The Crimson Crown, page 44
Destroy them, that deep urge whispers.
The words bloom in my mind, like drops of blood in water. What if I did destroy the Bloodstones? Instinct rebels against the idea. Those stones are what hold the Veil—keep Malum contained. Without them, we lose our tie to the Spirits, our very power.
But what do I care about that? I have no power, and Malum was always going to take me.
It will have to take us both, Jacquetta had promised.
Well—a delicious thought swoops into my mind—perhaps this is one promise I can force her to keep.
Lightning flares and that place behind my left ribs trembles. This time, I lean into its malevolent pull. The threads of a plan weave together in my mind, dangerous and reckless, but perfect. I’m going back to the White Palace. I don’t know how, but I’m going to find the Bloodstones. And then I will crush them to dust. Thousands of years of our history ripped apart by my own hands. And I will revel in the destruction.
Let Mother and Jacquetta and every other witch understand what it means to have their world yanked out from underneath them. To lose everything they hold dear. I am done with covens and feelings and witches who don’t matter.
A crow calls, its cry piercing through the storm. I think of the seven birds who watched me in the south tower.
A secret, mystery, or curse.
For so long, I assumed those ominous creatures were warning me of Malum. But Malum was never my curse. No. My curse is love.
And the time has come to break it.
Daughter of glass, worth yet unseen,
From the darkness will rise a queen.
But every throne carries a cost,
A price to pay, a heavy loss.
A beating heart must she drown,
If she is to wear the crimson crown.
—Final prophecy of Aphelia, First Diviner,
Age of the Covens 300
The White City glows blood red in the dusk.
It seems like a lifetime has passed since I first walked its cobbled streets, filled with merchants and shops and more people than I had ever encountered. I recall the witch I was then, determined to bring my sister back. But there’s no going back—not for Rhea and not for me. Nettle meows, agreeing.
I adjust my satchel on my shoulder, gaze fixed to the turrets of the White Palace, like spears stabbing into the clouds. Memories of my last days in that place flash through my mind—the dungeon and the queen’s horrific death and the night Jacquetta and I…
No. All that is done.
What matters now is finding the Bloodstones. For the whole of the journey here, I combed over the details of my previous search. My last lead regarding the stones’ location came on the day Queen Sybil died. She’d wanted to show me something before the shadows claimed her. Had it been the Bloodstones? There’s only one way to find out.
The windows of the White Palace gleam in the dying light, like so many eyes watching. Escaped witch that I am, I’ll have to make every second within those walls count. My fingers drift to my waist, brushing the jewel-handled knife Mother left alongside my crimson cloak. The cloak, I left to rot. But the knife…
Much as I despised the blade when Mother gifted it to me, she had promised that it would strike true. Given the dangers waiting in the White Palace, that’s a promise I might need, whether for someone else…or for myself.
But I don’t dwell on that possibility. Throwing a last look over my shoulder, at the path I’ve traveled and the witch I once was, I start down the road toward the city. This time, however, I don’t sense that the fabric of my world is splitting apart.
Instead, I feel like something is beginning.
* * *
—
“Come on, Joan,” I whisper from the shadows of the main courtyard.
By some miracle, I’d managed to slip through the gates of the White City and into a wagon headed for the palace. So far, no one has recognized me—not even the gangly servant I’d bribed to deliver a message. But my luck may be running out. Without Roland’s ring, I need assistance in sneaking into the palace. Joan was the only other person I could think to ask. But it’s been nearly half an hour since the servant disappeared into the palace with my coin and parchment. I pull my hood lower.
Fitz whines at a nearby wagon filled with food. Hunger gnaws at my own stomach. Given how hard I pushed our horse to return, it’s been days since I ate anything decent. But I can’t think about that right now. My fingers tap out an impatient, nervous rhythm as I watch the door.
At long last, a figure steps out into the courtyard. Torchlight glimmers on an embellishment on her dress, and I recognize the queen’s crowned pomegranate. Finally.
“Joan,” I whisper from my hiding place. She edges nearer, rightly suspicious of a stranger. I pull back my hood. “It’s me.”
“Ayleth?”
I hold my breath and brace myself for her to call the guards. I’d known this would be a gamble. Instead, Joan hurries over, eyes wide with concern.
“Are you all right?” She snatches my hands in hers. “What are you doing out here? And where have you been? They’re all saying that you’re…”
“That I’m a witch,” I finish for her.
A nearby horse whickers.
“Is it,” Joan glances around us, “true?”
I should deny it. Insist that I’ve been falsely accused. Joan would likely believe me. But after everything that’s happened I just…can’t. And it doesn’t matter. Joan reads my expression.
“I thought as much,” she says quietly. “I’ve suspected for a while.”
A while? Nettle trills, as if even she is surprised.
“How long?”
“I’m not sure.” Joan shrugs. “There was just…something different about you and Jacquetta. When I heard the rumors, they felt right. I never said anything, though. I promise you that. Remember what I told you about the Dwarves in my family.”
That’s right. I’d nearly forgotten about Joan’s lineage. No wonder she’s sympathetic to witches. “Does that mean you…”
“No, I’m not gifted.” She dismisses the idea. “But those of us who were…well, I don’t have to explain how it went for them. The king’s edict—the war itself—is the most horrible thing to happen in this realm. I’d never give you away.”
I believe her. Joan is a better friend than I ever realized.
“Why are you back, Ayleth?” she presses. “And where’s Jacquetta?”
Much as I try to fight it, the memory of cobalt eyes sears in my mind.
“Gone,” I say tightly. “And I need your help.”
“Of course—anything.”
I’m not sure she’ll be so quick to agree when she learns the details. On the way here, I’d considered lying to her. But now…I know how it feels to be deceived. Used. I won’t do that to someone like Joan.
“What do you know of Malum?”
She blinks at me. “Malum? What everyone else knows, I suppose.”
“You mean what the Order teaches about Meira and her Light?” I ask. She nods and I huff a laugh. “Lies. It’s always been the witches keeping Malum locked behind the Veil—the Bloodstones.”
Joan’s brow furrows. “Bloodstones? I didn’t think those were real. And anything related to the covens would have been burned, wouldn’t it?”
“They’re here. I’ve come back to find them.” I pause. A cart trundles past, wheels rattling. “To destroy them—and the Veil itself. I’ve come to release Malum into the realm.”
“What?” Joan gapes at me, horrified. “Ayleth, that’s—”
I raise my hand against her objections.
“There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already told myself. But I have to do it. The covens have become as corrupt as this court.” I gesture at the palace. “They treat their own like outsiders, all because of the Bloodstones and who controls them. It’s time for that to end.”
Joan weighs this, pressing her lips together. “But…Malum. I’ve read of the time before the covens—the blights and plagues. Monsters, like the Nevenwolf. You want all that to return?”
The place behind my left ribs shivers.
“I do. Because then the people of this realm will finally see that Meira isn’t holding Malum back. They’ll know that the Order lied.”
And Mother will have everything she’s ever cared about ripped away from her—the same way she ripped it all away from me. And Jacquetta…
“But you don’t have to help me,” I say to Joan. “I’ll understand if you can’t.”
She considers this for a few moments.
“If you do this,” Joan says at last, her green gaze fixed on the palace, “the king and the others won’t get to hide behind those walls anymore.”
“No. They won’t. And they’ll pay for their crimes.”
I hope that the shadows take the king—that a Nevenwolf rips out his heart. That force inside me trembles.
Joan exhales a shuddering breath. “All right. I’ll help.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods, though her expression suggests otherwise. “What next?”
“Can you get me into the queen’s rooms?”
She hesitates, considering. “I think so. But you must do exactly as I say.”
“Deal,” I promise.
With that, Joan motions for me to follow her out of the shadows and toward the looming doors of the White Palace and whatever fate waits for me within.
* * *
—
With a deftness that would put any witch’s spell to shame, Joan explains my way past the guards, claiming that I’m a guest of her family. Fitz and Nettle in tow, she guides us to the nearest servants’ quarters, where we switch out my travel-worn dress for a uniform of the palace maids. Properly disguised, we sneak into a deserted hall. Joan pauses at a tapestry, pulling back the fabric to reveal a narrow door. She promptly slips a pin out of her hair to pick the lock.
“Where did you learn to do that?” I ask, torn between shock and awe.
“You can learn a lot of things when no one pays attention to you.”
She grins as the lock unclicks and the door swings wide. Joan ushers me through it, letting the tapestry fall behind us. As my eyes adjust to the darkness of the space beyond, I realize that I’ve been here before, or close enough.
“Are these the old servants’ passages?” I ask.
Joan fumbles to light a candle. “You know about them?”
“The princess showed me.”
“Clever girl.” She laughs. “I might have guessed she’d find them.”
A smile twitches at my lips as I recall my excursions with Blodwyn. But then I remember the last time I’d seen her—placing a rose on the queen’s coffin. She’d looked so lost.
“Is she well?” I ask Joan. “The princess?”
“As well as any of us are these days,” Joan answers with a frown. “From what I’ve heard, she’s barricaded herself inside her menagerie since the funeral.”
I don’t blame her. That same guilt from the ceremony churns in my stomach. Mother, Jacquetta, and all the rest might deserve to have their worlds upended. But Blodwyn…
“You’ll look after her, though?” I ask Joan. “I’m not sure what will happen, once…”
“Of course I will.” The light from Joan’s candle flickers. “But you could help, now that you’re back.”
I’m not back, though. And whether I succeed in destroying the Bloodstones or not, soon I won’t be doing much of anything. The thought isn’t as frightening as it probably should be, perhaps because I’ve already resigned myself to my fate. That place behind my left ribs shivers, as if in anticipation.
Fitz whines, drawing Joan’s attention.
“Poor thing. Are you hungry?”
The dog does his best to imply that he has never eaten a day in his life.
“We’ve relied on dried meat for the last few days,” I explain.
Fitz huffs, as if to emphasize his ill treatment. Nettle watches him with a self-satisfied expression, likely insinuating that his hunger is his own fault. With all her hunts, I think my cat might have gained weight on the journey back to the palace.
“I can take care of him,” Joan offers. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” I laugh. “Good luck with him.”
Nettle meows, agreeing. Joan smiles and passes me the candle as she scoops Fitz into her arms. He growls, but only barely.
“So,” Joan says, sliding me a look, “are you going to tell me what happened with Jacquetta?”
That searing pain from our encounter at Stonehaven plunges into my chest. I can still see Jacquetta walking away. Choosing another life over me—again.
Let her go, that voice urges.
My grip tightens on the candle. “She’s the reason I was arrested.”
Joan pauses in turning us down another passage. “That can’t be right.”
“She admitted it.”
A tense moment of quiet passes.
“I’m so sorry, Ayleth,” Joan says at last, wisely deciding not to press. “I don’t mean to defend what she did, but…I saw you two together. She cares for you.”
That traitorous chamber of my heart swells. I smother the emotion, hating myself for feeling anything. “Not enough.”
Joan squeezes my elbow. “I meant what I said at the banquet. You deserve to be happy.”
And what is that? the voice in my mind whispers. I’m not sure I’ll ever know.
“How much farther?” I ask, distracting myself.
“Just here.” Joan stops us at a door set into a wooden panel. “This leads to the queen’s sitting room. But you should know—they searched Her Majesty’s chambers not long after you were taken. I don’t know what they were looking for, but His Illuminance was involved, along with several other Order priests.”
Foreboding taps at the base of my neck. What did they want?
“Thank you,” I say to Joan. And it occurs to me that this will probably be the last time I see her. “You’re a true friend. I’m glad I met you.”
Her green eyes shine, and she crushes me in an embrace, pinning Fitz unhappily between us. With a last squeeze of Joan’s hand, I gather my remaining courage and slip into the gloom of the queen’s chamber, the light of Joan’s candle disappearing behind me.
* * *
—
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Outlines of chaises and chairs begin to emerge, stuffing spilling from their ripped cushions. Broken pottery crunches under my feet. Whatever Ignatius was looking for, he was thorough. But worse than the physical destruction is the sensation of wrongness, that same feeling from the archives and the crypt. It spiders over me, raising every hair on my body. Nettle meows, her golden eyes glowing.
“I feel it too,” I tell her, reaching instinctively for the knife at my waist.
Moonlight floods through the tall windows as I pad into the queen’s bedchamber. In the ethereal light, I can almost see Queen Sybil on the floor, her lips black and eyes sunken. Every few seconds, a strange thudding sound, like a faint heartbeat, knocks in the quiet. Drawers have been opened and dumped out, contents strewn over the rugs. Jewels glitter, the queen’s necklaces and brooches and rings tossed about like dry leaves. What had Ignatius been searching for? Did he know what the queen had been hiding?
Wind moans down the chimney and a chill sweeps through the chamber. That strange thudding noise sounds again. Nettle meows and trots toward a far wall. She starts sniffing at a pair of curtains. But that couldn’t be a window, I realize. It isn’t an outside wall. I pick through the debris and pull back the embroidered brocade fabric, revealing a tapestry behind it—a queen charging into battle with her sword raised. I thought all these tapestries had been removed. How had the queen saved this one? The thumping starts again. Nettle trills.
“What is it?”
She paws at the corner of the fabric, insistent. I kneel to investigate and discover that the tapestry’s holdings have loosened. That’s what was causing the sound—the wooden frame at the bottom is knocking against the wall in the draft. And something else about the piece strikes me as odd. There’s a rough seam on the left edge, one that doesn’t match the rest of the stitching, like it had been patched. Brow creasing, I feel the fabric. It crinkles. There’s something inside it.
Quickly, I pull my knife from my belt and slit the seam. I reach my hand into the open pocket. My fingertips brush against something soft, yet brittle. Like…book pages. Gingerly, I slide out the stack. It is parchment. Why would the queen have hidden these? The first few sheets are filled with what I assume is the queen’s looping script. But the writing doesn’t make sense.
Black as the raven’s wing
Red as blood
White as snow
The queen had repeated similar words just before she died. But what do they mean? I flip the page over, discovering a list of unfamiliar names, but no hint as to why the queen recorded them. I sift to the next, then immediately pull up short. This page I recognize. My eyes widen as they skim over the neat, meticulous lines of a ledger. It’s part of the Dwarvian records, one of the pages that had been ripped out of the books in the archives. A few of the entries are underlined.
Royal sword set with Bloodstone, it reads. Age of the Light 2.
My pulse kicks up. The king’s commission had been recorded. But where had the Bloodstones gone after they’d been pried from the swords? The rest of the page offers no clues, and I hurriedly move to the next, but it’s not part of the ledger. Instead, I find a map of the palace, with various areas circled, including the crypt and the archives.
