The Crimson Crown, page 38
“We’re leaving,” I tell her.
I was a fool to come here in the first place. Not even the Bloodstones can help me now. I’m lost. Cursed, just like those wretched crows warned me.
“Ayleth?” Jacquetta’s voice carries from the main chamber. “I couldn’t find Joan and then the guards said you left. What—”
She stops short in the doorway, registering my half-stuffed satchel. Fitz noses his way in beside her. He lays his ears flat and halfheartedly growls.
“What’s going on?”
“The queen,” I tell her, the truth tumbling out of me before I can stop it. “She’s dead. And it’s because of me. I killed her.”
Jacquetta gapes at me. “What?”
I drop the shift and start pacing. Images crash together in my mind—the queen lifting into the air. The shadows wrapping around her, squeezing the life from her body.
“Ayleth, talk to me,” Jacquetta presses.
Don’t, a voice in my mind warns. If you tell her, she will leave.
But she was always going to leave, wasn’t she? All we had was this insane quest holding us together—nothing else. In fact, it’s better if she goes. It’s not safe for her here, with me. I need to make her go.
“I lied to you,” I say, my voice trembling with adrenaline. “I came here for the Bloodstones, but not because I’m a Second. I came for Rhea.”
Jacquetta pauses. “I don’t understand. Rhea is…”
“Rhea is dead, yes. But on the night of my Ascension, I saw her in the flames. I touched her. I tried to pull her out. See?” I thrust out my hands, showing her the triangles. “My sister gave me these marks. They’re our marks. Our runes, connecting us—even through death. That’s why I need the Bloodstones. They’re the only things with enough magic to bring her back.”
For a moment, Jacquetta just stares at my hands.
“You…” she starts, her brows knitted together. “You…touched Rhea? You reached beyond the Veil?”
The fear in her voice threatens to break my heart. Because it’s exactly what I expected.
“I just wanted my sister.” Tears track down my face and sting on my lips. “I thought that if I could just pull her back, everything would be fine. I was never meant to be Second. I’m not even gifted.”
“Not gifted?” Jacquetta shakes her head. “You killed the Nevenwolf. You said—”
“I lied.” The admission sears in my throat. “I’m not a Second. I never even made a vow. I have no power. Not like Rhea did. She’s the one who killed the Nevenwolf. Through me.”
“Ayleth, that’s not—”
“It’s true,” I all but shout. Nettle meows, concerned. “Rhea’s magic killed the Nevenwolf. But I’m the one who brought the beast out in the first place. When I reached for my sister, something reached back. Malum. It’s been living in me this whole time.”
As if in answer, that force behind my left ribs shudders. I claw at myself, as though I could dig it out with my bare hands. I would, if I could. I would tear myself apart just to pry it out from between my bones.
“That’s why the thing in the archives has been following us,” I barrel on. “It’s why the Nevenwolf stalked me in the forest. It’s probably even why your power doesn’t work here. I’m drawing Malum from beyond the Veil—smothering your magic. And tonight, with the queen…”
I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes to block the surge of swirling images. Wind pushes against the glass panes of the windows, and I can almost hear the click of claws against stone, like whatever killed the queen is out there, trying to get in.
“I should never have come here,” I whisper. “I can’t get Rhea. I ruin everything I touch. I’m…broken.”
Quiet hums between us. I brace myself for the sound of Jacquetta’s footsteps walking—no, running—away. I would run if the situation were reversed. But she doesn’t move.
“You’re not broken.”
“Did you not hear me? I meddled with the Veil. Something marked me or it—”
“I knew,” Jacquetta interrupts.
I blink at her. “About…what I did?”
She shakes her head. Swallows. Just like on the night of the banquet, in the courtyard, there’s something fragile about her. Vulnerable.
“In the forest…when we were supposed to run away together”—she pauses—“I knew it wasn’t you who came to the clearing.”
An ember in the fire pops.
“You…knew?”
But she can’t have. Because that would mean—
“I wasn’t completely certain,” Jacquetta continues, the words rough. “But yes. Deep down, I sensed it, like I do other magic. I knew.”
Thoughts collide together in my mind, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. But there are too many contradictions. “But at the hunt, you were so angry with me…and then when we fought you said you were—”
Relief. The word plunges into me again.
“I know what I said.” Jacquetta tugs at her sleeve. “I lied. I didn’t know it was your mother who met me in the clearing, but I sensed that it wasn’t you. I left anyway.”
Nettle hisses at her, tail twitching.
All I can do is stare at the other witch. What does Jacquetta want me to do with this information? Why is she confessing it now? Sudden anger spikes in my chest.
You were right all along, that voice whispers. She left you on purpose.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I demand. “It would have been simple enough. You could have said that you knew all along. That you didn’t want me and—”
“I did want you.” Those cobalt-blue eyes blaze and my heart knocks against my chest. “You were all I wanted. And that terrified me. That’s why I walked away. I’m a coward.”
Thunder rumbles outside. I wait for the rage to fill me up—for betrayal to twist between my ribs. But the wound is small. Nothing compared to the pain etched on Jacquetta’s face. In this moment, all I see is the scared young witch alone in the forest, frozen in fear as she faced the path that lay before her. It’s a scar that exactly matches my own.
“We were sixteen,” I say. “You weren’t a coward.”
“Yes, I was.” She laughs, bitter. “You said yourself—I could have admitted the truth every day since we met at the Sanctum, and I…”
She trails off, folding her arms around her body, like she’s trying to hold herself together.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
“Because…” She hesitates. Inhales. “Because over the years I’d convinced myself that I was wrong. It had been you that night. When I saw you at the Sanctum—the things you said—I was even more certain. You were a Second, exactly like you—or your mother—told me you wanted.”
Damn my own stubborn pride. “I was pretending. Trying to hurt you.”
She nods. “Well, you did a good job of it. It wasn’t until the hunt, when you pieced everything together, that I knew I’d been right.”
I hold her gaze. “And you still never said?”
“I almost did,” she admits. “But…I told myself that it didn’t matter who met me in the forest. All that was too long ago. We’re different witches now. Whatever I felt for you was just a remnant of before. It would pass.”
The same words I’d repeated to myself, like a spell. Say it enough times and it becomes true.
Because it is true, that voice insists.
For the first time, I lock it away.
“Did it pass for you?” I ask, daring a step closer. “Because I still feel it.”
Love. It trembles between us, fragile and brittle-edged. Because this love wasn’t the sort from Willa’s stories—not for us. Ours was hard-won and easily lost.
But I will not lose it again.
The space between us is achingly narrow. Jacquetta’s juniper scent wafts around me and blood pounds through my veins. Our faces tip toward each other and I hold my breath as our lips brush, slow at first and then deeper. The taste of roses fills my mouth, along with something else, so familiar that it’s painful.
Home.
A lock unclicks in my heart, opening a door I believed was sealed forever. I bound through it now, returning Jacquetta’s kiss with the hunger of all the wasted years we’ve spent apart. This is not slow and sensual, but urgent, like we’re both worried the other person might slip away. Our hands fumble with our clothes as we topple onto the bed, still wrapped around each other. Jacquetta straddles me on the mattress, pulling her shift over her head. Firelight gleams against the perfection of her body, all soft curves and sculpted angles.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper.
Jacquetta keeps her eyes on mine, a thousand unspoken words swirling within them. She picks up my hand, deliberately kissing each fingertip. Waves of heat course through my limbs as her mouth travels down, pressing against the triangles at the base of each ring finger.
“You’re not broken, Ayleth,” she murmurs against my skin.
My entire body melts. Gently, Jacquetta guides my hand so that it rests on the curve of her waist. A sigh shudders through me at her softness. I let my hands explore the plane of her back. The ridges of her shoulder blades. The dip of her spine where it meets her hips. It’s like another language, one I want to understand in the very core of my being.
Jacquetta lets out a tiny gasp as I find the place between her thighs. She catches my wrists and pins my hands above my head, her mouth crashing into mine. But she doesn’t stay there long. A groan escapes me as her lips move down the curve of my neck and over the ledge of my collarbone. With agonizing slowness, she pauses at each of my breasts, teasing the nipples until a delicious ache blooms between my legs. This is more than simply desire. It’s need, pure and simple and so all-consuming that it will burn me up. But I don’t care. I want to burn.
Jacquetta nudges my knees apart, her teeth nipping at the inside of my thighs. Groaning, I lift my hips toward her, until her tongue at last moves against me.
“Jacquetta,” I gasp, gripping the bedpost.
She pushes harder, faster. My hips rock in time to her rhythm, sparks dancing through my blood.
“There,” I manage, back arching. “Like that.”
Jacquetta moans, the vibration traveling from her mouth and through my entire body. Release explodes inside me and I cry out, sinking into the bed, breathless and damp and still craving more of her.
She climbs up to meet me and I push her onto the pillows, our gazes locked together. I want to explore her. To watch as she loses herself and know that her pleasure came from me. I take my time in finding her tender places. My mouth lingers on the thin skin of her wrist. Her earlobe. The curve where her neck meets her shoulder.
“Ayleth.” Jacquetta’s hips push against me. “Please.”
That one word will be my undoing.
I lower myself between her legs, finding the velvet softness between her thighs. Her hands tangle in my hair, fresh heat igniting in my limbs at her sounds of pleasure. Her hips move in time with my quickening tempo, her muscles tensing beneath my hands. My name spills from her lips and it will be the absolute end of me. With a last cry, Jacquetta relaxes, her hands still buried in my hair.
She pulls me up to lie beside her. And for once, curled here with Jacquetta, I let myself drift away, feeling safe and wanted in a way I never believed possible.
* * *
—
Sometime later, I wake to the sound of rain pattering against the window. Gradually, I register the shape in the bed beside me.
Jacquetta.
The last hours crash back into my mind—the warm silk of her skin and her taste, like roses and juniper and home. The word fizzes in my blood and I skim my fingertip along her shoulder, just to make sure she’s real.
Jacquetta stirs. Her eyes flutter open, their cobalt blue glimmering in the dimness. A hidden, fragile part of me worries that she might not feel the way she did before—that she might regret what we did—and I shrink slightly into the bedclothes.
“Hello,” she says, her lips curling into a lazy smile.
Wings flutter in my stomach. “Hello.”
In that single word, all the history between us is washed away. It’s like there was a string attached to our hearts, one that held no matter how many times we tried to cut it.
Jacquetta catches my wrist and turns my palm up, her fingertip tracing the lines of my skin before pausing at the triangle etched under my ring finger. Somehow, this slight contact feels more intimate than what we just shared, and my heart beats harder.
“I wish you’d told me.”
There’s no accusation in her tone, no judgment. In fact, she sounds sad—like she blames herself for my secrecy.
“I didn’t know how. At my Ascension, the others were…” The memory of Selene and her suspicion resurfaces, along with the sting of Mother’s slap. “They didn’t believe me.”
Jacquetta tangles our fingers, pressing our palms together. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. And they were right, in the end. I might have been reaching for Rhea, but now…” I pull my hand away, the room suddenly colder.
“That wasn’t your fault.” Jacquetta props her head up on her hand. “You reached for your sister because that’s who you are, Ayleth. You’re brave.”
A short laugh escapes me. “I’m not brave.”
“You came here alone,” she says simply. “The only one of the Ancients’ descendants who dared to reclaim the Bloodstones. You were ready to pull your sister from death itself.”
I roll onto my back, staring up at the bed’s canopy. “And look what happened. Something else reached for me. It’s only a matter of time before…”
Thunder rattles the windowpanes.
“Do you really think it’s Malum?” Jacquetta asks.
On instinct, I press my hand to my left ribs.
“Yes. You saw the Nevenwolf in the forest—sensed whatever was following us in the archives. And then, earlier, with the queen…” I picture her solid black eyes and the shadows diving into her mouth. “It took her, but it wanted me. I won’t escape it again.”
Jacquetta pauses for a long moment. “Then we fix the Veil.”
She says it like it’s a simple errand to be run. “How? The queen is dead. Whatever she knew about the Bloodstones is gone with her.”
“What if we didn’t need the Bloodstones?”
My brow furrows. “Of course we need them.”
“We did,” she allows. “Just like the covens needed Heirs and Seconds. But it’s as I said before—that hierarchy isn’t helping any of us. We could change it.”
This again. I push myself up, gathering the bedclothes around me. “Jacquetta, I can’t—”
“Just, hear me.” She raises a hand. “The Veil is failing. For all we know, the Bloodstones were never enough to hold it. Nevenwolves? Shadow creatures? It’s only going to get worse. If we don’t do something, we’ll be fighting a different battle.”
I won’t be fighting a battle at all. Wind groans against the palace.
“What do you have in mind?”
Jacquetta never takes her gaze from mine. “We go to Stonehaven.”
To…Stonehaven? She must be joking. But there’s not a hint of a smile on her lips, only fierce determination—an expression that sends fire racing through my limbs.
“I can’t go back. I explained what happened.”
“But you won’t be alone this time,” she says. “We’ll bring your coven and mine together. The other Heirs as well, if we can manage it. All of us will devise a new method to hold the Veil, one that doesn’t rely on the Bloodstones. Just magic.”
Just magic. The words strike a chord and I lean toward the idea that magic can simply exist. That I can simply exist. But I turn my hand over, tracing Rhea’s marks. Two lines drifting apart, yet always coming back together. If I walk away from the palace, abandon the Bloodstones, I’ll never see my sister again.
It must be undone, Rhea’s words float back to me beneath the storm.
“If I leave, I’ll have failed her,” I say, the old wound of my guilt opening. “Again.”
Jacquetta’s brow furrows. “What are you talking about?”
There’s no point in keeping it back. “The night of the raid. I was supposed to be on patrol with her. Supposed to be watching for the Hunt, but I was…”
With you, I don’t say, because I don’t want it to sound like I’m blaming her. I’m not. It was my fault. My choice.
“Oh, Ayleth,” Jacquetta breathes. “Have you been carrying this around all these years?”
I pick at the fringe on a pillow. “It’s true.”
“No,” she says firmly, snatching up my hand. “It’s not. Rhea wouldn’t have blamed you for what happened.”
“Then why did she appear to me?”
“I don’t know,” Jacquetta admits. “But I know that your sister loved you more than anything else. She would want you to have your own life—not live in the shadow of hers.”
Live in shadow. That’s all I seem to be doing of late, running from Nevenwolves and kings and—myself.
I have been blaming myself—hating myself—for what happened with Rhea. I thought that if I brought her back, everything would be fixed. I’d be forgiven. But what if there was never anything to forgive? As if in answer, the triangles on my palms twinge. I don’t realize that I’m crying until I taste salt on my lips. Jacquetta wipes the tears away with her thumb.
“You asked me to choose you once.” She cups the side of my face with her hand. “I was too afraid, then. But I’m not afraid anymore.”
“You were smart,” I tell her. “This plan is madness. It will never work.”
She lifts a shoulder. “Then at least we’ll have tried.”
