A River of Royal Blood

by Amanda Joy

  “Stop with that foolishness. You’ll live well beyond your nameday.”

  “How, Mirabel?” I snapped. “You must have at least one ghost at Court. Haven’t they told you about Isadore? One flex of her will and she won’t even have to kill me herself. I’ll be burying the knife inside my own chest.”

  Her chestnut skin went ashen. Maybe the image flashed behind her eyes the way it flashed behind mine. My body broken, battered, and all that I was, gone from it. Forever.

  “You are not going to die. You’re going to sit on the Ivory Throne and change this Queendom.”

  “I wish you were right. I can’t even change how the Court sees me. How can I change anything else?”

  “You certainly won’t if you don’t at least go to Court and try.”

  “Today Isadore admitted she uses her magick to turn courtiers against me, and that Mama”—I gritted my teeth—“Mother encourages it. What do you suppose I try against that?”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “Your father will find something soon. We must remain hopeful. There are still stones left to turn. North near the border, or the Isles. The Deadened Jungle, even. Any place where old magicks are known to return.”

  The magick Mirabel and my father so wanted me to learn was not like Isadore’s, nor like my mother’s. Magick of marrow and blood was a killing power. How could she want me to embrace that? I refused to let the crown turn me into a murderer.

  Better to die than be like every other Queen.

  I ignored the spike of panic in my chest. “Just accept that there is no one to teach me.”

  Searching would yield nothing, just as it had for the last three years. My magick was a relic from another age. Papa would never find someone to teach me. Anyone who might’ve known about marrow and blood magick was long dead.

  I used to count that failing as a gift, since I couldn’t be forced to learn, but as my nameday drew closer and closer, all I felt was numb. It was clear that I was helpless against my sister. Why worry when my fate was inescapable? I wouldn’t be the first Princess to die, nor the last.

  Mirabel’s claws rasped against the floor as she stood and gripped my hands tight. Her beringed fingers were tough, sturdy. These hands fed me, clothed me, and combed my hair. They had held me every day since my first nameday nearly seventeen years ago. I knew the feel of them well.

  “I will not give up, and I won’t allow you to either. I’ll remind you every chance I get, even if you don’t want to hear it: you deserve to live, you deserve to fight, and you deserve to survive. The throne, all its glory and bitterness, is your birthright. Don’t let your sister convince you you’re worth anything less.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek and swept from the room.

  I tried to see the truth in Mirabel’s words, but I knew better. I didn’t deserve the crown. I didn’t even want it, and against Isadore I had no way to win.

  * * *

  The first, and only, time I used magick, I was just shy of my ninth nameday.

  For human Myreans, the ninth nameday was second only to the seventeenth in importance. It marked the time when we could be tattooed by the Sorceryn and given access to our magick. Though unbridled magick often spilled out of children before their ninth year, it couldn’t be learned until our arms wore a lace of ink, each design articulating a different ability.

  Though I remembered several days of feasting for Isadore’s ninth, I waited and waited only to find no celebration was planned for mine. My first clue to understanding why came during Court a week before my nameday.

  I sat on the dais, Isadore and I arranged on a large pillow at Mother’s feet, like we always were back then at Court. She liked to keep us close enough to scold when we misbehaved. Lady Feransa, Mistress of Trade on the Queen’s Council, mounted the dais to speak with the Queen. After a brief conversation, Mother dismissed her, and on her way down the dais, Feransa spoke to my sister first, asking after Isa’s lessons with the Sorceryn. Then Lady Feransa turned to me and pinched my cheek, before taking my hands in hers.

  Her kohl-rimmed eyes focused on the portrait of Raina behind the throne. “You must be a brave girl,” she murmured shakily, “to be gifted with such savage magick, Your Highness.”

  My gaze followed hers. The First had golden-brown skin and amber eyes lit with rage, and wore a gold sleeveless gown, dotted with red rosettes, showing off the tattoos that stretched from fingertips to shoulder.

  Trying not to feel the sting of Lady Feransa’s words, I couldn’t look away. I would know soon if my tattoos were to be the same.

  Isadore saved me from having to answer when she spoke in a tight, quiet voice: “Yes, my sister is brave, as all Princesses are known to be, but she is not savage.”

  At just eleven, Isa had a commanding way about her and a glare that shined with cruelty.

  She smiled in triumph as the Mistress of Trade sputtered an apology, backing away until she reached the foot of the dais. My eyes welled with tears as Lady Feransa took one last glance at the portrait of Raina. My thoughts spun through memories of times my magick had been mentioned at Court, finding that same fearful expression, and I finally understood. The Court wasn’t celebrating my ninth because they were frightened by it.

  Frightened by me.

  When Feransa was well away, Isa pulled up her sleeve and showed me a tattoo of a bright green serpent coiled around her wrist. I knew it was one of her persuasion tattoos, because the tattoos for her light magick were all pale yellow.

  “Once you’re tattooed,” she promised, jade eyes burning with a fire to match Raina’s, “you can chase away anyone who bothers you. Until then, I’ll protect you.”

  Two nights later, she kept that promise.

  It was late enough that we should have been fast asleep, sharing a fort draped with silk, curled together on a heap of pillows. Instead we’d crept through the passages from Isa’s room to the kitchens, collecting sticky buns and candied almonds to nibble on during our journey through the passages. Isa decided we should go to Mother’s dressing room to try out her jewels and gowns without someone chasing us away from all the finery.

  But when we arrived in her dressing room, Mama was still awake on the other side of the door, the lamplight from her bedchamber spilling under the doorway. Whispering excitedly, for this was a thrilling and dangerous development, I suggested we stay, while Isa proposed a climb to the glass menagerie on the roof. I deferred to Isa, as I always did then, and we would have left had I not heard Papa’s voice. It was a curious discovery, for neither of us had ever seen Papa near Mama’s rooms. We crept closer to the door leading to her bedchamber, our fingers laced together.

  I could hardly make out anything, but one word stood out: my name.

  I rushed forward, untangling my hand from Isa’s, but she pulled me back. “Eva,” she said, so loud I thought she wanted to get caught. “What are they saying?”

  “They’re talking about me.” I pressed my ear to the door.

  Not one to let me hear anything she couldn’t, Isa shouldered me aside. She grinned, listening with me now.

  Mama’s voice was pitched high with agitation. “She is too young. We need to wait, Lei. I know you believe she’s ready, but—”

  Papa cut her off, tone sharp. “Lily, waiting is too dangerous.”

  “Her magick is what’s dangerous, Lei.” I pressed my lips together to stifle a gasp. “You know the history better than I do. Eva could hurt someone—”

  “I understand your fear, but that magick is hers, Lily. It is who she is.” Papa’s voice softened. “Even you cannot keep her from it.”

  The pit of nerves in my stomach hardened. Lady Feransa’s words echoed in my head. Savage magick, she’d said. I thought of Raina’s tattoos, with bloodred roses, blades, and bones; how could I do anything but hurt someone? I wanted to run, but I couldn’t turn away. I pressed even closer, wishing I could slip right th
rough the door and see.

  “I can keep her from whatever I damn well please, Lei.”

  “Do not press this. This is interference, Lily. I won’t take it, not this early. You may favor Isa all you like, but this is sabotage.”

  “I won’t let her endanger my Isadore.” All the sweets we’d eaten threatened to bubble up as my stomach churned. My magick was why Mama preferred Isa—because she thought I’d hurt someone. But even if I could, I wondered, why would I hurt my sister? Back then I didn’t know our fate as Rival Heirs and wouldn’t learn the truth for years. “I won’t have her learning this . . . this barbaric power. I won’t.”

  “You know nothing of this so-called barbaric power,” Papa said. “That is why you fear it.”

  “I’ve spoken with the Sorceryn.” The sly calm in her voice was so different from the anger seconds ago. Even knowing she couldn’t see me, I didn’t dare breathe. “They say—”

  Isa yanked me back and I missed Mother’s next words. “We should go, Eva.”

  I needed to hear the rest. Maybe Mama was right. I needed to understand so that I wouldn’t hurt Isa. Fear and desperation warred within me as I shoved her away, Raina’s red-and-white tattoos vivid in my mind’s eye.

  Isa was two years older than me, taller and stronger, and always won any tussles between us. Still she fell to the floor and a soft cry escaped her.

  Then a strange thing happened. My thoughts circled back, realizing that my hand had felt hot when it connected with Isa’s chest. Isa’s flesh had given under my fingertips with a dull pop, sinking in like a piece of overripe fruit.

  I rushed toward her. “Are you all right?”

  She’d fallen, curled in on herself, and didn’t respond to my words. I crouched and reached for her. She flinched as my fingers brushed her shoulder and gave me a bewildered look. My mind flashed to the kitten with the twisted leg we had found last month. He’d twitched away from our every touch. Even after we led him up to my room and gave him a cup of cream, he never lost that suspicion. Like he knew somebody would hurt him again. Like it was only a matter of time.

  Tears slid down my face.

  I didn’t understand what I’d done, but with Mother’s words about endangering Isadore ringing in my head, I knew this power was wrong.

  Isadore stood and tried to cover my mouth. There was a bruise on one of her arms, so dark it looked like a splotch of spilled paint or the petal of a purple flower.

  “Hush, Eva.” She said it over and over. When the door swung open, hitting her in the back and causing her to stumble to the floor and cry out in pain again, she kept repeating it. “Eva, don’t tell them. Not about anything. Don’t say a word.”

  I only wept harder, unable to speak around the force of my tears. Isa ignored all of their questions. She spoke only once, coolly requesting a healer.

  After that, Mama glared at Papa, hovering protectively over Isadore. “Leave us.”

  My cries took on a hysterical edge as my father scooped me into his arms. I didn’t want to be separated from Isadore, because soon Mama would know what I’d done. And I was sure she would never let me be around my sister again.

  Over the sound of my hiccupping, I heard Isa say again and again, “Hush, Eva. Don’t tell them anything. Don’t say a word.”

  And so I never did.

  Instead I decided. This was my magick, wicked, savage, and wrong, and I wanted no part of it.

  * * *

  After Mira left, I passed the evening alone, reading a book of myths from the Isles instead of accepting my mother’s invitation. My nerves couldn’t handle seeing her or anyone else from Court tonight.

  When night dropped inky curtains of starlight, I slid from my bed. Remembering the City Guard from last night, I hid an extra knife in my boot, and opened the trapdoor. Falun waited below. I took off before he could say a word, lest he mention the disaster at Court.

  We stopped on the stoop of an abandoned building in a familiar alleyway on the edge of the Patch. Not wanting a repeat of last night, we agreed to meet there at the end of the night if we were separated. Falun said he’d only come along to stop me from going out alone, though I was certain the young bloodkin had at least some small part in him not hauling me back to my room. With the Blood Moon, there would be no raids tonight. Omen sightings and festival nights were the only times the laws against late-night gatherings became void.

  Falun was quiet on the way out; maybe he wanted to talk about Court. Maybe his mother had said something that upset him, but he’d had to worry about me instead. I should have asked, I would have, but I didn’t want to mention Court out there. Not when we were free.

  “You haven’t looked at it once,” Falun said.

  He was wrong. I’d glanced at the moon twice. The first time it was just a glance, but the second, I truly took it in. A rich, bloodied moon hung in the sky, bruised with black shadows and bathing the night with a strange, rosy glow. It was so close if I climbed one of the taller flats around us, I would’ve sworn I could touch the edge.

  But after that I didn’t let my eyes linger at the wonder of it. The Blood Moon had betrayed me once before, heaping its legendary expectations upon my infant shoulders. “The moon means nothing to me tonight. I’m just a girl, remember?”

  He must’ve caught something in my voice. “Is that why you come here? To leave your titles behind?”

  I shrugged, unable to meet his pitying gaze. “I come here to pretend that I’m free from the throne for just a little while.” To pretend that the moon’s omens didn’t matter. That my title didn’t matter, at least for this short time.

  I pulled him along, and made a promise to myself: Princess no more.

  The silence between us was broken only when Falun asked how I’d originally found the Patch.

  My secret forays outside the Palace began seven months ago, at the beginning of Far Winter, when I was still settling into life here. I wanted to know the city I was supposed to rule one day. I had always loved the night, but Ternain taught me its true magick: transformation. I could be whomever I wanted at night, as long as I was careful.

  It took several weeks of wandering through the city to find the Patch, and two more weeks of slipping through its crowds to find my place in it.

  I’d been wrapped in a cloak, afraid someone would recognize me, when I’d stumbled upon a crowd of people gathered around the tiles. I slid through the press of bodies and found the crowd watching a pair of dancers. My feet were rooted to the ground as I watched a bloodkin boy and girl circling each other.

  They were beautiful, as is anyone who is sweating in the moonlight; in their skin, all worries seemed forgotten. Waist-length braids spun around her lithe body, and long coils of hair sprung proudly from his brow all the while they moved, barely a hand’s-width apart.

  They were one in the dance.

  Hips rolled and feet slapped the ground as they twined around each other, two moons in the same orbit. Perfectly in sync.

  Chatara wasn’t dancing, not as I’d always known it. Yes, there was music and, yes, there was movement, but the intimacy of it made me blush the first time I watched. At Court we had nothing to match its intensity.

  I found I couldn’t look away.

  Eventually their song ended. Everyone rushed onto the tiles when the drumming started. I stood frozen. During the dance a fire was lit under my skin. Every other night I’d been looking, seeing all the sectors of Ternain up close, but tonight I wanted to be a part of it. There weren’t just bloodkin crowded onto the tiles, there were fey, long ropelike braids woven around their wrists, and humans, tattoos scrawled on their arms.

  I wanted to lose myself among them. I wanted—wanted.

  Since returning to Ternain, it was the first time I had wanted anything but to be left alone.

  As I stared, the dancing boy caught my eyes. A slow smile curved his lips, and a
tremor snaked down my back. Oh.

  Warmth bloomed in my cheeks as he motioned for me to join him. My gaze drifted to his open shirt and broad, sweat-damp chest. I stepped forward before I remembered myself. Remembered who I was; much as I wanted to be someone else, I hadn’t yet learned to pretend. I didn’t know how to smile and join him, much as I wanted to. I didn’t know how to lose myself in the embrace of someone so beautiful. At least not yet.

  I rushed back to the Palace, but I returned the next night, clad in a scrap of a shirt and a long, clinging skirt instead, determined to learn.

  In the months since, the Patch had become my only true solace. When all the things I despised in my life piled up, I could come here to forget them for a few hours.

  Tonight, as always, the streets smelled of honey, liquor, and, since it was the Patch, blood.

  Because of the moon, it was more packed than last night. Falun jostled a human boy nursing a cup of palm beer while a copper-haired bloodkin girl laid a tarnished bloodletting knife against his wrist. Clearly surprised to see bloodkin feeding in public, Falun murmured an apology. The boy blushed, but the girl kissed both of us on the cheek.

  We reached the tiles in the midst of a round of chatara, so we waited. I saw Falun spot the boy from last night—a hot flush rose in his cheeks—but he stayed by my side.

  I pushed him onto the tiles. “Go.”

  After that dance ended, I stepped onto the tiles alone.

  When the music started, my thoughts were usually carried away, and there was only my body and eventually whichever boy would join me.

  But tonight peace wouldn’t come.

  I couldn’t help but look to the moon, and as soon as I did, it was like someone placed a brick on my chest. The moon only reminded me of all the things I had come here to forget. Like Court, this wasn’t my place either. I was as weak and forgettable here as anywhere else and a small voice whispered it was no one’s fault but mine.