by K. A. Tucker
He handed me several clues to a grand, confusing riddle, and by his own admission, he did it because he’s finally entertaining the idea that I’m not lying about my memory loss. That’s another tiny step of progress.
At this rate, maybe my feet will touch grass again by next year.
One tucked under the trunk of that leggy oak.
That guard is watching me intently. Is the bow in his grip, arrow nocked, simply to send a message? Or does he think I’m about to swan dive off the balcony?
His undivided attention taints my enjoyment of the night air. I head back inside, leaving my doors wide open for fear they’ll somehow lock if I shut them. I’m far from tired, though there is little else to do besides go to bed.
I tread lightly over and take up my usual spot, in front of the door, my cheek pressed against the cool floor.
Ten steps, with that slight hop.
Elisaf is working again tonight. Knowing his name brings me comfort, some tiny thread to grab onto. Does Zander address all his guards by their first name, or just this one? That he might treat his staff as people rather than nondescript pawns would make the hateful prick slightly more endearing.
Suddenly the footfall pattern breaks with a twirl and a two-footed slide, as if its owner broke into a dance.
It’s so unexpected, I can’t contain the snort of laughter that escapes me. “How did you know I was here?” I call into the silence.
It’s a long moment before Elisaf answers. “You breathe as loudly as a daaknar, Your Highness.” There is a teasing lilt in his voice.
“I doubt it. Have you heard one of those things breathe?” The memory of its grunts and snuffles stirs a shudder through my body.
“If I had ever been that close, I wouldn’t be guarding your door tonight.”
“That’s what they tell me,” I murmur, more to myself. “Did you grow up in Islor?”
“No. I am from the far southwest of Seacadore originally. But I have been here so long, I now consider this my home.”
I hesitate. “Didn’t the king tell you not to speak to me?”
“The king told me to guard you with my life and ensure you do not escape. He didn’t expressly forbid me from speaking to you.” There’s a long pause. “Rest well, Your Highness.”
I smile. It’s a dismissal, but a pleasant one. “Good night, Elisaf.”
Chapter Twelve
The man tending the rosebush yanks his hand back with a yelp. Tugging his glove off, he sticks his thumb in his mouth to quell the sting.
I guess fist-size roses come with dagger-size thorns.
Probably human.
After a week of watching the daily happenings of the royal garden from my balcony, I’m beginning to suspect that most if not all the staff at the castle are human. There’s nothing definitive, no box to check. It’s a gut feeling, and my gut doesn’t usually lead me astray. The nobility who stroll the pathways have a certain natural arrogance about them, the same natural arrogance that people raised with money and privilege exude at the high-society events I’ve robbed. But there is something more to them—an eerie calm, as though they do not ruffle easily, and a grace in the way they move. It could simply be a matter of breeding.
Or it could be that they’re not human.
The gardeners work tirelessly from dawn until dusk every day, perfecting cedar hedges and plucking errant grass that sprouts between the intricately laid stonework, pausing long enough to bow to the garden’s patrons. It’s mostly women who frequent the royal gardens during the day—in elaborate silk and chiffon gowns. Some hold parasols to shelter them from the hot sun as they spend their afternoons admiring the blooms. Sometimes, if they’re close enough, I catch drifts of conversations. Not enough to understand, but enough to know they’re gossiping about court members. Few have noticed me up here, but those who have watch cautiously as they pass.
The atmosphere in the garden shifts once the evening settles in, when lively instrumental music carries through open windows and three women dressed in garb identical to Wendeline’s sweep through, the lanterns igniting as they pass. The first night I watched them do it, my mouth gaped, allowing a bug an opportunity to fly in and choke me.
Men in formal coats and women in flowing dresses venture out, and couples of every combination disappear into the park for so long, one might worry they’re lost. But I hear the odd sound—a laugh, a cry, a moan—and they always reappear eventually, often checking their buttons and adjusting their skirts.
These frisky revelers have provided the bulk of my nightly entertainment since Zander ordered my balcony door unlocked—and each night there are more of them than the last. But during the day, I’m equally enthralled with watching blades clash in the distant sparring court, the speed and footwork jaw-dropping. I find myself holding my breath as their boots pivot on the compacted dirt, especially after the other morning when a sword sliced through a man’s thigh. No one panicked as he hobbled off, so I assume it wasn’t serious, or it happens often. Either way, there was a lot of blood, and I heard Wendeline’s name being called.
“You’ve caused quite the stir in the court.”
I startle at the familiar voice and spin around to find Annika standing in the doorway to my bedchamber. The last time I saw the king’s sister, I was launching anything I could find at a hellish beast to distract it from tearing her apart. I haven’t seen so much as a hint of her since. That she is here now … unexpected delight stirs in my chest. “You’re out.”
“Of my prison. Yes, for a few weeks now. Though my brother is still ‘extremely disappointed in my betrayal.’” She mimics a deep voice before rolling her eyes. She steps out onto the balcony, the skirts of her sapphire-blue dress swishing around her ankles. Her blond curls reach her waist in a cascade of plump corkscrews that seem impossibly springy under such weight. “Wendeline said she healed you as best she could?” Her voice is measured, reserved.
“Can barely tell,” I joke.
Blue eyes the color of hyacinths dart to my shoulder, where my dress’s collar doesn’t cover the marks. “It’s not too bad. The way he described it … it sounded much worse.”
I’m assuming he is Zander. They’ve been talking about me. I should expect as much. But what has been said? How much does he confide in his sister? “It was a lot worse.”
“Yes. I recall. The beast nearly tore you in two.” Her forehead furrows deeply as though plagued by a bad memory.
“You stayed?” I wondered if she had run when I told her to.
“I was halfway to the passage when I heard you scream. I looked back and …” She averts her gaze, but not before I catch the flinch. “But then it threw you across the dais as if you had burned it, and it let out that awful screech. I hear it sometimes, in the still of the night.” She shudders. “Then it burst into flames. The guards stormed into the sanctum as I reached you. I was certain you were dead. Your injuries were …” Her words fade. Quietly, she adds, “And yet, here you still are.”
Like a cockroach that won’t die, I hear in that tone.
I don’t expect a hug from Annika, but does she still despise me, after I saved her not once but twice in one night?
An awkwardly long moment hangs between us.
Annika takes a deep breath and pulls her shoulders back. “The king has deemed that I shall accompany you for a walk of the royal grounds, if you are so inclined.” Her words are formal, her voice flat, her reluctance painted across her face.
Normally, I wouldn’t jump at spending time with someone who looked like she’d rather eat broken glass than stand in the same room with me. Now, though, the chance to find this nymphaeum far outweighs my pride. “Yes!”
She sighs. “Corrin has a shawl for you.”
From my balcony, the royal grounds appeared immense.
As Annika and I walk side by side along the stone path and I revel in this false sense of freedom, they seem infinite. Everywhere I look are sculpted hedges and shrubs bursting with blooms and mammoth t
rees that cocoon seating areas in shade and privacy beneath their weeping branches. We’ve crossed three elaborate stone bridges and passed a network of streams and ponds, the carrot-orange scales of the koi gleaming in the afternoon sun.
“Has anyone ever gotten lost in here?”
“Not for more than a few hours.”
I peer over my shoulder. The colossal castle is entirely shielded from view within the dense depths of the foliage. I’m not surprised I didn’t see it that first night, despite the dazzling moon. That I ever found my way to the opening in the wall is no small miracle.
Elisaf trails close behind us. Another day shift to follow the one he spent patrolling my door, but he looks no worse for wear from the lack of sleep. I feel him watching my every move intently, but at least his hand isn’t resting on his hilt as if primed to cut me down.
Elven, surely.
My eyes widen at the couple sitting on a bench beneath a tree with pink floral blooms—the man’s face buried in the woman’s neck, his hand snaked under her skirt. They’re tucked away but not that hidden.
“You still wear his ring. Why?”
“Huh?” Annika’s question catches me off guard.
“The betrothal ring my brother gave you. You’re still wearing it.”
I peer down at my hands, as if there might be jewelry there that I hadn’t noticed before. But aside from the cuffs on my wrists, there is still only one ring—the one Sofie slipped on my finger and warned me never to take off.
And apparently, also my engagement ring from Zander.
Is this the same ring? It looks the same, but the design is basic, and easily mimicked. Just as Princess Romeria and I look the same. Though, I hazard, that design is more complicated.
Annika is waiting for my response. What do I tell her? “The king told you that I don’t remember anything before the night the captain shot me with the arrow, right?” There isn’t even the faintest mark across my chest to hint at the wound.
“He did.”
I hesitate. “Do you believe me?”
“It would certainly explain many peculiarities.”
That’s not an answer.
We cross paths with a group of three women who quickly shift out of the way, curtsying deeply, their murmurs of “Your Highness” like a song’s chorus. I don’t know if it’s on my account or Annika’s, or both. Whatever the pecking order in this family, I suspect the king’s sister ranks high.
As with every courtier we’ve met on our walk, I sense their wide-eyed gapes at my back after we pass, and I instinctively pull the knit shawl closer to my body.
“Wendeline believes you,” she says when they are out of earshot.
A hopeful flutter stirs in my chest. “She does?”
“She shared a theory with us that would make sense. If anything does.”
I wait a long moment before I push. “What’s the theory?”
Annika’s pouty lips twist with a smirk. “There’s only one way you could come back from the dead after taking a merth-forged arrow to the heart, and that is if a caster summoned the fates for you.”
I don’t understand what she just said, save for one thing. “Wendeline thinks a caster did this?” That has to be Sofie. Does she have ties to this world? Did she know Princess Romeria? She must have. Except … Sofie never said anything about taking over the throne of Islor. I have one task here—to get Malachi’s stone so Sofie can save her husband from wherever he’s trapped.
“Not just any caster. Margrethe.”
“The high priestess who was killed by the daaknar?” The woman who was supposed to grant me sanctuary.
“Yes.” She watches me a moment, as if searching for a reaction to that suggestion, beyond my shock.
“Why would she do that?”
“That is an entirely different question. But it is the only explanation for the daaknar in Cirilea that night. We haven’t seen one in these lands in almost two thousand years, and the night you come back from the dead, one of Malachi’s henchmen from Azo’dem appears. It is far too coincidental to mean anything other than that Margrethe summoned him.”
Malachi. The one with the twisty black horns. A god with demons at his disposal? “So, casters can bring people back from the dead?”
She studies me through shrewd eyes. “What do you remember about elemental power?”
What the hell is elemental power? I want to say. I’ll never figure out anything in this world if I hold all my cards too close to my chest. Wendeline has handed me a precious gift: a viable excuse for my lack of knowledge. I need to use it—and Annika—to my advantage. “All I know is Wendeline healed me, but I don’t understand how she did it. I don’t understand these fates. I don’t know why Ybaris and Islor have been at war. I don’t know who I am.”
“You really don’t remember anything.” Her plump lips are parted in thought, her bright eyes worlds away as she seems to process that.
“Nothing. And it’s infuriating.”
“Yes, I can see how that would be,” she says absently. “Where to even begin … my foolish brother. This is Wendeline’s area of expertise, not mine.” She sighs, as if preparing to settle into a long explanation. “All casters are born with an innate connection to one of the elements. Those are the forces that ensure our existence. Water, air, earth, fire. They draw their power from that element and can weave spells. The stronger they are, the more complex the spells they can weave. Some casters are weak, able to do little more than spark candles with a flame. Others can whip clouds into storms and control what you see and hear, or don’t see and hear. Though, those powers are far more effective on humans than on our kind. Their minds are simple, pliable.”
I study the stone path, afraid she’ll somehow read my simple human thoughts in this elven body I’ve occupied.
“And sometimes, a caster is born with a connection to two elements. Even three. Those casters are called elementals. They are rare but extremely powerful. Margrethe was an elemental. She had a connection to both air and fire.”
“They’re strong enough to kill daaknars.”
“As long as they don’t allow it to get too close, yes. Margrethe must have been surprised by it.” Annika’s brow tightens, the only sign that the high priestess’s grisly death bothers her. “But also, elementals have enough power to summon the fates and make requests that only they have the ability to grant. No one can alter the fabric of life, save for the fates themselves.”
Realization washes over me in a wave. “Like bringing a person back from the dead.” Is that what Sofie is? An elemental who talks to the gods?
“The elementals can ask for virtually anything. For resurrection, immortality, a child from a dead womb. But when the fates grant an appeal from an elemental, it always carries risk. A woman pleads to be blessed with a child, and she may birth a fiend. A king demands unnatural strength in a coming battle, and he may wake as a lion. A princess begs for everlasting life for her lover, and he may be turned into a creature. It’s rarely without consequences, and some of those consequences change everything we know.”
Her thoughts veer somewhere for a moment. “Kings and queens of the past caused such catastrophes with their requests that summoning the fates has been forbidden for centuries. It is far too dangerous a power for anyone to wield, especially for their own gain.”
“But you think Margrethe broke the rules and summoned the fates to bring me back to life?”
“And to keep you alive, if the daaknar attack says anything. Except when you came back, you did so not remembering who you are.”
Or I came back as someone else entirely. “You’re saying that’s a consequence of her summons.”
“Yes, that is the theory at the moment, though many questions remain.” Annika goes quiet as we encounter two more courtiers out for a stroll.
The one on the left, a woman with sleek inky hair that contrasts with her ivory complexion, offers a shallow curtsy as compared to her companion—almost as if she deems herself above sto
oping to anyone. But then her coal-black eyes swing to me, and I see the hostility in that dark gaze and pinched mouth. She is not happy to see proof that the rumors of Princess Romeria’s demise were false.
The moment is fleeting and then we are continuing along the path.
“We haven’t had an elemental here for almost two centuries, and now Margrethe is dead. I fear we will see no elementals for many more years, all while your mother collects them like precious dolls on a shelf,” Annika says, jumping back into our conversation.
And because Neilina doesn’t want her enemies having access to such dangerous power. Maybe she has good reason. “Where do these casters come from?” I ask, desperate to piece together this fascinating world of magic.
“They are born to Ybarisan mortals. It is said that for every thousand humans born, one will be gifted. They’re all tested at birth, and any gifted baby identified is sent to the isle where the caster magic is most potent, to be trained by the guild. They are assigned roles within Ybaris when they come of age. All elementals are required to serve the queen in Argon. I heard she keeps them collared and in a special tower within the castle. Not an unpleasant one, but a prison all the same. They serve her every whim and wish.”
“Mordain allows that?”
“They are not given a choice. Mordain bows to Ybaris’s rule, and Queen Neilina bows to no one.”
This woman—this queen—sounds tyrannical. What did she raise her daughter to become? By all accounts, equal to her in hatred and deviousness. “How many elementals does she have? Do you know their names?” Does one have hair the color of copper?
“If what you told us before is accurate, there are never more than twenty at any given time, but I do not know of them. Our spies have not been able to infiltrate the queen’s private household yet. And besides, the elementals take ill frequently and change often. They’re never with her for more than fifteen years, two decades at most.”
