The Chalice and the Crown

by Kassandra Flamouri

  “Stars above,” she says. “Your grandfather!”

  “Only technically.” I shift uneasily. I can’t bring myself to call him Aleksandr, even in my head, much less think of him as my grandfather. “I hardly know him.”

  “But now you can!” Sadra says eagerly. “Imagine!”

  “I’d rather not,” I mutter.

  “I don’t understand you, Sasha.” She wrinkles her nose and gives a frustrated huff. “First your mother, now—but wait! Your mother—does he know?”

  I look away. “I don’t think so. I—we had other things to discuss.”

  “But you have to tell him!” Sadra cries. “If there’s a chance he could find his daughter…”

  “I’ll tell him before I go,” I promise. “You’re right. He—he has a right to know.”

  “Before you go.” Sadra blinks several times and swallows. “So it’s true, then? You can go home?”

  For the first time, I understand Bard’s reluctance to answer that question. I can’t say yes, but I can’t say no, either. Luca’s eyes are on me, burning a hole in the top of my head. I look up and meet his eyes, my throat constricting into a tight knot.

  “Bard says he was given a choice when the Pall was removed,” I say, my voice strained and ragged. “To come back to Kingsgarden or go home. He chose to come back. He said the same thing happened to every fledgling—at least, all those who lived to tell him about it. They think that the ones who didn’t survive chose to go back to their own world.”

  Sadra and Luca both stare at me, aghast.

  I look away. “I have to go home. If there’s even the slightest chance, I have to take it.”

  After a long pause, Sadra says, “You can’t be serious.”

  “I have to try,” I whisper.

  “Try to do what, exactly?” Sadra is on her feet now, her fists clenched. “All you know is that you can choose to live or die. You want to choose death and—what, hope it doesn’t stick? I refuse to believe you’re that stupid.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I demand. “You said it yourself. The Pall could kill me in as little as two years, and I’ve lived with it for nearly six months. At least this way, I have a chance at going home.”

  “Bard said you could choose,” Luca says softly. “You could choose to stay.”

  “You think I should just forget about Emily?” I ask, but the question comes out sounding more curious than pointed. “You think I should give up on everything and everyone I left behind?”

  Luca doesn’t flinch or avoid the question. He looks at me steadily and says, “Yes. At least, I think you should let them go. You don’t know what you’d be going back to. There’s a very good chance that they’ve moved on. They’ve grieved for you, and they’ve let you go—but we haven’t. I’m not saying your old life isn’t important or that it isn’t worth fighting for, but…you have fought, Sasha. You tried. You kept your promise. Your Emily wouldn’t want you to take such a stupid risk.”

  My hands tighten into fists. “You don’t even know her. How can you possibly know what she’d want?”

  “Because it’s what we want,” Luca says, his eyes snapping. But he continues calmly, “We want you to be safe—we want you to live. If we knew for sure you could make it back, if we had more to go on than a very flimsy ‘maybe’…but we don’t, Sasha.”

  “And what kind of life will I have here, if I stay?” I demand. “Will I spend the rest of my days living in fear, looking over my shoulder for the House of Light and Shadow and pretending to be something I’m not?”

  “That’s not how it will be,” Luca says. “My brother will listen to us. I know he will.”

  “So what if he does?” I give him a withering look. “You think the House will just step aside?”

  “No, of course not,” Sadra jumps in. “But you’re underestimating the individuals who make up the House. Only a very small, select minority actually knows the truth about thralls. The House teaches that strength is the pinnacle of beauty, but it doesn’t always create power hungry monsters—quite the opposite, in fact. There’s a veritable army of Lightcrafters right here in the City dedicated to protecting and providing for those who can’t do for themselves. I can’t believe that they would just stand by if they knew. It will be hard, I won’t deny that. But you could have a life here, Sasha, a good one.”

  “I—no. It doesn’t matter.” I shake my head, my hands over my ears. “You don’t understand! Emily—”

  “Stop it.” Luca wrenches me to my feet so that his face is inches from my own. “We do understand—better than you do, I’ll wager. Emily isn’t the only one who cares about you, Sasha. She isn’t the only one who has made sacrifices for you. And hers is not the only heart that will break if you die.”

  “Isn’t there anything here worth living for?” Sadra asks softly. “Do I mean nothing to you? Does Luca?”

  “Of course not.” I reach for her and take her hands. “Never think that. But how can I stay, knowing what I’ve left behind? Would you do what you’re asking of me? When I thought I was leaving for the City of Lilies, I was so close to falling on my knees and begging you to come with me. But I didn’t, because I knew there was someone you couldn’t abandon. I would never ask you to.”

  Tears shimmer in Sadra’s eyes. “That’s not fair, Sasha.”

  “Of course it isn’t.” My throat is so swollen and tight that I can barely force the words out. “But life isn’t fair, is it? I know that better than most.”

  “But it’s not the same thing at all,” Sadra insists, her voice stronger now. “How can I not ask you—beg you—to choose us when the alternative is death?”

  “Bard might be wrong,” I whisper. “The choice might not be a choice at all. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I don’t want to go knowing that you hate me.”

  Sadra pulls me into a tight hug. “I don’t hate you, idiot.”

  “Thank you, Sadra.” I squeeze my eyes closed, locking the tears safe inside. “For everything.”

  “Goodbye,” Sadra whispers, and lets me go.

  Luca says nothing when I turn to face him. His shoulders and jaw remain tight and stiff as he helps me back into the tunnel and stalks away, leaving me to scramble after him as best I can. Even if Sadra doesn’t hate me, he surely does.

  Well, he’s not the only one. I hate myself for putting him through this, and for lying to him for so long. At the same time, the thought of leaving him steals the very breath from my lungs. I imagine waking up each day, knowing that I’ll never see him or even speak of him again, and my belly fills with shards of glass.

  Luca stops so suddenly I crash into his back and bounce off. He steadies me with a hand clamped around my upper arm and indicates a narrow passage that I didn’t notice on the way up to the cloisters.

  “I want to show you something,” he says. “I found it the first time I came through here, but I’ve never spoken of it to anyone. We have to leave the torch here. Hold onto me.”

  I nod silently and hook my fingers into his belt.

  We move into the dark, groping with hands and feet over the uneven stone. The blackness is all-consuming, almost solid. I feel as though I should be able to scoop it away with my hands.

  “There,” Luca finally says, and pulls me through a narrow gap between the stones.

  I blink, trying to make sense of the cold drops of silver and white before my eyes. Slowly, my vision adjusts, and I gasp in wonder. It’s a lake, smooth and clear as glass, and in its center lies a reflection of the moon and stars contained in a near perfect circle.

  We stand for several minutes without speaking or touching. Just looking—and listening, but to what, I don’t know. Finally, Luca breaks the silence.

  “I think this is—or was—a holy place,” he says softly.

  “Yes. Yes, I think so, too.” I look up at him, but all I can see is his silhouette. “Luca, why are we here?”

  “Because I have something to tell you,” he says. “And I thought t
hat here, in this place…I don’t know. Perhaps it’s only that I’m a coward, and I’m afraid to see your face.”

  “Tell me,” I whisper.

  Luca’s hands settle on my shoulders. Involuntarily, I find myself leaning into his warmth.

  “I want you to stay,” he says. “I should have told you sooner. I told myself I was respecting your wishes, that I shouldn’t burden you with my own desires, but the truth is that I simply didn’t have the courage. I want you to stay…not just in Kingsgarden, but with me. I love you, Sasha.”

  I rest my forehead against his chest, my eyes closed. I think I can hear my heart breaking open—but no, it’s only the rattle of one loose stone against another. My whole body aches with the need to weep. But the tears don’t come, and neither does the promise Luca is no doubt hoping for. I can’t tell him I’ll stay, that he means more to me than Emily does. But I won’t lie to him, either. So I tell him the truth.

  “I love you.”

  I know it’s not enough, but it’s all I have.

  * * *

  Luca and I stand shoulder to shoulder at the lip of a soaring cliff, looking down into the valley. The City of Roses, true to its name, glows red in the sunset. The sun’s dying rays wash over the expanse of white marble and pink sandstone, the towers shot with gleaming sparks of gold.

  I don’t know if I’ll return. If I do, will I be any more whole than I am now? I’ll be free of the Pall but burdened by grief and broken promises. I’ll be embroiled in a political struggle with not just moral but mortal consequences. The House will know my name, my face.

  But I’ll have Luca. I’ll have Sadra. And they’ll have me, for whatever that’s worth. I’ll be there to share in the struggle.

  If I leave, they’ll keep fighting for freedom and justice while I return to my own world—and do what? Will I go back to dancing from dawn to dusk, always chasing the next role and competing with a hundred other girls with the same dream? Will that even be an option, or will I wake to find myself years, maybe even decades older and buried under a mountain of medical debt?

  Will I wake up at all?

  “Sasha,” Luca says quietly. “We need to keep moving.”

  “Tell Bard I’m coming,” I say. “I just…need a minute.”

  Luca nods and moves off as silently as the fox pacing at his side. I turn back to the City, my eyes crawling over every line, every spire until, finally, my gaze comes to rest on the shadowy pocket of the Terrace.

  Such things I’ve seen, such terrible, terrible beauty. I wonder if that’s what it means to grow up—to see the terror in beauty, the shadow behind the light. If it is, I’ve grown up and then some. I feel old, now. Old and confused and scared of what lies on the other side of death.

  Wind whips through my hair, stinging my eyes. I begin to hum, then to sing.

  “Bayu, bayushki, bayu.”

  Jeté

  Luca lies on his side, tracing the lines of my tattoo with a fingertip. I shiver as his palm flattens over the swan on my hip, his hand warm and rough and far more familiar than I ever thought possible. After our confession in the tunnels, I meant to shut him out. I meant to protect him.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t. We spent the night tangled together in the dark, too desperate and too drunk with desire to let each other go. If my love was all I had to give, I wanted him to have all of it. All of me. So I gave myself to him, that night and every night since. He’ll have me every night that I live and breathe in this world.

  I watch him through my lashes, my eyes half closed. There’s a curious expression on his face, half-tender and half-pained. It’s a familiar expression by now, and I’m sure the same look has appeared on my own face this last week.

  Sometimes I come around a corner or look up suddenly and catch a glimpse of his face, unguarded, and feel something inside me come loose, as if whatever was holding me together suddenly isn’t. Then he smiles at me and I come together again, but something is subtly, unaccountably different. The fabric that holds me together has changed, just a little bit. Every time this happens a little shiver runs up my spine. I never can tell if the shiver is one of fear or pleasure.

  “What are you thinking?” Luca asks, his hand coming to rest on my cheek.

  “That you’re changing me,” I say without thinking.

  Luca draws back in surprise. “How so?”

  “I’m not sure,” I reply. “But I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”

  He opens his mouth, then shuts it. But I see the sudden surge of hope flash across his face and feel an answering thrill in my own heart. It dissipates almost as quickly as it came, replaced by guilt—and confusion. I don’t even know anymore what to feel guilty about or who I’m going to hurt when the Apostate finally arrives.

  If he arrives.

  We traveled for nearly a week, only to find ourselves holed up for the last two days in a hay loft, the only accommodation available in the tiny mountain village of Twin Oaks. Bard is camped somewhere out in the hills in hopes of meeting the Apostate on his way into the village. Ornery as he is, I imagine he’s happier out there away from the cheerful bustling of the villagers.

  “Let’s go,” Luca says, blowing the straw dust from my hair. “Petal will be waiting for his feed.”

  As if in answer, a high-pitched neigh sounds from the stall below us, accompanied by the thump of a plate-sized hoof striking wood. I squirm over to the edge of the loft and look down at Luca’s gargantuan war horse. I’ve never seen anything that looks less like a flower. ‘Petal,’ if that is, in fact, his real name and Luca isn’t just teasing me, stands higher than my head at the shoulder, a massive gray mountain of flesh. He’s positively monstrous, and I’m half afraid that if I were to fall out of the loft he’d try to eat me, herbivore or not.

  I wait until Petal is safely occupied with his breakfast before I dress and follow Luca down the ladder. Luca laughs as I skirt around the edges of the stall, giving Petal a wide berth.

  “Come here,” he says, hooking an arm around my waist. “Acting like a mouse won’t help. It makes him nervous to know that you’re nervous.”

  “How do you know? Can you understand him like you understand Kirit?” I shuffle sideways so that Luca is between me and Petal.

  “No, but you don’t have to be a Beastspeaker to know that about horses.” Luca frowns, staring at Petal. “It’s odd, though. Normally I don’t have much of a feel at all for grass-eaters. But this morning I could have sworn I heard him before I heard him, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, yes,” I say dryly. “That’s perfectly clear.”

  “Come on,” he says, ruffling my hair. “Let’s go eat.”

  We duck out of the barn and stroll among the massive oaks for which the town was named. Their gnarled trunks and branches tower protectively over the shingle rooftops, dappling every surface in swirling patterns of dark and light. It’s a beautiful place, Twin Oaks, but that’s not why I love it here. I love this village because there’s not a single Lightcrafter and not a single thrall. The village is living proof that life can be made beautiful with one’s own gifts. The kingdom doesn’t need thralls to survive. It can work. It will…but will I be here to see it?

  Kirit is already at the tavern, begging scraps from a young girl as she clears the tables. He doesn’t have to work that hard—the tavern keeper’s eldest daughter was smitten within moments of meeting him. I smile as she dangles a chicken bone over his head, giggling. Kirit plays along, snapping and jumping. He’s fast enough to snatch the morsel whenever he chooses, but he likes children.

  Luca and I share a hearty breakfast and then go our separate ways for the day, he to assist with the training of a shepherd dog and I to mind the tavern keeper’s youngest children while his wife is helping in the kitchen. The tavern keeper wouldn’t let us pay as he didn’t have a room for us, but we insisted on doing what we can to help out. The whole village is teeming with visitors come to celebrate a spring festival of some kind, and there’s plenty of work
to be done.

  Kirit and I have a wonderful time singing and playing games with the children. Changing the baby’s nappies is less wonderful, as I am also responsible for rinsing the soiled ones, but I get it done. The work is simple and sweet, just like the girls, and I’m almost sorry to hand them over to their mother after the dinner rush.

  “You’ll be wanting to join in the festivities,” she says, tucking the baby against her shoulder. “Go on with you, and your young man, too.”

  I look over my shoulder and see Luca waiting for me near the door. He watches me with an odd look on his face, something almost like hunger. Then I realize he’s looking not just at me but at the toddler in my arms. With a quick smile at the tavern mistress, I set down the little girl and go to Luca, who brushes my cheek with a kiss.

  “Luca.” I push him away so I can see his face. “I’ve never asked—how old are you?”

  He looks at me in surprise. “Twenty. Why?”

  I bite my lip. In my world, he could be in college. But here in Kingsgarden, many men are fathers at his age. I’m nineteen by now, I think. Many girls are mothers at my age, too. A wave of some unnamed emotion washes over me, half fear and half longing. I can see it so clearly: a little girl with high, wide cheekbones and green eyes. I wait for the instinctive denial that must surely follow…but it doesn’t. The image hangs in my mind as if waiting for me to reach out and take it.

  I take Luca’s hand instead and we join the river of people outside. Some have candles, but most carry small, makeshift torches woven from dried grass. They move slowly, singing something haunting and solemn in unison. It must be some country dialect, for I can only catch a few words.

  The crowd carries us to the center of town, where a huge bonfire roars like a hungry dragon in the courtyard. Even out here in the hills, the center square is beautifully decorated. Instead of marble statues, trees have been trained to grow in spirals and starbursts. Vines cover the walls and houses surrounding the courtyard. It’s like a little pocket of forest in the middle of town.