The Chalice and the Crown

by Kassandra Flamouri

  “What happened to the Chalice?” I ask, tearing my eyes away from him.

  “No one knows,” Luca says. “Though it appears in various legends, usually in a time of great need, amplifying the Gifts of those who drink from it. The legends say that first king of the Garden united the Cities under his rule with the aid of the Chalice.”

  “And Light?” I ask, and the starshine dims as I remember my place in this world. “Where do the legends say Light comes from?”

  Luca shifts beside me, but I don’t look at him.

  “Sasha—”

  His voice is full of tenderness and understanding, everything I could want from him—and everything I can’t accept.

  “I have to go.” I shove the furs—and Kirit—aside and struggle to my feet. “I’m sorry.”

  I nearly break my neck in my headlong plunge down the ladder, and again tripping over something in the darkness of the attic. The house is little better with the candles unlit and the hearth fire dead. I burst onto the street in a flurry of mussed hair and disheveled clothes. I’m not the only one. It seems the Contemplation can be of a more physical nature after all.

  I straighten my clothes with trembling hands, then draw my hood up. A soft yap draws my attention downward. Kirit grins up at me, his teeth glinting in the starlight. I sigh. As chaperones go, it could be worse. I don’t even know what I would say to Luca. My stomach is still roiling with a sickening mix of embarrassment, grief, anger…Luca doesn’t deserve any of it, but I can’t get rid of it. The best I can do is get rid of me.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Kirit, and start walking.

  * * *

  An hour later, guilt wins out. I slurp down the last of my tea, thank the tea house’s proprietor, and head back into the cold. Luca must be worried sick. Or maybe not. He could just as easily be angry with me. Disgusted, even, or just tired of dealing with me and my drama.

  My musing doesn’t last long. Kirit yips and shoots ahead, throwing himself at a cloaked figure coming around the corner. Luca. I blanch, drawing back momentarily, then force myself forward. Luca strides forward without hesitation, his steps quick and almost eager.

  “Luca,” I say. “About earlier—”

  “Never mind that,” he says, taking my hand. “Bard’s back.”

  “What?” I blink, then realize what he said. “Bard! When—how do you know?”

  “It was pure luck.” Luca shakes his head, his lips quirking upward in the shadow of his hood. “I was looking for you, and I found him. Singing.”

  “Bard?” I gape at him, too astonished to remember to be awkward with him. “Singing?”

  “Singing,” he confirms. “In a tavern. I didn’t recognize him at first without a scowl on his face. But it was him, alright. I suppose he must earn a living somehow when he’s not with a caravan. There won’t be any more until spring.”

  “Well, then.” I wipe my suddenly damp palms on my skirts, both pleased and frightened at this development. “It’s time we got our answers.”

  The tavern is a surprise. I was expecting something dark and dingy, the Kingsgarden equivalent of a dive bar, but this establishment is open and airy and spotlessly clean. Hardly the kind of place I’d expect to find the perpetually dour-faced Bard.

  The tavern keeper greets us with a deep bow and cheery grin, but his smile fades as he takes in our tense expressions.

  “A lover’s quarrel, eh? No matter, a little wine, a little music, the right atmosphere—everything will come right, you’ll see.”

  He leads us to a table in the corner, where shadows and gauzy cloths hang in thick folds to create a cozy little bower lit by the soft glow of candles. I let out a sharp breath through my nose and resist the urge to roll my eyes. Romance and candlelight is the last thing I need right now.

  The tavern keeper leaves us with a last bow and a murmured, “Drink deep.”

  Luca gives an embarrassed cough as we settle onto the cushioned bench. Something in his breath makes me think he’s trying to say something, but I have little attention for him. My eyes are fixed on Bard.

  He looks uncharacteristically serene, dressed in white robes with his hair braided in a smooth plait. His face is clean shaven for once and set in an expression of peaceful concentration as he pulls a rippling melody from the harp on his knee. I wouldn’t have recognized him if not for the livid scar across his face.

  “It’s a love song, you know,” Luca says. “Not just a tune.”

  “Mm.” I nod, but I’m not really listening.

  When Luca tilts his head toward mine, however, I tuck my head against his to hear him sing.

  “Leaves turn, snow falls

  Green on the ground, sun in the sky.

  In each turn of the seasons, I turn to you.

  Do you think of me? I think of you.

  Every sun, every moon

  Every star in the sky shines for you.

  I can see the morning breaking in your eyes.

  Do you think of me? I think of you.”

  I pull away so I can look into his eyes. “Luca…”

  His lips part, and for one terrifying breath I think he’s going to kiss me. I freeze, torn between fear and desire. All it would take is a tilt of my head, one way or the other. I could look away and pretend nothing happened…or I could lean forward just the slightest bit and—a chair scrapes, making us both jump. Bard drops into the chair, glowering at us from under his shaggy brows.

  “Hello, Bard.”

  Luca squeezes my hand and stands to clasp Bard’s forearm. Reluctantly, I stand too and return Bard’s formal gesture of greeting with a hand over my heart. It takes all my willpower to meet his eyes with squared shoulders and a polite smile, but I get it done. Baba Nadia always said bad manners are never helpful.

  “So,” Bard says as we all take our seats. He gives me a beady-eyed look. “You seem to be settling in well.”

  “Well enough,” I say stiffly.

  We stare at each other for a long moment, seemingly all at a loss for anything else to say. Finally, Luca pushes a tankard of ale in Bard’s direction.

  “Drink deep,” he says. “You’ve got a lot of talking to do. The lady has questions, and you’re going to answer them.”

  Bard sighs. “Sasha—”

  “No,” I say, shaking off the last of my doubt—and my distraction. “You know more than you’ve told me, and I don’t believe you don’t have answers. You said yourself you already broke the rules to make sure I could be saved, and I want to know why. I’m not leaving until you tell me, and I won’t work with you or the Bird’s Path, either. I’ll take my chances with Luca and the king.”

  If Luca is perturbed at the idea of being volunteered to blow a nationwide conspiracy open, he gives no sign of it. He nods seriously, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Bard snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sasha. You need our protection, our resources. You need Mother Wenla’s skill as a Healer.”

  “Luca can protect me,” I say, and I’m surprised to find that I actually do believe that. “And Mother Wenla isn’t the only Healer in the City. I won’t work with people I can’t trust.”

  Bard sighs.

  “Ask your questions, then,” he says, draining his tankard.

  “Tell me about my mother.”

  Bard’s expression goes so completely and abruptly blank that for a moment I’m afraid he’s had a stroke or has gone into shock. But then he’s back, his brow furrowed. “What about her? She died. I saw you at her burial.”

  I gape at him. “You saw what?”

  “I saw you,” Bard insists. “It was the first vision I’d had since the Pall was lifted from me thirty years ago. You weren’t much younger than you are now. You wore a black dress…and my necklace. Bozhe, you looked—you look—just like her.”

  Cold creeps up my spine when I ask, “Like who?”

  “Like your mother,” he says, his eyes tight with pain. “Like Nadia. My wife.”

  I almost don’t feel it when Luca t
akes my hand. For a moment I’m floating above the table, looking down at my body as if it’s someone else’s. I must have misheard him. He can’t have said—

  “My wife,” he repeats.

  “You’re Aleksandr,” I say numbly. “Aleksandr Nikolaev.”

  “Yes.” He nods, closing his eyes. When he opens them, I see that they’re filled with sorrow. “And you are my daughter.”

  I shake my head.

  “You must be,” he insists, misinterpreting my denial. “It cannot be coincidence that you find yourself here. The Apostate has theorized that perhaps susceptibility to the Beckoning is inherited, but still…I never thought…”

  “The Beckoning?” Luca asks, his fingers tight on my own.

  “There is some force, some…thing that pulls the mind from one world to the other,” Bard explains. “We think that it calls to everyone—but not everyone hears. And not everyone who hears succumbs to it. Only those whose bonds to their own world have been weakened in some way, through madness or grief, or sometimes illness. I suppose it was your mother’s death that made you vulnerable.”

  Luca and I exchange a glance. I feel almost sorry for Bard, and reluctant to tell him the truth. But I have to, if I expect any degree of honesty in return.

  “You don’t understand,” I say, my throat tight. “I’m not your daughter.”

  “You are,” he says gently.

  I shake my head, holding his eyes. “I’m not. Nadia was my grandmother.”

  For a moment, all is silent as Bard’s face convulses into a mask of denial and then abruptly clears into an expression of blank, helpless sorrow.

  “Your grandmother,” Bard breathes, so softly I can barely hear him.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  An icy fist closes around my heart as I remember something he said to me, the first time I met him. ‘My wife had married another man, thinking I was dead…’ But when—and where—did that marriage take place? Sadra told me that time moves differently between the worlds. How much time passed in my world while Bard has been in this one?

  “What…” I lick my lips. “What happened to you that you were taken by the—the Beckoning? And when?”

  Bard shakes his head. “You don’t want to hear about that, kotik.”

  “Don’t call me that.” I lean forward, my hands clenched into fists. “Tell me! Why did you go mad?”

  “Sasha, I—very well.” Bard covers his face with his hands and heaves an unsteady breath. He emerges after several long moments, looking desperately unhappy. “It was late in the year of 1977. We were in Paris. Nadia was doing well enough—how could she not? She was an enormously talented dancer in the very birthplace of ballet. But I—I was just another immigrant, trying and failing to find work. And then he came.”

  “Robert Chantry,” I whisper.

  “He was American,” Bard continues. “Wealthy, charming, handsome. He filled her head with talk of New York, San Francisco…but she was married to me. She would never break her vows, kotik, you mustn’t think that. But I knew she was unhappy. I knew she regretted making those vows. Of course she did! I was her husband, and I could barely manage to put a roof over our heads. I would never be able to take her to America, and he could. She wanted to go. She loved him.”

  “She didn’t.” I feel sick. “I saw her face when she spoke of him, and when she spoke of you. She didn’t love him.”

  Bard slumps forward in his chair, like someone punched him in the gut. He covers his eyes with his hand.

  “I should have gone back,” he chokes. “I’ve always known it. I made a mistake—I should have gone to her, married or not. Oh, my Nadia…”

  “Is it possible?” I grab his arm and shake it. “Can we go back?”

  “We can’t talk about that here,” Bard says, collecting himself. “The risk—”

  “Ya ne zabochus,” I hiss, then continue in Russian, “I don’t care. You put everyone in danger by breaking the rules for my sake, so don’t lecture me about being reckless. Tell me.”

  “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know,” he snaps. “Not for sure. When the Pall was lifted from me, I saw…everything. I was both here and there…and somewhere else. I don’t know where it was, it was simply—elsewhere. I saw the Apostate tending to my body. I saw the olive groves and the waves on the shore. I saw…other things.” He shudders.

  “And I saw Nadia. She had Robert’s ring on her finger and a child running before her, laughing. So I came back here, to Kingsgarden.” He pauses, scowling ferociously into his ale. “It felt like a choice, but I don’t know. Perhaps I would have awoken on the Apostate’s island in any case. But others I have met said that they too were presented with a choice. The ones who lived, anyway.”

  “The ones who lived,” I echo, feeling faint.

  “I told you it was dangerous,” Bard says, his eyes hard. “Perhaps the ones who died simply made a different choice—to go home. But there’s no way to know for sure. They can’t come back to tell us, after all.”

  “You’re saying I’ll never go home.”

  My voice comes out hollow and tinny—or perhaps it only sounds like that to me. My ears feel like they’re packed with cotton. Luca is squeezing my hand, demanding to know what’s wrong, but I can barely hear him over the pounding of my heart.

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” Bard slams his hand down on the table. “Listen to what I’m telling you: I’m saying I don’t know.”

  I don’t say anything but lean forward and clutch at my spinning head.

  “Sasha. Sasha.” Luca pulls me upright and cups my face. He glares at Bard. “What did you say to her?”

  “Only the truth,” Bard says, now in the Common tongue of Kingsgarden.

  “I’m fine,” I mumble. “Luca, I’m alright.”

  But I’m not. I have to force the words out with a tongue gone heavy and clumsy. I take Luca’s hands away from my face and take a deep breath.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. “What did he tell you?”

  “I can’t—” I stand abruptly, nearly knocking over my chair. “No. Let me go.”

  “Wait.” Bard stands too and holds a hand out to stop me. “Sasha—”

  “No.”

  I push my way through the crowd and stumble out onto the street. Luca is just seconds behind me, worry and frustration written in every line of his face. He grabs my arm to steady me as I stumble on the uneven cobblestone. The ground seems to shift beneath me so that I can’t find my feet. My head spins and spins until I lose all sense of direction: Up is down, down is up, and left and right are somewhere around the corner. I sag in Luca’s grip, but he doesn’t let me fall.

  “What do you need?” Luca asks, his lips close to my ear.

  That’s a good question. I brace myself against his arms and press my forehead against his chest in a vain attempt to still the whirlwind in my mind. Tentatively, he strokes my hair with one hand and presses the other into the small of my back.

  Inside, the tavern has gone eerily silent. Not a single mutter or clattering spoon can be heard. The very air seems to pause, waiting, until—

  “Gori, gori, moya zvezda,

  Gori zvezda, privetnaya…”

  ‘Shine, shine on, my star.’ Bard’s voice rises to fill the silence, strong and smooth and full of desperate longing. I shiver in Luca’s arms and turn my head so that his heart beats against my ear. It almost drowns out the sound of Bard’s pain—but not quite.

  I know what I want. What I need. A respite from the numbness inside me, something to overwhelm me and carry me away from my questions and doubts and, most of all, from the knowledge I chased for so long and now wish I didn’t have. Luca could give me that, I know…but I won’t use him that way. I step out of his arms, away from his warmth and the unspoken promise of safety.

  “Sasha,” he murmurs, and the tenderness in his voice and hands is nearly my undoing. “What can I do?”

  I shake my head and step away once more.

  “Nothi
ng,” I tell him. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Pas de trois

  Mother Wenla stands in the center of the Temple’s vast, round chapel. Her arms are raised, her eyes closed, like Luca’s, like everyone’s—except mine. Well, mine and Kirit’s, but no one’s going to blame him. I don’t particularly like coming to these services, but Luca insists that at least occasional attendance is essential to our cover.

  It isn’t the content or form that I object to. Quite the opposite: each service is more like a yoga class, or sometimes a choir rehearsal, than a religious exercise. I’ve never been one for spirituality, but, if the circumstances were different, I could see myself on the path of Graces.

  No, it isn’t the service itself that raises my hackles. It’s the company. Every time I see Mother Wenla, I’m reminded that I no longer have a solid path forward, that Luca and I may need to forge our own way ahead.

  “In beauty there is kindness, honesty, and excellence,” Mother Wenla intones. “May you find beauty in all that you are, and all that you do.”

  “So shall it be,” the congregation chants back, and a beat later the calm breaks as we all climb to our feet and gather our things.

  Honesty. I want to snort at Mother Wenla’s hypocrisy, but the fizzle of anger in my chest has grown small and stale after so long.

  Kirit stretches and yawns, his ears pinned flat against his head. Smiling, I sling him over my shoulder as Luca and I join the river of dedicants flowing toward the gates. But as we leave, I catch a glimpse of Mother Wenla staring after us.

  Luca and I have spent weeks—months—since Bard’s confession debating and speculating and wondering if the Bird’s Path is really my best hope for freedom. Once, they were my only option. I had no choice but to go along with their evasions and half-truths. But Luca is brother to the king, and so another path is open to me. It has been all along, but I was too scared to take it. That path, though still frightening, started to look a lot more attractive after Bard’s damning revelations. I don’t know if I’m looking at it through a lens of courage or spite, but the road leading to the Terrace and the king positively glows in my mind, begging me to walk—run—away from Bard and all he represents.