Kingdom of Ashes

by Rhiannon Thomas

  Aurora pressed her hand on the glass. Proof that even Alysse had been a real person, hundreds of years ago. A famous queen, growing up and concerned with the most mundane things.

  No one would stop Aurora if she removed the glass and stole the papers. But if she touched them, they too might vanish into ash.

  “Can you feel anything?” Finnegan said. “Any traces of magic?”

  She shook her head.

  There was a staircase in the far corner of the room, spiraling both up and down. Half of the steps up were missing, and Aurora wouldn’t trust the damaged floor above to support her, so she tested the strength of the first downward step. It held firm, so with a glance back at Finnegan, she began to descend.

  There were no cobwebs, and very little dust. Aurora followed the stairs around, the light fading away until she could see nothing more than the gray outlines of the walls on either side.

  She could see nothing at all in the room below. The air here was cold and clammy.

  Finnegan handed her a candle, and she concentrated on the wick, shaping her curiosity into fire. The candle lit a small circle around Aurora’s feet, revealing a cracked stone floor.

  Aurora stepped fully into the room, and her foot caught on something soft on the ground. A blanket. She bent down to look closer. It was in almost perfect condition, the fleece soft under her fingertips. Too new to be from before the dragons came.

  Finnegan descended the stairs behind her. “What is this place?”

  “I don’t know,” Aurora said. “I thought just the basement, but . . .” She held the flame higher. “Someone’s been living here.”

  A few books were piled on the table. Novels, mostly, adventures, but one was the story of Alysse that Aurora knew so well. The cover was ripped in half. Beneath it lay The Tale of Sleeping Beauty.

  Most of the pages had been torn away.

  She looked through what remained between the jagged edges. Someone had slashed across the paintings that remained, marring the faces of Aurora’s parents, of the prince, of Aurora herself. Only one page had survived intact. The final words still read the same as they always did. And we will all live happily ever after.

  Aurora raised the candle higher. It finally illuminated the walls.

  They were covered in writing. Every inch of space had been marked, some words scratched into the stone, even more painted with ink that looked like blood. There was a crude map of Vanhelm, but the artist’s attempts had been covered with more repetitions of the same words: burn them burn them burn them. A few childhood nursery rhymes covered a second wall, and at the bottom, four words in a weak attempt at a poem.

  Fire, stone, bone, blood.

  On the far side, two huge words had been gorged in the wall. Only her, it said.

  “Celestine,” Aurora breathed. They had stumbled across Celestine’s nest. Not from before the return of the dragons—she could not have hidden here unnoticed. But sometime since the destruction of Vanhelm, Celestine had lived here. She might be living here still.

  “You’re sure?” Finnegan said.

  “I’ve seen her writing before. That note.” Aurora moved closer, running her fingers along the scorched letters. “This was her.”

  Why would Celestine have come here? It was too clear a landmark to have been a coincidence. Aurora glanced at the books on the table again. The story of Alysse, and the tale of Sleeping Beauty. The girl with the ancient power of Vanhelm, and a princess with the magic of fire.

  Only her.

  “Well,” Finnegan said, “this is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a good year at least, Rodric kissing you included.”

  Aurora took a step back, eyes fixed on the wall. Paper crunched underfoot, and she bent down to pick it up.

  It was an illustration from her storybook. The painted Aurora’s finger hovered over the spindle, but the spindle point and her fingertip were already specked with blood.

  In fact, the whole painting was a lot redder than Aurora remembered. Red on the spinning wheel, red on the ground, red smeared on her dress.

  Aurora yelped and dropped the page. Celestine had added the blood herself. Or the red paint. Aurora hoped it was red paint.

  “Blood,” she said. “Look at this. She was obsessed with blood. Was that why she cursed me with the spindle? Did she want some of my blood?”

  But why would Celestine want her blood? Why would she get it in such a roundabout way, with a curse, with magic? Why would Celestine hide in the ruins of Alysse’s house and scratch frantic words about burning and blood on the walls?

  She must have had plans in Vanhelm. Plans that had gone wrong, plans that had driven her to this.

  Aurora traced the words, only her, again and again. “Look at these books. She’s talking about me. She wanted to use me. Burn them all.”

  “Burn who all?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody.”

  “But she cursed you,” Finnegan said. “If she wanted to use you, why would she make you sleep?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again. Her thoughts were moving so fast that she felt dizzy. The only her was almost like a scream, words of desperation. “What if I am connected to the dragons waking up? What if that was Celestine?” She was talking faster now, driven on by the writing whirling around her. “What if she was involved in waking up the dragons? What if all she needed was my blood, the blood from the spindle? What if she used my blood to wake them?”

  “Aurora.” Finnegan grabbed her arms, holding her steady. “You’re not making sense.”

  “Look here,” she said, wrenching herself away and thrusting her hand at the wall. Fire, stone, bone, blood. “She needed blood for something. Her curse took my blood. What if that’s what she wanted it for? To wake the dragons, for some twisted part of her plan? What if that’s why I have a connection to them? And then something went wrong.” Only her. “What if she wanted to control them? But she can’t. Only I can control them.” She swayed, the force of her words hitting her. If she was right, Celestine had created her for destruction. That was why Celestine wanted her by her side.

  She was meant to burn.

  She stumbled back, and Finnegan caught her with a firm hand in the small of her back. “Rora,” he said softly. “You’re just guessing. You don’t know.”

  “No,” she said. “No, I suppose I don’t.” But her blood seemed to burn inside her, telling her that she was right, she was right, this was what Celestine intended, this was why she’d cursed her, why she was watching her. She could hold all that fire in her hand and bend it to her will.

  “Note down what she’s written here,” Aurora said eventually. “We need to leave before dark.”

  Finnegan did not protest. They searched the rest of the room, and the rooms above, but they found nothing else of interest. No more hints of what Celestine might have planned.

  They were about to step back onto the street when a shadow fell over them, heat filling the air. A dragon. The ground shook as it landed.

  Aurora hurried to peer through the ruined window. The dragon was directly outside, so close that she could see nothing but the blue scales on its side, shimmering in the sunlight.

  Finnegan grabbed her hand, tugging her down out of sight. The dragon shrieked. It beat its wings, crashing against the roof of the museum, and screamed again. The air hissed, and the dragon let out a stream of fire.

  The words on the wall still raced through Aurora’s thoughts, burn them and only her, only her, a princess made by Celestine’s will, a princess with magic in her blood, with a connection to Vanhelm, to the dragons. Aurora could not hide from it. There was a dragon, here, outside, now. She had to see what it would do.

  She wrenched her hand out of Finnegan’s grasp and darted out of the door before he could stop her. Flames danced across the roof of a building across the street, and the cobbles around the dragon were cracked and black.

  The dragon whipped its head around to look at Aurora, and the world seemed to still. She stared strai
ght into those black eyes, and she could feel the pump of her blood, feel magic rushing to her fingertips.

  “Go,” she said to the dragon. “Go.”

  It tilted its head, considering her for a long moment. Then it beat its wings and launched itself into the air and away, sending a streak of flame across the sky.

  THIRTEEN

  SHE HAD BEEN RIGHT. THE DRAGON HAD OBEYED HER. They were meant to be hers.

  The magic came easily that night, flames whirling around the practice room and then vanishing as quickly as they had come. She thought of the dragon, of the gleam of its scales, and the fire summoned itself, as natural as breathing. And she thought she could feel the dragons, too, feel the pound of their blood and the tremor of their hearts.

  This was the answer she had been looking for, the key to stopping the king.

  But the magic was almost too strong. She paused to regain her breath, and the world seemed to sway around her.

  This magic had been designed by Celestine. It was meant for destruction. And as helpful as it might be, as powerful as it might seem, it intoxicated her. If she mastered her magic, would she really control it? Or would it control her?

  She sank onto the practice room floor. Scorch marks surrounded her.

  “Aurora?” Finnegan said. He stepped closer, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just . . . I need to rest. I need to think.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “Want me to go?”

  “No,” she said, and she was surprised to realize she meant it. “No, don’t go.” She traced the black mark on the floor.

  “I controlled a dragon today,” she said. “A dragon.” A creature that should not even exist, and she had controlled it. She had told it to leave, and it had flown away. She twisted the pendant between her fingers. “The research, my magic . . . it’s working.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know. If Celestine woke them using my blood, my magic, that must mean I can make them sleep again. I can stop them from hurting anyone again. That’s good.”

  “But you’re not happy.”

  “I’m worried,” she said. “I’m worried that I’m right, that this is all part of some plan of Celestine’s. If I learn how to control my magic, I could end up making things worse.”

  “We don’t have any proof that Celestine meant any of this,” Finnegan said. “And even if you are right . . . you’re still you. The magic isn’t bad, just because Celestine decided it would be. It depends on how you use it.”

  “I almost burned down a village,” she said. “All by myself. And King John is telling people I burned more. If I use my magic to fight him . . . I’m going to hurt so many more people.”

  “You might,” Finnegan said. He sat beside her, scattering soot across the ground.

  “Then how can I do it?”

  “By knowing that more people will be hurt if you don’t. By trusting yourself.”

  But if she did nothing, they wouldn’t be hurt by her. Not directly. She would not have spilled their blood.

  “After I saw the dragon . . .” she said, “after it saw me . . . I didn’t feel entirely like myself.”

  “Then how did you feel?”

  It felt wicked to even whisper it. “Powerful,” she said. “Like I could do anything. Like I didn’t have a fear in the world.”

  Finnegan shifted closer. “How is that a bad thing?”

  “It made me reckless, too.”

  “Sometimes,” Finnegan said, “I think reckless people are the only ones who get anything done. All the safe and sane ones are too busy thinking through every possible outcome to even start making a difference.”

  She made a vague noise of agreement. This had to be a good thing. Real power of her own. Perhaps that intoxication was only the first step. But something about it itched under her skin. She did not want this magic if it meant burning, too.

  She looked at Finnegan through trailing strands of hair. “Nettle said that you were worried you wouldn’t get your throne,” she said. “Because you were too reckless. Do you really think your sister will become queen?”

  Aurora did not expect he would let her get away with changing the subject, but then he shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  “Does that upset you?”

  He looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. “That I could lose my inheritance because my sister is more likable than I am?”

  “I mean . . .” She tucked her feet underneath herself. “If you had the choice, would you want to be king?”

  He stared at the fire in the grate, his brows furrowed. When he finally answered, he spoke slowly, as though considering every word. “There are things I like about being a prince,” he said, “and I assume I’d like them about being king as well.”

  “Such as?”

  “I like the power,” he said. “I like that people like Iris have to be polite to me, even though they loathe me. I like all the resources I have, all the influence. But I’m not sure I’d want to be responsible for the well-being of everyone in this kingdom. I like making decisions for me. I’m not sure I want to make decisions for everybody.”

  “And that’s the truth?” she said.

  “And that’s the truth.”

  She ran her fingers along the ground, leaving swirling patterns in the soot. She could see Finnegan out of the corner of her eye, watching her.

  He leaned closer. She imagined she could feel every millimeter of space between them, the air vibrating. “Care to tell me a secret in return?”

  “I thought I didn’t have secrets from you,” she said. “I thought you knew everything about me.”

  “Prove me wrong.”

  She turned to face him. Even sitting, she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. She wanted to be honest, she realized. She wanted to share some part of herself with him, whatever that might mean. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “That’s my secret.”

  “That’s not much of a secret.”

  “But it’s the truth. I can’t make my mind up about you. About what you’re doing.”

  “Because I’m so charming?”

  “Something like that.”

  He still smelled of heat and ashes. And he was so close again, close enough to touch her with just the slightest shift.

  When he’d said that he was waiting for her to kiss him, she should have done it before he finished speaking, if only to see the look on his face. She could have stopped any knowing remark that followed by kissing him again. He would have laughed, and she would have felt the chuckle rumble through his throat. But then . . . then he wouldn’t have been laughing. Then he would have put his hands on her waist, or maybe one at the back of her head, tangling in her hair. He would have to bend down to kiss her . . . or maybe he would hoist her up, pulling her onto her tiptoes, onto the table. Making bold moves to put himself back in control.

  She glanced at his lips. She could do it now. Take the rush of the dragon, the rush of her magic, and finally act for once in her life. Take something that she wanted.

  The corners of his lips ticked upward. Lips that had kissed her before, in the dust of her tower, although she could not remember it. Because his attempt to build an alliance had failed. Because he was not her love, if the curse was true.

  She could not kiss him. She needed to leave, before she did something she regretted. “I should rest,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

  Finnegan’s laugh told her everything she needed to know. He knew what she had thinking. He knew why she was leaving.

  She stood up and strode away without another word.

  “I want to kiss Finnegan.”

  Nettle raised her eyebrows at her. The singer stood in the doorway of her room, dressed to attend a ball. Her red silk gown clung to her skin, and her light makeup made her eyes seem brighter, deeper. A small dragon pin kept her hair away from her face. The dragon’s scales glittered with rubies.

  “This is a surprise to yo
u?” Nettle said.

  “No,” Aurora said. “I don’t know. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Nettle stepped aside. “What has happened?”

  “Nothing has happened,” Aurora said. “That’s half of the problem. We were talking, and I—I wanted to kiss him. It was all I could think about.”

  “Then you should have kissed him, should you not? I find that helps satisfy that particular impulse, at least for a while.”

  Aurora laughed. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “And why not? You want to. He wants to. I do not see the issue.”

  Aurora sank onto the bed. “I’m not certain if I should trust him,” she said.

  Nettle turned back to her mirror, adding a few more touches to her lips. “And you have to trust him to kiss him?”

  “No,” Aurora said. “I don’t know. But I am starting to. Trust him.”

  “Sounds like all the more reason to kiss him.”

  “But I can’t.” How could she explain it? She could barely understand the feeling herself. “I need to be sensible. I need to do what’s best for Alyssinia.”

  “And what about what is best for you?”

  “Kissing him is not what’s best for me, either.”

  Nettle looked at Aurora in the mirror. “It would only be a kiss.”

  But it wouldn’t only be a kiss. Her kisses with Rodric had been only kisses, a detached display that she had to perform. If she kissed Finnegan, it would mean something else. It would mean tasting something that she longed for, going against what destiny had dictated. If she kissed Finnegan, it would not stop with a kiss.

  Nettle sighed at her escaping hair and pulled the dragon pin loose, sending her hair falling back across her face. Then she grasped the strands in a twist to fasten up again.

  Aurora looked down at the blanket. Blue swirls had been embroidered into the cloth. “We traveled to the waste today,” she said. “I think—I think I might be able to control the dragons.”