“Yes. And, more relevantly, they gave me an appreciation for stars. That’s why I thought you’d like this place.”
Ash looked up again, the dusty glass giving the inky night sky an antique feel, with its white-hot stars looking down. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Rize came up next to her and took her hand, his still warm from the dance they’d shared. “Come on, what I actually wanted to show you is this way.”
There was some scuffling to her left and suddenly candlelight bloomed in the dark. Rize held the flame up high as he led her through the small maze of littered small wrought-iron tables and trays everywhere, until the came to a far corner in which there stood a larger wrought iron table than the rest. This one had once been white. As Rize held the candle closer so Ash could see what was on the table’s top, she gasped aloud.
“Where on earth…” she whispered reverently, rushing to the table where exactly three flower pots were standing. Beautifully, unbelievably, there were flowers in them. One was a deep, sensual purple, the two others an angelic, snowy white. Ash could barely believe what her eyes were seeing and reverently stroked the softness of one white flower’s petals. She did not know when last she had seen something so… alive.
“These weren’t easy to keep alive, but they are the last of them,” Rize said. “Sometimes the guilt with what happened due to the Expansion Project threatens to overwhelm me. But these help, it feels as if I’m at least growing or changing something. I’ve been down here almost every day for a year, tending to these. It’s funny – I never really much cared for flowers before, I always thought they were girly. But now…”
“… Things are different now. I understand. And Prince?”
“Yes?”
“I was wrong about you.”
Rize smiled, barely perceptibly in the flickering yellow light. “I was wrong too. About this night, about the ball.” Before Ash quite realised what had happened, his hand was in hers.
There seemed nothing else to say and together they walked out of the conservatory and back into the starry night.
They were halfway across the gravel when a new sound came - the unmistakable beating of carrior wings.
The bird does not like the never-ending rattle of the crows. Like it, they too have become slaves to the annual hormone peak that brings the need to breed, so strong it is like a thirst for water.
It understands. The urge to sit with another or fly with another, wingtips touching, is almost unbearable. It is so real, like another bird, a ghost one, beside it in the empty afternoon.
The bird had a mate once. They had made eggs over several seasons and watched their hatchlings grow and turn to sleek, black-feathered mirrors of themselves, staying some seasons before flying away to find their own mates. But all of them were dead now - or must be. And the bird had watched its mate stabbed through the heart by the two legger it was trying to eat. The two-legger had eaten it instead. A different two-legger smashed its nest, it’s too-tiny nest, the same one the bird and its mate had used Spring after Spring for years. Even now sometimes, the bird wishes it could go back to that nest.
Still, the urge is there, even though its own mate is in the ground and in the belly of its enemy.
So the bird waits, trying not to listen to the rattle of lonely crows.
Chapter Twelve
Punishable by Death & All That
“Owl,” they both said simultaneously.
Ash crouched instinctively so fast that she only realised a few seconds later that, across from her in his pristine white, the prince was doing the exact same thing. He pulled out a gilded dagger from his sleeve, Ash a homemade iron one from her skirt – and they stared long and hard at each other.
The beating of wings intensified for a second, then began to fade as the owl, or whatever it was, moved away.
They stayed crouched in silence for a moment longer in their mirror-like postures. Then Rize stood, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You too? I hunt carriors… and you – you do too?”
The incredulity in his voice irritated Ash. “Yes, me and every other person who doesn’t have paid bodyguards. What?”
“It’s just a surprise, that’s all.”
“Why? Because I’m a girl, your Highness?”
In spite of her tone, he grinned. “I’m not surprised because you’re a girl, I’m surprised because you’re good. I’ve had training for war since I was seven. I’ve seen plenty of people fight carriors, but just look at the way you’re standing,” he waved a hand in the dark to her low, feline posture, almost ridiculous in her sparkly long gown. “I’m guessing you haven’t been trained in war.”
Ash shook her head, still frowning at him. “Trained in carrior.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get back inside before another owl comes.”
The ballroom seemed overly bright after the darkness of outside and too obvious after the quiet magic of the conservatory. Ash turned to smile at Rize, but before she could, Derrick strode up to her.
“Ash, you may want to check on your sister.”
“Why? What’s the matter? Is she okay?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
Ash walked quickly into the thick of the ballroom before he could say any more, looking this way and that for Vanita. Finally, she saw the tell-tale pink of her ballgown on the floor.
“… If you were to ask Vanita, I think she’d say she was very okay,” said Derrick’s voice behind Ash, tinged with amusement.
Vanita had never had wine not watered-down before, there had not been such reckless luxuries since she had come of age. Now, she was sitting on the edge of the ballroom floor talking to two other ladies, skirts ballooning around her as she talked animatedly to the two strangers, stroking their hands and hair and laughing merrily. As Ash came near she looked up, glowing, at her sister. Her hair was mussed and her face shone, rosy from excitement. She looked less like a lady than a sweet that had been left outside to melt.
“Ash! I’m so happy you’re heere! Isn’t this all just loverly?”
“Van – ah – Lady Cerentola. This, ah, boy has come to inform you that your carriage awaits.”
“I did?”
“Yes, Derrick, you did. It’s near midnight anyway.”
***
Minutes later, Ash watched her normally graceful sister clamber into the carriage, the back end of her pink skirts looking like a pig trying to get through a keyhole.
“Vee! Come on, it’s ten minutes to twelve!”
“I’m tryyying – these feet aren’t working properly!”
They were both laughing when they sat down, cheeks flushed from dancing.
“What a night!” Vanita giggled, looking at Ash with a tender devotion that made her heart unexpectedly crack open. “Did you have funne Ash?”
Ash sighed. “More than fun… but yes. Yes.”
“And the Prince quite liked you!”
“The Duke quite liked you.”
Vanita blushed scarlet. “Ye-hes welll… I’m not the one who may be married to a prince!”
Ash scoffed. “Married? No thank you I’m not ready to be married to anyone, much less the heir to a dying kingdom.”
Vanita laughed merrily, the effects of the wine still loosening her tongue. “Oh, come now Ash, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? You can’t say no to a prince if he proposes marriage to you – it’s treason! Punishable by death and all that.”
Ash whipped her head around to look at Vanita, hoping to see some sign she was joking. “They can’t be serious about that, no one would enforce that law anymore. Look how things have changed -”
Vanita merely laughed, wagging her finger tipsily at her sister. “Not everyone is as fluid at adapting to change as you are. Look at Mother! They probably still do have that law because that’s what’s always been done. Just look at Cind-Cinderelella… how do you think that story might have turned out if she had been legally allowed to refuse marriage, hmm?”
The
warmth of the ballroom was wearing off. Ash felt chilly in her seat and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, hugging herself. Vanita seemed to be feeling no such cold and was relaxing languorously in her seat, woozily watching the scenery go past. With a start, Ash realised that she hadn’t thought about carriors in hours and quickly peered out her window to make up for it.
“Asshhe… what do you think it would be like to live in the palace and be married to royallty?”
Ash sighed crossly, not looking back at her sister but instead at the empty night-time horizon. There were carriors, damn it. She mustn’t forget, for both their sakes. “I don’t know, Vanita.”
“Oh come onnn… You must have thought about it?
Ash slammed her palms down angrily on the window opening and turned fiercely on her stepsister. “I don’t know, alright? I don’t think about those things. The prince, he was… different. After so long, how can it not be amazing just to talk with someone you don’t know, after being surrounded by people you’ve seen every day of your life. He was so… other. And I liked that. But I don’t think about him, now. I think about how many days we can last on what food we have, about carriors, about what I’d do if you died. Alright? That is life now. That has been life and I had to change, so I did. To now just sit back and think like a child about marrying princes and fairy stories… I can’t! Okay? I just can’t.”
The two sat in silence as the coach trundled horselessly on, into the uncertain dark.
Chapter Thirteen
Be Water
It was a relief to get out the carriage once they got back.
Although in Vanita’s case she spilled out more than stepped out. Ash said goodnight to Derrick and then helped her up the stairs.
“Ash, who put the stairs in the wrong order?”
“Shh Vee, the rest of the house is sleeping.”
“Then they should have left the stairs where they found them!”
Finally, they were up. Vanita’s threadbare bedroom looking far less luxurious, even for its real bed, after the dizzying sights of the palace. Without waiting for Ash to shut the door, her stepsister tripped the last few steps over to her bed and puffed down onto it, her skirts like a billowing pink sail being let down. Less than ten seconds later, gentle snores were emanating from somewhere inside all the pink fabric. Ash smiled and made sure she was properly tucked under the covers, before turning to go back downstairs.
“Ash?” said a sleepy voice from within the dress.
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Ash’s hand paused on the door. “I love you too,” she whispered, turning away.
Idiot girl, her heart said to her as she closed the door and leaned for a second against its cool wood. And if she dies tomorrow? If a carrior comes and plucks her away? She made her way alone down the stairs, skirts trailing like stars behind her.
The kitchen was warm with yellow light when Ash entered. Old Merta was sitting by the kitchen hearth, as Ash knew she would be. The old woman didn’t exclaim about the dress or ask about the evening. She just gestured to the wooden stool next to her and poured a cup of hot water from the kettle standing over the fire. Ash took the cup and sighed as she sank into the stool. It wasn’t just the warmth of the fire, it was the reassuring sameness. This was her fireplace, this was her Merta, this was her life.
They sat in silence for a while before Ash said what was on her mind. “Old M’… do you really think the laws are true? That if the prince asks for you in marriage you have to accept?”
Old Merta sniffed. “Can’t say I’ve had much reason to think on that law, but I’d expect so. Why not? Royals have a law for everything.” Then she saw Ash’s face and understood.
“I’m only eighteen. That was the age Stepmother was when she first married and she by no means married old. There are women who marry as old as twenty-five…”
Old Merta looked at her sideways, the fire between them. “So, the prince didn’t go fer Vanita then, I take it?”
Ash said nothing.
“What will be will be, Ash. You know that. And it was one night and a night to be enjoyed. Being married, becoming royalty… well, that’s another night. Not this one. So, sit in this night now and hush.”
But Ash looked down at the last embers of the evening’s fire, where Old Merta had cooked Stepmother’s supper, like always. Life had gone on, this life that Ash had chosen. It had gone on while she had been in a fantasy at a ball.
Ash leaned over to grab the poker and rake through the coals for something to do. The straw pile she slept on was the one closest to fire thanks to her former ‘status’, so it was her job to tend to the fire. She had been the first to give up her bed for selling and in truth she liked being here by the ashes. Reminding herself of that was comforting. Tending the ashes – that was her job.
“This is what’s true now,” Ash said, turning to Old Merta. “What’s the point in pretending any different?” To prove her point and just to treat herself, Ash spat heartily into the fireplace, relishing how unladylike it felt. Then, feeling slightly guilty, she raked the ashes some more.
“Good lord, Ashling!”
“What? I’m no lady. I can do what I like.”
“Can you now? Because you look quite the prisoner to me.”
Ash frowned. She sat the poker aside and inhaled the smoky smell of another day. She remembered how Vanita had once asked if she was not afraid of mice or insects in the straw she now slept on. Ash had laughed in her face without quite meaning to. If there had been bugs or mice, she would have eaten them long ago and thanked God.
Ash was suddenly tired. Talking about eating bugs seemed as far away from the world of the palace as dreams were from waking. She straightened and felt the new muscles in her arms and along her spine coiling and releasing - muscles she never would have had as a lady. They felt good, even if they were constantly stiff now from all the running. These were true now, too.
When Old Merta spoke again, she was clearly trying to change the subject. “You look beautiful, Ashling. That gown… you look like water.”
Ash shook her head, feeling the beginnings of tears forming as she gazed down at the hearth. “Water? I don’t want to be water. It’s used by other people, people like that Pathfinder and Stepmother, or a prince or…” She looked at the grey remains in the hearth. “I want to be fire.”
Old Merta just tutted. “Silly girl. What do you want to be fire for? Your stepmother is fire – all fuss n’ bother and then a little bit of wet or suffercation and it dies down again. It can cook alright and scare, but water… When I was wee still, there was a flood in the lowlands. My father took me to see it. Water moves, it changes, goes right round you and you can’t stop it, not for lack of trying. Water will go through a rock, it’ll go through a whole mountain, that it will.” Old Merta took her Ash’s chin in one rough hand and met her eyes. “You’re no fire Ash, you’re water. And whatever happens, you will move with it. You’ll make a way and it’ll be your own way.”
***
That night, when Ash lay down in her straw at the hearth, she had a dream. In it, she was beneath the hazelnut tree. Then the tree became her mother, familiar thin waist sprouting up out of the spidery calligraphy of the tree branches, yellowed catkins hanging from her sleeves. It was night and the wind howled around them both. Ash was trying to pray but she had no voice. She was trying to talk to her mother also, but her mother only looked silently down at her. Then the yellow catkins moved and her mother held out a closed palm to give her something. When she opened her hand, it was a piece of the iron clumps that were now found in the earth.
“I don’t understand,” said Ash, finding her voice at last. But then a carrior with a leering grin came and snatched the tree and her mother away.
Chapter Fourteen
In the Bedchamber
It was well after midnight when he heard what had happened.
It’s amazing how you can expect something every minute of every day, but the
one moment you aren’t thinking about it, that’s when it happens.
“The last maiden, gone.” The Duke was putting back on his gloves and looking around the empty ballroom in satisfaction. “I must say, the Prince’s body double was quite convincing tonight… It couldn’t have been you surely, Rize? That lookalike smiling and dancing and flirting with some girl?”
“Well, I’m allowed to have a little fun once in a while.”
“Words I never thought I’d hear you say.”
“Anyway. It was important to make an effort. And, yes, it was surprisingly fun. Don’t you dare tell my father though – he’ll make it a ten-day thing.”
“He won’t hear it from me… Who was that girl?”
It was then that Rize realised he hadn’t asked her name.
***
Lorin was still laughing when they were walking up the last staircase, which they never used, after the last of the carriages had departed.
“I can’t believe… Of all the things to forget! A beginner player if I say so myself!” And he roared with laughter so fully that Rize couldn’t help but laugh too.
There they stood, laughing, talking about girls after having had an evening of dancing. And then the king’s second steward was suddenly in front of them, saying “Your Highness” in that particular tone. And Rize knew.
Stupid. If he hadn’t been having fun, not thinking for once about it, would it have happened?
“This way Your Highness and my lord.” They sped down the main hallway and on to the servants’ shortcut to the royal apartments.
“What happened?” Rize demanded as “My lord father… is he…well?”
The second steward hesitated. “He is alive, your highness.”
Alive? What did that mean? And where was Sir Pevann, the first steward?
Rize soon found out where Pevann was. The minute he entered the king’s solar, the unmistakable stench wafted to Rize’s nostrils, one he knew well now: that of a corpse not long dead, but not too recently either. Around the side of the carved table at which the king took late-night eats and, more rarely, wrote letters, there was the fallen mound that had once been Sir Pevann, his face mottled blue and purple with dried blood splotching the corners of his stiff mouth.
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