The Crimson Crown, page 41
My tired mind travels back to when Jacquetta and I were packing. Nettle had been so agitated.
“You knew, didn’t you? You were warning me.” Nettle trills her confirmation. “I should have listened. I’m sorry.”
She swishes her tail.
“I’d say you’re a fair bit more than sorry.” Roland indicates the cell. “How’d you get yourself down here? Thought you were leaving.”
The rage, exhaustion, and fear that’s been building since I found Jacquetta’s note finally works its way up my chest. “I’m here because I’m an idiot. Stupid and useless and I shouldn’t have—”
But the rest is strangled by a sob. I gulp for air, shoulders shaking. Roland pats frantically at his jacket, then fishes something out of his pocket.
“There now.” He edges closer, holding his handkerchief as far away from his body as possible. “No need for that. Dungeon’s wet enough as it is.”
I accept the handkerchief and swipe at my face. Tears won’t do me any good now.
“What happened?” Roland asks, gentler.
A vision of a pair of cobalt-blue eyes sears in my mind. Would that I could smash it into a hundred pieces. “Jacquetta.”
Nettle lays her ears flat and hisses.
“The other witch?” Roland asks. “She’s the reason you’re down here?”
“She gave the king a note that accused me. And then she left.” I fist the damp fabric of the handkerchief. “She’s been using me the whole time to get to my mother. I think her coven is probably headed to my Sanctum. She’s going to murder them.”
And it will be my fault. All those crows were right—I’m cursed.
“By the Mines,” Roland mutters. “I will never understand you witches.”
Neither will I, and I feel even smaller.
“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go. I can’t take you the whole way to the stables, but I can help get you out of the palace, at least. After that, you’re on your own.”
I blink at him. “You’re helping me?”
“Seems that way.”
“But why? You don’t owe me anything. And I have no idea how I’ll fix the Veil after this—if it’s even possible.”
I’m not even sure how I’ll fix myself.
He heaves a sigh. “Aye. But I seem to remember a witch telling me we were kindred. We Dwarves don’t leave each other behind.”
Not like witches, apparently.
“Thank you, Roland.”
“Keep your thanks.” He waves me off. “This is as much for me as for you. Like I told you—can’t risk you giving me away when they torture you.”
Despite everything, a smile twitches at my lips. I’m going to miss this Dwarf. Roland walks through his door and I follow, Nettle padding beside me into the dark.
* * *
—
The enchanted tunnels unspool through the palace as Roland takes me first to fetch my satchel—which miraculously hadn’t been confiscated during the three days I was locked in the dungeon—and then as close to the stables as we can get. Fitz trots alongside our unlikely party, much to Roland’s disapproval.
“Are you packing him as a meal?” he’d asked wryly when I insisted on bringing the dog.
Maybe it is a bad idea, but when we’d returned to the chamber, I’d discovered Fitz snuffling around Jacquetta’s side of the bed—looking for her, I think.
Please don’t leave me, his baleful eyes pleaded.
I couldn’t. Not when I understood so well how it felt to be used and discarded.
“Here we are.” Roland halts us, then jams one of his keys into the wall. Another door appears, leading outside. “Stable’s that way.”
He points to a building in the distance. Moonlight glimmers against its stone walls.
“You think you can make it back to your people in time?” Roland asks.
I honestly have no idea. Three whole days are already wasted, and Jacquetta most certainly stole a horse when she escaped. Was her coven already poised to attack when I was arrested? And those witches aren’t the only threat.
“Have you heard of the Hunt being dispatched?” I ask.
Roland shakes his head. “Not yet.”
But that doesn’t mean they won’t be, especially now that the king believes a Sanctum housed a witch. I picture a storm of flaming arrows sailing over Stonehaven’s walls, and fear crackles along my spine.
I need to get to the coven—even if it’s the last thing I do.
I am with child again.
Given the tragedies of my previous pregnancies, Callen is cautious and distant. My physicians swarm my chambers, inspecting the food I eat and hardly allowing me out of bed for more than an hour at a time. I must be careful, they urge. The king must have his son.
But what these supposedly learned men do not know—what only I know—is that this pregnancy will be different. I have made sure of it. I have paid the price of blood and snow.
My child will be born. Not a son, but a daughter. The king will hate me for her. Let him. This realm has enough of greedy, grasping kings. What it needs now is a queen to forge a new age.
In my bones, I can already sense the dawn coming.
—From the secret writings of Queen Sybil,
Age of the Light 33
Smoke rends a gaping, black gash in the sky—visible for miles before I reach Stonehaven.
No! my mind screams. I’m too late.
I urge my horse faster through the trees. Dread pools in my belly when we finally sail over the silver ribbon of the stream, because there’s no warmth or hum of magic to indicate that the wards are intact. They’ve broken again. But was it Jacquetta’s coven or the Hunt?
Either way, it’s your fault, that malevolent voice needles.
Guilt pounds alongside my fear as I at last spot the portcullis—not closed, as it should be, but yawning wide. The guard towers are painfully vacant as well. So, I discover, is the courtyard. The stable is empty. Even the chickens have vanished.
Ears pricked for intruders, I slip from the saddle and enter the Sanctum, Fitz and Nettle at my heels. Broken glass and ripped parchment litter the halls. But there are no pools of blood or scraps of flesh as I would expect from a battle—and my sisters would have fought. They defeated the Hunt once before.
But perhaps not again.
My heart in my throat, I follow the crackle of flame to the cloister. The smell of woodsmoke and ash sears my lungs. Are my sisters out there, reduced to charred bones? I force myself to look. Bits of glass and metal shine amid the still-burning patches of flame, along with curled and blackened shells that might have been books. But none of it, I realize, is flesh or bone. None of it is them.
Relief rushes through me so quickly that I grip the ledge of the stone railing. But if my coven survived whatever happened here, where are they?
Something pops behind me, and Nettle yowls a warning. Fumbling in my panic, I snatch up the nearest object—a chair leg—and scramble to hide behind an upturned bench. Footsteps approach. I grip my makeshift weapon tighter, bracing myself to swing.
Before I get the chance, a crow calls, its feathered body swooping close enough that I feel the wind stirred by its wings. I flinch away from it and the damn thing squawks again, as if in laughter. There’s something vaguely familiar about that call. I’ve heard it before.
Still clutching my chair leg, I peer around my bench and through the archway. The crow lands on the shoulder of a white-haired figure standing in the middle of the hall, her gnarled knuckles toying with a string of teeth hanging from her waist. Recognition slams into me. That’s not just a crow. It’s Cornelius. Which means the figure is…
Mathilde.
“Who’s there?” she calls.
After everything that’s happened, my heart aches at the sight of the other witch.
“You’re here.” I drop the chair leg and hurry over, crushing Mathilde in an embrace. “You’re all right.”
“By the Spirits, what—” Her hands travel over my back, and she inhales deeply. “Ayleth. Is it really you?”
I’m honestly not sure. “Where is everyone else? I didn’t see…”
See their broken bodies in the fire, I almost say, but the words snag.
Nettle meows, winding herself around Mathilde’s ankles in greeting.
“They’ve gone.” She bends to scratch between my cat’s ears, her white eyes gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. “Left over a week ago.”
Over a week? My mind scrambles with the calculation. Hard as I pushed the horse, it still took me five days to get here from the palace. And I was in the dungeon for three—which means Mother left after our scrying. When she knew I would be coming. Why?
“Did anyone else show up here?” I ask Mathilde, trying to piece together an answer. “The Hunt or another coven?”
“Haven’t seen the Hunt. But another coven, yes. They came and went a few days back.”
So I was right. Jacquetta was planning to attack Stonehaven. The satisfaction of guessing her scheme mixes with the shame of my own part in it. But at least she didn’t succeed. “They did this? Wrecked the Sanctum?”
“Not them.” Mathilde gestures around us. “All this was on your mother’s orders. Coven was to destroy everything they couldn’t carry, and then they were off.”
My brow furrows. “They did this?”
Wind pushes in, carrying the ash from the fire. But why would Mother order…
Slow comprehension creeps over me. I’d asked Mother to gather the other Heirs for the meeting with Nerissa. They must have refused to come to Stonehaven. More than that, they must have told Mother to leave—drawn a line, with themselves on one side and me on the other. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise which one Mother chose.
You’re my heart, Ayleth.
But Mother locked her heart away years ago. The knife of her betrayal slices through my chest. Just like with Jacquetta, it’s my own fault. I should have known that I’d never be enough—that no one would ever choose me when presented with a better option.
“Why didn’t you go with them?” I ask Mathilde, smothering my emotion.
“I wasn’t exactly invited.”
Of course she wasn’t. Selene and the other Heirs would never allow a Wayward witch among them. “I’m sorry.”
“Made no difference to me.” Mathilde waves me off. “Besides, I knew you’d be back.”
And she’d waited for me. In this moment, with the wound of Mother’s rejection bleeding, Mathilde’s loyalty means more to me than anything else.
Fitz emerges from wherever he’d been hiding and snuffles around Mathilde’s shoes. The older witch steps back. “What is that?”
“A dog,” I tell her. Fitz growls. “He’s not very friendly.”
“Neither am I.” Mathilde reaches down and lets Fitz sniff her hand. He sneezes. “Nice to meet you as well. Come on. You all must be hungry. And I expect there’s a story to be told.”
A long one. With one last glance at the smoldering fire, I follow Mathilde down the wrecked hallway, passing the ghosts of the witch I used to be along the way.
* * *
—
The kitchen is mostly stripped bare, yielding only a forgotten sack of flour and some yeast, along with lentils and enough herbs in the pots by the window to brew a calming tea. The lentils simmer in the kettle as Mathilde and I sit together at the table, the scent of mint and lavender wafting around us.
She listens as I recount the weeks since I left the Sanctum for the White Palace—the haunting shadows and that ominous pull I felt toward the king. The Nevenwolf and how Rhea helped me kill it. Marion’s comb and the queen’s death. Mother’s broken promise and Jacquetta’s note.
I’m sorry.
I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m the one who believed in her—in us—again.
“Well,” Mathilde says when I finally finish. Nettle has curled herself on the elder witch’s lap and fallen asleep. Fitz is nearby, gnawing on a sweet potato I discovered in the root cellar. “That is…interesting.”
“Interesting,” I repeat, gripping my mug. “That’s all?”
“You cannot expect me to have wise words at the ready after that odyssey.”
Maybe not, but I had hoped she’d be able to offer something. I sip my tea, but it’s gone cold. “I can’t believe I fell for her tricks again. And not only Jacquetta’s. Mother’s too. I should have guessed she’d side with the Heirs. Her position is all she’s ever cared about.”
“Families are complicated,” Mathilde says, as if that explains everything. “And her position is all your Mother has ever been taught to care about. If my memory serves, your grandmother was one of the witches executed at the start of the war. It can’t have been easy for Cassandra to lose her own mother, and then to become Heir, under such circumstances.”
I suppose Mathilde has a point. My mind summons the tapestry in the palace, those five witches forced to dance in the barbaric hot iron shoes. Even though I know my grandmother was among them, she’s always seemed like a character in our history rather than a real witch. Mother spoke of what happened to Grandmother, but never who she was. Maybe it was too difficult. Maybe, like me, Mother just wanted her own mother to be proud of her.
But I’m not in the mood for empathy. “I don’t forgive her.”
“No one said you had to.” Mathilde sips her tea. “And as for Jacquetta—you’re not the first witch who’s followed her heart in perilous directions. Love is complicated too.”
Love. It spears through me. But that’s not what I feel. Not anymore.
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who was locked in a dungeon cell.”
She tilts her head at me. “Perhaps not. But I’ve faced my own consequences where love is concerned. Or did you assume that I passed the last centuries in solitude?”
I frown. Honestly, Mathilde seems like a witch who has always existed, never needing anyone else. “Did you?”
“No.” Mathilde scratches under my cat’s chin. “I loved someone—dearly. In fact, that love is the reason I’m Wayward.”
What does love have to do with being Wayward? “I don’t understand.”
“Like you,” Mathilde continues, “I’d been training my whole life to face the flames. But then I met a man in a nearby village. We fell in love—enough so that we wanted to spend our lives together. Mortals, however, are not permitted to reside within the walls of a Sanctum.”
No. They used to visit before the war, bearing gifts of appreciation, or seeking our help. But they were never allowed to stay. Not even for the night.
“But you could have been together, even if he lived elsewhere,” I point out. “Witch and mortal couplings are commonplace.”
Or they used to be. Necessary, even, as male witches are so rare.
“True,” she allows. “But I was young and stubborn. I told my sisters that if he couldn’t stay, then I would go.”
Even for Mathilde, this surprises me. “And you…left?”
“I did. The other witches warned me against it.” She strokes Nettle’s back. “Passion, they promised, was fleeting. He would grow old, they said. He would die ages before me. I didn’t care. I eschewed my vow, left my home, and started a new life in another part of the realm with the person I chose.”
There’s no regret in her words. No bitterness. “What happened between you?”
“We lived,” she says with a soft smile. “He was a good man. A kind man. We never had any children. It was always just the two of us. I used my gift where I could—tending our crops or helping those who didn’t mind a Wayward over a coven witch. We were happy.”
Happy. The word trembles through me. I thought I knew what that meant, especially during those nights wrapped up with Jacquetta. But now…
“And then he grew old.” Mathilde’s white eyes shine. “And he died. Just like my coven swore that he would. I hadn’t even reached my hundredth year when he passed. Most people thought I was his daughter, or granddaughter, near the end.”
“You never searched for a way to keep him with you?”
She arches an eyebrow. “You know that’s not what we do, Ayleth. A life is a life, regardless of how far the years stretch. We were lucky to walk the earth at all. I take it you’ve realized that about your sister?”
I press my thumb against one of the marks stamped into my palm. During the long days of my journey, all I could think about was bringing Rhea back. After all, the only reason I’d abandoned the idea was because of Jacquetta. But the urge to return to the White Palace, find the Bloodstones, isn’t there. Deep down, I’ve always known that Mathilde is right. I don’t understand why Rhea appeared to me in the fire, but it wasn’t to bring her home.
“Yes. I have,” I tell Mathilde. And then, “You really don’t regret leaving your coven?”
She taps her mug, considering. “Choosing love could never be a regret. Not for me.”
So that’s her story. Mathilde is Wayward simply because she followed her heart. Shame prickles between my shoulder blades when I recall how the other witches treated Mathilde when she arrived here, their suspicion and judgment. All Mathilde did was spend her life with the person she loved.
“What about after he died?” I ask. “You could have returned—Ascended.”
Ascensions typically occur during the first blood moon of a witch’s twenty-third year, to honor the Ancients. But a witch can bind herself anytime after that, so long as it’s during a blood moon.
She pauses.
“I entertained the idea, especially when the grief of his loss was fresh and I was facing the world alone. Like love, grief is its own spell. A dark one.” She reaches for the string of teeth hanging from her waist. “But in the end, I decided that if my coven didn’t want me as I was, we were better off apart. And I had no inclination to join another.”
