The Crimson Crown, page 4
“Poor thing.” Eden clicks her tongue, her Blessed magic strengthening her connection to the forest. “What could have happened?”
“Can’t trees just die?”
She presses her hand against the rough bark of the trunk. “This feels different. It’s like something inside of it…broke. If I didn’t know better, I’d say sadness killed it.”
Sadness? What could a tree be—
A faint marking on the trunk catches my attention. Two letters are engraved into the bark. They’re worn down by years of storms and frosts, but I would recognize them anywhere. And I should. I’m the one who carved them.
A + J
Ayleth and…Jacquetta.
Every nerve in my body hums, and I suddenly know exactly where we are. This is the clearing—our clearing. I pull back from the tree as if bitten, but not quickly enough.
“What’s that?” Eden asks. Her lips slacken as she registers the carving. “Oh, Ayleth.”
The pity in her voice only serves to spark my anger. Not at Eden, though—at myself.
“Sindony had no business mentioning”—she shifts, uncomfortable—“the incident.”
Incident. A kind word for what it was. Disgrace, Mother called it when the Elementals dragged me home. Betrayal.
And she was right. Jacquetta wasn’t one of us. I knew that. She’d come to Stonehaven with her mother when we were both sixteen, fleeing the raid on her first coven. That was before our disguise, but even so, it became increasingly obvious that the two witches didn’t share our views. They were flippant regarding the Ancients. Jacquetta’s mother often experimented with the craft, straying from her affiliation. Mother warned me constantly to stay away from them. I didn’t listen. Jacquetta was the only witch who didn’t care that I was an Heir’s daughter, or that I showed no interest in the craft. All she cared about was me—or so I thought.
“It’s nothing,” I say, as much to myself as to Eden.
Because it was nothing, at least to Jacquetta. The cold light of morning, which found me alone in this clearing after Rhea died, proved that fact clearly enough.
“Do you…still think of her?” Eden asks quietly.
I shouldn’t. The seven years of her absence should have destroyed the rotting roots of any meaningless sentiment. And yet memories still burrow into my dreams. Another breeze winds through the clearing and I catch the hint of juniper.
It smells like winter.
Would that I could rip it all up, my own wretched heart with it.
“I was young,” I tell Eden. “I made a mistake.”
“It’s all right.” Eden squeezes my arm. “No one doubts your loyalty.”
Anymore, she doesn’t say. There had been plenty of sidelong looks and hissing whispers after I returned from my failed venture. It was so humiliating that I almost left the Sanctum again. But where would I have gone? And I didn’t possess the will. Much as I try to deny it, after Rhea’s death, the blow of Jacquetta’s rejection had crushed me. It had killed my soul the same way this tree died, leaving me nothing but an empty, broken husk.
Enough, that voice whispers.
It’s right. I stuff the feelings back into their tomb where they belong.
“Let’s just—”
Nettle yowls a warning. I whirl around, but there’s nothing behind us. Until…
A high, tinny ringing followed by a glasslike shatter carries beneath the wind. Anxiety knots in my chest, painfully swift. I know that sound.
“The wards,” I say to Eden, hardly feeling the words leave my lips. “The wards broke.”
Color drains from her face. “Are you certain?”
I wish I wasn’t—for it to be something, anything else, even a Nevenwolf. But as the noise rises and crests, there’s no denying the truth. The wards have broken. A single thought loops through my mind—
The last time this happened, Rhea died. And it was my fault.
* * *
—
Run, run, RUN, my mind screams as my feet fumble through the forest.
Memories crash together, transporting me back to the night of the Hunt’s raid on Stonehaven. I was supposed to be on patrol with Rhea, assigned lookout duty while she maintained the wards with the other Casters. But I’d skipped it, preferring to spend the hours in the forest with Jacquetta. Flashes of the night whirl in my mind—an empty bottle of stolen wine. Leaves tossed in the air. Stars spinning into a blur above us.
Do you hear them? The stars are singing.
You smell like juniper.
You taste like roses.
I hate myself for how happy I’d been. How I’d been laughing and dancing and kissing while the Hunt had been prowling beyond our borders, just waiting for the chance to strike. I should have seen them. I should have warned the others and protected my sister. Instead, I’d made it back just in time to watch the clouds of charcoal smoke billow above the Sanctum. To witness the arrows soaring over our walls. To choke on the stench of burning flesh. I didn’t know it then, but Rhea had already been struck. She was always already dying, while I…
Eden and I nearly topple over each other as we come careening to a halt at the edge of the forest. Farther down the tree line, a party emerges from the woods. My blood turns to rivers of ice. They’re wearing the green of the Hunt.
They’re here. Again.
Breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe.
Nettle trills beside me.
“They’re not armed.” Eden squeezes my hand, her pulse thudding through her skin. “And there’s only a few of them.”
Not like before, when it seemed like there were a hundred swarming us. Now less than a dozen Huntsmen are clustered outside the Sanctum’s walls. The man I assume to be their leader dismounts. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, striding up to the gate with an air of arrogance that has me gritting my back teeth.
The portcullis rattles open, and I brace myself for the sight of this monster stepping though it, desecrating our home with his murderous footsteps. He doesn’t get the chance. Mother intercepts him. She’s replaced her crimson cloak with her dull gray Sanctress robes. The Eye of Meira glimmers where it’s embroidered on her bodice, and I pray to every Spirit listening that the disguise is enough. That he doesn’t suspect.
Mother and the Huntsman engage in a brief conversation. He passes something to her, salutes, and returns to his horse. An instant later, the party steers their mounts down the eastern path—away from Stonehaven.
“They’re leaving,” Eden whispers, leaning into me. “They’re gone.”
My entire body sags in relief. Nettle nudges herself against my legs. “What did they want?”
Eden shakes her head. As soon as the horses disappear, we race back to the Sanctum and through the open gate. Witches hurry from one end of the courtyard to the other, the bitter-spice scent of panic and fear thick enough to chew.
“Ayleth!” Mother peels herself away from the crowd.
For an instant, she’s the witch—the mother—I remember from the years before Rhea died. She reaches for me, her hazel eyes shining with concern, and I half expect her to pull me into an embrace. I’ll hardly know what to do if she does. It’s been so long since I felt her arms around me. But her hands grip my shoulders instead, fingers like talons digging into my flesh.
“What were you thinking?” She gives me a shake. “The forest?”
I wrangle myself out of her grasp. “It was only for a while.”
“My mother sent us,” Eden supplies, her freckles stark on her white cheeks. “We needed more fireroot. I’m sorry to have worried you, Cassandra.”
Mother inhales a visible breath. A nearby witch starts to sob.
“Go to Willa,” Mother directs Eden.
Eden casts me a worried look, but I nod and she hurries off to help dole out calming tinctures and other remedies. The smell of lavender wafts on the breeze. At this point, I could use some myself. A whole vat of it, in fact.
“I thought we were finished with behavior like this,” Mother says, keeping her voice low. “You should have been here.”
How she does love to twist that blade. Rage crackles in my wrists, coupled with a healthy shot of guilt. Does she not understand how foolish I feel for what happened? Am I to spend my whole life making up for it?
“We were fetching fireroot,” I say tightly. “I would have returned by dinner.”
“And I told you to see to the Seconds.”
“They were fine,” I snap back. “Am I not allowed a few hours to myself? You’re about to take my whole life.”
Mother huffs. “I’ll never understand this flair for dramatics. Your position is one of honor, Ayleth. Plenty of witches would give anything to boast your lineage.”
Then let them have it, I want to say. I relinquish it freely. But I only stand there, as I’ve always done, hating the blood that beats in my veins.
“Find something useful to do here.” Mother indicates the courtyard. “The others will look to you. I’m meeting with the Heirs and their Seconds to discuss what happened.”
That pulls me up short. I would expect the Heirs to attend such a meeting, but the Seconds? Why the others and not me?
You know why, that voice in my mind whispers.
Fresh anger kindles in my belly. How convenient for Mother—naming me Second one minute and witchling the next.
“So I’m important enough to stand beside you and wear a cloak,” I call at her back, loud enough for everyone to hear. “But not to sit at your council table?”
My pulse hums at my boldness. Several witches slide us surreptitious glances.
“You will join my table,” Mother says over her shoulder, not even bothering to turn around, “when you have taken your vow. Until then, I suggest you prove yourself worthy of the flame.”
With that, she strides off, leaving me smoldering in my own rage and humiliation. Hot tears sting in my eyes and I furiously blink them away. I hate that she has this control over me. She never treated Rhea like this. Why me?
You know, that voice repeats. Because you’re not Rhea. You never will be.
Maybe not. But this time, I won’t bow to Mother’s orders. If I can’t be part of the meeting, I can at least listen to it. I stalk toward the Sanctum. There’s one place not even Mother’s talons reach:
The south tower.
Even before the Hunt’s raid, the room in the south tower, on the third floor of the Sanctum, was deemed uninhabitable, always damp after a rain or drafty in winter. Abandoned as it was, the place became a playground for us witchlings. Whenever I preferred reading novels to completing my lessons—which was every day—I’d sneak up the thirteen steps to the secluded chamber and hide for hours. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood the significance of the room’s location, directly above Mother’s study. Then, and arguably now, her inner-council meetings were more nuisance than informative, and I ignored them. Such is not the case today.
The hinges are mercifully silent as I ease open the ancient door to the tower room and tiptoe across the floor, careful to avoid any creaking planks as I navigate to a familiar gap in the boards, one just wide enough to allow me to glimpse into the lower chamber. I settle myself on my stomach and slip one of the Potioners’ mugwort pellets under my tongue, grimacing as the earthy taste coats my teeth. The effect is instantaneous. Mother’s voice floats up from below, as clear as if I were sitting at the table.
“It seems your disguise isn’t as effective as you hoped,” Selene comments.
“The Hunt left, did they not?” Mother asks archly. “They weren’t searching for witches. It was just some ridiculous invitation for Longest Night. Something about Order Sisters receiving the High Priest’s blessing.”
Longest Night—the Order’s bastardization of our Spirit’s Eve. For witches, this season, lasting through autumn and winter, is a time when we commemorate the forging of the Veil and the sacrifice of the Ancients. The Order has twisted it, claiming that this so-called Longest Night is the period during which their false goddess was held captive by the covens.
“Will you answer this invitation?” Selene asks.
“You expect me to send witches to the White City?”
Home of the mad king. The back of my neck prickles.
“Why not? You seem eager to comply with every other command the Order throws at you. What with your uniforms and other paraphernalia.”
When Mother first adopted our disguise, she invited the other Heirs to bring their covens to Stonehaven and share in our relative safety. Selene and the others refused, citing the excuse that it wouldn’t be wise to house all the Heirs together. After all, the Covens’ War began when a gathering of the Heirs was captured by the Hunt. My own grandmother was among those witches hauled to the White Palace and forced to dance in a pair of hot iron shoes. As such, no one could fault the surviving Heirs for being cautious. But despite Selene’s alleged concerns regarding safety, plenty of rumors floated around, suggesting that the other Heirs disapproved of Mother’s actions. That they believed it disrespectful to even pretend to be part of the Order that hunts us. Judging from Selene’s tone, those rumors hold merit.
“I did what was necessary to protect my own,” Mother says, clipped. “The same as any of you would have done. All the Hunt saw today was a Sanctum filled with the Order’s Sisters. Could you do better?”
“But the wards did break,” another Heir says. It’s Della’s mother, Mildred. “Again.”
“Is there a point to this interrogation? The last time I checked, you came to Stonehaven for my daughter’s Ascension. Not an inquest into the way in which I manage my coven.”
Wood creaks as someone shifts in their chair.
“No one is blaming you for the Hunt, Cassandra,” Mildred says gently.
“Perhaps not,” Selene agrees, unconvincingly. “But there is a point. The wards failed today—they failed with Rhea as well. If your power is as strong as you would have us believe, they should not have done so.”
“I will not listen to—” Mother starts.
“It’s not only your abilities in question,” Mildred interrupts. “We’re all experiencing similar…difficulties. Elain can hardly control the winds anymore. And Lettice’s healing powers have significantly diminished.”
That pulls me up short. Why would the Heirs be losing their power? Given their lineage, their link to the Spirits is strongest.
“She’s correct,” Selene confirms. “It’s been too long since the last Bloodstone ritual. The spell our ancestresses cast is failing. The Veil is thinning. We can all sense the change.”
Malum.
I recall the shadows in the forest—the crimson eyes.
“And what do you propose we do about it?” Mother asks. “The Bloodstones are gone.”
Not just gone.
When the Five forged the Veil and banished Malum from Riven, it heralded a new age for witches and mortals alike. And it was such an age—mortals, who once feared us, came to respect and honor the covens. In return, we witches healed their sick and blessed their lands. But, as the centuries progressed, so did the White Kings’ greed. They insisted that witches submit to the Crown as subjects. They listened when the Order priests began whispering that the covens needed to be controlled.
During a Spirit’s Eve forty years ago, the king dispatched his Hunt to the Heirs’ meeting place on the night they were to complete their ritual. With the Heirs distracted, the Hunt attacked. They captured the descendants of the Five and cut the Bloodstones from their fingers. As those witches—my own grandmother among them—danced to their death in hot iron shoes, the Order claimed to have freed its false goddess from her imaginary prison, releasing her so-called Light back into the realm. The Bloodstones—the very backbone of the Veil—haven’t been seen since.
“The stones may be gone,” Selene says, bringing me back into the conversation, “but there could be a way to change that.”
“How?” Mother demands. “Nothing has worked before.”
When the war started, the covens assumed they would declare a swift victory over the mortals. While we might have won our share of battles early on, every attack against the White City or the palace itself has ended in ruin. It’s like there’s some kind of shield around the White King’s domain. With each passing year, each coven and witch lost, we get weaker while the mortals’ forces only appear to strengthen.
“We have to shift our focus,” Mildred says.
“Shift?” Mother repeats. “What else—”
“We reforge the Bloodstones,” Selene supplies. “Create new vessels to hold the enchantment—and the Veil.”
Silence thrums. Reforging? That’s…impossible. Isn’t it?
For once, Mother seems to share my opinion. “That spell killed the Ancients.”
“And the Spirits brought them back,” Selene points out. “Not only that, but they gifted the Five with immeasurable power for their efforts.”
Mother huffs. “Is that what this is about? Securing a gift for yourself?”
“It’s about our survival,” Selene snaps. “We need that power. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Be that as it may,” Mother says, “there’s no guarantee that the Spirits would grant us the same blessing that they bestowed upon the Ancients. Criticize me all you like for my uniforms and effigies of the false goddess, but this is a risk we can’t afford to take.”
“Or is it a risk you can’t afford?” Selene counters. Even from here, I can feel the rage rolling off Mother’s body. “The Ancients came together once before. We can do it again. All of us—including our Seconds.”
