anyone else, but not me.”
“She couldn’t have,” the king says, but he does not sound certain. “Why would the comb harm her if she’s the one who spelled it?”
A few courtiers murmur their agreement.
“Because this is Meira’s doing,” Ignatius determines.
My mind spins. What?
“Our goddess sensed Malum present in this palace, and she is shining her Light—and her judgment—upon the culprit,” the High Priest continues. “After all, Lady Marion attended the hunt, did she not? On the very occasion that the Nevenwolf appeared? One of her servants couldn’t possibly have summoned the beast, as none of them was among the party.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Marion insists.
This is utter madness. But the courtiers begin to whisper, some nodding.
“She must have been worried about losing favor,” one comments.
“Desperate to keep the king,” another adds.
Marion pivots left and right, helpless. Moments ago, these people treated her as if she were royalty. Now she’s just another dish served to satisfy this gluttonous court. I’m so shocked and repulsed that all I can do is stare.
“Your Majesty, please.” Tears streak down Marion’s face and stain the pale silk of her gown. “You must believe me.”
The king’s jaw works, but he remains silent.
“There is but one method to determine her guilt or innocence,” the High Priest announces. “We shall conduct a trial. Meira herself will guide us to the truth.”
Marion’s tears fall faster now. “Your Majesty. Callen. You cannot let them do this.”
But the king says nothing. Does nothing. At Ignatius’s signal, guards haul Marion away. She thrashes and screams, pleading for the king to intervene. It should probably be satisfying to watch someone like Marion fall. It isn’t. In Marion, I see what can happen to any one of us. What will happen if we make a single false step.
As if drawn by my thoughts, the High Priest’s attention swivels to me. His amber eyes gleam in the light of the candles.
“Mistress Ayleth.” He lifts the comb in salute. “We are yet again grateful for your service to the Light.”
Following Marion’s arrest, the entire court is sequestered in their rooms to await questioning.
Joan is the first of us to be summoned. A guard arrives shortly after breakfast the next morning to escort her to the High Priest’s chambers. She returns white-faced and jittery and only shakes her head at our questions.
“Just tell them the truth” is all we pry out of her before she retreats behind her bed curtains.
The truth will get Jacquetta and me burned.
I find myself watching the other witch almost as much as I watch the door. Though neither of us has directly said as much, I sense that the current circumstances have forged a truce between us. Even so, we’re not brave—or foolish—enough to attempt to discuss a plan. The hours stretch on like years, our room so quiet that I jump at every set of approaching footsteps and every knock carrying from a neighboring door. Meals are delivered to our room, but we only pick at the food. Desperate for an occupation, I spend most of my time folding and refolding my garments or arranging the pillows on my bed. Jacquetta opens a book but never turns a page. In the oppressive silence, my mind keeps returning to Marion.
In the howling wind of the winter storm, I hear the phantom echo of the courtier’s screams. Marion isn’t a witch, I’m certain of that much, but where did that runed comb come from? And what did the rune mean? I picture its four crossed lines, with three slanted hatch marks striking through the middle. Given that Mother forced me to memorize every rune in existence, I find it odd that I didn’t recognize it. Maybe the rune is ancient enough that it wouldn’t be included in our texts. That would place the symbol before the Age of the Covens, though. What magic could have survived from that time? And, more important, what is it doing at the palace?
A knock—more of a pounding—yanks me out of my thoughts. Jacquetta and I share a panicked glance, neither of us daring to move. The other maiden answers the door, revealing a gangly servant waiting on the other side. Not the king’s guard, then. Not even someone from Ignatius’s household. But my relief is instantly extinguished when he says:
“Mistress Ayleth. Please come with me.”
* * *
—
The halls of the White Palace are eerily silent.
Never did I imagine that I would miss the watchful courtiers, clustered together and trading their gossip, or the shuffle of their endless rounds of card games. I would give anything for such normalcy now, with the false goddess’s Eyes bearing down on me in the deserted maze of corridors. It’s as if we’re walking through the belly of a sleeping beast, and I roll my shoulders back, doing my best to appear like I’m not a witch in disguise.
“Through here, Mistress.” The servant halts at a set of doors that lead out to the gardens.
I blink at him. “Out there?”
Given Joan’s experience, I expected to be escorted to Ignatius’s chambers.
The boy offers no explanation, just motions me through.
My pulse kicks up, foreboding tapping at the base of my neck. This isn’t right. Then again, if I were in any real danger, I wouldn’t be allowed outside the palace walls on my own. Clinging to that logic, I swallow down my fear and step into the afternoon sunlight. The day is cold, and I breathe deeply, hoping the sting of winter air will cool my nerves. It doesn’t—especially not when I’m met with a too-familiar pair of gray eyes.
“Mistress Ayleth,” the king greets me, his expression inscrutable. The awful force behind my left ribs rouses. “Please, join me. We have much to discuss.”
* * *
—
After the fury of the storm, the garden is like a place out of one of Willa’s stories. Ice glitters on hedges and trees as the king leads me down the paths. Delicate snowdrop flowers poke their heads through the drifts. Fountains are frozen, and winter-blooming roses climb their trellises, appearing as blotches of blood against the white. My heart races.
“Have you visited the maze yet?” the king asks, guiding us in the direction of a tall structure of hedges.
“No,” I reply, doing everything in my power to ignore the insistent nudge of the force behind my left ribs. A crow calls, deepening the chill of the day.
“It’s my favorite part of the whole of the palace.”
Which means it definitely won’t be mine. Twin sculpted maidens flank the entrance, their arms outstretched, gleaming red apples clutched in their palms. Their faces are veiled, but I swear that they’re looking at me. Perhaps even warning me away.
“I detested the place as a boy,” the king goes on, oblivious to my discomfort. “My brothers were constantly challenging me to races to the center. They considered it highly amusing to leave me dizzy amid the twists and turns.”
As if to illustrate his story, the king steers us left and then immediately right. Hedges tower above us.
“When I complained about their cruelty, my father, King Reginald, was entirely unsympathetic. If I wanted my brothers to stop, he said, it was up to me to make them stop.”
The king veers right again. Then left. I attempt to keep track of the turns, but the paths are identical. And far too narrow, closing in like the bars of a cage.
“Eventually, I took my father’s advice to heart,” the king continues. “Each day before my brothers woke, I snuck out here and memorized every detail, every fork and corner, until the paths of this maze became as familiar to me as the palace halls. Soon enough, my brothers were the ones lost in the hedges.”
