The Crimson Crown, page 33
He deals me a grin, and that place behind my left ribs thrums.
Ignore it, I tell myself, anxiety knotting in my chest. Don’t let it get stronger.
But I am losing that battle. I feel the sinister force winding between my bones, reaching for the king. Pulling me closer.
“When I was older, I learned that my father’s lesson applied to far more than petty childhood squabbles,” the king explains. “Court itself is like a maze. One must always be on guard. Always one step ahead, lest you find yourself lost in someone else’s trap.”
Something snags on my sleeve and I flinch, imagining the Nevenwolf’s claw. But it’s just an untrimmed hedge branch hooked on the fabric of my gown.
“Allow me.” King Callen dislodges the branch, his touch lingering on my arm. That pull between us tightens. “You see how easy it is to become ensnared.”
I do—far more than he knows.
The king resumes our walk. He turns the next corner, then gestures to an archway. “After you.”
I cross through into a wide, circular area—the center of the maze. Statues are set into the curved hedge walls—former kings posed with horses and swords, their marble limbs glazed with frost. But it’s the massive fountain that captures my attention. A life-size apple tree is carved from opalescent stone and a man whom I assume to be Braxos is seated underneath it. He wears clothing fit for royalty and a ruby-crowned apple gleams in his hand. The water at the base of the fountain is frozen over, so smooth that it acts as a mirror. But in the reflection, Braxos doesn’t appear as a king. He’s dressed in peasant clothes. The apple in his hand is ordinary, so lifelike that he might have just plucked it from a tree.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” King Callen says beside me. “It’s Dwarvian. A gift from the Guilds to celebrate Braxos’s coronation.”
If only the Guilds knew then how the White Kings would repay them for their gift.
“The first time I saw this fountain,” the king goes on, circling the base, “I asked my father why there were two kings. There aren’t, he explained. Not two kings, anyway, but two lives. The piece represents the alternate paths Braxos’s life might have taken. In the first, an apple farmer—a peasant. No one. In the second, a king. Leader of the realm. But we cannot walk two paths, can we? Only one.”
Something in his words touches a nerve. What does he mean by any of this? Why has he brought me here?
“I spent a great deal of time learning about Braxos.” The king studies his ancestor. “There’s not much recorded about his early life, but most records claim he harbored no ambition for greatness. He only entered the contest for the crown because his father begged him to participate. By all accounts, Braxos should have been killed immediately.”
Would that he had been—that the line of White had never led to this monster.
“I have a theory, though. I believe that Braxos won his crown because he didn’t want it. Meira saw his lack of ambition, that Braxos was untouched by the corruption and greed of the world, and she chose him.” Snow crunches under the king’s boots as he crosses back to me. “And I believe our goddess has sent you here, to me, for the same reasons.”
The force inside me shivers. “I’m not—”
“I know your secret, Ayleth.”
Every muscle in my body goes still. He cannot know. I’d be in irons if he did. My mind scrambles for a plan, but we are painfully alone in this maze. Those gray eyes bore into my very soul. In the winter day, they carry a blue tint, like the tempered steel of a blade.
The king extracts something from inside his doublet—the fletching of an arrow. Sunlight shines gold on the trimmed feathers. But there’s something smeared over it, black and tarlike.
“This was found inside the remains of the Nevenwolf,” the king tells me. “Near its head.”
Its head. Its eye. Comprehension jolts up my spine. The arrow I’d used when I faced down the beast—it had been the king’s. The one he slipped into my quiver. What a wretched fool I am. Alarm bells clang inside my skull.
“At first, I assumed someone shot the beast after it was dead,” the king goes on, spinning the broken arrow between two fingers. “But that’s not what happened, is it?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Yes, you do.” The king points the arrow at me. “You slayed the Nevenwolf with my arrow. And I know how you did it.”
He’s going to name me a witch. I am going to die. All I can think about is Stonehaven and my sisters. Jacquetta. I won’t even get the chance to warn her. She needs to—
“Light,” the king says.
My racing thoughts screech to a halt. “What?”
“Our goddess drove this arrow, my arrow, into the Nevenwolf with your hand,” the king says. “She was sending me a message about you—your worthiness. A message about the beast as well. Because it wasn’t just a creature. It was Malum itself, lurking right under my very nose.”
At the word Malum, that invisible tether yanks, as if recognizing its own name.
“In all these years, I forgot my father’s lessons.” The king steps even nearer. “I let myself become lost in the hedges again, blinded by Darkness. But I’m not lost anymore. You saved me. And I will root the remaining Malum out—become the true King of the Light, better even than my father. And you, Ayleth, are going to help me do it.”
I’d rather be sent to the pyre. “I cannot.”
King Callen merely smiles. “That’s what I believed about myself—a third son, never meant to be king. When the throne opened for me, I resisted. But Meira had other plans in store—the same as she does for you.”
This is madness. But what do I do? What can I say?
“You were guided to this court for a reason,” the king says. “You saved the High Priest’s life. You discovered Marion’s treachery. You killed the Nevenwolf.”
The crow calls again, and it sounds like the courtier’s screams. I step back, edging for the exit. The king follows, like we’re repeating the sinister dance from the banquet.
“You are running from me.” His scent of leather and smoke wraps around me, reeling the tether tighter. “The same as you did on the night of the banquet. You ran from His Illuminance as well, when he requested your help.”
They’re talking about me. Watching me.
“I understand, Ayleth. You’re afraid of what Meira wants, like I was. Even Braxos himself was afraid. But we cannot walk two paths at once.” He indicates the statue. “We cannot be both an apple farmer and a king. We must choose.”
The king reaches for me. His hand cups the side of my face, his thumb grazing the line of my jaw and traveling down the tender column of my throat. The invisible tether sings. I cannot breathe—cannot think—except about where his skin touches mine.
“Choose me, Ayleth,” he says in that oil-smooth voice. “All I ask is for your complete loyalty. Give me that, and I will make the world spin around you.”
His thumb settles at the soft place between my collarbones, his fingertips gripping the back of my neck, shortening that ominous connection between us. I know better than to trust him. And yet…some part of me is drawn in, like a moth to a flame. The king is fire, alluring and sinister. And even though I know I will be burned, I cannot deny that somewhere inside me there is an impulse to reach out and touch the flame.
But is it the king I’m drawn to, or Malum itself?
The invisible tether pulses. It would be so easy to give in to it. I doubt it would even hurt, being dragged beyond the Veil. What if I just…
It must be undone. Rhea’s words slam into me with a gust of wind, cold enough to snap me out of my spell-like trance.
Pain throbs at my throat where the king’s thumb digs into my flesh. In the hungry gray of his eyes, I see the truth—he doesn’t want loyalty. He wants to own me. Devour me—a Nevenwolf in human form. But I won’t give myself away.
“Let go of me!” I wrestle myself out of his grasp.
The connection between us instantly slackens, allowing me to draw a real breath. King Callen’s eyes flash, but not in anger. In fact, I think he might be amused. My blood runs hotter.
“Rare prizes are never easily won.” The king leans in, so that his next words graze the shell of my ear. “But I will win, Ayleth. I always do.”
And then he walks off, snow crunching under his boots as light flakes begin to fall. Alone, I sink to my knees. The wet chill of the ground seeps through my skirts. My uneven breaths frost in the air, hot tears of frustration and rage stinging my eyes. I hate the king—hate this malevolent force that calls him to me.
I’m close enough to the edge of the fountain that I can glimpse my face within its mirrored surface, reflection cloudy and distorted. What is it about me that lured Malum? What told it that it could settle between my bones? As if in answer, a crow calls. The reflection in the ice changes. My dark eyes glitter. Lips curl into a vicious smile. What is happening to me? This isn’t who I am.
But it will be, that voice whispers.
No—not if I can help it. Letting out a feral cry, I pound at the image with my fists. The ice cracks, breaking my skin with it, my own blood smearing over the fractured surface. I don’t care. I keep pounding and pounding until my arms are spent and shaking and I have nothing left inside me at all.
Without the king to guide me, it takes at least an hour to navigate out of the hedge maze. By the time I return to our room, I can’t stop shivering. My uniform is disheveled and my hands covered in dried blood from where I’d attacked the fountain. It requires every ounce of my persuasive skill to prevent Joan from summoning a physician. Jacquetta, however, is another matter. Regardless of what’s between us, I need to warn her about the king. After today, it’s clear that he’s not going to leave me alone. I don’t know what he’ll do next. She needs to be ready to run. I slip her a note when the others aren’t paying attention. We wait until the room is quiet that night and then sneak out onto the balcony.
“He touched you?” Jacquetta all but growls.
My hand goes to the soft place between my collarbones, where the king’s thumb bruised my flesh. “It’s better than arresting me.”
“No, it isn’t.” Her blue eyes snap to mine, glinting in a way that is both terrifying—and thrilling. “How dare he think he can…”
The rest falls away and she faces the garden, her breath clouding in short puffs. I can almost feel the heat of her rage rolling from her skin. I’ve seen Jacquetta angry before, but there’s something different about this. Like she…
She’d react this way if it had been any witch, that voice supplies.
“It’s over now,” I say. “But it won’t be for long. He’s going to send for me again.”
“Then you have to leave,” Jacquetta says. “As soon as possible.”
As tempting as the idea might be, I can’t. “He’ll follow. He might even go to Stonehaven.”
My relationship with Mother is complicated, but I can’t serve the coven up to the Hunt.
“What then? You just stay here and wait for him to realize what you are?”
It will be sooner rather than later. A crow calls nearby. I shiver.
“I came for the Bloodstones.” I clench my fists against the anchor of Rhea’s marks. “I’m not leaving without them. But I’m telling you so that you can go—before it’s too late.”
Jacquetta mutters something under her breath and runs a hand through her hair.
“This is madness,” she says, exasperated. “You saw what happened with Marion. If someone like her is accused, what hope do you think you have?”
She has a point. And Marion isn’t even a witch. Again, the mystery of the runed comb needles at me. Where had it come from? “Do you think it was another witch who framed her?”
Jacquetta just looks at me. “I don’t know. And I don’t see how it matters.”
“It might.” I start to pace, fumbling with the details. “Someone planted that comb. Someone who knew enough about our craft to draw the rune.”
Her brow furrows. “What does the rune have to do with anything?”
“Because if they know about our runes, they might know about the Bloodstones.”
Jacquetta absorbs this, her eyes widening. “By the Spirits—you’re right.”
“And that’s not all. Perhaps the comb itself was a distraction. I told you about the person I saw running away with the box at the banquet.” A box I’m more certain than ever contained the real Bloodstones. “What if that person was the witch, or someone working with her?”
Jacquetta tugs at the sleeve of her nightdress. “But why target Marion? And, if there is another witch at the palace, why waste time with all this nonsense when she could simply poison the king?”
I’m not sure, but a thought begins to form in my mind, vague at first, then sharper. Marion didn’t climb as high as she did in this court without cunning, and such social acumen includes being extremely observant.
“Marion might have an idea.”
“She didn’t name anyone at the banquet.”
“Maybe she didn’t know at the time,” I reason. “But she’s had plenty of opportunity to think since then.”
Jacquetta weighs this, frowning. “Even so, we can’t just waltz into the dungeon, or wherever they’ve locked her up, and ask.”
We? The word is like a tiny spark in my chest. “I didn’t think there was a we after…”
The memory of our argument crackles between us.
“As I said before,” Jacquetta starts, still fidgeting with her sleeve, “two of us are better than one—especially after what happened with the king today.”
Her eyes flash again, and that same thrill runs through me.
It doesn’t mean anything, that voice whispers.
“And the Bloodstones?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Or magical rocks, as you prefer to call them?”
Jacquetta shrugs. “I’m not going to change my mind about them. But I would like to know what’s going on here.”
Because that’s all this is—an investigation. I draw myself up, smothering the ridiculous notion that her willingness to work together has anything to do with me.
“Then we stick to our deal,” I say, matter-of-fact. “We finish this, then go our separate ways.”
Jacquetta looks at me a long time. Moonlight slides over her olive skin, luminous, and I curse myself for the way my heart beats harder.
“That’s right,” she says softly. “We stick to our deal. Nothing more.”
Another moment passes, a thousand unspoken words swirling in the silence. But what good are they? There’s nothing to say.
“What about Marion?” Jacquetta asks, changing the subject. “There’s no way to get to her without raising suspicion. Not unless you know of a way to walk through walls.”
Through walls. The answer hits me: Roland’s ring. He could take us through the tunnels. Then again, if Roland wouldn’t help me get into the archives, I doubt he’d make an exception for the dungeon. And calling him means telling Jacquetta about the Dwarf—Roland definitely isn’t going to appreciate that. But I’ll have to figure it out.
“I might know someone who can help.”
* * *
—
For all my concern, Jacquetta is surprisingly receptive to meeting Roland. Like me, she’d assumed that—whether the king killed them or they left on their own—the Dwarves were gone from Riven. She’s appalled when I explain what really happened—the Guild Marks and the bounty on any Dwarf who escapes. Again, I’m struck by how different Jacquetta is from the witches at Stonehaven. Mother never would have trusted a Dwarf, regardless of the circumstances. I’m not even certain that Eden or Willa would have done so. I spent my whole life with those witches, but I’m starting to wonder if I ever really knew them. It feels like losing them all over again, and fresh cracks carve up my heart.
“You’re sure he’ll take us?” Jacquetta asks, bringing me back onto the balcony. “And what about Marion? Even if she isn’t guarded, she might tell someone we came.”
Valid points, but I can’t let myself dwell on them. This is the only lead we have. “We’ll have to take the risk. As for Roland…just let me do the talking.”
Not that I’ve been very good at that. But I slip the ring onto my finger and turn it. A few moments later, the nearest wall rattles, then an outline of a door appears.
Jacquetta gasps. “By the Spirits!”
I motion for her to keep quiet.
“Really, Mistress Witch,” Roland grouses as he emerges from the shadows. “It’s the middle of the night. What could be so—”
He stops short when he notices Jacquetta. “What’s she doing here? And if this is about the archives—”
“It’s not,” I tell him. “We already found the Dwarvian records, but the pages about the Bloodstones had been ripped out.”
Roland tilts his head at me. “If the pages were ripped out, how do you know what was written on them?”
Damn everything. “I just do. It’s…a witch thing.”
Jacquetta casts me a dubious look. But I glare at her and she nods. “Yes. I felt it as well.”
Thank the Spirits for that.
Roland crosses his arms. “Even if they are missing, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“You must have heard of the arrest.”
“Aye.” He nods. “Surprised it wasn’t you, honestly. Went to the dungeons to check, but it’s some noblewoman.”
Leaves rustle in the garden.
“You’ve seen her, then?” I press. “Could you take us?”
“Take yourselves down there.” Roland waves me off. “I already told you—”
