by Sara Wolf
I watch Varia leave for her bedroom. Reality creeps in again—I have a full day of nothing ahead of me. No obligations, no visiting Evlorasin. All I want is to finish teaching the valkerax as soon as possible. To end all this anxiety and sadness as soon as possible.
I’ve waited three years. One day is nothing in comparison.
I’ve stalled for Gavik long enough—he should have decoded his own journal by now, and the details of the “Hymn of the Forest.” But if I go to find him in the city, Varia will know. I sigh. What does it matter? If she truly didn’t want us to talk, she’d command me to stay away from him. And she hasn’t.
But first, breakfast.
First, Lucien wants to talk to me. About the valkerax, no doubt.
The walk to Lucien’s apartments isn’t far from Varia’s, but he’s far closer to the king’s chambers, which means the security is tenfold here. Lucien must’ve informed them of my coming, because all of them nod as I pass, opening the doors the moment I approach.
The gilded struts of the room give it away first as a royal chamber. A generous, fluffed goose-down bed with four posters and dark blankets sits in the middle. But it’s the books that catch my eye. They dominate the room—piles of them stacked neatly on the plush carpet, careful towers of them built on the redwood tables, and little blocks formed on stately black chairs and couches. No inch of the room goes without at least a scroll or parchment or a book open on a surface. Lucien must love reading; the Midnight Gifter books were something that brought us closer two weeks ago. Varia loves those books, too. The series is so important to both of their childhoods. I spot gold-embossed versions of every book in the series on his shelf.
In front of me, situated just so that anyone walking in would see it, is a small table and a beautiful ceramic vase. Inside the vase rests a bouquet of black roses, so fresh and vibrant they look like they were picked from the bushes of Y’shennria’s manor just this morning.
“It’s my attempt at a heartfelt apology.” The voice comes from the corner, and I see Lucien stand from a desk. He’s dressed simply—a white dress shirt and black breeches, the morning sun kissing his golden skin awake. “Malachite called it corny.”
The beauty of the roses tugs at me. I reach one finger out to them, then pull back. No—I can’t accept such a gift. Not after what I’ve done to him. I look around for Malachite, but he’s nowhere to be seen. It’s just us.
“You called for me, Your Highness?” I lower my gaze as any noble might. His cheek doesn’t have any residual sign of my slap, and for that I’m glad. He pauses for a moment, and I don’t dare look up, but I know he’s surprised at my demeanor. I was furious enough to slap him last night, and yet here I am, docile as a lamb. Uncharacteristic of me, to be sure.
“I heard you saved Malachite,” he says. “At the cost of your father’s sword. I know how much it meant to you.”
The broken hilt of the sword hangs at my hip even now, heavier than even the void in my chest. He and I talked of the importance of holding on to dead family members’ swords in that tavern so many nights ago, our faces close and flushed. A sweet memory, long gone.
“It’s nothing, Your Highness,” I say. “Metal is replaceable. People are not.”
There’s a pause, as if he’s debating pushing it, but he lets it go and changes the subject swiftly.
“Did you ever find out from Gavik what the song we discussed means?” he asks.
I incline my head. “No, Your Highness. I hope to today.”
We’re quiet, and it goes unsaid; he wants to know what it means, too. Perhaps desperately. Is that what all the books around are for? Has he been trying to find information on his own?
“I’ve been studying,” he says, the sound of his boots walking closer. His body cuts the air like a hot knife again, my own hyperaware of every single movement he makes, even without being able to see him. I watch his boots stop at a nearby table piled with parchments. “And considering you know more about Heartless than I do, I wished to ask you some questions. If you would let me.”
Varia warned me very clearly about him. Is this a trap? The fact I have to doubt him, scrutinize him at all—it makes my bones ache.
“Of course, Your Highness.” I bow lower. “My knowledge is at your disposal.”
“The white mercury of the four swords that polymath made in the Sunless War,” Lucien says instantly. “And the white mercury daggers of Gavik. These weapons will sever the connection between a witch and a Heartless, correct?”
He’ll know if I lie. The books all around him—has he been reading up on this sort of thing? Is this sort of thing even recorded in Vetrisian books, or did the humans get rid of all of them? He could already know the answer and is just asking me for show. To test me—and my honesty toward him.
An honesty I’ve never given him.
Until now.
“No, Your Highness,” I say. “White mercury simply weakens all magic in the body of the afflicted. The only magic in a Heartless is the connection between them and their witch. The white mercury weakens it. It doesn’t sever it. Severing isn’t possible, unless—”
“Unless the witch shatters the Heartless’s heart themselves, yes,” Lucien finishes for me. “I know that part.”
I feel one of my brows raise. Does he? Where would he have learned that? Certainly not from any of the books in the palace library, or, dare I say, any book in Cavanos. It’s not exactly common knowledge, but neither is it a secret. Someone could’ve told him, I suppose. Someone with knowledge of how witches work.
He picks up a parchment, inspecting the blueprints there. “And a weakened connection between a witch and a Heartless lets the hunger inside you roam free. You can use that to disobey a witch’s command. Is that correct?”
My head snaps up, my eyes roaming over his languid posture as he reads the parchment in his hands. He knows much more than I ever thought possible. Has he read all this? No—there’s no way the things Reginall talked to me about, the things only he and I and the dead Weeping know, were ever written down. And even if they were, they were surely burned—if not by the witches who hate Weeping then by the humans who hate witches.
Lucien sees the naked shock on my face and laughs softly. “Ironically, the more we tried to develop white mercury weapons and use them in the war, the more we freed the Heartless. An unintended side effect but not an unwelcome one. Fewer Heartless following their witches’ commands means less trouble for the human soldiers on the field.”
He puts the parchment down and approaches me, so close I can see the streaks of brown in his dark eyes. He leans casually on the back of a velvet-trimmed couch.
“But you—” He swallows, strong throat bobbing. “That night in the clearing. The monster in you took over and killed those men. But it wasn’t just the monster, was it? Your eyes…they were still yours.”
My blood is slush, icy cold and red hot all at once and thrumming beneath my skin. He reaches one arm out and I stay still, waiting. Watching. Not daring to breathe. His fingertips graze my cheek, and my body clamors for more, honing in on the feel of his skin with a magnetic frenzy. I watch the prince’s eyes change when he touches me—his patient gaze turning shadowed, turning bitter. It’s just for a moment, and then he reverts to normal.
“Weeping,” he says, breaking the silence. The word jerks me away from his touch instantly. How did he—? “What you did in the clearing was called Weeping.”
How does he know that? It’s impossible—the witches know of it, surely, but humans are far less aware. How does he know the exact name for it? Has he spoken to a witch in Vetris? The one who started the witchfire, maybe—the one who caused the earthquake last night? Varia would never tell him about Weeping—it’s the key to her plan with Evlorasin, and she’s assured me she’s made certain none of her associates would talk about it. He couldn’t have spoken to a Heartless who knows of Weeping
—I’m the only one left.
I’m the only one who knows. And I haven’t said a word to him about it. He read it. He must’ve read it somewhere, in one of these books. Someone must’ve written it down during the Sunless War, the tome scuttled away.
He knows too much, and his touch is intoxicating to my traitorous body, still. I have to get away from him.
“Is there anything else”—I struggle to make my voice even—“Your Highness wishes to ask of me?”
Lucien is quiet, his eyes catching the morning sun and fracturing with warm brown. “Just one. Will you forgive me?”
“For what, Your Highness?”
“The kiss last night,” he says. “I acted out of turn.”
I raise my head slightly, just enough to look into his eyes. “There’s nothing to forgive. I’ve already forgotten it.”
My lie sounds smooth, and it tests the very limits of my ability to spin a web. I’m terrified the truth is gleaming out of my blank expression—that I enjoyed it. That I remember every second of it. That I wish for another, and another, and another—
His eyes flicker with some emotion I can’t read—disbelief? He regains himself, turning to a table and picking up a small leather-bound book from it. He hands it to me.
“Then at least allow me to give you a gift.”
I look down at the book and take it, careful not to touch our fingers together. I make a proper bow.
“I’ll be taking my leave, then.”
Every bone in my body wants Lucien to stop me as I walk away. I want him to pull me back, to kiss me senseless. I want to feel not so alone in this moment, to be with him like that other timeline version of myself certainly is right now.
Stiffly, I walk to the door and leave. Once I’m out of sight and down another sun-drenched hall, I open the book. It’s a picture book. I inhale sharply—there, on the page, a grisly scene is sketched. A village sits on a tranquil hill, but the hill is fractured, the shelf sliding down into a massive chasm ripped straight into the earth. And from that chasm are rising familiar shapes—serpentine, bright ivory-white scales. Valkerax.
They surge out of the ground like snow-colored yarn spilling out of a basket, twisting around one another, curling around the buildings of the village. White-hot fire blasts out of their mouths, burning the people fleeing from their homes that are rapidly sliding into the abyss.
I flip the page, and the next picture is equally horrific: the flat grasslands of Vetris, completely charred to ash. The earth is naked, not a tree or blade of grass in sight. There should be verdant vegetation, and yet the only things growing from the ground are white bones—thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of human skeletons poke through the black char as far as the eye can see, frozen in their death poses, until the very foot of the Tollmount-Kilstead Mountains. Clutching their heads, rolling on the ground to get rid of the fire, curling around themselves helplessly.
“Kavar’s eye,” I hiss. The book is full of these terrible sketches and, according to the few pages with words on them, these are the drawings of an Old Vetrisian artist who traveled the Mist Continent to cover the devastation of the valkerax rampage a thousand years ago. Her drawings were reportedly used as a piece of evidence to encourage the Old Vetrisian alliance to form in the first place. An effective piece of evidence even now—I can’t tear my eyes away, a sour chill running up and down my spine.
Lucien gave this to me because he knows about my speaking to Evlorasin—Malachite most definitely told him about the valkerax escape last night. But there’s no way Lucien could know about the Bone Tree and how Varia is planning to take control of it, so is he just trying to warn me in general? I know valkerax are dangerous—everyone does. That’s why they’re locked in the Dark Below. But I’m not going to stop talking to Evlorasin, gruesome historical pictures or not. My heart is waiting—no matter how terrifying the idea of living without the hunger is, the idea of going on living as a monster is even worse.
Gavik is waiting. I head out of the palace, a cloak wrapped tightly around me. This time, I find him on my own—a glimpse of a gray robe at West Gate pulls me into an alley.
“Kreld!” I call his fake name, and he turns. The bread basket on his arm is nearly empty this time around, his beard growing shaggy and white over his chin. His watery eyes are, for once, not entirely furious to see me. It’s not anger in his face, but something more disturbing: excitement. He pulls away from a man and walks over to me.
“I’ve done it.” Gavik pulls the diary out of his coat pocket. “I unraveled the various codes I used. Some of them were incredibly complex, but with a little effort—”
“Stop blowing your own horn and tell me what it said,” I snap. Gavik’s mouth twists into itself. He steps in to me, and I brace myself to tolerate his oily presence.
“The ‘Hymn of the Forest’—it’s not a religious hymn.”
“Then what is it?” I press.
“It was originally an Old Vetrisian bardic song,” he says. “In Old Vetrisian culture, bards were responsible for shepherding information among towns as they wandered the kingdom, singing for coin. They were given this song about four hundred years ago, around the collapse of Old Vetris.” Gavik inhales sharply. “It’s a warning song. It details how and why the kingdom fell apart.”
I frown. “We know why it fell apart—the emerging New God religion tore it apart.”
Old Vetris fell because of belief. The Old God and New God believers began to war, and that was the end of them. Everyone knows that.
“Yes.” Gavik smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile. “But where did the split between the New and Old God begin? And why?”
“I have no clue.” I snort. “How does this have anything to do with the hymn?”
“Ten years ago, I met a historian of Old Vetrisian culture. A celeon, by the name of Muro—”
“Muro Farspear-Ashwalker,” I finish for him, swallowing hard. It feels like I’ve said that name so many times. Yorl’s grandfather is at the center of everything somehow.
Gavik narrows his eyes, but nods. “Sref and Kolissa asked his opinion on a sickness of Varia’s.”
“Her dreams about the Tree, right?”
Gavik blinks this time. “You’ve been investigating on your own. Did my clever little niece help you?”
“How did you meet Muro?” I ignore the patronizing surprise in his voice.
Gavik collects himself like an archduke, imperiously. “Muro gave an explanation to Sref and Kolissa. But they didn’t believe him. I saw him as a man of learning, and as he was leaving the palace, I convinced him to tell me his theory.”
Gavik proceeds to tell me about the Bone Tree needing to feed on magic from a witch, and luring a powerful witch in through their dreams when it gets hungry. At one point I let out an impatient sigh.
“I stalled for a day for you to tell me things I already know?”
He pulls out the diary suddenly and points to the coded passages with one knobby finger. “Muro told me there isn’t just one Old Vetrisian tree. There are two.”
I knit my brows, my nightmare resurfacing of those two naked tree rosaries. “Two?”
“The Bone Tree was created to subdue the threat of the valkerax,” Gavik insists. “But Muro says, in the following years, there was a small sub-section of Old Vetrisians who wanted to use the technology that made the Bone Tree to push the envelope of creation. The Bone Tree commanded the valkerax to the Dark Below. But they wanted to make another tree. One that could command people to remain immortal. A tree made of glass.”
My hands start to shake. Immortality. He can’t be talking about…Heartlessness?
“The tree of bone and the tree of glass.” I repeat the line from the “Hymn of the Forest.” The glass shard in my Heartless bag—the glass jars most Heartless hearts go into. The jars witches make, the bags witches make. Varia told me they work o
nly because of the shards of glass included in them. Those shards give us our immortality, she said.
your heart, the hunger sneers. tied forever to me.
Gavik nods feverishly. “The Old Vetrisians created the Glass Tree. But other Vetrisians thought the idea of immortality was wrong. Immoral. Against God’s teachings. They drove out those who made the Glass Tree. They labeled themselves the New God worshippers—forging a new path forward, one without immortality. And those who were driven out of Old Vetris were called the Old God’s followers.”
“The witches?” I whisper.
He frowns. “Most witches became Old God followers; by giving just a few drops of their magic to the Glass Tree, they could bind their loved ones to them forever. It was a tempting prospect.” Gavik pauses, then looks at the sky. “And it ripped Old Vetris in two. Muro told me: that is how the old hatred in Cavanos began. That is how the wars between humans and witches started.”
“How?” I swallow, my throat so dry it feels like sand. “How was Muro the only person who knew this?”
“The wars have been hard on Cavanos’s history,” Gavik admits. “Books have been burned. Historians have written about the victors, not about the truth. Even the Black Archives don’t have much on Old Vetris’s fall. Muro had to go to the old, ruined Palas—beneather cities, infested with valkerax—for what he found out.”
That would explain why Yorl knows so much about valkerax. Muro must’ve seen everything about them, observed the valkerax closely on his trips to the Dark Below, in an effort not to be killed by them. And he passed that knowledge down to Yorl.
Gavik suddenly leans in more, his voice low. “That isn’t the worst of it. The Old Vetrisians—they made the Glass Tree by taking a piece of the Bone Tree and transplanting it. All the magic inside the Bone Tree, all the sentience it developed, it replicated itself onto the Glass Tree.”
Sentience. Like the voice in my head? Like the hunger? Like the song Evlorasin talks about? Is that the “mind of its own” Yorl talks about?
