“Wait,” he said suddenly. We looked up at him. “If Colm is exiled, can he not come to the wedding?”
Mona pursed her lips and set her teacup down. “We can make a condition about the river. It would be nicely symbolic, anyway, to hold the ceremony on the river, halfway between both countries.”
The silence that followed seemed to ring, like the aftermath of a bell. Ellamae’s mouth fell open as she stared at her. Rou’s eyes widened, his gaze fixed on the tea tray. I shifted to look at her, smiling at her slip. Mona looked around at us, blank-faced, until comprehension hit her.
“Oh Light,” she gasped into the silence. “Oh great Light, I meant . . . oh Light, you were talking about your wedding . . .”
Ellamae threw back her head and howled with laughter. Mona clapped both hands to her face, pink as dawn. Rou cleared his throat, running a finger under his collar.
“No, this isn’t . . .” she sputtered. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
Ellamae was still howling, slapping her good knee. Valien had buried his smile behind his fist. Arlen was just staring slack-jawed at his sister.
“Rivers to the sea.” Face blazing, she smoothed her hands over her skirt and turned to look past me at Rou on the other end of the settee. “Rou . . . shut up, Mae, honestly . . . Rou, will you marry me?”
“You hadn’t even asked him yet?” Ellamae gasped, clutching her side.
“We’ve talked about it,” Mona snapped.
“We’ve talked about it a lot,” Rou agreed. “Hours and hours.”
“Yes.”
“And I thought we’d both decided that I can’t be a king.”
Ellamae swallowed her laugh mid-gasp. My spoon clinked against the soup bowl in the sudden silence.
Oh, this was very awkward.
Rou drew in a short breath. “I don’t know how, Mona. And I don’t know that I want to. I don’t think I could be the king you’d deserve.”
My cheeks flushed, and I started thinking of all the ways we could excuse ourselves en masse from the room. But instead of wilting with dismay, Mona nodded.
“I don’t need a king,” she said. “I don’t want a king. But . . . I could use an ambassador. Someone folk like, someone folk trust. Someone kinder than me. And someone who can put this alliance before . . . personal things.”
I forcibly bit back a smile, suddenly realizing what Rou had done to secure his favor in Mona’s eyes. Just a day earlier, when everything was on the line, he’d chosen his country over her. She’d watched him do it, felt him place her second. She was the only person I could think of to whom that would pass as the greatest test of character. To anyone else it would have been callous and low, but to her it was the highest form of integrity.
“Is that . . . can we do that?” Rou asked incredulously.
“I’ve been going through our legal texts,” Mona said. “I’ve yet to come across anything in writing that says a monarch’s spouse must be crowned. A coronation is separate from a marriage. There’s nothing that states otherwise. And if there is, I’ll rewrite it. Will you be my ambassador?”
We all swiveled to look at Rou as if we were watching a game of pole ball. He spread his hands in his lap. “I’ll be anything you want, my queen. But we don’t have to get married just for that.”
Ellamae’s grin could have lit a wet wick. Arlen grabbed an idle teacup and tipped the contents into his mouth—I was fairly sure it was empty. I arranged my skirt and stood.
“I think I’ll stand over here,” I said lightly, proceeding to the fire, letting the heat add to the warmth blooming in my chest.
Mona pointlessly rearranged her teacup and saucer on the table. Ellamae picked up her crutch and jabbed her in the hip.
“Go on,” she said.
Mona drew in a sharp breath and looked back to Rou, who couldn’t seem to decide what to do with his hands.
“And I love you, of course,” Mona said.
Rou’s grin flared even brighter than Ellamae’s. “Well, that changes things. Yes, I would like to marry you very much.”
“Finally,” Ellamae said. “Go on, kiss.”
“I’m not sure I want to give you the satisfaction,” Mona said, her face still glowing pink. Despite this, her fingers linked with his on the cushion between them.
Ellamae gave an almighty stretch and yawn. “Right, then, I think I’m ready to go to bed. All of you, get out.”
Arlen didn’t need any persuasion. “Blazing Light,” he muttered, shaking his head and fleeing to the door.
Mona and Rou stood—Rou couldn’t seem to contain his grin. Mona couldn’t seem to stop blushing. Despite this, she nodded at me, clearly trying to maintain a solemn composure for my sake.
“Gemma . . . please tell us what you need. Whenever you need it. We’re here for you, all right?”
“And us, too,” Ellamae said.
A smile, though small, came surprisingly easily. “Thank you.”
I followed Mona and Rou out into the hall, hanging back a little so they wouldn’t feel obligated to let me walk with them. I shouldn’t have worried—they made their way down the hall with a single-mindedness, pressed close together. Still smiling softly, I slipped back into my room. The fire was lit. The bed was turned down. The adjoining door was closed.
The night wasn’t any easier, but at least there were fewer ghosts.
Chapter 20
The prison was no less cramped and cold than before, but this time I was let in without any scrutiny or royal seal. Shaula was in a cell halfway down the corridor, closest to the central hearth. She sat on the edge of her cot, stiff and sharp as ever, bundled in her thick cloak. She eyed me coolly as I stopped on the other side of the bars.
“So you condescended to see me before they tie the noose,” she said evenly.
I swallowed, still not immune to her disapproval. “The trial will begin shortly. This will be our last chance to speak together.”
“What could you possibly have to say to me?”
“You saw the king?” I asked. “You saw what you have done?”
“I saw his body,” she replied. “And I shall remind you that it was by your choices and your actions that he was brought here. Whatever misdeeds you hold against me, you share them in equal part.”
“I would agree with you if it was only the king’s death I hold against you,” I said. “And I do hold it against you, Shaula—if it had not been during the attack, it would have been from illness or overdose. How long did you lace his tincture with the same poison you used on the others?”
“Poison.” It was a statement, not a question.
“That’s right. Izar, the three acolytes, and your predecessor, Mirach. You gave them cyanic acid harvested from your little creatures of light.”
Her face didn’t change, didn’t even twitch. “So Rana told you at last.”
“No,” I said. “I guessed. You just confirmed it.”
The skin around her lips and eyes tensed slightly, the lantern light thrown just barely into sharper relief.
“I should have given it to you,” she said, “and been done with it.”
“But you didn’t,” I said. “Because in the end, you still saw some use in me. I could be his mouthpiece. I could be his stand-in when he was too ill to govern himself—keeping suspicions from ever getting too strong that the Prelate was acting outside her station.”
“It’s so easy for you to think me a villain, isn’t it?” she asked, a new glint in her eye. “The wicked Prelate, misusing the Prophecy for her own gain. You fail to remember that the Prophecy is my domain, and the king’s work is the Prophecy. My role and his were one and the same.”
“No, they were not!” I retorted. “No, they were not. You were his advisor, not the driver of his every action! Not the governor of his personal life! How often did you tamper with his medicine?”
“Only when he required it,” she said without a shred of contrition. “Only when he was allowing himself to be led by you, or his books, and
not by the words of the Prism.”
“And the forged documents?” I asked, curling my fingers around one of the cell bars, the cold metal biting my fingers. “The falsified orders, the decrees in his name—how long has that been going on? Did it start with the extension of my mother’s prison sentence, or even before that?”
She gave a small, almost sad shake of her head. “Everything I have done, I have done by the revelation of the Light for the advancement of the Prophecy. Your own sacrilege blinds you to that perfect truth, and for that I pity you. I pity the emptiness left by such lack of faith, and I pray for your ultimate repentance.”
We stared through the bars at each other, and I realized, unnerved, that she did not—would not—feel any remorse for what she had done. That she truly believed she had been in the right. The deaths and illnesses and treason were all simply stepping-stones to the Prophecy, and that made them incontestable. Necessary. Destined, even.
To herself, she was absolved.
She was gazing at me, too—I was unable to fathom what was going through her mind. I let go of the cell bar. “Where is my mother?” I asked.
Her lips pursed very slightly. “Not in prison, to my extreme displeasure.”
“She wasn’t captured by the soldiers?” I asked. “She never made it back to Callais?”
“I would not know,” she said. “We left Port Juaro the morning after we found the king missing.”
“Which means you had my letter well before that moment,” I said.
“It was waiting in your study upon our return from Cyprien,” she said. “I confiscated it along with everything else, of course.”
“And yet you preached to our officers that you were divinely guided to this place,” I said.
She made the subtlest of shrugs. “The Light reveals itself in many ways.”
“No,” I said, a little unsteadily. “You can’t just take happenstance events and claim they were orchestrated by the Light.” I shook my head. “You’ve accused me of trying to shape the world to meet my needs. But if I do, Shaula, it’s because I learned it from you.” I straightened a little. “And we’re both going to pay for it—you by facing Queen Mona’s gallows, and I by going back into the ruins of Alcoro and trying to salvage something of it.”
Her gaze had grown sharper the longer I spoke, until her eyes were narrow and creased. She tilted her head slightly as she regarded me.
“I’ve turned you into a queen,” she said.
“I became queen well enough on my own.”
“No,” she said. “I mean now you’ve finally settled under that crown—ready to send a person to her death for what you yourself believe is right. That’s something even Celeno didn’t achieve.” Her lips thinned in a bitter smile. “Long live the queen.”
My stomach soured and clenched, and I took a step back. I tried to refocus my mind on the calm, confident manner I’d sworn I would face her with. I thought of Mona, of Ellamae, of how they’d stare her down and make her recant, make her sorry for her words, her actions, the wounds she had torn in the world and in me.
But I couldn’t do it.
I turned and fled.
I sobbed throughout the entire trial.
Mona was staunch and terrifying, laying out every act done in both Celeno’s and Shaula’s name from the moment our ships reached the lake four years ago. She read out the names of those killed in the attack, and then the others killed in rebellions throughout the years of annexation. She detailed the military-style execution of an innocent, Ama Alastaire. She listed off cultural grievances and economic setbacks from the three years of occupation. Disruption to the Silverwood by a return trip through the mountains.
When she shifted over to the actions against Cyprien, I made the mistake of looking up from the handkerchief I’d been folding and refolding in my lap. My stomach turned over. Shaula was gazing straight at me, the lines in her face set and cool. I quickly dropped my eyes, but I couldn’t unfeel her stare, and the few times I peeked up again, she hadn’t moved. She was spending the entire reading of charges looking directly at me.
I had made a decision that morning in a spurt of defiance—I was wearing a scooped blouse that swept over my collarbones, leaving my neck bare. I’d thought of it as a sign of victory, but here, now I hated it. Real or imagined, I could feel every eye in the room on my stain—hers more than anyone’s. I wanted to tear my hair out of its bun and swath it over my shoulders. I wanted a cloak or a massive scarf to wrap around my neck.
I would never be like Queen Mona, able to rise from a pile of ashes stronger and more powerful than before. I would never be like Queen Ellamae, whose steps never faltered, who walked with the confidence of knowing exactly where she belonged and what she was meant to do. I would always have one foot in the past.
The charges were finished. The sentencing was done. The rope was ready. I had told myself that morning that I was going to watch, I was going to meet her gaze, the person who’d undone so many lives. But I didn’t. I balled the handkerchief over my face and cried all the harder. Ellamae was on my right side, and Valien on my left. Sorcha was there, too. I was too far gone to feel all three of their hands touching me throughout the creaking of wood, the shifting of fabric, and the sudden swing of metal hinges.
Whether it was a product of grief or stress or the days of hard travel catching up to me, that afternoon my traitorous body rebelled and saw me burrowed in bed, shivering with fever. Ellamae came in and out, replenishing the broth and sweet birch and mullein on my bedside. A few unfamiliar healers filled in the gaps, bringing wet cloths that were stinging cold straight from the lake. I drifted in hazy sleep, dreaming vivid dreams of childhood and beyond. My mother’s twirly house, rosy and bright. The darkness of the potato cupboard, my legs seizing up in response. A swath of stars, the warmth of Celeno’s body pressing against me. The broken pavers of the terrace, he limp and distorted in front of me.
It was two days, or some approximation, before my fever broke. I surfaced amid the tang of sweat, my body aching but my mind clear of the clouds. The room was silent besides the soft crackling of wood in the hearth. My right ear was sore, still ringing from the blast on the terrace. Shifting under the sheets, I cracked open sticky eyes to find Colm at my bedside.
He looked up as I turned my head, closed his book, and smiled at me.
“Hi,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible,” I said honestly, my throat dry. “But better.”
He set his book on the bedside table and poured me a cup of water. I took it gratefully and sipped a little.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“The trial concluded a few hours ago,” he said. He spread his palms. “I’ve been charged with relaying secure information and sentenced to exile.”
I slowly lowered the cup of water. “For how long?”
“Eight years.”
My newly cleared head spun, and I sucked in a deep breath. “Colm.” I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Gemma.”
I opened my eyes.
“I couldn’t have left otherwise,” he said. “I couldn’t have made that choice on my own. Now I have no choice, and that’s easier.”
I wanted to argue, insist that he see the same courage I saw, but I understood what he meant. I sighed.
“I’m the same way,” I said. “It’s easier to have others make the decisions. I’d rather be the quiet one who sits in the corner and watches—that’s what I’m best at.”
“Gemma,” he said seriously. “I don’t know if you’ve realized—but it’s really not.”
I looked down at my cup. “I couldn’t stand up against what was happening in Alcoro. I couldn’t rise up like Mona or take a stand like Ellamae. I couldn’t throw everything on the line, like Rou.”
“The world can only handle so many Monas and Maes and Rous,” he said with a warm edge to his voice. “We’re quiet workers, you and I. We’re happiest on the edges. That’s okay. It doesn’t
make your accomplishments any less great than theirs—yours were just achieved with less . . .” He flashed his fingers in the air in an imitation of fireworks. “You still took a stand. You still fought for your country. You still chased after the truth. And you, ultimately, brought this thing to its close.”
“With their help. With your help.”
“Nothing is ever done without help,” he said.
That was true. I looked back up at him. “Will you help me now?”
He smiled. “I’d be honored.”
“I’m a stress crier,” I warned him.
He nodded. “I argue with myself when I’m writing. Out loud.”
I hiccupped a laugh. He smiled, and his gaze traveled to the book he’d set down on the bedside table—the copy of The Diving Menagerie.
“Thank you, by the way,” he said. “For the iguana.”
“You’re welcome.” That little sketch seemed years ago. “It was . . . just silly.”
“It made me smile,” he said.
I gave a nod of acknowledgement. “Then maybe it’s not so silly.”
His smile grew, and he looked down at his hands. His hair fell down over his forehead, a little windswept. I wanted to brush it, either smooth it back into place or muss it further—I wasn’t sure.
His smile shrank a little as he studied his hands. “I dropped Ama’s ring into the lake.”
The warm, wobbly bloom in my chest suddenly went cold. “What? When?”
“Just before coming here,” he said, looking up at me. “Right after the sentencing. I sailed out into the deeps, where we sink our dead. It’s much too deep to dive.” He flattened his hand, palm up on his knee. “I held it under the surface and just tipped my hand.”
I thought of him kneeling at the bobbing hull of the sailboat in the cold wind, watching the little ring flicker away into the depths. He was looking at his palm, as if he couldn’t believe he’d really done it.
“I cried,” he said.
I reached out and unfurled my fingers to him. Without hesitating, he placed his hand in mine, and then slid his second underneath. He let out his breath and bent his head forward, his eyes squeezing shut.
Creatures of Light, Book 3 Page 36
