The Crimson Crown, page 37
I recall the tapestries in Queen Sybil’s rooms, women charging into battle. Women like us, I’d thought the first time I saw them. And the queen didn’t always reside in Riven. She might have been raised to be sympathetic to witches. After all, now that I think of it, I’ve never once heard the queen speak ill of a witch, or even praise Meira.
The real bets are the ones you don’t see on the table, Sir Weston had said.
He was right. The queen might not be a witch herself, but I suspect she knows one. I fling open the door to our chamber. Fitz growls and barks at me from where Nettle has him cornered. I ignore them, hurrying from one room to the next.
“Jacquetta?” I call. “Are you here?”
Steam billows around me as I open the door on the far side of the main chamber. I freeze, instantly registering my mistake. Marion’s suite contains a private bathing chamber, a luxury so rare that I’d completely forgotten about it. And it’s not empty.
Jacquetta is half-submerged in the water of the copper tub. A mix of shock, horror, and something else floods through me at the sight of her, rendering me utterly incapable of doing anything but stare. Jacquetta yelps in surprise and flails, water sloshing over the rim of the tub.
“What are you doing?” She snatches up a drying cloth and flings it over herself.
“I’m sorry!” I cry, summoning enough sense to slap my hands over my eyes. “I was looking for you and—”
“For Spirits’ sake, get your cat!”
I peek through my fingers to discover that Nettle has entered the room and is currently standing on her back feet at the edge of the tub, pawing at the bubbles.
“Nettle!” I rush to scoop her up—and afford myself a much closer view of Jacquetta.
Fresh heat blazes through my veins at how her wet skin glistens in the late-afternoon light. The delicate ledge of her collarbones. The swell of her chest.
“I’m so sorry,” I splutter, hardly knowing where to look. “It’s just—I went to see Blodwyn and I think the queen has something to do with Marion and—”
“Slow down.” Jacquetta shifts in the tub.
Nettle yowls, struggling enough that I release her, shooing her away with my feet.
“Blodwyn had scrying cards,” I begin again when my cat is safely out of the room. “Real ones. She says she found them in the queen’s rooms.”
“The queen?” Jacquetta repeats. “She isn’t a witch.”
“No,” I agree. “But what if she’s working with one?”
“It…would explain the comb,” Jacquetta allows. “But why would she take such a risk? She has so much to lose.”
“But perhaps more to lose if she did nothing,” I point out. “The queen made no secret of the fact that she wants Blodwyn to rule in her own right. Marion was pushing for Blodwyn to be sent away. You remember what Joan said about her naming the dog Fitz.”
Jacquetta frowns, considering. “Even so, why would one of us care enough to help a mortal queen?”
She has a point. With the war waging, a witch would need a very good reason to—
A thought lands in my mind, swift and sudden as a lightning strike.
“The Bloodstones. She might have them.”
Jacquetta stares at me. “Do you really think so?”
“The queen would have access to the crypt—and the archives, for that matter,” I reason, ticking the items off on my fingers. “She could have been the one to tear the pages out of the Dwarvian records. Maybe she even sent someone to steal the crown at the banquet. With the promise of the Bloodstones, any witch would have helped her.”
The wheels behind Jacquetta’s eyes work. “But all that is coincidental.”
“Maybe,” I allow. “But I suspect that it’s more than just illness keeping the queen locked inside her rooms. You remember what Joan said about the argument when the king visited. Perhaps he or the High Priest suspects her involvement. The last time I saw her, the queen was wearing a gown patterned with Meira’s Eyes. She’d never done so before. Don’t you find that odd?”
Jacquetta hesitates. “If you’re right, we don’t have time to waste. Let me just—”
She must be so absorbed in the plan that she doesn’t think before she pushes herself up out of the water. The soaked cloth clings to her skin, revealing the outline of her body, backlit against the row of windows on the other side of the room. The swell of her breasts. The dip of her waist. The curve of her hip. Every nerve in my body comes alive.
Jacquetta catches me staring and flushes. “Could you—”
She gestures at a pile of drying cloths. My clumsy hands fumble to fetch one, our fingers brushing as I pass it to her. Lightning jolts up my arm. This is not like with the king, revulsion mixed with the sinister pull of Malum. This is warm. Real. Wanted.
You do not want her, that voice whispers.
But that is not how I feel as we stand there, staring at each other. A thin line of water trickles down the column of Jacquetta’s throat and disappears beneath the cloth. A wild desire wings in my belly. What does that place feel like? The pulse at Jacquetta’s throat quickens.
“I’ll change,” she says, shattering the moment. “Then we’ll go.”
I give myself a swift shake. “Yes.”
And then, before I do something I regret, I walk to the door, ignoring that aching part of myself that wants her to ask me to stay.
The queen’s chambers are tomblike and silent.
Gone is the usual chatter, rustle of skirts, or crackle of the hearth. The curtains are drawn, throwing the room into a dimness that makes shadows slide like oil over the furnishings. The apple boughs sculpted into the ceiling appear like reaching tentacles and the dull gleam of crystal like the sheen of a hundred eyes. Wind groans outside, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
“This feels…” Jacquetta starts.
“Wrong,” I finish for her. More than simply illness, though I can’t pinpoint what.
A door opens on the other side of the chamber, flooding us in light.
“What are you two doing here?”
Limned in the glow from the other room, Duchess Poole appears more shadow than woman, like she’s crossed through the Veil itself.
“We came to visit the queen,” I explain, which was all it had taken for the guards to let us through the doors. The duchess, however, is another matter.
She steps nearer, the gold embellishment on her gown glinting. “Did she send for you?”
“No, but—”
“She did not,” the duchess snaps. “She would not, brazen climber that you are.”
I bristle, though I’m unsurprised by her vitriol. The duchess is only saying what the rest of the court is thinking. They all want a villain to blame. I don’t even bother arguing.
“Enjoy your position.” The duchess shifts the basin she’s carrying. “Though, you should know by now that swift rises give way to equally swift falls.”
Wind howls down the chimney, sounding so close to Marion’s screams that I shiver. Even the duchess reminds me of the former courtier. She might not be locked in a dungeon, but Duchess Poole’s usual impeccable appearance is frayed around the edges. Wisps of her hair escape from beneath her headdress and a corner of her shift peeks above the neckline of her bodice. This is not the same woman who trained us on court etiquette. None of us are the same.
“Is that Mistress Ayleth?”
It takes me a moment to register that the voice, so soft and weak, belongs to the queen.
“Yes, Majesty,” Duchess Poole replies. “I was just telling her to—”
“Send her in.”
The duchess’s jaw tightens. “Majesty, you need your rest.”
“Let her come,” the queen repeats, firmer this time. “Then go.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Go.”
For a moment, the duchess just stands there, her lips pressed together.
“Well,” she says at last, jerking her chin toward the other chamber. “You heard the queen. Go and take a good look at what you’ve done.”
Look in the mirror, Marion had said, blaming me for her plight.
But I haven’t done anything. Not to Marion and not to the queen. This is the king’s doing—the workings of this entire rotting court. Even so, guilt prickles against my conscience. Had I set something into motion by coming here? Like how I lured the Nevenwolf? The place behind my left ribs shivers.
“By the Spirits,” Jacquetta whispers as we stand at the threshold to the queen’s chamber.
Queen Sybil is pacing in front of the hearth, her body bathed in gold from the light of the flames. She’s become so thin. Her nightdress hangs from her frame, like she’s been ill for months, not days.
“There was a raven,” the queen mutters to herself, evidently having forgotten that she summoned us. “And blood. And snow.”
What is she talking about? What’s wrong with her? There’s an array of small bottles on a tray beside the queen’s bed. I motion for Jacquetta to follow me and edge toward them.
“Anything?” Jacquetta whispers as I sniff the contents of a slender green vial.
“Willowroot, maybe. And elderberry,” I say, inhaling again. “But it’s laced with something else.”
Sharp and bitter and earthy. I’ve smelled it before, but where…
The dinner, my mind supplies. In the wine.
“Thornapple,” I breathe.
Jacquetta’s eyes widen. “She’s being poisoned.”
“It makes sense. Look at her.”
The queen continues her pacing, plucking at the long, loose tendrils of her hair. Perhaps this isn’t the first time someone has attempted to harm her. Was my glass at the dinner meant for the queen? But why?
“Find Joan,” I tell Jacquetta. “She knows where the medicines are kept.”
“What do I look for? What’s the antidote for thornapple?”
Time, I recall from my lessons. And time we might not have. I swallow.
“There isn’t one—she either survives this or she doesn’t. But we can try to help.”
Jacquetta hesitates, like perhaps she wants to argue. Maybe she believes a mortal queen isn’t worth saving. A month ago, I would have agreed. But eventually, Jacquetta nods and slips out of the room. The crackle of the fire fills the silence.
“Ravens,” the queen mutters to the flames. “The raven.”
Has the poison already reached her mind?
“Your Majesty,” I say softly, trying not to startle her as I approach.
Her head jerks up. “Ayleth.”
By the Spirits. The queen appears even worse up close. Her eyes are glassy, the whites yellowish. The veins showing through her sallow skin are dark. I don’t need to be a Blessed to know that she doesn’t have long. Much as I want to help the queen, I have to help myself as well.
“Your Majesty, I must ask you—”
“Has she gone?” The queen’s attention whips back toward the door.
“Jacquetta? She went—”
“Not her.” The queen waves me off. “The other one.”
My brow rumples. “Duchess Poole?”
A piece clicks into place. Had the duchess been dosing the queen? Was that the reason for her harried appearance—guilt and fear of being caught?
“Has she served you anything?” I ask. “Food or wine or…”
The queen snatches my arm, her skin unnaturally cold through the sleeve of my dress. “They will kill her.”
A log collapses in the hearth.
“Kill who? The duchess?”
“I cannot say,” she whispers, shaking her head. “They will hear. They hear everything.”
Darkness thickens around us. Shadows lengthen and swell in the corners of the room. I sense a faint twinge behind my left ribs.
“Is it a witch?” I ask, abandoning caution. “Have you been working with a witch? Is that what happened with Marion’s comb? Is that where you got the scrying cards?”
Her eyes snap to mine, pupils blown wide, like twin mirrors. I can see the outline of my face inside them. “Marion. I tried to warn her. I tried.”
“Warn her about what?” I beg. “The comb? Were you the one who framed her?”
Her lips move, but no words come out.
“Please, Your Majesty.” I grasp the queen’s shoulders. “Do you remember when I told you about my sister? I’m trying to get her back. And I want to help you too. But you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“Sister,” she echoes, plucking at the neckline of her nightdress. “I had a sister. The raven saved her. Blood in the snow.”
An image of the falcon’s kill resurfaces in my mind, its innards splattered on the white ground. “I don’t understand.”
The queen jolts, like she was struck. She abruptly lets go of me and rushes off to another part of the room, then starts frantically rooting through drawers.
“I will show you. Then you will know,” she says. “They will not find it.”
“Find what, Your Majesty?” I follow her. “Is it the Bloodstones? Do you have them?”
The fire snaps. Curtains sway and billow in a fresh draft, like wraiths. The queen freezes, her terrified gaze fixed on something I can’t see.
“It has come for me,” she rasps. “Just as I always knew it would.”
“What…”
The rest of the question is swallowed by a low growl. An instant later, the slow tap of approaching claws fills the chamber. Every hair on my body rises. No. Not here.
“Not again,” I whisper.
The queen creeps nearer, her shoulders hunched. “You hear it too?”
I nod, mouth dry. That force inside me thrums as the growling starts again, closer now.
“Come.” I snatch the queen’s wrist. “We need to leave. Now.”
I start pulling the queen toward the door, but she resists me.
“I must stay. It is the price.”
“Price?” I repeat, frustrated. “The price of what?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, the queen begins to cough. Blood stains the sleeve of her nightdress and drips down the front—crimson against white.
“Please, Your Majesty. Sybil.” I tug desperately at her arm. She won’t budge.
“You will stay.” She smiles at me, her lips glistening red. “For my daughter. Keep her safe.”
Another draft shudders through the chamber. That force strengthens, reaching outward, its invisible tether tightening as the claws click nearer, slow and ominous.
“We need to go,” I urge the queen.
But she doubles over, seized by another coughing fit. It worsens, until her whole body is wracked with convulsions. Beneath it all, that low, sinister growl rumbles between us. And somehow, deep in my bones, I know that it’s here for the queen.
“Go away!” I shout at whatever this thing is. “Leave her alone!”
The fire dims in the grate and the temperature drops. I have to do something. But what could I possibly…
A frantic thought swoops into my mind. Rhea helped me kill the Nevenwolf in the forest. Perhaps she can keep this creature back. I stare down at my hands, at Rhea’s marks. If they protected me, can they protect the queen?
“Please, Rhea,” I whisper, grasping Queen Sybil’s shoulders.
Another growl fills the chamber, angrier now. The queen’s breathing is fast and shallow. Her eyes roll back in her head.
“Not yet,” I beg, reaching for my sister in my mind. Picturing her amid the flames at my Ascension. “Please, Rhea. Help!”
By some miracle, warmth prickles in my hands, just as it did in the forest when I gripped the arrow. I hold the queen tighter, willing her to fight. Urging Rhea’s magic to intervene. The triangles on my palms pulse in time to my frantic heartbeat.
“Just hold on,” I tell the queen. “It will be—”
The invisible tether yanks.
Malum surges inside me, as if it’s taking a breath of its own. Shadows descend from every corner of the chamber. And then, to my utter horror, they dive into the queen’s mouth. Her eyes fly wide, solid black.
“Stop!” I scream.
It’s too late. The queen’s entire body lifts, suspended by the shadows, which wrap tighter and tighter around her like a hideous cocoon, spun from darkness itself. There’s a roar and a blast of air, and then an invisible force slams into the queen. She shudders with the impact, her body going limp as she sinks to the ground. Her head lolls to one side. A line of black trickles from her bloodstained lips.
The eerie silence of death settles over us.
Tears prick in my eyes. I don’t understand. Rhea’s magic protected me in the forest. It killed the Nevenwolf. Why couldn’t it help the queen?
The answer forms slowly, like frost crackling over a windowpane: Because this had nothing to do with the queen. I was wrong. The creature hadn’t come here for her. It came for me. The shadows didn’t claim her until I touched her. I guided Malum to Queen Sybil. Threw her in front of the beast.
That force behind my left ribs trembles, as if…satisfied.
The queen is dead.
I race back to our rooms, jumping at every shadow, haunted by the memory of the darkness pouring into her mouth. The blood leaking from her lips, her eyes like black marbles. All because I touched her. I killed her.
Mother and everyone else was right. I can’t pull Rhea out from beyond the Veil. I’ll only attract something worse. Something…wrong. Soon enough, whatever killed the queen will be back for me. I fling open the door to our suite, run into my bedchamber, and start stuffing my things into my satchel. Nettle appears from wherever she’d been hiding and trills in concern.
