Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  “How did you know?” I ask. “Why would you ever look for us here?”

  “It just makes sense,” she says. “I wanted to come down here, too, but on my way, I stopped at the toolshed.” She holds out the ax and I take it from her. It’s so heavy, I almost drop it.

  “But—”

  “Don’t ask questions,” she says. The panic that rises in me whenever Renya takes a risk—the panic that she will be caught and I’ll end up in this room—abates when I realize what she intends for me to do. “Go ahead,” she says. “Take the first swing.”

  My gaze meets Darius’s. His eyes are aglow. “Do it,” he says. “Let’s put it to death.”

  The ax might be heavy, but the thought of killing the whipping post gives me strength. The first blow wedges right down the middle. When I pull the ax free, the wood splinters and breaks. The second blow breaks a chunk free. It flies off and lands at my feet. Though the post is clean on the outside, the inside of the wood is stained red. Tracks mark the places where my blood and Darius’s have seeped down into the cracks and fissures, leaving bits of us behind.

  I hand the ax to Darius. His first blow lands hard at the base, removing a wedge. His second blow almost knocks it down.

  He puts the ax in my hands again. “You get to end it.”

  I lift the ax, prepared to land the killing blow, and I wonder if I’ve ever felt so powerful. Even when I beat Renya for the first time at Hearts and Hands, even when I knocked down that guard with Projectura. All the magic in the world can’t add up to the strength I feel right now, raising this ax to ruin the whipping post for good.

  But before I can bring it down, someone takes it from my hand.

  I spin to find Lars behind me. “One of the staff said they saw the princess heading to the stairs with an ax,” he says.

  Renya clears her throat.

  “Congratulations to both of you,” Lars says, gesturing to the post. As usual, my Cientia uncovers nothing of Lars’s mood—I didn’t even feel him coming. His lips attempt a smile, but his eyes show anger. “You are clearly the victors in this battle.”

  For all intents and purposes, the post is destroyed. It’s certainly beyond use. Fragments of wood litter the floor. The remaining stump is splintered and mutilated. But it still stands. The final blow would have knocked it over, but it still stands.

  “I hate to interrupt, but the queen is waiting. It’s time for the two of you to be crowned.”

  My eyes dart to Renya’s. For some reason, I hadn’t imagined the Crown of Oblivion to be an actual thing. “I thought it was simply a title.”

  “Oh no,” says Lars. “We will have a proper coronation.”

  And though he may be skilled at cloaking his feelings from my Cientia, I feel his smugness. I hear the snicker in his voice. His amusement at the idea that Darius and I should be crowned.

  I snatch the ax from his hand, and I slam it into the side of the post. It topples to the floor. “Fine,” I say, shoving the ax back into Lars’s hands. “I’m ready.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Upstairs, at the door to the ballroom, we find Sir Arnaud. “Where have you been?” he asks in an angry whisper, but he doesn’t wait for any of us to reply. He simply raises a hand, and the orchestra quiets. A hush falls over the crowd inside. The guests have been waiting for this moment. The dancers on the dance floor part, as the dance music is replaced by a processional. Renya and Lars lead us across the room to a wide dais that had earlier been covered in flowers and candelabras. Now it holds a sort of altar, and behind the altar, dressed in a gown of the brightest blue, the queen.

  Perhaps Prince Lars finds this coronation amusing, but it would seem he is the only one. The evening has gone from frivolous to solemn, and nowhere is that more clear than in the expression of the queen.

  Her eyes meet mine as I climb the three short steps to stand right in front of her. I think of the secret in my mother’s diary—that I was never vaccinated against magic because the king was in love with my mother. I think of the queen’s words to me on the train—we shared secrets. Is that one of the secrets they shared?

  Could that explain why she invited Jayden and me—the children of her friend—to become surrogates to her own children after my mother’s death?

  “Please kneel,” she says, and Darius and I drop down onto a narrow pillow that’s been placed on the floor in front of the altar. My injured knee aches at the effort, but I swallow the pain down.

  “Astrid Jael,” the queen says, “I place on your head the Crown of Oblivion, and bestow upon you all the rights and privileges with which it is endowed.” Something is placed on my head, but it’s much lighter than I was expecting. I can’t help but think of the flower crowns Renya used to make for me when we were children. This crown is heavier, but not by much.

  “Darius Kittering,” the queen says, before repeating the oath she swore over me. When the crown is on his head, she tells us to rise.

  Straightening, I steal a glance at Darius and see that the crown he wears is cut from polished mirror. In the reflection, I see myself, a mirror crown upon my own head. The band is a smooth surface, but above the band a chain of interlocking circles forms a ring, each circle inlaid with tiny pieces of reflective glass, bouncing light in every direction.

  “I present to you,” says Queen Mariana, “this year’s King and Queen of Oblivion.”

  The assembled guests break into applause, and Renya comes up to congratulate us. Lars follows her, first shaking Darius’s hand, and then clasping his hands around mine. He drops my left but holds on to my right, so that he and I are facing the crowd, hand in hand.

  Something in his grip is like a claim. He may only be holding my hand, but I feel like he’s holding me down.

  But he drops my hand when the first explosion goes off.

  It doesn’t sound close—maybe outside the palace wall—but the floor beneath us vibrates and the guests around us scream. The dance floor is packed with a few hundred people standing shoulder to shoulder, all pressing forward in order to see, and above us, on three balconies that overlook the center of the hall, hundreds more crowd behind railings. A second explosion goes off, this one from a different place outside, and the room in front of me erupts with movement as people push toward the various exits. But there are many exits, and no one seems to know which way is safest, and for some reason, the orchestra begins to play.

  They take up a traditional piece of music, with drums and tin whistle and fiddle, and I realize this is a sort of recessional. It’s a piece of music meant to close out the coronation and signal the crowd that it’s time to celebrate, but the music serves only to add to the confusion.

  Some people stop where they are and look around, and I can see that they are wondering if the explosions might have been some sort of stagecraft . . . a part of some elaborate show, along with the music and the cascading flowers and lights. One more way to celebrate Darius and me. Another blast, this one much closer, seems to go off right behind the wall at my back, and the palace shakes on its foundation. Dust rains down on our heads from the ceiling above.

  The music meanders to a stop: first the drums drop out and then the flutes and the strings, and everyone seems to hold their breath, but then commotion returns. People run in every direction. Watching, I can’t help but worry that the onlookers at the railings above will fall, or that the people on the dance floor will be trampled, when a voice booms through the hall.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” I recognize the voice of Sir Arnaud, who has taken hold of a small microphone that had been mounted on the altar. “Stay where you are. Do not panic. The King’s Knights are assessing the risk, and then we will conduct an orderly evacuation. Until then, no one is to leave.”

  These instructions are met with even more shrieks, which are cut off by Sir Arnaud barking even more instructions into the microphone. “No one is to leave!” he repeats. “Stay where you are, or the doors will be locked.”

  If threats like this are his way
of silencing the crowd and getting their attention, it’s working at the moment. But then a door opens and a King’s Knight rushes in—it’s Sir Millicent—and the crowd parts to let her make a straight path right to where the prince stands beside me. She hands him a folded note.

  “This was delivered to the guards at the front gate, Your Highness,” she says, her voice low to avoid being picked up by the microphone only feet away. “It’s from the OLA, and it lists their demands. Well, their one demand.”

  Lars opens it and I can easily see the name of my brother Marlon. That’s all I’m able to make sense of on the handwritten note before the prince crumples it and throws it down.

  Another blast rings out, and the floor beneath us moves like a ship on rough seas. Plaster breaks away from the ceiling and cascades down as a long, jagged crack runs up the wall. A section of railing on the second balcony breaks away and tumbles to the floor below. The crowd devolves into chaos again, as people push the doors open and run for their lives.

  “Stay where you are!” Now it’s Prince Lars on the mic, and people shriek, but they freeze at the command of their prince. “There is no safety in a stampede! Guards, secure those doors!” In a frenzy of activity, Authority guards do just that.

  Through a tall glass window, I notice a blaze. The south wing of the palace is burning. Flames are reaching into the evening sky.

  I step forward and grab the microphone.

  “May I have your attention,” I say. My stomach twists like snakes tying themselves into knots. “The forces attacking the palace are demanding the release of a boy who was captured by the King’s Knights during the Race of Oblivion. As soon as the prince releases this innocent boy, we’ll all be safe.”

  A rumble of voices ripples through the crowd, and another explosion rocks the foundation under our feet. I nearly fall from the dais, but Renya catches me. I’m still wobbly when the prince snatches the microphone from my hand and backs away from me, an expression of disbelief on his face. But he recovers quickly and barks into the mic, “Arrest this woman, for conspiring with the Outsider rebels!”

  A few guards advance, but the princess pulls me to her with one arm and throws the other up, her hand held palm out.

  All eyes move to the prince.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, turning in place and staring out at the dust-covered crowd, “I have no knowledge of this boy. I can’t release a prisoner I don’t have.” Then he steps to Sir Arnaud’s side and says simply, “Take Astrid Jael into custody now.”

  Sir Arnaud moves toward me, and I bring up my fists, ready to fight. Arnaud flinches and his hand hovers over the sword at his hip, but before he can draw it, two things happen at once.

  An explosion goes off so close, the back wall of the ballroom cracks and pieces fall heavily to the floor. And at the same moment, the light in the room begins to change.

  The twinkle lights seem to flash on and off rapidly, but then I realize it’s not the twinkle lights at all. The ambient light is dimming and brightening, over and over, as a hum begins to build, as if the string section has begun to play. I spin around to face Renya, expecting to find her with her feet planted and arms upraised, transmitting the energy that’s roaring in my ears. It’s grown so loud that the mass of guests on the dance floor are cupping their hands over their ears, but I see that Renya is standing as she was. This is someone else’s Pontium magic, and just as I realize what this means, a light glows in the middle of the room. Maybe guests are shrieking again—it’s too loud to hear—but they clear a space where the light gathers and then thins.

  The flames outside the window ripple higher, and now they’re almost all the light we have as the Pontium hum quiets and the light dims. Then all of us—all the guests on the floor and those on the balconies above, and the orchestra and the King’s Knights and all of us on the dais—we all find ourselves peering into a dark, low-ceilinged dungeon, and behind a wall of bars, my brother Marlon is down on his knees.

  The room seems to teeter and rock from the dizzying effects of Pontium. I hear an explosion, dust rains down both in the ballroom and in Marlon’s cell, and I realize with a shock where Marlon is.

  He kneels on a stone floor, but even on his knees, his arms are held wide. This is his Pontium magic. I think of how Renya couldn’t reach him, and I know now it’s because he’s far underground, in the fourth cellar—the dungeon level—of the palace. Renya’s Pontium couldn’t reach that far, but Marlon was able to build the bridge.

  “Astrid!” he screams. He’s panicking. I can see it in his face and hear it in his voice. “Explosions keep going off, one after the other, and they keep getting closer!”

  “Hang on!” I call back. “I know where you are. I’m coming for you!”

  Other than the hum of the Pontium energy, the room is nearly silent. There is a collectively held breath, as stark realization floods my Cientia. All eyes are on Lars. But then another blast sends debris falling on our heads, Marlon calls out my name, and the crowd moves like a wave. Everyone breaks into a run.

  The room fills with dust as the walls crumble around us.

  Thirty-Eight

  I need to get out of this room, to get to the stairs that lead down to the lower levels, to get to Marlon before this whole building comes down. The back wall is wide-open to the gardens, and fire is racing across the hedge. While I watch, the draperies that line the windows of the ballroom ignite. It won’t be long before I won’t be able to escape.

  I turn in place, looking for Renya and Darius, but the room is so full of smoke, I can’t see. Defying Lars, some Authority guards and King’s Knights are guiding guests to the exits. Sir Arnaud holds the queen under her arm and is calling out for Sir Millicent, but she doesn’t reply. I turn toward the stairs, but Lars blocks my way.

  His fists are up, and I realize he doesn’t intend to run out of here. He intends to prevent me from getting to my brother in the dungeons.

  “Why worry about me now?” I call to him over the shouts of the crowd. “Why not save yourself while you can?”

  “You think you’ve turned my people against me!” he calls back, and although he usually can mask his emotions from me, I can feel his desperation all too clearly. “But you’re wrong. I will win them back when you and your brother are dead.”

  This is one fight where I can’t wait for my opponent to throw the first punch. Instead, I try to do what Lars is usually so good at. I try to block my intentions, try to fool him by planning a lunge forward, right up until the moment I lean back and kick high at his face, my foot flying up from beneath yards of ivory silk. But his Cientia is primed and he blocks me easily. He throws a kick of his own at my ribs before I can get myself set, planting his foot squarely in my side. I fold in half, crumpling to my knees.

  He kicks me again and I’m flat on the tiles.

  My breath is gone. My ears ring with Lars’s laughter. The cool floor feels good against my cheek.

  But I can’t stay down. I won’t stay down.

  A column stands a few feet away, and I crawl to it and use it to pull myself to my feet. I see Marlon’s face in my mind, hear the fear in his voice, and I let go of the column and turn to Lars.

  I should be unable to stand. I should be unable to fight. But I’ve had lots of practice at persevering.

  When I bring my fists up, I see the prince falter—not a loss of balance but a loss of concentration—and I see my way in. I gather my skirt and I spin into a flying kick, a move that can do so much damage if I land it well, and this time, I do. My heel connects hard with his jaw. I feel it give, feel him shudder beneath my foot, and then he’s tumbling backward. I land on my bad knee, and I buckle, wincing. But I can’t hesitate now. I stagger to Lars, pin him beneath me, and slam my fist into his temple. After the second blow, I realize he’s no longer flinching. He’s out. I want to jump up and run right for the door, but getting to the dungeons won’t help if I have no way to open Marlon’s cell. I reach into one of Lars’s jacket pockets and th
en the other. Nothing. My heart is pounding so hard I feel it in my throat, but then I reach into his pants pocket and find a set of keys.

  Outside the ballroom, the palace is in chaos. The roof is on fire. Wind churns the flames. A burning beam shatters overhead and falls just behind me. People scatter, some trying to escape for themselves, some trying to rescue others. A few appear to be trying to put out the flames. I turn around just once more to look for Renya or Darius, but I don’t see them and I have no more time to look.

  I sprint for the stairs down to the lower levels.

  The stairwell is littered with debris, and more is coming down. Explosions roll, one after the other, like waves crashing to the sand.

  Maybe this assault started as a means to save Marlon, but it has escalated far beyond that. Tonight, the OLA has declared war upon the monarchy. How can there be anything less, now that they’ve brought the palace down?

  I reach the first cellar, the infirmary, where I was dosed with Oblivion before the race.

  The second cellar, where I suffered under the whip, but where Darius and I overcame it tonight.

  The third cellar: cold storage. Wine for the king.

  The fourth cellar, a place I’ve never been. The dungeons, where the enemies of the crown are rumored to be left to die. I don’t know if that’s true, and I may never know, because the fourth cellar is a nearly pitch-dark labyrinth of stone walls and metal bars. It’s so dark, the remains of hundreds of prisoners could be stacked behind these bars and I wouldn’t be able to see them.

  After the din upstairs, my ears ring with the silence. But then someone coughs—a cough I recognize—and I know I’m in the right place. “Marlon!” I call, and from out of the dark at the end of the passageway comes a reply.

  “Astrid!”

  Without any light, I make slow progress, taking careful steps toward the sound of his voice. “Is anyone else down here?” I ask.