The Crimson Crown, page 5
Her meaning begins to take shape in my mind, ringing with a horrible clarity. The Heirs and the Seconds. That will mean me. Panic lights in my chest. I haven’t demonstrated any measurable talent for magic, and they want me to help them forge a Bloodstone? Even if it worked—which it wouldn’t—I have no reason to believe the Spirits would bring me back to life, much less gift me with anything.
They’ll see right through you. That menacing voice again.
“When was all this decided?” Mother asks tightly.
“There have been,” Mildred starts, hesitant, “meetings.”
“Meetings of the Heirs? Without me?”
“We didn’t want to overwhelm you, what with Ayleth’s Ascension.”
Mother laughs. “So you dictate to me instead?”
“It’s not an order,” Mildred attempts. “It’s just—”
“It is an order,” Selene cuts in, earning a sharp intake of breath. “Risk or not, this is our only chance to turn the tide in this war. We need the Spirits’ gift. We need new Bloodstones. We’ve tried everything else. Rycinthia isn’t an option. Even the Dwarves have left us to rot.”
Bodies shift at the mention of our failed alliances. Rycinthia, our neighbor to the north, has remained uninvolved in the current conflict. Even the idea that they’ve accepted fleeing witches into their realm is little more than rumor. But they do hold distant ties to the White King’s throne. There were a few instances in Mother’s council meetings where witches thought to use that connection to spur the Rycinthian rulers into acting on our behalf. But in the end, another mortal-and-witch alliance was judged too risky to pursue.
The Guilds, however, are another matter. Like us, the Dwarves were highly respected in Riven. Their magic is rooted in crafting—they forge enchanted objects and weapons in their mines. But following the White King’s edict, the Dwarves vanished without so much as a farewell to the covens. Some witches believe the Dwarves were killed off. But most assume the Guilds simply decided to abandon us to our fate. It was a quiet, personal betrayal that sticks like a thorn in our side.
“And if I refuse this ludicrous plan?” Mother asks.
Wood creaks again.
“It should be said,” Selene goes on. “There are rumors—”
“Now is not the time,” Mildred warns.
“This is a meeting of the Heirs. What other time is there?”
Tension hums. I press myself closer to the floor.
“Some have suggested that your experiment at this Sanctum is more than merely strategy,” Selene says. “Questions have been raised as to whether you are still fit to call yourself Heir. Or perhaps…Millicent’s line is truly dying out. After all, given what I’ve witnessed thus far, your power does seem to be waning faster than the rest of ours.”
Every muscle in my body stills. Does she know about me? She can’t. No one knows. Then again, Sindony goaded me about the night I tried to run.
Diviners make the best spies, Mother always said.
Is that what they’ve been doing? Peering into our lives with their bones and cards and mirrors? I make a note to smash their “gift” this very night.
“How dare you?” Mother seethes. “I am descended of an Ancient—the same as you are. Millicent’s blood runs in my veins, as well as in Ayleth’s.”
“Then prove it,” Selene says simply. “After Ayleth’s Ascension, we’ll conduct the spell. If your line is as strong as you claim, then you have nothing to fear. And everything to gain.”
My pulse thuds against my ears. What can Mother say? The truth will ruin us. But it will come out sooner or later. And when I fail at this, it won’t just be my own coven that suffers. I’ll be letting down every witch in the realm. And I’ll probably be dead.
“You know what will happen if we don’t try,” Mildred presses. “If the Veil breaks, our tie to the Spirits breaks with it. It’s not just Malum that’s a threat. We’ll lose our power.”
Those that have it, the voice whispers.
“Very well,” Mother allows at last, her voice thin. “After Ayleth’s Ascension.”
“Then it’s settled,” Selene returns smoothly.
The room below feels anything but settled. More like a hornets’ nest—like the one raging behind my sternum.
“Wonderful,” Mildred chimes in, forcing cheerfulness. “And I think that’s enough for now. We can all use some time to rest before dinner.”
Murmurs of agreement. Chairs scrape against the floor as the other witches push back from the table and file out of the chamber. Mother, however, doesn’t move—not even when the door snicks closed behind them. I can’t make out the details of her face, but the lines of her body are rigid—angry. There’s something else too. Fear? It seems impossible, as I doubt Mother has been afraid of anything in her whole life. Part of me wants to go to her, comfort her. But I’m not even sure I know how anymore.
At last, Mother rises. She passes directly under me and crosses to the other side of the room, toward…my stomach knots.
Her mirror.
Through the slit in the floor, I can just make out its ebony frame and the unnatural silver sheen to its glass. As witchlings, Eden and I snuck in to see the thing one night, each of us daring the other to touch the ethereal surface. When Eden finally mustered the nerve, nothing happened. But when it was my turn—
Ayleth, I swear I can hear as the wind sighs against the Sanctum. Ayleth.
I shove the memory down, watching Mother as she picks up a knife, slices the skin of her palm, and presses it to the glass.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall.” The words of the spell roll through the room. “Wake now and heed my call.”
The surface ripples like water and a ghostly face emerges, one that has visited my nightmares more times than I care to admit.
“Mistress,” its eerie voice rasps.
Witch’s mirrors are living beings, Mother said, years ago. And living beings require hearts.
Inside Mother’s mirror is a raven’s heart. Still beating, I assume, for the bird comes to the Sanctum, tapping on windows until Mother lets it in. Its eyes are silvery and vacant, like extensions of the mirror itself. Mother had been the one to cut out its heart, she’d explained. It was then—with the image of her hands stained with blood—that she changed from being my mother, the woman who combed her fingers through my hair until I drifted off to sleep, into someone else. Things were never the same between us after that. Sometimes, I even believe Mother would lock my heart behind glass if she could.
“I assume you heard everything,” Mother says to the mirror, confirming my long-held suspicions that the horrible thing is listening in at every moment.
“Yes, Mistress.”
“And?” Mother demands. “Can she do it?”
She means me. I hold my breath as the mirror contemplates.
“Your daughter’s worth is yet unseen,” it says at last.
“Don’t speak to me in riddles,” Mother snaps.
“Her path remains uncertain,” the mirror continues. “I sense a greatness in her future. But she must reach for it.”
My heart beats harder. Does that mean that I am gifted? What am I supposed to reach for? But I don’t hear the rest of what the mirror says. A crow calls, close enough that I startle. Talons click on the window casement. I look up to find it watching me—and not just one. A second joins it, then another, then even more—until there are seven perched on the window.
That old rhyme dredges up.
Six crows bring ill luck,
But seven worse,
For they carry a secret, mystery or curse.
“We have to leave. It’s not safe here anymore.”
Dishes rattle as Enid, another witch in our coven, jolts up from her place at the table. To say that the last hours have been tense would be a vast understatement. Usually, I enjoy our dinners, the long dining hall filled with comfortable chatter and laughter. As the night wanes, some of my sisters play instruments, or sing and dance. There will be no dancing tonight—or even eating, by the looks of it. The trestle tables are laden with food, but no one is touching it. Instead of laughter, whispers run in an unceasing current through the chamber, the witches processing Mother’s announcement. She’d told the coven about the High Priest’s invitation to the White City for Longest Night, but not about her meeting with the Heirs—or the proposed spell to reforge the Bloodstones.
Because she knows you cannot achieve it, that voice whispers.
I stab at the pieces of carrot floating in my stew.
“And where would we go?” another witch asks. “The Rycinthian border is weeks away and they’re sure to have the Hunt patrolling it.”
“The Hunt is patrolling here,” Enid retorts. “They’ll burn us all. Just like…”
She breaks off in a sob. Torchlight washes over her face, illuminating three raised scars on Enid’s left cheek, dark brown against her tawny skin. Too many of my sisters wear such marks—iron-carved vestiges of the Hunt’s sword blades or arrows.
You don’t boast any scars, that voice needles again.
No. And their absence is yet another reason I avoid mirrors. Because I should be scarred. I should be covered in them, ripped apart by the Hunt’s weapons. I should have died trying to save Rhea, and instead I was…
You taste like roses.
“I understand your fear.” Selene rises from her seat at the High Table, mercifully extracting me from my tangle of memories.
Unsurprisingly, the Diviner witch refused to wear the uniform of the Sisters during her stay. Torchlight glistens against the runes sewn into the fabric of her crimson cloak—as if she is High Witch and not Mother.
“Following the Ascension, any witch who wishes to leave Stonehaven is welcome to accompany me back to Ravenwood.”
Murmurs ripple through the room. I stare at Selene. A witch’s bond to her coven is one she holds for life, only broken in the event of dire circumstances, like the Hunt’s raids. That, and the few cautionary tales I’ve heard of a witch being cast out after committing grave offense against her sisters. For Selene to invite our witches to abandon Stonehaven in favor of her own coven implies that there is something irrevocably wrong here. I glance at where Mother stands at the front of the room, her dull Sanctress robes a sharp contrast to Selene’s blood-red cloak.
“If any witch feels compelled to leave Stonehaven, I cannot stop them,” she admits. “But I would remind everyone here that King Callen wants the covens to fracture. That’s the point of this interminable war. He expects us to falter under the pressure of his father’s edict.”
Several witches nod their agreement.
“The mad king wishes us to forget who we were—who we still are. Witches.” Fire smolders in Mother’s gaze. “Our bloodlines run deeper than the roots of the oldest trees in this realm. We will not break. Not now. Not ever.”
Her words ring in the hall, inciting a storm of cheers. Mother stands taller, the witch who led the charge against the Hunt and won. She’s a warrior—Millicent herself resurrected.
And I have never been more certain that I am nothing like her.
A single note cuts through the chamber as several witches begin humming the song of coven gatherings. Another joins in, then another, each choosing a slightly different pitch, so that the sound rolls around us, ethereal and haunting. It’s not a spell like a Caster might attempt, but the intertwined voices summon the magic around us. A metallic charge crackles in the hall. Even the other Heirs begin to hum, along with their Seconds, the song rising and cresting until I can feel it in my very blood.
“It seems you’ll be returning to Ravenwood alone,” Mother says to Selene as the hall at last quiets. The Diviner witch dips her chin in the slightest degree possible before resuming her seat. “We will discuss this matter again after I’ve had time to seek further guidance from the Spirits. Rest assured that, together, we will develop a plan.”
Mother’s attention twitches to me, and my stomach knots. I already know that plan—and there’s no way I’m capable of achieving it.
“Until then, we have a welcome to impart.” Mother gestures toward the back of the hall. “There’s a newcomer in our midst. Mathilde.”
A smattering of applause greets the elder witch as she stands. She looks as though she’s had an opportunity to rest. Her deep-brown skin shines with the glow of Willa’s lavender soap, and her white hair is freshly braided. Her uniform doesn’t quite fit, though. It’s slightly too short in the sleeves and the hem. Due to our remote location, fabric is difficult to obtain. Most of our dresses are remade several times over.
“You have my thanks for your hospitality,” Mathilde says, her voice low and a touch raspy, like she doesn’t use it very often. How long had she been wandering the forest alone?
“We’re grateful that you’re here,” Nyssandra, a Potioner, offers kindly. She crosses the room to grasp Mathilde’s elbow in welcome. “It’s our custom to conduct a Ceremony of Blood and Ashes when a new witch arrives—to honor your fallen coven. We’ll arrange one for you, when you—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Confusion undulates through the gathered witches, including me. Why would Mathilde reject the chance to bestow a parting blessing on her lost sisters? Rhea’s ceremony was difficult, but I’d been grateful for it, in the end.
“It doesn’t need to take place right away,” Nyssandra amends, patting Mathilde’s arm. “Give yourself a few days to settle and then we can—”
“I have no coven,” Mathilde cuts her off. “Nor have I ever. I’m Wayward.”
Wayward? The word drops into the room like a stone, surprise and alarm rippling outward in waves. The witches sitting nearest to Mathilde noticeably inch away from her.
It’s one thing for a witch to willingly break her bond with a coven, or even to be cast out. But a Wayward witch is one who never joined with a coven at all. In some instances, the Spirits might have rejected the witch’s offering at her Ascension. But typically, Wayward witches are those who never desired to bind themselves to the Spirits. They’re like the witches before the forging of the Veil. Their power is unpredictable, susceptible to being tainted by Malum.
“I understand these are unusual circumstances.” Mother puts her hands up in a vain attempt to quell the churning suspicion. “But for the time being, I feel it best that Mathilde remains with us. Wayward or not, we cannot leave her to the wolves.”
That’s not how Mother felt when the coven split, I think bitterly. A memory rises up—a line of witches crossing through the gaping portcullis, their crimson cloaks littered on the ground behind them like pools of blood.
“Oh, I’m not so frightened of wolves.” A slight grin quirks Mathilde’s lips. “In fact, I find them better company than most.”
Most? Does she mean witches? The hushed mutterings increase, but Mathilde ignores them. Her thick-knuckled fingers toy with a strand of tiny objects hanging from her belt. Teeth, I realize. Most are small and pointed, like they belonged to various species of animals, but some appear similar enough to my own that I shudder.
“Eat.” Mother gestures at the untouched food on the tables, clearly changing the subject. “We’re here to celebrate.”
Her hazel eyes lock with mine and another memory emerges—the last dinner before Rhea’s Ascension. Mother had spoken nearly the same words then: We have much to celebrate. Except, on that night, her smile had been genuine. Now the lines around her mouth are tight, like she’s willing her power to make the words true.
“Adopting the life of Order Sisters and keeping the company of Wayward witches,” Sindony comments, tearing off pieces of her bread and dropping them into her soup. “What other surprises might your mother have in store for us this visit?”
I bristle. Mother insisted that I continue entertaining the two Seconds tonight. After the incident with Nettle, it’s going about as well as Nesta boiling fireroot. Perhaps I should let my cat loose on Sindony’s wardrobe as well.
“I suppose we’ll find out,” I say, smiling.
Sindony only raises an eyebrow and strikes up a conversation with Della, one I’m obviously not invited to join. I pick at my food, forcing down tasteless bites to distract myself from the storm of worries and questions swirling in my mind.
But every now and then, my attention flits back to Mathilde. She remains in her place, but she doesn’t eat, or even converse with the other witches. All she does for the rest of the night is work her fingertips along that strand of teeth.
The following days are an endless barrage of preparation for my Ascension. The last two Heirs finally arrive with their Seconds, which necessitates even more entertaining on my part. At least these witches aren’t as unnerving as Sindony. But I catch them looking at me, analyzing me, like they don’t find me a suitable replacement for Rhea.
They’re right. And all I want to do is hide away in the south tower. But after what I overheard between Mother and the other Heirs, even that once-sacred place is ruined. The impossible plan to reforge the Bloodstones haunts me in the night, as does the mirror’s cryptic words:
Your daughter’s worth is yet unseen.
Will anyone ever see it? Will I?
On the day before my Ascension, I’m supposed to be tending to the Seconds. But when I stop to check on them, they’re huddled together in Rhea’s room. At my entrance, their conversation abruptly ceases. The following silence is so thick and awkward that I immediately retreat, steering my steps to the fresh air of the garden with Nettle.
Aside from the kitchen, the cloister’s garden is my favorite place in Stonehaven. I settle myself in the patch I’ve been minding of late, pinching a spotted leaf off of a hyssop’s stem and admiring the purple flowers as they sway in the cool breeze. Before the war, the Elementals and Blesseds used their magic to create perfect conditions for keeping our gardens. Many did the same for nearby towns and villages: Witches would teach mortals how to cultivate the land, as well as to identify healing herbs and other non-magical aspects of our craft.
