Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

  “Neither do I,” Navara said. She gritted her teeth as she tugged on the impossibly tight knot in my rope. When she at last pulled it loose, the whole knot slipped out as though it should have been easy.

  I squirmed to shake off the ropes and pulled a hand free, gently kneading the fresh bald spot on my scalp. At first, Ambrosine’s request for my hair seemed silly, but now I recognized her insecurity. She couldn’t abide the notion of eviscerating me, but she wanted to rob me of some trivial representation of the beauty she always feared would surpass hers.

  What would Ambrosine say to Devorian when she sent him word? Would she tell him the truth or lie and tell him this appalling tragedy was every bit my fault?

  The recollection of Perennia’s dead weight in my arms made suffocating despair hedge in around me, crushing my chest, weakening my knees until even walking felt impossible.

  But the idea of my sister’s funeral taking place on foreign soil, without me, made intolerable fury flame up around my broken heart.

  A few moments ago, I’d wanted to die. But now I wanted to kill Ambrosine first.

  I scooped up the huntsman’s pack and found only a bit of water sloshing in a skin, a flint stone, some dried berries, a string, and a slender boning knife. I took a sip of the water and passed Navara the rest.

  She brushed the dirt from her skirts out of habit and accepted it. “What should we do?”

  Without my elicrin stone, and without knowing how long it would take for my Nisseran friends to hear news of last night’s tragedy, there was only one path for us to take.

  “We hide,” I answered. “We survive.”

  “Hide?” Navara repeated. “Hiding won’t save my father or my kingdom.”

  “Neither will getting your lungs and liver carved out,” I reminded her.

  “But—”

  “We aren’t strong enough to defeat her!” I barked, my voice hoarse. “Listen, it’s only temporary. Until help comes.”

  Navara’s blazing eyes searched my face as though the answer might be hidden there. “We can sneak into the palace. She thinks we’re dead. She won’t expect us.”

  “She might,” I said, and sighed when her eyebrows dove together in question. “Even if the huntsman manages to convince her with his proof, my elicrin stone will tell her I’m alive the second she touches it. It will always have a desire to return to its living master.”

  “Then why—?”

  “I had to let the huntsman believe his plan would work so he didn’t go through with murdering us.”

  The hopeful bravado that inflated her chest drained away, leaving her hunched and small. “He was trying to protect his family. Now they’ll be in danger.”

  “We need to protect ourselves,” I reminded her. “We need to find water and food. We need to get away from where the foresters can find us. I’ll try to catch a quail or rabbit to sell somewhere for more supplies while you stay safe wherever we camp. You’re too recognizable.”

  “But we promised Sev we wouldn’t let anyone see us.”

  “We have no choice. I can’t hunt with a boning knife.”

  Standing seemed an unconquerable chore, but I managed. The meager contents of the pack jostled against my hip as I started off south, deeper into the woods. Navara followed.

  “Can we send word to one of your friends? Don’t elicromancers have a way to send magical letters that travel faster?”

  “Yes, but the network needs to be established first by an elicromancer who can forge missive channels between earthly places. Nissera has countless channels, but Perispos never allowed the Realm Alliance to establish them here.”

  “Oh.”

  She fell silent. I made note of everything I saw as I walked, to moor myself to the physical world instead of drowning in the pool of emotions brimming inside me, dense and dark as tar. One foot. Now the other.

  Tree to the left. Rock to the right.

  A girl you need to keep safe, behind you.

  Navara yelped, and I turned to find the hem of her dark-blue dress already tangled in a nest of thorns.

  I trudged back and knelt to unsnarl them from the delicate fabric, but that wouldn’t stop it from happening again. “I’m going to cut your skirts.” I dug for the sheathed boning knife. “You can take my boots to protect your legs.”

  “What about you?” she asked, grasping my shoulder for balance.

  “I’ll be fine.” When I finished, the ragged hem hit midway down her calf. Tiny beads of blood dotted the scratches around her ankles. She wouldn’t make it ten more steps without me.

  “Your Majesty…Glisette…I’m sorry,” she said. Her touch on my shoulder was soft. “If I hadn’t asked you to meet me—”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” I cut her off, more curtly than I intended. “Ambrosine should never have set foot on Perispi soil.”

  “Perennia didn’t deserve—”

  “Let’s move on.” I sheathed the knife and traipsed to a nearby boulder to tug off my boots. Navara removed her silk slippers. Both of us looked ridiculous after the trade: me in breeches and dainty slippers and she in black leather boots paired with a short, tattered dress. But on we walked, listening for the trickle of a stream.

  “I can’t believe my father fell under the spell of a usurper,” Navara said after a time. “Is she holding him prisoner? Is he suffering?”

  “She’s keeping him in the Edifice of the Fallen,” I said. “She’s created mirror illusions that seem to have warped his mind.” A shudder crept up my spine as I recalled the guileful deceptions she had shown me.

  “Has she hurt him?” Navara asked. She sounded unprepared to hear answers to her questions.

  “Not physically.”

  “So, when we have more elicromancers, we’ll be able to defeat Ambrosine and save him?” Navara asked, rustling as loudly as a wounded animal behind me. “Without a doubt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though she’s possessed by Nexantius?”

  I ducked under a low branch and thought for a moment. “Whatever Nexantius is—and I’m not saying I believe in your Fallen gods—Valory Braiosa’s power surpasses his. That I can assure you.”

  SEVENTEEN

  AMBROSINE

  ONE MONTH AND ONE WEEK AGO

  THE old man looked small and frail standing at the foot of the dais, surprise deepening the feathered lines on his forehead.

  Myron had summoned the priest to tell him that his advice would no longer be welcome concerning military or diplomatic affairs. Myron explained that he was not repudiating the faith but giving it independence from the crown. An official decree would be coming forthwith.

  Myron’s tone, as ever, remained civil, but the priest looked like a kettle ready to shriek. I almost laughed at how the red sunset glow streaming from the windows resembled flames around his feet.

  At last Myron dismissed him with a stern “Good night, Father.” The old man shot a withering look my way. He turned and stormed from the receiving hall, his gray robes rippling behind him in spite of his hobbled gait.

  Before he passed the guards at the threshold, he stopped, pivoted, and said, “She will destroy you and this kingdom.”

  The echo of the priest’s words had not yet faded when I felt Nexantius’s command like a stern tap on the shoulder.

  It’s time. The secret of our destruction must die with him, and with Myron’s grasp on reality.

  “I know that was a difficult decision, and you have much to ponder,” I said to Myron, resting a hand over my womb. I’d learned how easily the simple gesture reinforced my deception. I relished the blithe fondness it immediately brought to the king’s face. “Shall I leave you to your thoughts?”

  “I did have my doubts about this,” Myron mused, ignoring my question. “But the way Father Peramati disrespected you just now dissolved every one. No one who is prejudiced against elicromancers should wield political power. Your parents’ murders will be the last act of senseless violence committed against el
icromancers in my kingdom.”

  Hurry.

  I reached across the space between our twin thrones to take his hand. “I think I’ll take a sunset walk in the gardens.”

  “I’ll send truffles up as a treat upon your return,” Myron replied, patting my hand. “Be sure to wear a cloak.”

  His warm attentions had delighted me, but over the course of a week, they’d become cloying. Fortunately, I could already see Nexantius’s power taking hold of Myron’s mind. Myron spent more time gazing into mirrors, succumbing to the little fictions they showed him: that he was stronger, younger, more regal, more virile. The more attached he became to these perceptions, the easier it would be to entangle him in a world of pleasant fantasies, to set him aside without causing him undue harm.

  “You are such a dear.” I planted a kiss on his forehead and gathered my skirts. “I will see you when you come to bed.”

  “I’ll count the minutes, my darling,” he sang.

  My doting smile faded as soon as I showed him my back.

  When he could no longer see me, I charted a course from the ground floor to the priest’s lofty quarters. He lived in an apartment beneath the Edifice of the Holies. Every morning at dawn, the old man unlocked the gates at the crest of the edifice staircase and admitted the few staggering worshippers making their pathetic daily pilgrimages to pray for health or wealth or a herd of a sheep.

  Tomorrow, he would not.

  I reached a sunset-striped landing and caught the priest scurrying out of sight on the third floor. This level held the family’s private corridors, but our guards didn’t bat an eye at his presence. I hurried after him. The eastward path he had taken led only to the princess’s bedchamber, library, and recreation room.

  Do not let him speak to Navara, Nexantius warned. He will pass on the sacred knowledge of the apocrypha to her. He will tell her how to destroy us. We must destroy him first.

  I moved silently, a wolf in the night, gaining on the old man by covering more ground in one step than he could in three shuffling strides. A belt of lamplight burned bright beneath the door of the princess’s bedchamber. The priest stopped and knocked, half glancing over his shoulder, as though afraid to face the falling darkness.

  The door cracked open. A perplexed lady’s maid greeted him. “Father?”

  “I must see the princess,” he whispered. “It is most urgent.”

  The maid yielded to the princess’s strict tutor, Hesper. “She’s reciting her nightly scriptures, Father. She hasn’t missed a day since her mother died.”

  “Father,” I said, “surely you see why it’s inappropriate for you to call upon the young princess at this late hour.”

  At the sound of my voice, the priest turned, dark eyes blazing with a premonition of his death.

  I thought he might try to shove his way in or ask the tutor to pass a message to Navara. But he had to know that once the secret left his lips, it would endanger others. So he ran.

  He tried to sprint but only managed an uneven trot. Wary, the tutor closed the door.

  I resumed my pursuit.

  Father Peramati stumbled onward, rasping for breath. A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth when he tripped on the staircase leading to the top floor and issued a panicked cry.

  Don’t let him reach the edifice.

  Why not?

  We cannot enter.

  He slipped out of sight. The pursuit became more of a hunt than a game, and I quickened my pace. Elaborate columns and skyward windows turned the edifice antechamber into a maze of sanguine sunset light and stretching shadows. Slow as he was, the priest wouldn’t have had time to slip through the oak double doors leading down to the clergy quarters, and he certainly wouldn’t have had time to scale the dozen steps to the edifice. He was hiding from me.

  “Oh, Father,” I sighed, circling in place. “It was not my idea to kill you. He insisted. You know who ‘he’ is, don’t you?”

  A shadow moved at the far end of the antechamber. The priest doddered out from behind a column, making a break for the edifice. What exactly did he plan to do? Remain there until I lost interest? He had to know he had reached the end of his road.

  I sprang into action, catching up to him on the stairs and clawing at the back of his stiff collar. He toppled backward, striking the steps with a thud and a feeble croak.

  A dark bloodstain fanned out from the back of his head. Shallow breaths rattled from his wrinkled lips. His eyes followed my every movement as I knelt over him and wrapped my fingers around his throat.

  Like a baby bird, he felt warm and fragile. His heartbeat fluttered frantically underneath the parchmentlike cocoon of skin.

  I squeezed.

  He flinched but did not fight back. I had broken him.

  His tongue jutted out, grotesque and porous. He seemed more creature than man as he gasped for breath. I hadn’t spent much time around aging mortals with wrinkles and bald patches. By the time my parents died, they looked no older than they had when I was a toddling child, their skin supple and their gleaming hair pure wheat-gold.

  A glaze passed over the priest’s eyes as his thrumming pulse fell still. His dying breath seemed to last a lifetime of its own, a long, slow hiss of wind.

  I rocked back on my heels and studied my work. The task had been even easier than I had expected. I had always been capable of wounding well enough with words. I had never needed to use my hands. But now they felt strong, powerful, invincible.

  The priest’s knobby fingers unfurled, revealing an effigy in his palm. He probably thought it would protect him. I noticed a gold ring on his other hand and gleefully worked it off his fleshy knuckle.

  I set the ring against the tip of my tongue, emitting a groan of pleasure.

  Amid the winds blowing through the edifice, I heard the padding of soft footsteps behind me.

  I snapped my head around and found the altar attendant clutching a candle snuffer, watching me. Dark curls framed a comely face, but she wore a frock in the plainest shade of gray. It was the only garment I’d ever seen her wear. She had come in and out of our bedchamber with the other servants about once a week, but only recently did I realize she had been descending to the Edifice of the Fallen to replace the bowl of ashes and wipe dust from the mirror.

  The girl was just performing her nightly chores. How must I have appeared to her, hunched like a beastie from a children’s tale in the falling dusk, prying gold from a dead man’s fingers?

  I stood and straightened, ashamed that anyone had seen me in such a state. Horror writhed inside me, as though my heart had decayed and maggots had come wriggling in the darkness to eat their fill.

  And yet, the only guilt I felt was for not feeling guilty at all. The old man’s death did not sadden me. A hidden part of me had always known myself to be capable of such violence.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said to the altar girl, Nexantius animating my tongue with the Perispi words I needed. “Speak of this to no one, and no harm will come to you.”

  The girl’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “What do I say about him?” She gestured at the dead priest.

  “He fell and broke his neck. You were the only one present.”

  After a prolonged silence, she nodded.

  “I take it you weren’t close?” I asked.

  “He rapped my knuckles when I overslept. He said Kromanos blesses servants who rise before dawn to do holy work.”

  “And do you enjoy this ‘holy work’?” I asked.

  She opened her mouth and closed it, considering. “I didn’t choose to be an altar girl. I’m paying off my father’s debt. He stole from the edifice tithe box on a holiday and gambled it away.” She looked at me sideways. “Forgive me, but the priest told me that you speak very little Perispi and were reluctant to learn. How are you speaking to me now?”

  “He underestimated me,” I replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Damiatta.”

  “Damiatta.” I clasped my hands and studied her. “Let
me see you without that ghastly garment.”

  Instead of demurring like most celibate altar girls might, she lifted her frock and let it float to the edifice floor, unashamed.

  I stroked my chin as I studied the shapes filling out her pale undergarments. She was beautiful, but hardly spectacular. Even if I adorned her in fine clothes fit for my right-hand woman, she would never outshine me.

  “Serve me instead and consider your debt repaid,” I said. “Every luxury that I enjoy will be yours.”

  “It would be my pleasure, Your Majesty,” she said, curtsying. We smiled at each other.

  “My first request is that you clean up the priest and prepare him for a funeral. You will stay an altar girl until he’s nothing but a brittle crisp on a pyre. After that, you will serve as my right-hand woman.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “But first, tell me everything you know about the sealed scroll. Where is the priest hiding it?”

  “He would never tell a lowly altar girl where the apocrypha is hidden,” she answered.

  For a beat, I doubted my decision to spare her. With the right threat, I could make a loyal lackey out of anyone. Perhaps she was not worth my time.

  “But last night, Father Peramati asked me to summon the huntsman, Severo Segona, for an urgent errand,” she added. “He gave him the scroll to spirit away. He said even the king wouldn’t know where to find it.”

  “Interesting,” I said, pleased. “Any idea where he might have taken it?”

  “The Father has connections to a group of religious radicals called the Uprising. I think he may have sent it to them for safeguarding. He normally uses me to pass along messages, but he wanted someone quick and dangerous for this, in case anyone tried to intercept.”

  “Quick and dangerous,” I mused, rolling the gold ring between my thumb and index finger. “Move the body out of sight for now. Then summon the huntsman to the priest’s private quarters.”

  Your first execution. How does it feel?