by Hannah West
When she was gone, Kadri fell to her knees, dropping her bow and quiver on the rustling leaves. “I don’t belong to myself, but to Wenryn. I’ll never be happy again.”
I knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Staring ahead at the charred wilds left in the Moth King’s footprint made me want to weep too, and made for a stark contrast against the fleeting euphoria of the fairy dwelling.
“I know the magic in the nectar is strong, but you are stronger,” I whispered. “And you’re alive, which is more than we thought to hope for before the fair folk took us in.”
I looked up at Mercer and the memories rushed back, bringing color to my face.
Only my mother and Ivria had ever spoken to me about fleshly desires, and their explanations had been nothing if not parsimonious and proper. I’d learned more from what my mother hadn’t wished me to see than from what she willingly shared. I had not been taught to lay my feelings bare to a man, and certainly had no idea how to approach one in the aftermath of passion. It seemed impossible to compose myself when I harbored the memory of his hands plunging into my hair and peeling the fay clothing off me, my thumbs stroking his hipbones through his thin shirt.
“We need you, Kadri,” Glisette said, dropping to kneel beside us. “We need you more than you need Wenryn.”
Kadri sobbed, wiped a tear, and stretched to seize the grip of her new bow. She slung the quiver strap over her shoulder and wobbled to her feet.
The four of us stared down the path ahead.
Scattered fires still burned in the deserted wasteland, violent orange waves consuming what little life remained. As we walked, I could feel the beginnings of a ravaging cough in my chest. We were drinking the water too quickly—and we certainly wouldn’t find a clean source here.
I thought back to our first night, how the compactness of the map had made our journey seem as straightforward and simple as a line of black ink cutting through the forest to Darmeska. I had not projected hunger, sickness, entrapments, betrayal, thirst. My appetite for redemption had led me to believe I would somehow master my power and be ready to face my enemy by the time we arrived, like a lady running late to a ball, lacing her bodice in the carriage.
I glanced at Mercer. Anger punctuated his movements, and what few words he had uttered since Rynna left us. Glisette began to cough, a wretched sound that reminded me of an ash rake scraping along a stone hearth. Soon, a ghostly creaking groused over our heads and we noticed a swaying tree just in time to for each of us to jerk forward or back. It fell with a mighty thunder and stirred up ash that brought on more coughing.
“Everyone all right?” Mercer rasped as he skirted the debris to circle back to us. He caught my chin. My eyes watered from the haze as I looked up at him. “We can’t go on like this,” he said, voice booming in the stillness of decay. “We need to go around the forest.” I loosed a fathomless sigh, a sigh that told our story thus far. “Then let’s cut straight west. We’re closer to the coast than the hills. I think….”
“Rynna said we’re near where the Water used to be,” Kadri said. “Can’t you know where we are based on its location?”
“It moves throughout this region of the forest,” I said. “One of the many ways it tries to thwart the attentions of the unworthy.”
“At least, it used to do that,” Glisette said, but any obloquy that might have been implied was devoured by a dry cough, and we both knew that old thorn had lost its sting. It was more observation than affront.
“Either way, it’s not of much help to us,” Mercer said. “Let’s cut straight west. We’ll escape this eventually.”
The rest of us mumbled our agreement, but no sooner had we started forward than we noticed a sprawling patch of live evergreen trees just ahead.
“The fires must have missed that stretch,” Mercer said. “There may be fresh water somewhere in there.”
The thought of filling our skins forced me to bury any suspicions that arose. My plate and goblet had always been full. But now I realized how far a person would go, how much they would risk, for a drop of water or a nibble of bread. I was suddenly grateful for Arna’s time-honored tradition of allowing first-time convicted thieves to become Realm Alliance soldiers rather than headless bodies.
The border between the burned forest and the healthy patch was distinct, as if the living trees and grass had been scooped up as a whole and gently transplanted. The evergreens were so dense that I had to lower my head and wrestle with the supple branches as they flicked my cheeks. When I finally pushed through, I found my toes at the edge of a hollow of jagged black rocks.
“This used to be the Water,” I whispered, my eyes skimming across the familiar clearing, snagging on the rocks where I’d found Ivria’s body. Kadri drew level with me, and Glisette used her magic to bend the trees out of her path.
“Well, that’s perfectly useless,” she said.
“The portal,” I gasped, looking across the pit to a pile of gray stones. “They destroyed it.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Glisette asked, watching me circle around to stand in front of the rubble. “Who needs a door leading to nowhere?”
As I stared at the crumbled stones, I thought achingly of my mother, Ander, Ellen, Knox. What would I have found if the portal had still been standing and I had dared to pass through? My royal family members seduced by wealth and guarding treasure like greedy dragons, ordering about half-fairy slaves? Or worse, empty halls, bodies strewn across the floor, their blood all but invisible against the red carpet?
“We have to keep going,” Mercer said softly, pressing his warm, large palm to my cool, small one.
I was turning to follow him when I caught a glimpse of something wooden buried amid the ruins of the portal. Detangling my fingers from his, I bent down to lift one of the heavy stones and found the carved box, the one that once held Callista’s amethyst elicrin stone, peeking through a crack. I gasped and lifted away another stone.
“What is it?” Mercer asked.
When I was able to extract the box, I breathed, “I think King Tiernan put this here.”
There was no other reason for it to be neatly tucked away amid the rubble. Who did he want to find it? Or had it been left here carelessly?
I opened the lid, hoping it contained the diadem, a tool to see through my enemy’s cunning and lies. But it was empty. My fingers explored the velvet lining in case the precious artifact—even more precious than it had initially seemed, now that I’d met its original owner—might be concealed by a spell, but there was nothing.
“Come on,” Mercer said. “We should find water.”
“But why—?” Before the question took shape, the corners of the box started expanding within my grasp.
Mercer acted quickly, striking the box from my hands and yanking me back, assuming it was some sort of trap. When the box hit the ground, it rolled onto its side and continued to grow until it was roughly the height and width of a doorway.
It was a portal.
The purple velvet bunched up like a curtain. Fingers trembling, I reached out, daring to gather its edge so that I could steal a peek at what lay beyond. My heart thrummed as I wondered whether King Tiernan might have done me the favor of creating a portal straight to Darmeska, hoping to spare me the last difficult leg of the journey and its unknown dangers. But with a nudge further I could see familiar paneled walls, a canopied bed, and a vanity inlaid with gold.
“It’s my room,” I whispered in awe, thrusting the curtain open.
“We’re close enough to Darmeska now that to risk getting trapped in Arna would be downright imbecilic,” Kadri said. “I almost died wandering the woods—I am not letting us get trapped here after all that.”
I knew she was right. But I felt a tug to the other side that I couldn’t resist.
Glisette pushed past us, crossing through and tiptoeing to my drawers. “I need stockings without holes.”
I stepped in after her, amazed to be back in my own home, comforted
to see it exactly the same, without a speck of dust. That meant Ellen and the other maids had been busy at their usual tasks. It was almost enough reassurance to allow me to turn my back on it…almost.
“We don’t know whom we can trust right now,” Mercer said from the other side. “But we can take the box with us in case we get desperate.”
I could sense him leaning back into his old relentless efficiency. “King Tiernan must have left this here for a reason,” I said.
“Maybe it was for someone else,” Mercer said, taking a single step into my room. “We’re just a few days away from Darmeska.” He tilted my jaw with a curled finger until I was looking into his golden-brown eyes. “I’m with Kadri. It’s not worth the risk.”
“Neither is dying of thirst,” I said, forgiving Glisette for having spent longer at the summer cottage than necessary. “I’ll wait for my maid in the common room and ask her to fill our waterskins. I will hide and speak to no one but her.” I looked past him to Kadri. “I swear I won’t stay long.”
Mercer released me and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I’ll hold you to that.” He stalked back through the portal to collect the empty waterskins. “I’m coming with you. Glisette, Kadri—stay here and be ready to run. If anything, anything feels the slightest bit awry, we’re coming back and breaking this box to bits.”
Kadri nodded. Glisette slammed my drawers shut, squeezing back between Mercer and me with two pairs of clean stockings. “Don’t be long,” she said, and pulled the curtain closed.
From this side, it looked like an ordinary window dressing.
“The common room is through here.” I crossed my bedchamber, pulse aflutter, and peeked into the shared antechamber.
It was empty, but it should have felt emptier. Embers burned in the hearth. My first thought was that my mother or Aunt Sylvana came to sit and dwell on the ghosts that haunted this room. But then I saw the perfume bottle on the table, the slippers by the door to Ivria’s chamber, the door itself flung open to reveal a new covering on Ivria’s bed, rumpled and slept-in.
This made me uneasy, but I wouldn’t say so to Mercer, who already looked apt to throw me over his shoulder and carry me through the portal. Who would so carelessly invade Ivria’s space? Why hadn’t Ellen or one of Ivria’s old maids tidied the bed and put away the shoes? Most mornings, Ellen was so keen to straighten up after me that she’d start making the bed while I still occupied it.
I hurried across the suite toward the double doors leading to the corridor, but stopped, shocked to see Calanthe lying on her pallet.
She leapt up to lick my face and nuzzle against my chest, whining and whimpering with delight. I dropped to my knees, my laugh muffled as I pressed my face into her wiry coat. “How did you get here?” I whispered, pinning back her ears in disbelief.
An innocent question born of sheer wonder but followed by an alarming realization: the person who had plotted against us had been here.
“What is going on?” Mercer asked as Calanthe nearly knocked him over in glee.
I hurried to press my ear to the door. Gentle, birdlike laughter drifted down the hall. I thought I heard my mother’s voice, her words indistinguishable, and cracked the door.
I heard light footsteps. Ellen turned the corner at the end of the corridor, carrying folded sheets from the laundry. I stepped out despite Mercer’s whispered protests.
Ellen’s mouth fell open and she bustled forward, casting a sideways glance at the open door of the ladies’ tea parlor, from whence the laughter bubbled. Eyes snapping wide as hedge apples, she motioned for me to hurry back into the room.
“What are you doing here?” I whipped my head in the other direction. The warm voice with its deep timbre had the power to make this place feel like home again—or rip all hope of welcome away from me.
I found Ander at the top of the stairs, wearing his finest clothes. The emotion on his face was indecipherable, and for a moment I feared I would see a light igniting in the depths of his carnelian elicrin stone.
He started forward. Mercer, who had stepped out beside me, tensed to intervene. “Ander, please!” I said, my voice breaking in desperation, but he opened his arms, and with a gasp of joy I felt him sweep me up. I linked my arms around his neck and wept into the elegant wool covering his shoulder.
“Valory,” he whispered. “Every day I’ve regretted what I said to you. I’m so sorry.”
“You were grieving.” I buried my chin in the dark curls at the back of his neck. “I never blamed you for it. I only missed you.”
He set me down, and we were both beaming. “How did you get inside?” he asked, his gaze fixing on Ellen.
“Um,” I said, fearing what his question insinuated and what it might mean for my maid. “I know this place front to back. You know that.”
He laughed, and I felt relieved. Ellen ducked her head. “Shall I prepare her room, Your Highness?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” Ander replied. Ellen slipped past Mercer, not meeting my eyes. I couldn’t blame her—I was an outlaw, wanted by the Realm Alliance.
“I see you’ve brought a friend to the wedding.” Ander turned a stiff smile on Mercer, the look of a protective older brother surveying his sister’s suitor. My spirit leapt with glee. But then his last word sank in.
“Wedding?” I repeated, entertaining dark fears of trunks arriving from a lord in the Brazor Mountains….
“Your mother’s,” he clarified. “That is why you risked returning, isn’t it?”
I wanted to fixate on the word risked, but worry for my mother won out. “Who is she marrying?”
Ander laughed again. “Who else? Victor.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing back at Mercer to show my relief. “Ander, listen: Glend Neswick is a Summoner, a traitor. He—”
“We know what he is. Everything’s under control. Just try not to stir up trouble, and you’ll receive the welcome you deserve.” Ander squeezed my arm reassuringly. “I’ve been summoned to greet a few overly punctual attendees. Borrow anything you need for your guest from my wardrobe and if anyone asks, say you’re both here by my invitation. There’s much to tell you, but we’ll get around to that.” He smiled. “My father sent me up to see if your mother is ready. Will you make sure she’s hurrying along?”
“Of course.”
With another gratified grin and a tight embrace, he strode back toward the staircase leading to the principal floor.
“We’re going now,” Mercer whispered from behind me. His words tickled my ear, arousing vestiges of desire. His hands reached around my waist.
“But my mother,” I said, turning in his embrace and gripping his forearms. “I have to see her….”
I trailed off, an unsettling realization emerging. The relief of knowing that the Moth King had not lured her into a mysterious betrothal had blinded me to an aggravating truth.
“What’s wrong?” Mercer asked.
“The only reason my mother never married Victor in the past is that he’s not noble. He doesn’t have land or a title. Marrying him would force her to abdicate her bid for the throne—and mine.”
“Not to trivialize your birthright,” he replied, “but your claim to the throne is not our greatest concern. This could be an intentional distraction, a snare set by the Moth King.”
“Or maybe there’s a simple explanation,” I countered. “Perhaps King Tiernan bestowed land and a title on Victor so they could marry.”
I felt even more acutely the need to speak to my mother and garner reassurances. I imagined my happiness as a cup that Ander had filled to the brim by greeting me with fraternal warmth, but I couldn’t quite contain it. It leaked, drop by drop, from a secret hole in the bottom. “She’s right there,” I said, gesturing to the parlor from where the laughter had come.
“You can’t—” Mercer began.
“Wait for me in my room,” I interrupted, peeling away from him. “Ask Ellen to fill the waterskins. I’ll be along shortly. I promise.”
I padded to the open doors of the parlor. My mother sat at the center of a gaggle of ladies, wearing a wine-red dress, her rich dark hair woven in braids and curls. The others wore gowns of pure, soft white: Grandmother Odessa, Aunt Sylvana, and a few courtiers, including Jovie Neswick.
What was Jovie Neswick doing in my mother’s boudoir on her wedding day? Was it charity? A response to the poor girl’s family falling to ruin when her father’s shameful deeds had been made evident?
Jovie was the first to notice that I wasn’t another clothier or servant. She smiled, surprised. “Ameliana,” she said, calling my mother by her first name, “look who’s arrived!”
“Valory!” my mother gasped, parting the little crowd so she could embrace me. After all my worrying, I longed for the warmth and comfort of her arms, but felt only the rib-gouging pressure of her structured bodice. “How did you get here?”
“You’re marrying Victor?”
“Darling, we love each other,” she answered dreamily. “Don’t look so shocked.”
“They’ve been carrying on their lurid affair for years,” Odessa said. I’d never been permitted to call her Grandmother to her face, but Ivria and I had developed the habit in private. “They’re finally doing what they ought.”
I opened my mouth to bring up my birthright. Odessa of all people should have known what was at stake, and had assured my mother in the past that marrying Victor would be unwise. But I noticed that Odessa’s ametrine elicrin stone had disappeared from her pale, youthful throat. Her grayish eyes looked distant as she combed her fingers through my mother’s artfully arranged tresses. I shut my mouth.
“Come with me,” my mother said, ushering me out the door. “We must find you something to wear.”
When she shut the door behind us, I said, “Please tell me King Tiernan has given Victor a title.”
“King Tiernan,” she repeated, attempting to pull me across the hall to my room. “No. No, he didn’t.”
