by Marie Lu
Hyacinth gave me a reproachful look. “Do you truly still love him, Fräulein?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.” I frowned, confused by my answer.
The princeling drew close enough so that I could smell the staleness of his breath, the scent of an underwater cave, and he smiled. His breath was cold as snow against my skin. “You and I are one, Nannerl. I am your friend. Friends help each other, and dislike seeing each other in distress. I can help you become what you want to be, help you heal, or I can let you die tonight, mourned only by your father and mother and brother. But I can only be your guardian if you let me help you. Now, what is it you want?”
I thought again of my younger self on the night I’d first dreamed of the kingdom. I thought of the wish I had sent out into the world, with all the innocent hope of a girl afraid of being left behind by her father.
I had ached so badly to be remembered.
When I spoke now, it came out as a whisper, as harsh and cold as the winter wind. My wish had not changed. It had only grown thorns.
“I want what is mine,” I said. My talent. My work. The right to be remembered. The memory of me to exist.
Hyacinth smiled. “I have the flower, arrow, and sword. I can still hear the echo of your first wish. Your immortality.” He narrowed his lovely yellow eyes. “Do you want to finish your end of our bargain?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said, and let the word hang on a hook between us. It was time to finish what I started.
Hyacinth tilted his head at me in approval. “Then do not tell your brother,” he answered. “Meet me at midnight in two weeks, here in this room, and we shall help each other, as friends do.”
THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
I began to grow stronger the following week.
My fever broke, my vision stopped fading in and out, and the rose spots on my chest lightened until they hardly looked different from my skin. A pink flush returned to my cheeks, and my hair no longer hung about my neck in limp strings. Mama wept for joy the first time she saw me pull myself up against my pillows and drink a light soup.
By the time a whole week had passed, I could sit up comfortably and even take the short walk to my window and look down at the streets of Lille. The doctor praised my good fortune. He told me that God had chosen to show me mercy, that He would not take away a girl so lovely as myself.
I smiled graciously at his words. I knew perfectly well who had healed me, and he did not deal in God’s pity.
Only Woferl saw the difference. I still practiced at the clavier with my old discipline, obediently following Papa’s instructions and criticisms, and I still chatted with Sebastian and told stories to Woferl in our spare time. But my eyes had changed, as surely and sharply as the love between us, as Hyacinth himself had shifted. When I hugged my brother good night, I did not do it with ease and warmth. When he would touch his fingers to mine, I wouldn’t squeeze his hand like before. When I watched him write his music, when I knew that a measure would be better with a set of arpeggios instead of a trill, I said nothing.
Sometimes I wondered if Woferl made mistakes on purpose, simply to test me. It didn’t matter. My focus was no longer on him.
* * *
Two weeks passed. Finally, it was midnight on the day I’d promised to meet Hyacinth, and I lay wide-awake in my bed. After my recovery, there was no need for me to stay in a room alone, and Woferl had returned to sleeping with me while Papa and Mama reclaimed their bedchamber. Our physical closeness didn’t change my demeanor. I remained distant, edging as far to one side of the bed as I could. Woferl followed my cue and stayed on his side.
That night, I listened to my brother’s shallow breathing in the darkness. He had grown more than I realized, but he was still a petite child who slept curled in a ball. I remembered him telling me once that he did it to protect his feet from ghouls under the bed, that somehow our blankets acted as a magic barrier against the supernatural. At the time, it made me smile in amusement. Now I pulled my feet closer to me and huddled tighter.
Just when I thought that Hyacinth might not visit me after all, that he had forgotten our midnight rendezvous, something scraped quietly against our door. A sudden compulsion came over me. I needed to slide out of bed and walk across the room toward the sound.
I rose and swung my legs over the side of the bed, careful not to disturb my brother. The floor felt like ice beneath my bare feet. I trembled, hugging my elbows in a pathetic embrace. A strange, silver light—too eerie to be moonlight—spilled in from the crack beneath the door and washed the floor white.
I reached the door and turned the knob. Earlier in the night, when Papa had stepped through it and pulled the latch closed, the door had moaned and groaned like a living thing. Now it swung open without a sound. I made my way along the hall and then down the steps, counting the slices of light and darkness that I passed through.
Hyacinth was waiting for me there, at the bottom of the stairs.
His mouth split his face open with rows of knifelike white teeth. Muscles bulged on his neck and chest. He beckoned me closer. Suddenly, I wanted to run from him, back upstairs and into my bed, and tell Woferl what had happened. But my brother was no longer my friend.
Hyacinth, sensing my fear, touched the tip of my chin with his hand. “Tell me, Fräulein,” he whispered. “When did you last see the Kingdom of Back?”
“At the tower,” I whispered. “With Woferl.”
He regarded me with a careful look. “Yes,” he said. “We had a little falling-out then, if I recall correctly.”
I swallowed hard, wondering whether I had angered him again.
But he simply smiled at me. “You may notice that several things have changed in the kingdom since your last visit. After all, a great deal has happened to you in your world, hasn’t it?” He gestured around at the streets of Lille, as if to emphasize his point.
“What shall I do?” I asked him.
“Close your eyes, Fräulein,” he replied.
I hesitated, then obeyed.
“Now open them,” he continued. “And follow me.”
When I did, Lille had vanished. In its place stood a forest I did not recognize, under the light of twin moons that now nearly touched each other. The trees were completely black, as if painted with buckets of ink. Their branches reached down toward the ground in the shape of gnarled hands, and their roots tore up from the earth in agonized arches. They grew in torturous rows, each fighting with the next for the bit of space they had.
Above us, the sky hovered low and scarlet and furious.
“Why have the trees changed?” I said, stammering.
“You have changed,” Hyacinth replied. He leaned close to me to study my face. “Ah, so you’ve grown fond of this place. You feared it once, and now you ache for it to return. You always want what you cannot have, Fräulein.”
He led me down the crooked forest path, the dirt now black like the trees, the lopsided signpost now unreadable from decay. The cobblestones were cracked and covered with ash. The snow piled along the edges black as soot. The trees closed in. I felt their branches claw at the edges of my nightgown, their roots threatening to snatch me from the ground. I looked behind us. Our hotel was no longer in sight. The trees had completely sealed away where I’d come from.
Finally, Hyacinth halted to gesture toward the horizon.
There, not far in the distance, stood the castle—but not as I remembered it. I’d thought the castle looked old before, crumbling from the absence of its king and its people, with its mysterious windows and wide moat. Now the bricks had turned black, like fire had scorched them, and thorny ivy ate at its walls. Even the moat’s water had turned to sable, so that I could no longer see to the bottom. Now and then, an enormous shadow glided by, the river monster’s fins cutting viciously through the surface.
Hyacinth turned to face me. He was suddenly holding the sword I’d ta
ken from the ogre and the crossbow I’d retrieved from under the land bridge. “Take this sword,” he said, “and strap it to your back. Hold the crossbow in your arms.”
I knew what he wanted from me. Down by the dark riverbanks, the water churned as the monster passed.
Hyacinth pointed downstream. “The water is shallower there,” he said. “You will be able to see better. Take care not to drift far off course as you swim. If you are pulled into darker waters, the river guardian will sense you struggling in the current and tug you under.” He brushed the crossbow with one hand. “Aim true, Fräulein, for you have only one chance.”
I nodded silently. The weapon felt heavy in my hands. “And when I reach the other side?”
“Take your sword and cut through the thorns,” he said. “They will give way to you, but you must keep moving, lest they close in too quickly behind you and catch your legs. Once caught, you will not be able to escape their grasp.”
At last, Hyacinth held out the night flower to me. I stared down at its thorny stem, the plant’s center still glowing a midnight blue. “Keep this close to you. Do not give it to anyone.”
Give it to anyone? “I hadn’t thought there were people left in the castle,” I said.
“No. Not people.” Hyacinth gave me a grave look. “I will be behind you, but as the castle was my home, they can sense my presence more easily. You must go first. If you see someone on the stairs, do not look at them. If they ask you a question, do not answer. They are not human.”
I trembled. “What are they, then?” I asked.
Hyacinth did not answer me. Instead, he looked up at the tallest spire of the castle. A desperate longing crossed his gaze. “Make your way to the highest tower. When you reach the locked door at the top, take the night flower and crush it into powder in your hands. Sprinkle it across the door’s lock, and it will melt.”
The princess trapped in the tower. Tonight, finally, I could free her and reunite her with her brother. But my hands shook as I looked back toward the dark river. “I cannot do this,” I gasped. “I am too afraid.”
Hyacinth shifted his golden gaze to me. Perhaps the dying kingdom was killing him too, bleaching his flesh the pale color of death. “I do not have much time, Fräulein,” he said quietly to me. There was a growl in his voice now. “And neither do you. Do you remember your secret wish? Do you recall our promises to each other?”
I tightened my grip on the crossbow, felt the night flower’s thorns sharp in my pocket. I turned away from Hyacinth, then began to walk toward the shallow part of the moat. There, I dipped one foot into the water. Instantly, I hissed and jerked back. The water was cold as ice. I hesitated, then lowered my legs into it, my waist and chest and arms. The icy water pressed in from all sides, seeking a way into my throat. I fought against the current rushing around my legs and started to kick my way across.
From the corner of my eye, I could see the black fin of the river monster angle in my direction, drawn to my kicking. I struggled to keep my head above the water. As the cold began to numb my legs, I tried to kick faster against the current so that it would not tug me into the deeper water. Hyacinth paced on the shore, watching me.
Suddenly the current swept my feet from under me. My head dipped underwater. For a moment I hung there, no longer in control, a rag doll in the tide. I panicked. My breath escaped from me in a cloud of bubbles, and I kicked frantically. Whispers swirled around me—voices that sounded like Woferl, like my father and mother. In my struggle, I opened my eyes in an attempt to see. Out of the murky distance came a shadow, and when I jerked my head toward it, I realized it was the river monster gliding its way toward me, its eyes white and its jaws splitting its head open.
I screamed and screamed. Bubbles rushed up before me, obscuring my view. Through my terror came Hyacinth’s words, clear and cutting as a blade.
Aim true, Fräulein, for you have only one chance.
The river monster sped up. I hoisted the crossbow in front of my chest. In this frozen instant of time, I could suddenly see myself suspended in the water, the gleaming tip of my weapon pointed straight at the creature’s gaping mouth.
I pressed the trigger.
The arrow sliced through the water, straight into the monster’s jaws, and disappeared into the blackness of its throat.
The creature roared. It jerked away from its path toward me and thrashed, kicking up dirt from the riverbed. Everything around me turned into a haze of darkness. I struggled up, aiming blindly for the surface. My chest threatened to burst.
Miraculously, my feet found their way again, and I came up with a terrible gasp. Behind me, the water frothed with the creature’s dying throes. Its shrieks were gurgled now, the sound filling with blood. The smell of metal choked the air. I reached the opposite bank and scrambled up the side. Mud and grime sank deep into my fingernails.
I reached the top of the banks and threw myself to the ground in a heap. When I looked back at the river, I could see the trail of dark blood leaking from where I had been. The river monster was nowhere to be seen. I sat for a moment, gulping air, wiping tears from my cheeks. The crossbow lay beside me, useless now.
On the other side, Hyacinth took a step toward the moat. To my shock, the water now parted where he stepped, as if God had touched the water and split it like the Red Sea. The dry riverbed revealed the corpse of the river monster, which Hyacinth now stepped over without a second look.
I turned toward the forest of thorns, pulled the sword from my back, and dragged myself to my feet.
As Hyacinth said, the thorns parted with a hiss at the first brush of the blade against their brambles. I cut my way steadily through until I could barely see anything around me except their sharp points. They caught against my dress, ripping lines through the fabric as I went. Behind me, Hyacinth had crossed the river and was walking through the beginning of the path I’d carved through the thorns.
A rogue branch lunged for my foot, its thorns cutting a bloody line across my ankle. I cried out, swinging the sword down blindly at it. The blade made contact, and the bramble shrank away as if from fire. Other branches reached for me, hungering for skin. I hacked at them even as they closed in.
I missed one branch. It twisted around my ankle, tightening, its thorns digging hard into my flesh.
This is the end, I wanted to sob. I will not be able to escape it.
Suddenly, its grip loosened. I saw Hyacinth behind me, his teeth bared, his jaws having sliced straight through the branch. “Hurry,” he growled.
A surge of strength rushed through me. I swung the sword as hard as I could, and the last of the thorns before me parted. I stum-bled out of the branches and fell to my knees against solid ground.
When I lifted my head, I was staring at the entrance to the castle, its front gates wide-open. Bundles of dead, dried grasses were tied to every iron bar. It reminded me of the billowing grass in the valley of the arrow, and I shivered at the memory of the wind’s whispers.
The sword in my hand had turned dull, its surface slowly eaten away by the poison of the thorns. I dropped it, watching the blade vanish into nothing, leaving only the hilt. Then I struggled to my feet and went on without looking back.
I walked across a barren courtyard where great processions must once have marched through. Dark drapes hung across every castle window. Old flags of a once-great kingdom now hung in tatters from the castle ramparts. When my eyes lingered long enough on their faded embroidery, I could make out the hint of a sun, great golden waves of thread radiating out from a central circle. It was such a familiar symbol. I frowned at it, trying to place where I might have seen it before.
As I went, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. No one walked these grounds, and not a sound came from anywhere except my own feet against the stone, but still, I could sense the gaze on me, coming from some hidden place.
At last, I reached the tower ent
rance. The stairs that curved upward, the same from the château, were wet, and water pooled in the dip of each step’s worn stone. I peeked at the shadows to make sure no one stood there, but I could only see to where the stairs disappeared into the darkness.
I began to climb.
The windows were smaller than ever, their dark drapes billowing, and the little light they let in was not enough for me to see the steps in front of me. I kept my hand pressed against the curve of the wall. Against the stone hung tapestries of the kingdom’s royal family. They were worn with age and weathered by water and wind, but I could still make out the face of the king in his youth, smiling and confident, with his young queen at his side. The same sun symbol from the flags shone behind them, and in their arms were cradled two infant children.
I paused on the steps to linger on the likeness of the queen. Her dress was white and gold, trimmed with lace, with a sweeping skirt that pooled like water near her feet. The gown, the curve of her cheekbones, the arch of her neck . . . everything about her looked so familiar.
The stairs seemed to grow taller and narrower as I went, so that sometimes I had to pause and feel for the top of the next step before I could continue. My feet made no sound against the wet stone. Occasionally I heard a tiny splash as I stepped into the puddles formed by the water.
Something glided past one of the windows. I thought I heard the whisper of the wind as it went. Behind me came a sound. I thought it might be Hyacinth, but when I turned to look down, all I saw were the billowing drapes of a lower window, as if something had slithered inside. Again, my skin prickled with the sensation of another presence.
Footsteps, slow and laborious, came from somewhere far below me.
“Hyacinth?” I whispered into the dark. No one answered.
Panic started to rise in my throat again. I continued my climb, as fast as I could without losing my footing against the slippery stone. Behind me, the footsteps followed.
The stairs grew narrower still. I was nearing the top. The night flower pricked me in my pocket as I went. I patted it to reassure myself it was still there, and did not look back.
