Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

“The Uprising has grown smarter and more secretive since,” he explained. “They have resources, funds, information. There haven’t been any more public assassinations, but elicromancer sympathizers go missing sometimes. A few years ago, one of the king’s advisors suggested asking the Realm Alliance to send a Healer to stop a raging cattle disease. He disappeared.”

  “Why do they hate us so much?” I asked, but I didn’t need to hear the answer. I thought of our legacy of destructive dark magic: the Moth King, Tamarice, Ambrosine, and now…me.

  “The Perispi people would rather see Navara crowned as queen rather than submit to your sister’s rule,” Lucrez explained. “But the Uprising wants to take it further. They want to kill all elicromancers and their allies, to purge the earth of what they consider unholy magic.”

  “They resent King Myron for straying from the faith and marrying an elicromancer,” Sev said, and he tucked his hand in his vest pocket in a way that made me think he might be hiding an effigy there. “They want to make sure Navara takes the crown and honors her mother’s legacy. They want to manipulate her into becoming a punisher of the unfaithful.”

  “These people are cruel, violent radicals,” Lucrez added, and I thought I noticed a tiny tremor run through her shoulders, but it might have just been the firelight. “They’ll use Navara’s faith and her mother’s legacy to twist her mind, maybe even torment her if they must, until she is both their servant and savior. When she’s ready, they’ll kill the king so she can be crowned and carry out their agenda.”

  “News will reach the Realm Alliance soon, and my allies will come to our aid,” I said. “Valory and the others will easily overthrow Ambrosine, even with that…thing inside her. We will quash the Uprising and help Perispos recover.”

  “Thing inside her?” Lucrez repeated.

  I noticed Sev’s hand slip back into his pocket, rubbing the little effigy out of habit.

  “She was hardly my sister anymore when she left for Perispos,” I said. “But a dark power has set upon her since she arrived.”

  “I saw something in her eyes that worried me,” Sev said. “I thought I was imagining things at first. And then the king retreated in supposed sickness, and the high priest took a fall and died—”

  A bump and a thud overhead made the three of us jolt in unison.

  “Narios,” Lucrez whispered with relief. The youngest boy stood at the top of the stairs, massaging his tired eyes. “Come here. I have something for you.”

  The boy flashed a toothless grin and tiptoed down. When he reached the bottom, he ran to embrace Lucrez. She smiled and combed his rumpled hair out of his eyes. “Have you behaved lately?” she asked.

  He nodded emphatically. Sev raised an eyebrow to contest, but his doubtful look was good-natured.

  “Good,” she said with a tap on Narios’s nose for emphasis. She dug into her satchel and pulled out a lumpy paper package tied with twine.

  “Honey chews!” he exclaimed.

  She shushed him, still smiling. “You have to save enough to share with your brothers and sisters.”

  “Even Sev?” he asked, concerned, already ripping at the twine.

  “No, not Sev,” she laughed, and kissed his cheek. “Have a few, and then back to bed with you, darling.”

  I couldn’t quite discern what Lucrez meant to this family, or to Sev. She was beautiful, her hair richer than black velvet, her body ample and shapely. She was older than Sev, though I doubted that would blind him to her allure.

  She looked at Narios as a mother might, with adoration and pride, but with a tinge of sadness pinching her brows.

  He ate four sweets in a blink and attempted to tuck the rest in his nightshirt before tiptoeing back toward the stairs. Sev made a chiding noise. Narios shuffled back, dejected, and handed Sev the bag.

  “Good night,” Sev said.

  Narios pouted his way up to bed. Sev tucked the candies at the top of the cupboard. “Like wolves on a carcass if they woke up and saw him eating those.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t resist,” Lucrez chuckled. She dove back into her satchel and extracted a few small bags and jars. “I brought some jam and olive oil and grain,” she said. One of the purses jangled, sounding suspiciously like coins, and I wondered if she had to hide the money to make Sev take it.

  “Thank you,” Sev said.

  “I should be going. Do the right thing for your family. They need you.”

  “We already planned to leave at dawn.”

  “Before dawn,” Lucrez instructed.

  She gathered her empty satchel and lifted the hood of her cloak.

  “It is Rasmus Orturio, isn’t it?” he asked as she reached for the door. “The leader of the Uprising?”

  “No, I swear to you he has nothing to do with it. The sins of one’s brother are not one’s own.” She looked at me meaningfully. “Or sister.”

  “And you can’t tell me who is involved,” he stated flatly.

  “I like my head attached to my body.”

  “I could find out another way,” he answered, taking a swig of ale.

  “But you won’t because you like my head attached to my body. Good night, darling.”

  She left us alone, in silence but for the crackling of fire.

  “Shouldn’t you have told your family to pack already?”

  Sev stood and locked the door. “My mother knows. She’ll be awake well before dawn preparing. But the children would get too excited and restless. They need sleep.”

  “And it’s safe where you’re going?”

  “You mean where ‘we’ are going?”

  “You want me to come?” I asked, incredulous. “Why?”

  “You heard Lucrez. If the Uprising catches you, they’ll torture you to find Navara. And if Ambrosine catches you, you’ll be no safer. We all need to stay together. For the sake of the resistance.”

  “Resistance?” I repeated.

  “People will soon be desperate,” Sev said. “Your sister has raised our taxes. She burned down an edifice. Everyone in Halithenica and the outlying villages knows something is wrong behind the palace walls. Your elicromancer allies may come and liberate us, but until then, these people need something to put faith in.”

  I rubbed my temples. “I wish I could help, though I only seem to make things worse. I’m useless without my stone.”

  “You can help,” he insisted. “Navara’s not a leader yet. But she could be. Why let the Uprising mold her into their queen when we could make her a symbol of hope for all people?”

  “I’ll put you in danger. There’s a price on my head.”

  “And on Navara’s. And probably on mine by now. So we’ll hide. We’ll get more help.”

  “Help from whom?”

  “The king’s commander resigned from his post in protest,” Sev said. “He couldn’t refuse to follow orders the king had signed even though he knew Ambrosine had written them, so he retired instead. He’s been hiding from her guards, but I know where to find him. He could help us mount a resistance.”

  “Mortals can’t defeat her,” I argued. “What’s the point of mounting a resistance?”

  “If your friends come, that’s fine. But what if they don’t? At least this way, we’ll have hope. We’ll fight.” The shadows shrouded his handsomely carved features in mystery, but a rebellious spark flared in his brown eyes as he said, “We’ll create an uprising of our own.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  AMBROSINE

  ONE MONTH AGO

  SIT up straight, dear,” I said, snapping my fingers in Navara’s face.

  She huffed—the brat—and wiggled a bit, barely improving her posture. Casting a glance at the empty chair beside us, she asked, “Why isn’t my father here yet? We can’t start without him.”

  “He will have a separate sitting with the artist when he recovers his health. We must do our part to ensure this will be a grand family portrait.” I lowered my voice, eyeing the artist mixing his paints in the far corner of the drawing room. �
��Don’t you want your younger brother or sister to know what you looked like as a little girl?”

  Disdain simmered in her doe-brown eyes. She pinched the exaggerated blouson collar of her plain dress and said, “I’m not a little girl. You could be my sister, and my father could be your father.”

  As I had feared, Myron had been too thrilled by the pregnancy to keep the news from his daughter. I had asked him not to tell a soul until it had progressed healthily, hoping to buy myself time. But he viewed Navara as the exception to that request. And ever since, she had shown me nothing but spite. Such a jealous creature.

  Outside of telling our secret, Myron had obeyed me. I had utterly bent him to my will after just a few days of toying with his mind and investing in his madness. To truly lift him from reality, I had begun replicating visions of his late wife based only on her portraits and statues. Seeing her brought back to life gave him more joy than even the prospect of me bearing his child.

  At first, it had bruised my heart to learn that he would never love me as much as he had loved her—that bringing a child into the world with me failed to delight him as much as the ghost of his first wife.

  But his obsession gave me the permission I needed to trap him in darkness and continue with my plan. He wasn’t miserable. No, he was in paradise down there in the Edifice of the Fallen, surrounded by visions of his first love.

  And he would do anything I asked just to see her again.

  I had tested this theory by parading him in front of the court to sign a decree I had authored. I made sure to do it while Navara was busy on an outing with her tutor.

  It was an innocuous first proclamation: banning religious iconography in the palace. Already, workmen were busy chipping away at the drab frescoes and dragging away the earnest statues.

  “All of our family portraits have a Holy statuette in the background,” Navara said, as if reading my thoughts.

  “We must respect your father’s decree,” I chided. “The faith and the crown must have their independence, or corruption will rot our great kingdom from the inside out. Father Peramati shamelessly manipulated Myron.”

  “And he was not the only one,” she growled. “I know you’re not pregnant.”

  “You have no way of proving that,” I whispered into her ebony curls, checking to make sure the artist’s ears hadn’t pricked. Hunched over his paint mixtures, he gave no sign that he could overhear our conversation.

  Navara twisted in her chair to look at me. The princess truly was a beauty. The dusky-rose tinge of her full cheeks and lips complemented the richness of her dark eyes and hair. I’d never seen such an elegant chin either. If the artist did too fine a job rendering her into paint, I would ask for revisions. I would accuse him of endowing a young girl with sensual characteristics.

  “Time will prove it,” Navara replied, facing forward again. Her fingers found a hard shape under the collar of her dress. The pale fabric couldn’t hide the brilliant red of her mother’s ruby necklace.

  Ah. A small act of protest. She planned to hide it until the artist had already begun and we could not flinch for fear of ruining the tableau. How daring.

  “In time, proof won’t matter.” I grasped the chain of her necklace. With one hard yank, I broke the clasp. Navara gasped.

  By the gem’s weight and vibrant hue, I knew it would taste better and satisfy me longer than any I’d yet tasted. Making sure the artist was distracted, I set it on my tongue and took a bite. It felt like digging my teeth into a smooth, perfect strawberry. Unable to stop myself, I emitted a quiet moan of pleasure.

  Navara stared, transfixed and horrified. I watched her through the slits in my eyes as I finished the decadent feast and licked my fingers.

  The door opened. Damiatta peeked her head into the drawing room. I motioned her inside. She wore one of my more modest black gowns with elegant embellishments.

  Father Peramati had underestimated Damiatta’s intelligence and potential. I would not make the same mistake. Already, the former altar girl had served me well, spreading the lie of the priest’s tumble down the stairs. Now he was a pile of ashes in the royal crypt. His quarters looked orderly and untouched.

  “The king seems to be improving,” she said for Navara’s sake. “I just cleared his dinner. He says he wants to see his wife again.”

  “Very well,” I said, knowing which wife she truly meant. “This may take some time, but I’ll visit him after.”

  “There’s one other thing, Your Majesty.” She motioned me aside and we huddled in the corner. Navara sat still, clearly shaken.

  “My contact in the Uprising told me that the sealed scroll is hidden at an edifice in a village—”

  “Send soldiers to burn it,” I interrupted.

  “The village?”

  “The edifice.”

  “The commander won’t allow that.”

  “Then let him tell me so himself,” I hissed. “Draw up the command. Myron will sign it.”

  She nodded and left the room.

  Nexantius would have made me strike with more precision. But this morning, he had stepped away from my mind to confer with the other Fallen. Just like the last time he had departed, I still felt him anchored in my soul, though I was glad to be rid of his voice in my head for a short while. He would want me to personally retrieve the scroll and kill anyone who might have lain eyes on it. He had nearly convinced me to kill Navara until we learned she had no inkling of the scroll’s contents.

  This quest to find the apocrypha was inconvenient and, frankly, mundane. According to Nexantius, it contained the truth about how to defeat the Fallen. But tracking it down had become a waste of time and resources, and it seemed to me that he was using it as an excuse to delay our plans for Valory.

  I had already risked everything killing the priest. Burning the edifice would have to suffice.

  I inspected my reflection in the mirror and experimented with different poses. My silver dress was a work of art in and of itself. The royal clothier had worked night and day, glaring at the tiny glass beads by flickering candle flame. The result was a fluid masterpiece that danced with fragments of light.

  The silence in my head suddenly crackled like the charge before a bolt of lightning. Nexantius had returned.

  Silimos is waiting, he said. The chasm vacated by the Water allowed her a passage into your world, but she needs a living vessel.

  Does this mean—?

  Silimos will trap your enemy Valory Braiosa, holding her hostage until she cares for no one and nothing…until she is a willing vessel. She will become callous, impassive, lazy, the worst queen this world has ever known. We will stake our claim to the kingdoms of men and she will not stop us.

  Restraining a smile, I took my place for the portrait and rested a hand on Navara’s shoulder. I felt her trying not to squirm under my touch.

  The artist turned around and studied us. He peered into my eyes and shifted a step back in surprise. “I mixed shades of green and blue for your eyes, my queen, but now I see that’s not quite right. They’re more of a gray…no, silver. Pardon me for a moment.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  KADRI

  BY nighttime, snow fleeced the vineyards, but the storm had abated.

  I didn’t know if it meant that Glisette had defeated whatever darkness she had faced…or something much worse.

  Tucked into bed with the cat, I read the final chapter of the Book of Belief between bouts of sleep brought on by the tincture. The figurative, flowery language frustrated me. I encountered obsolete words retired from everyday Perispi vocabulary and found no further descriptions of the scourge of mold and rot that had brought to mind the infestation in the Forest of the West Fringe.

  The meatiest parts must have resided in the blank pages, untranscribed, scrawled only on a sealed scroll.

  Regardless, I felt silly for thinking the fictional scourges and the forest rot could be related in the first place. Never in my life had the teachings of Agrimas resonated with me, beyond
their encouragement of self-edification. But even clear and simple principles could somehow be warped to suit a selfish agenda. Loyalty to the wrong causes was hardly a virtue.

  Embittered and wracked with pain, I flung the book at the nightstand, startling the cat and knocking over the effigy of Hestreclea that Orturio had given me.

  I climbed out of bed and limped to huddle by the fire again. I couldn’t help Rynna. I couldn’t help Glisette. I was trapped here, held hostage by a powerful man who had only spared me thus far because I had agreed to help him.

  I’d learned from the Moth King’s rise to power how quickly a small insurgency could grow. If Ambrosine’s reign stoked outrage among the remaining Agrimas faithful, the Uprising might expand from a secret sect of radicals to an entire country bent on our destruction. Elicromancers could defeat a mortal army from Perispos, but such a war would be costly in terms of mortal life and would tear down whatever trust remained between the two sides.

  A loud crash jolted me out of my thoughts. Lord Orturio had been too distracted by his misfortune to pay me much mind today.

  I heard a distant hum of voices in spite of the late hour. One of them was no more of a lazy purr: Mathis. Wincing at the pain, I limped to the door and crouched down to look through the keyhole, straining to make out figures in front of Lucrez’s chamber across the dark corridor.

  “Tomorrow, Mathis,” Lucrez said.

  “Let me just get a peek of what I have to look forward to,” Mathis said, sliding the sleeve of her black dress off her shoulder.

  “Are you mad? I just came home empty-handed and had to tell Orturio that my informant fled Givita for the woods before I got there,” she whispered as he kissed up her throat. “His harvest has been destroyed, and he’s been drinking heavily. He broke a chair when I told him, for Holies’ sake! Do you really want to stake a claim to me right now?”

  “Absolutely, more than ever.” I grimaced at the hungry way his top lip moved away from his teeth like a horse biting off blades of grass.

  “Why right now, tonight, when you haven’t come to me in weeks?” she asked, pushing his blond head away. “Is it some sort of revenge, reveling in his misery? I won’t be used like that.”