by Sara Wolf
I blink, time catching up with me all at once. There, just above, is Lucien’s face. Dark, velvet eyes, looking more startled than I feel, his hair like a raven’s wing around his face. His striking features might be intimidating from afar, but up close they’re enough to knock the wind from me, if it hadn’t been already. A thrill runs through me—a soft terror at its heels, like a rabbit frozen by a hawk’s attention. His sharp hips are against mine, his legs tangled between my own. He cradles the back of my head, cushioning it from our fall against the cobblestone. No one has ever been this close to me before, this entangled in me. My sword lies utterly forgotten at my side.
The moment breaks, and he pushes off quickly, pulling me to my stunned feet by my hand.
“The wood,” he grunts roughly, pointing at the smoldering beam just inches from us. It would’ve definitely left a dent in me, if not killed me outright. And coming back from death in front of him—in front of anyone other than Y’shennria—would’ve been more than a little messy. He might think he just saved my life, but he doesn’t know the half of it.
Lucien can’t meet my eyes, and strangely neither can I meet his. Being killed a dozen times doesn’t make my body react any less violently to near-death experiences; my heart races fast and my hands shake. Or is it because of him? Both. I can’t tell.
“Th-Thank you,” I manage finally. “I would’ve—”
“It’s nothing,” he says quickly, dusting off his coat with a sudden zeal.
“Luc! Where did you go?” Prince Lucien’s Beneather bodyguard lopes up to us. “You made me walk through the fire to look for you. Scared the humans terribly.” The bodyguard spots me with his crimson eyes and bows. “Lady Zera! We haven’t been introduced; I’m Malachite. I didn’t expect you to walk through the fire after the prince, too.”
“As if I’d dare such a thing with my frail human body!” I act offended. “I scaled the same stable the prince did.”
The bodyguard, despite saying he walked through the fire, has no sign of fire damage on him, not even a single singed hair.
Malachite whistles, impressed. “And that’s no small jump. Well, well, she isn’t afraid of you and she can keep up with you. You’re in deeper trouble than I thought, Luc.”
Lucien ignores him and turns to me. “You were right, Lady Zera. It wasn’t witchfire. I’m starting to learn that doubting you has its consequences.”
And I’m starting to learn taking your heart might be harder than I thought. I pick up my blade and force a smile. “Let this be a lesson to you—never underestimate a woman with impeccable taste.”
“You’re choosing to spend time with Luc,” Malachite says. “I wouldn’t exactly call it impeccable.”
Lucien shoots him a sardonic glare. Malachite ushers us back to the crowd on the temple steps, the queen running to Lucien and looking him up and down for any sign of a wound. She sees a scrape on the back of his hand, flustering over it. Lucien insists he’s fine, and a guilty blush rises in me when I realize that scrape is on the same hand that cradled my head against the fall. Malachite gives me a sly wink, the cocky bastard. Did he see what happened? He clearly has no sense of decorum—he calls the prince by just “Luc” and talks to him as if they were equals, rather than bodyguard and royal. And strangely, some deep part of me envies him for that, envies how easy it is for him to be around the prince when my every move is calculated and overthought.
If it were that easy for me, I’d have his heart a dozen times over by now.
“The witch’s evil has been contained!” Gavik exclaims, only to receive thunderous applause from the very impressed nobles. Gavik motions to the royal polymaths, who take generous bows. “A round of applause for these brave men of the mind.”
I retreat to Y’shennria, who’s tucked away in a corner near the door of the temple, looking glad to be out. The carriages start coming around one by one, the nobles departing with relieved looks on their faces. Y’shennria and I get into Fisher’s carriage, silent and weary after our separate trials. I watch the misery outside the window—merchants peeking from their houses only to see their barrels of goods burned, their stalls ruined. They mourn with stiff hands of shock and faces of utter loss. We pass a pair arguing over an open barrel of charred spices, one of the men nearly in tears.
“—do we do, Marix? The taxes—we promised to pay the taxes this month! They’ll put us on the street—”
“I’ll find something,” the other man replies. “I promise you, I’ll do anything I can to keep this roof over our heads—”
Our carriage passes, their words petering off. We pass other carriages—the nobles leaving the scene of the fire without a scratch. But the people of Vetris? They’re the ones who’re going to suffer the most from this little stunt. If Gavik is responsible for this fire, I hate him all the more for it. The color slowly comes back to Y’shennria’s stern, graceful face. She openly fidgets with her rosary, stroking the tree pendant’s every branch, though her motions are calmer now. She fixes me with her hazel gaze and says only one thing: “I think it’s time you met my spy.”
8
The Laughing
Daughter
I’ve learned by now that Y’shennria doesn’t answer any questions she doesn’t want to until she’s good and ready. I’d call it a lesson in patience from her, but she looks entirely too drained to even consider lessons at the moment. When we’re finally inside the sitting room of her manor, sipping on lavender tea and in much more colorful clothes, I dare to say: “Either you’re a witch who read the future with magic, or someone told you the black fire was going to happen.”
“And which do you consider more likely?” She sips her tea calmly.
“The witch.”
“Your manners might be getting better, but your jokes are getting worse.”
I laugh, and it catches me by surprise. I didn’t realize how good it would be to see her back to her usual exacting, critical self.
“I have a spy inside Archduke Gavik’s home,” she clarifies. “She joined me of her own volition a year ago. She’s quick, quiet, efficient, and most importantly she knows where the archduke keeps his important documents. In fact, I’d be confident saying she knows the archduke best out of anyone in Vetris.”
“Do I ever get to meet this girl, or are we going to praise her into eternity?”
“In a few minutes.”
We wait, both of us paging through the volumes on the sitting room’s massive bookshelves. I leaf through a tome on rare animals—the inked fangs of a mighty valkerax gaping open at me. Its long, sinewy body is drawn next to a human —the human barely bigger than one of its claws. I’ve read about them in Nightsinger’s books, but those never had sketches. They resemble snakes, if snakes also had manes of fur and powerful lionlike legs. Their heads are like a wolf’s—feral and yet dignified, with a mouth entirely crowded with razor-sharp fangs. Fangs that almost look like my own in the throes of hunger—jagged and pervasive. They have six eyes, each below the next, and each white as snow. Are they blind, maybe? Seeing this sketch, I’m glad they remain underground, kept there by the Beneathers. They’re beautiful but fearsome.
“Miladies.” Reginall bows in the entryway, someone on his heels. “Lady Himintell.”
A girl in a rose-pink dress and overly curled, mousy brown hair walks in. Her gait is uneven, a limp to her left leg, yet despite that she practically flounces as she walks. She carries a cane made of some sort of ivory, a six-eyed creature’s head I recognize now carved into the handle—a valkerax. She flashes a bright smile at Y’shennria and curtsies, then curtsies to me. We curtsy back, and Y’shennria motions for her to sit. Lady Himintell rests her cane against a table and sits right next to Y’shennria, gleefully clapping her hands at the sight of the honeycomb cookies on the tea tray. Their elbows nearly touch, the girl taking a cookie offered by Y’shennria.
“My favorite! Oh, you shouldn’t have, Y’shennria.”
“Nonsense. It’s the least I could do,” Y�
��shennria insists, smiling brightly. Not once does she pull away from the girl, make space between them. Neither is she trembling. I frown as I watch the girl consume a cookie with almost childlike happiness, rocking side to side on the sofa. Reginall said “Lady.” But Gavik has no children, and she’s far too young to be his wife.
“Hello.” Lady Himintell smiles at me. “You can just call me Fione.”
“Zera.” I return her smile, though mine isn’t nearly as sincere. This cheerful girl is the spy Y’shennria praises so highly? I was expecting a servant, not a noble. How much does she know about who I am? “Though I was under the impression using first names is strictly forbidden in court.”
Fione waves a dainty hand, crumbs flying from it. “I think formality is a little silly considering we’re risking our lives together.”
“Only our lives?” I smile with all my human teeth. “I happen to be risking many more than that.”
Fione blinks, a wounded look to her eyes, but Y’shennria snaps.
“That’s enough, Zera. She’s done more than you have to stem the war, and with much less training required.”
I glower into my tea, but Fione’s laugh pulls me out of it.
“That really isn’t necessary, Y’shennria. I’m sure Zera’s trying her best. We all are. We have to.” Her last few words grow soft, and her smile wanes sadly.
“Fione told me about Gavik’s plan with the royal polymaths,” Y’shennria says. “Apparently he commissioned them months ago to create a powder that produced flames identical in appearance to witchfire.”
“Witchfire. What exactly is it?” I ask. Fione shoots a look to Y’shennria, who suddenly becomes very quiet.
“It’s black fire,” Fione blurts. “It burns hotter than normal fire and never stops burning. It can’t be put out unless the witch wills it or is killed. It was used…um. A lot. In the war.”
Her eyes dart nervously to Y’shennria. Witchfire decimated Ravenshaunt. Maybe it even burned her family alive. No wonder she stayed inside the temple. Just the sight of the stuff that consumed her home would’ve been too much to bear. It’s strange to think the little black flames that constantly warmed my heart on Nightsinger’s hearth were capable of so much destruction.
“It’s my belief Gavik intended to use this powder to imitate a witch attack,” Y’shennria recovers. “He’s been doing nothing but sowing unrest and unease toward witches and the Old God since he rose to his position as Minister. When Fione informed me of his request to the royal polymaths, I knew he was going to use it for that purpose alone. I just didn’t know when. But I should’ve seen the signs that it was soon—Gavik was encouraging the nobles to attend blessing more fiercely than usual.”
So Gavik really was behind the fire. That bastard! The fire was a show, an act—a ruse to manipulate the nobles and devastate the common people.
“Why doesn’t King Sref do anything to stop him?” I ask.
Fione blurts a laugh, then looks to me wide-eyed. “Oh. Sorry. You were being serious.”
I quell the irritation rising in my throat. “I haven’t been here long.”
“Right. Sorry, again. I’ve spent my whole life in Vetris—it’s hard to remember some people haven’t.”
“King Sref encourages Gavik’s behavior,” Y’shennria interrupts our tension. “Half because they’ve been friends for a very long time, and half because King Sref rules with fear. And the more Gavik feeds that fear, the more control King Sref has.”
“Queen Kolissa—” I start.
“The queen is powerless,” Fione says with surprising force. “Gavik’s made sure she is.”
“Powerless? She’s the godsdamn queen.”
“Gavik convinced the other Ministers to revoke old traditions granting the queen influence in political matters.” Y’shennria stirs her tea delicately. “She was once active in politics, but when Princess Varia died, her priorities shifted dramatically to ensuring her only remaining child stayed safe. From everything—but especially from magic.”
“My uncle is just feeding more fear into her about the witches.” Fione clears her throat. “Effectively paralyzing her.”
“Your uncle,” I repeat. “So you’re Archduke Gavik’s niece?”
There’s a pause, and then she nods, curls bouncing. No wonder Y’shennria recruited her. But why would Fione risk betraying such a powerful family member? From what I’ve seen so far of the nobility, I wouldn’t put it past her to be doing it for the thrill, for a change of pace from the stagnant, bloated life of the Vetrisian upper crust. Or, since she’s Gavik’s niece, she could be a traitor, a double spy, ready to spill our secrets to Gavik at any time.
As if hearing my thoughts, Y’shennria speaks up. “I trust her wholeheartedly, Zera. And you will do the same.”
“You can’t tell me what to think,” I mutter quietly.
“You aren’t here to think,” Y’shennria fires back coolly, every word like icy razors. “You’re here to look pretty, to say the phrases I told you, and to win the prince’s affection.”
How dare she? How dare she treat me like a tool and yet praise Fione so lavishly? I’m risking just as much as Fione—more! Fury wells up in me, the hunger begging for me to lunge at her.
She’s already lost most of her neck flesh, it taunts. She wouldn’t miss an eye.
“You will work with Lady Himintell,” Y’shennria insists. “She knows much about the court and can help us in our goal.”
The imperiousness of it all—the way Y’shennria talks to me and the way she talks to Fione. Two different ways for two different things—a human and a monster. My eyes flash from Fione’s faintly smiling face to my own hands—hands that ripped the flesh from five men. She sits like a noble, I sit like a pale imitation of one. Her ladylike mask is impenetrable, and I can feel mine failing as we speak.
I bolt from my chair and march up to my room, slamming the door behind me as loudly as I can. Immature. I hear Y’shennria’s voice saying that downstairs, faintly. Apologizing for me, like I was the one who did something wrong. I didn’t. Nightsinger did, by turning me into this instead of letting me die.
You killed those men in cold blood. Men who were once babies. Men who were once alive. You killed them slowly. Painfully. You played God. You paid death and suffering back with more death and suffering.
You did everything wrong.
Minutes drag on, until I hear Fione’s saccharine voice excusing herself and the front door close. From between the lace curtains of my window I watch her get into her silver carriage, willing my despair to burn her as it’s burning me alive.
I dream furiously. I dream like a storm—flashes and howling. Darkness and coldness, and then it fades into a precise, perfect view.
I know this place. I’m in the Hall of Time at the palace, the stained glass all around me. But in this dream the glass moves, the battles depicted in the walls carrying on as if they’re happening all over again. Red glass blooms as blood flies, humans and celeons spearing witches through and Heartless splitting people open with their fangs and claws. Black witchfire glass flares, burning humans alive. Human fire, orange, charring the skin of the bestial Heartless.
And every glass figure is screaming as they die, a thousand tortured voices ricocheting in my head at once. The Hall of Time shatters with the force of the sound, clouds of glass shards twinkling brightly as they fall all around me, like rainbows made into a deadly snow.
Through the glittering, I see something made of wood. Two somethings. I begin to walk toward them, but pieces of the glass impale me, the pain somehow a thousand times worse in a dream. I know, with aching clarity, that this is a dream. But I don’t care. Something in me demands I reach those wooden things. I struggle, pulling my leg flesh free of the glass, pulling my arms from their rainbow spikes. My feet are bare, the glass snow litters the ground and slashes the bottoms of my feet, blood and agony. Still I walk. In shreds, in tatters, leaving a trail of blood behind, I reach for the wooden things—so clos
e I can make out their shapes now.
Two rosaries, each with a tree pendant on the end. So simple. So small. And yet I know of their importance with a terrible certainty.
I reach for them with bloodied fingers, but just as I’m about to touch them, sleep leaves me, and I’m yanked into the darkness of my room again, cold sweat beading my aching body.
The memory of that dream—or should I call it a nightmare?—is quickly drowned by my reality. I spend the next morning trying on dresses in an attempt to avoid Y’shennria, to avoid my childish feelings of jealousy over Fione and her. Ruffles hide so much of my anger. Silk gloves do a perfect job of making my hands look clean, instead of the bloodstained sinners I know them to be. The mirror whispers I’m beautiful, even though all I can see is the twisted, malformed darkness of my unheart bleeding out of my every pore. I refuse to let Maeve in to bathe me, the old woman eventually tottering off with a tired sigh.
There’s a banquet this afternoon—I remember Y’shennria telling me about it. And instead of preparing for it, I’m locking myself in. I emerge from my room only to eat the livers in the kitchen, but Y’shennria doesn’t once acknowledge me or say hello. She remains in the sitting room, reading. But as I make my way back up from the kitchen, I spot her in the hall. She’s affixing something to the wall—a fire-calendar. A slab of rich mahogany wood, thin and yet sturdy, with the dates of the month carved into it in orderly rows. She raises a candle to a date on the wood, the flame barely licking the surface. The heat reveals a mark on the date, dark and implying that day is over. She goes down the line, eliminating the days that’ve already passed. All that’s left between today and Verdance Day is a measly week and a half.
When she’s finished, Y’shennria looks pointedly at me without saying a word and returns to her reading. Each dark mark seems as if it’s laughing at me, a deafening cacophony of my impending failure. I don’t have much time left, and Y’shennria is making that abundantly clear.
