[Sin Eater's Daughter 3] The Scarecrow Queen

by Melinda Salisbury

  I cannot believe he brought her to this place – to be trapped as I am. With him. Aurek howls with laughter, slapping the table again, and Lief turns with slow, exaggerated motions to watch the goblet as it spins on the floor. Lief shrugs, then looks at Aurek, still avoiding my eye, and gestures to the bottle on the table.

  “By all means,” Aurek says, and Lief reaches for the bottle, drinking from that instead. “Do you see what I’ve had to put up with in your absence?”

  “I apologize for my sister, Your Grace.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I snarl at him. “Don’t you dare speak for me when you won’t even look at me. Where is she?”

  Lief puts the bottle down. “Might I go and refresh myself, Your Grace?” he asks, ignoring me.

  “Of course. See your mother settled, do what you need to, and I’ll see you in my presence chamber. We have much to discuss. And, seemingly, to celebrate.”

  “Lief.” My voice climbs into a shout. “Look at me.”

  Lief stands and bows. “Your Grace is kind.” He wheels around and leaves, as though I’m not even in the room.

  “Lief!” I call. He closes the door behind him, not with a slam, but with slow deliberateness, and I stare after him, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “Would you like to see your mother, Errin?” Aurek says softly.

  I turn to him, every inch costing me. “You know I would.”

  “Then just ask, sweetling. That’s all it’ll take. Just ask.”

  It’s a trap. It must be. I stay silent.

  “No? You don’t want to see her? You can’t bring yourself to say please to me?”

  I can’t take the chance that he might, for once, be telling the truth.

  “Please,” I hear myself say. “Please can I see my mother. . .? Your Grace?” I add.

  He rises and walks the length of the table, coming to stand in front of me. “So you can be nice when you want to be.” He lifts a pale hand and strokes my hair, and I wait for his fingers to tighten, clenching my teeth together, braced for the yank I’m sure is coming. But it doesn’t. He cups my cheek and looks into my eyes. “Keep it up, and we’ll see. But you have to learn to behave, sweetling. I’ll have no unbroken mares in my stable. Ask me again tomorrow. Ask me as nicely.” He leans in and presses a kiss against my forehead, and even though it makes my stomach lurch with disgust, I hold myself still.

  He pulls away, clicking his fingers to summon the dogs, and leaves me alone in the Great Hall. The Seal of Tregellan is still on the table, and I walk to it, picking it up. It’s lighter than I expected. I close my eyes.

  I lie in bed, but sleep won’t come. I’ve jammed a chair under the door; I have done every night since I thought he was going to make me jump from the window. Not that I expect it to stop him from entering if he chooses, but it will at least give me warning. Though he hasn’t come into my dreams at all since then.

  I roll over on to my stomach. I wonder where Lief is now – if he sleeps, or if he sits with Aurek still, laughing together. The thought makes me furious and I flip on to my back, hitting the pillow with my fist. I’m furious that he brought Mama here. Aurek told me he’d gone to fetch her, but I didn’t believe him. I’d thought she would be safe enough in Tressalyn, safer than anywhere else. And now she’s here. With me, and Silas. Trapped.

  I don’t know how Silas is. I only know he still lives because Aurek is radiant these days, his beauty and vitality obscene compared to the castle and people around him.

  I move on to my side and bunch the covers up and around my ears, watching the shadows move around the room as the night passes. When the dawn comes I’m still awake, eyes staring at nothing. I sit up when someone tries to enter the room, a muffled voice swearing. Merek. Finally. I stumble out of bed and pull the chair away, flinging the door open.

  And look into the face of my brother.

  He pauses in the doorway, a tray of food in his hand. He’s dressed head to toe in black, his scar just as shocking in the morning light as it was last night. As I take him in, see the lines on his forehead, the stubble on his jaw, he examines me in return, his one eye assessing me before it flits around the room, moving from the bed, to the bureau, then the window, and I see the tic in his jaw as he looks around him.

  “I expect it’s different in here to when you last saw it,” I say, and his green eye flashes as it comes to rest on me once more. Merek told me what Twylla had not. The truth of what my brother did to her, and to him.

  “And you wonder why you’re having a hard time here,” Lief says quietly.

  For a moment I consider telling him what Aurek has done to me while he’s been away doing his dirty work. I think about telling him that his precious king keeps a doll in his pocket, made of clay mixed with my hair and my blood, and he uses it to make me eat, make me dance, make me do whatever he wants. That I’ve woken up and found myself standing on one leg at the top of the stairs, teetering precariously, or underneath my bed with my face pressed into the dust, and I know that it means that somewhere in the castle Aurek is sleepless and amusing himself by toying with me.

  That sometimes he has me climb into his lap and sit there while he strokes my hair and tells me about the old days in Tallith. The seven towers of Tallith castle and the walkways between them, his life with his sister and his father. That sometimes he sounds so wistful and lonely that I forget for an instant that he’s a monster, lulled by his soft voice and his hands in my hair. Until he turns my face to his and I see him, and I recall exactly what he is, and the look in my eyes reminds him that he might control my body, but he can’t control my mind. Then he throws me to the ground and leaves me there for hours, unable to move until he wills it. I could tell him about the times the rightful king of Lormere has had to carry me to my rooms and clean me as I once cleaned our mother because Aurek’s neglect, or malice, has meant I’ve soiled myself.

  But I don’t, because I’m too frightened that he already knows and that he doesn’t care. When Aurek first made the doll of me, I was filled with the wild hope that Lief’s actions and behaviour were because he was being controlled too. I thought maybe he hadn’t betrayed me, or Tregellan. I wondered if he was a puppet too. But he’s not. He chooses this.

  He carries the tray to the bureau and places it atop it before he walks to the window and pulls open the shutters.

  “Leave them, it’s freezing in here.”

  “It smells stale in here,” he says mildly. “It needs airing. I’ll ask for your fuel ration to be increased. You might as well have mine while I’m not here.”

  “Ration? It’s being rationed? Is that what he told you?”

  “Errin, it is being rationed. Until things are stabilized there will be some shortages.”

  I shake my head at him. “He has meat on the table every night. And fresh vegetables.”

  Lief sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “How are you?” he says, his voice still maddeningly soft.

  “Are you joking?” I say.

  He opens his mouth, but then appears to bite back whatever it was he’d been about to say. “You’ll be pleased to know Lirys is alive. And Carys too. They’ve been moved to Tressalyn and accommodated there. As my personal guests.”

  I stare at him, and he stares back, and I get the impression he’s waiting for me to thank him. When I remain silent, blinking dumbly, he nods at the tray.

  “It’s bread and butter, porridge, and an egg.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” I say finally.

  “Does what bother me?” he replies, an edge creeping into his tone.

  “This. All of this. For starters, me being here. In rags. You know whose dress this was, don’t you?” He remains silent. “I’m your sister,” I say. “What happened to family first?”

  At that he whips around, his face cold. “Where do you think I’ve just come from, Errin?”

  “I know where you’ve just come from. From murdering our countrymen on his orders.”

  “I came from seeing to o
ur mother. Our mother, who I brought here from an asylum,” he says.

  “Are you really blaming me for that? You left us, remember? You left us for three moons. If anyone is to blame for her state, it’s you.” He doesn’t reply, and the silence between us thickens, congeals like fat. “How. . . How is she?” I ask when it becomes too much, and he flinches but says nothing, and I become aware of each heartbeat becoming a hard, dread-filled thing in my chest. “Lief?”

  He half turns so his face is caught in profile against the wintry light. “I don’t know. She doesn’t eat. Or sleep. She just stares. She can’t. . . She won’t take care of herself. At all.” Then he turns to face me. “Is this what she was like, why she was in that place? Because she’s mad?”

  “She’s not mad.” I lean forward, gripping the covers in my fists. “He does it to her.”

  “Does what?”

  “Ask him. Ask him about the simulacrum. Ask him what he did with them, to her. To me. He made dolls of us. He came into my dreams at night and he made her attack me, every full moon. He called it his ‘little joke’. For three moons he did it. He’s doing it still. He must be. Can’t you see; he’s a monster. You’re working for a monster.”

  “I can’t—” Lief says, and strides across the room, back to the door.

  I step towards him, hands raised, and he grabs my wrists, wrenching a cry from me at the flash of pain his grip brings. He releases me straight away, his face ashen.

  “Forgive me,” he says, reaching for me, but I step back.

  “Listen to me,” I hiss at him. “He spent three moons whispering in her mind. She was already grieving Papa, and then you vanished, seemingly into thin air. And while you murdered your way across Lormere on his orders, he was in her head, making her act like a beast.”

  Lief shakes his head, and I curl my lip back to show him my chipped tooth. “She did this, while he was controlling her. She attacked me and pulled me to the floor. Our mama, Lief. Does that sound like her to you? Ask Silas. He’ll tell you. He was there. While you were gone, he was there and he saw it all.”

  He looks down at the floor, and there’s a moment where I think I might finally have reached him. But then he raises his head, his eye fixed on the door behind me. “I’ll come and escort you to dinner later,” he says quietly. “Try to wear something that fits you tonight.”

  “This is all I have!” I fly from the bed and throw the wardrobe door open. “Her summer clothes, that’s all I have.”

  “You could have asked for something warmer,” Lief says. “I’ll have something sent up.” With that he turns and leaves.

  I hear his footsteps on the stairs, slow, unhurried, and I shout after him. “Why don’t you care?”

  When the door slams I throw myself down on to the bed and scream into the musty pillow until my throat is raw and I’m trembling from the cold, or the horror, I don’t know which. I roll on to my back and stare up at the ceiling, unable to stop shaking. I pull the covers back over me but I can’t get warm.

  He has me and Mama, and Silas and Lief. Silas he will bleed dry for the Elixir. He will kill me when he has wearied of me. And Lief too, most likely, if only he knew it.

  And I realize then that none of us will make it out of this alive. Not me, not Silas, and not Mama.

  Chapter 10

  Lief keeps his word on both counts. When I return from a fruitless afternoon in the library – no sign of Merek – I find a gown folded on my bed. The window has also been opened, and log pile replenished, leading me to think he brought it here himself.

  The dress is creased, and smells musty, and has obviously been salvaged from a storage chest. When I hang it to air there are black mildew spots on the lace collar and cuffs, and a layer of dust puffs out, causing me to recoil. But it’s longer than any of Twylla’s dresses, and the thick blue velvet promises a little more warmth too. When I try it on it’s too big, but still an improvement. And hopefully the smell will keep Aurek away from me.

  Lief says nothing about it when he comes to collect me. He’s in black again, and in the shadowy corridors his face looks harsh, the eyepatch adding to the impression. He moves with purpose, the loss of one eye seemingly not causing him any problems.

  “Whose dress was it?” I ask when it becomes clear he isn’t going to speak. “Was it the queen’s?”

  For a moment he is silent. Then, “I don’t know.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In a chest.”

  “How’s Mama?”

  “Resting. It was a long journey.”

  “When can I see her?” When he doesn’t reply, I ask again. “Lief, I want to see her. When?”

  “When His Grace permits it.”

  He’s saved from my response as we round the corner to the Great Hall and the doors swing open, manned by the golems Aurek keeps close to him as a personal guard.

  Lief drops into a bow as soon as he crosses the threshold, and after a moment I do the same, reluctantly bending at the knee towards Aurek. But when I raise my head, he’s not looking at me, or at Lief. Instead he’s bent over papers, ignoring the food at the table.

  Lief hesitates, until Aurek murmurs at us to “Sit”, and like obedient children we all but tiptoe to the table, Lief at Aurek’s right, and me two places away from him.

  Still Aurek does not look up; instead he pushes a piece of paper towards Lief, who begins to read it. I crane my neck to read it too, but Lief shoots a scowl at me and moves his arm to block it from my view, continuing to read.

  He looks up sharply. “Have there been more incidents like this, Your Grace?”

  Aurek nods his head, silver hair trailing on the table, his eyes still on the paper he’s engrossed by. “Chargate. The soldiers put it down. Four of them lost their lives in the process.”

  “Is there. . . Do you know why?” Lief asks.

  “It’s of no real consequence,” Aurek says, rustling through the sheaf. “It’s always been a problem; eventually they become harder to manage, the longer they exist. Mostly, it means we need to rely on soldiers more, outside of the castle, or anywhere I am not.”

  “I’ll see to it. And have the men replaced.”

  Aurek nods, and then looks up. His eyes narrow as they land on me; apparently he’s only just realizing I’m there too.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I . . . I came for supper.”

  “Did I summon you?” he asks, but it’s not meant as a question, not really.

  “I brought her, Your Grace.” Lief surprises me by speaking up. “Forgive me.”

  “Seek my permission next time,” Aurek says coldly. “I’ll feel more inclined to indulge your love for your sister when she manages to find hers for me.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Leave,” Aurek tells me. “We’ll have food sent to you.”

  As soon as he’s stopped speaking the golems on the doors pull them open, ponderously stretching out their arms in tandem. I push back from the table and stand, dropping the briefest of curtseys before I flee the room, shivering as I pass them, my head full of thoughts. What were they talking about? Put what down? What’s always been a problem? Not the Rising, surely? But what else could it be?

  I need to speak to Merek, but another servant eventually brings my supper to me, and I can’t risk arousing suspicion by asking for him. Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll find him tomorrow.

  It’s hours later and I’m just getting warm enough to drift off to sleep when the door opens, swinging back on its hinges and smashing into the wall, as Aurek flies across the room at me.

  I barely have time to sit up, to cry out, before he’s gripped my wrist in one hand and cut my left palm, releasing my wrist to take the simulacrum from his pocket. When I move away he points the knife at me, a silent warning, and I still at once. He keeps his eyes fixed on mine as he presses the doll against the cut.

  “Hold it,” he demands, curling my fingers over it to keep it in place. He slices the tip of his own
thumb and we both watch as a bead of blood, red as mine, wells up. Then he takes the simulacrum from me, smearing his blood into the clay, mingling with mine. As we both watch, our blood is absorbed, the surface of the poppet is clean, as if it never happened.

  Then he leaves without a word, closing the door behind him. I stagger out of bed and tear a strip of fabric from one of Twylla’s dresses, using it to bind my hand, breathing slowly in an attempt to calm my racing heart. I stare down at my hand, watching the blood seep through the fabric, winding another strip over it. I hate when he does this.

  Then a new thought occurs to me: why does he do it?

  Why does he have to come and take more blood? I trace a finger over the bandage, and try to recall all the times he’s cut me, pressing the clay to the wounds. Often. Usually after I’ve done something particularly vexing to him. I’d just thought he was being cruel, reminding me I was under his power. But what if there’s more to it. . .

  I remember once, in the early days here, in the war room, one of his miniature golems began to move without his command. He crushed it, telling me it’s no good when they start to do as they will. I hadn’t thought about it before, but it means that after a while, they do things he hasn’t instructed them to.

  Was he talking about his golems tonight? In Chargate, and the other place. Have those he sent out into Lormere started to act of their own accord? I play his and Lief’s conversation over and over, and the more I think about it, the surer I become. The longer they exist, the more his golems will start to behave independently, especially if he’s not there to keep giving them commands. I’d stake my life on it.

  And that must mean that if he doesn’t keep adding fresh blood to the simulacrum of me, sooner or later he won’t be able to use it to control me either.

  I lie back against the pillow, acutely aware that I won’t get any sleep tonight, my mind a hive of thoughts.

  I receive a note from Aurek the next morning, before I’ve dressed, informing me that I won’t be required at dinner tonight, nor the night following. That’s exactly what it says: “won’t be required”, as though I’m the scheduled entertainment that has been postponed. I suppose for Aurek I am. It’s cursory, that single line, and it tells me he’s preoccupied, too busy to bait me.