Chapter 40
Scraping manure isn’t as revolting as I’d imagined. In fact, I’d argue it rivals even scrubbing dishes. Most of the maids have been tasked with that particular misery—cleaning greasy platters of half-eaten fowl legs and slimy beer cups. It’s precisely the chore I sought to avoid.
My prayers were answered when I alone was dispatched to tend the stables.
Hay has an herbal scent. Mixed with manure, it becomes a paste beneath my feet as I shovel the lumps of oats and mulch around Clove’s stall. She must sense my anxiety because her nose nudges my lower back a few times to comfort me.
Time crawls by. The stable hand isn’t here, so I have no one to talk to. I’ve taken to muttering, not minding that the horses can’t understand.
Clove swishes her tail and blubbers her lips. I give her long face a scratch.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.” I sigh, staring into her wide eyes. She blinks, and her long eyelashes catch the pale sunlight. A pure creature, used for humanity’s gain. But does she know true freedom? Do any of us?
I reach under her chin and itch her round cheek. She leans into it as a cat might.
In the deep pockets of my maid skirt, I’ve stuffed Pluto’s leafprint. It had still been beneath my pillow, thankfully untouched.
I draw it out, holding it to the light spilling into the stables. The sun filters through the withering green leaf, and the black kohl outlining Pluto’s likeness appears all the darker against the golden glow behind it.
I no longer need to hold his image in my mind, not when I’ll return to him if today ends in disaster.
My thoughts shift to the positive. The mark on my arm hasn’t flared in the past day, so Ramiel must be fine. Or, at least, pretending to be. I know if I were in his position, I might make the wise decision to disguise myself and flee.
No, he is strong. Stronger than he thinks. Bernadette had been correct about that.
A smile sweeps over me.
He won’t run from this. I don’t think he’s given himself the choice.
I stab a pile of manure and lift it.
A feeling of dread curdles in my stomach, and the taste of it rises to my mouth.
What if he fails? I’ve nothing left to lose, but he has the entire kingdom. I should’ve prepared him better. If only we’d had more time.
Even with the time we had, he learned next to nothing.
What if he regrets trusting me as his teacher?
He won’t. He promised to save my people.
But that was before Nwatalith was…
I shake my head and stab another pile.
“So it was you,” a haggard voice bubbles into the silence.
I nearly jump from my skin as I whip my head around, but my hand doesn’t find my knife quick enough. The intruder has me locked in place with her gaze alone. Luminous eyes pierce through me. The brightness of them obscures my ability to make sense of her shape, her features.
Sweat trickles down my neck, sticking my hair to my skin.
Each breath scrapes against my throat, dry and fleeting, quickly turning into a luxury I’m desperate to grasp.
My eluviam tightens, its energy frozen as if gripped by an unseen hand.
For the first time, I feel it waver. Not just retreating, but trembling on the verge of being forcefully torn from me.
The woman hadn’t spoken, not aloud at least. Of that, I am certain.
Her mind presses into mine in a horrifying instant, unraveling every secret I’ve buried, every emotion I’ve ignored or refused to acknowledge.
All of it laid bare. Amid the chaos, her voice emerges, cutting through like a blade—all-knowing and inescapable.
She is Aldorin. I know it before she utters another word.
I command my body to bow, but when it refuses to obey, I abandon the effort and resign myself to the voice invading my thoughts.
Fate is a wonderfully cruel thing, isn’t it? she asks, the authority thrumming in her words making me question why I ever feared the king and his humanity, his brutality.
He is no god.
I reply in kind. Have you come to revoke the blessing you’ve bestowed upon us?
Are you unhappy with the destiny I’ve given you?
She knows my answer before I can speak. She reads my thoughts. She knows everything.
It’s terribly unfair.
Unfair? You know nothing of unfairness. Her voice bristles, and my entire body, inside and out, shivers under the strength of her hold.
Unfairness was written into that prince’s life.
From the day he was born, he never had a chance to become anything more than the king’s son. Even though he is so much more.
Who is his mother? She’s an elf. But she wasn’t just a concubine, was she?
The goddess laughs. The sound of it is so free, and yet I can’t bring myself to find beauty in it, not after living under the law against it for so long. Not after seeing people die if the wrong ears heard their proclamations of joy.
Hearing Aldorin laugh makes my skin crawl.
She was of my own flesh and blood, crafted in my womb. She lived over a thousand years, the majority of those locked in Arioch’s dungeons. She is who cursed you. She is who selfishly lived when her death would have prevented such tragedies from unfolding.
My eyebrows attempt to tug inward in confusion, but I find I can’t move.
Aldorin senses my panic, moving toward me so the sun outlines her arms and legs.
She is a small creature with graying hair.
It is tied back and rolled atop her scalp.
Her nose is long. She is not the beautiful goddess depicted in The Scrolls of Aldorin .
Age appears to cripple me, not because of time’s cruelty, but because I’ve chosen to walk the path of mortality to fulfill the prophecy the fates have woven themselves. My sweet Nadia, inheriting my beauty, was destroyed by the very gift meant to elevate her.
Nadia? My head spins.
She strides forward, and her hand reaches for my face. I am unable to move away. The cold cup of her palm settles under my jaw.
“Yes, Queen Nadia is his mother. Your prince is no mere halfling. He carries two royal bloodlines. A dangerously powerful combination of magic born of elven divinity and human dominion. Banish your worries, for the prophecy is clear: he will crush his father’s skull and restore the kingdom.
It is his destiny, forged in the stars above. ”
It takes me a moment to realize she’s spoken aloud, but once I do, warmth returns to my limbs. I stretch my hands outward, and they obey. I’ve been released, but I’m not sure what to do with myself now, so I itch my leg nervously.
“Queen Nadia?” I repeat as the pieces painfully click together.
If this is true and his mother is the queen our people revere from times of old, Ramiel has more of a chance than I thought. And if fate is the determiner here, he will prevail. Fate doesn’t lie.
“Have I misspoken?” Aldorin coughs. Her hand goes to her chest as though in pain.
After she regains her breath, her words take on a hoarse edge that makes her sound frighteningly mortal.
“I’ve read your thoughts, girl. You love that boy.
It’s inside you, though it has not revealed itself to you.
Go to him and you will see. I do not make mistakes.
That blessing is what will save his life. ”
I reach forward, but she disappears from the stables in a shimmer of dust, leaving me alone again.
Before I can manage a breath to parse through the information I’ve just heard, the sound of bells tolling and drums beating rings all around me.
The Feast has begun.
Marchus finds me, but he’s dressed in full armor, so it’s difficult for me to recognize who he is until he bows deeply, his silver gauntlet thudding over his heart, and grayish hair sifting through the slitted helm.
“A message. From His Majesty.”
Something in Marchus’s words is wrong. Forced. Like he is trying hard to hide the pain in them.
“You may attend the Feast,” he continues, “but only once Ramiel is inches from death.”
I toss the pitchfork, and it clunks against the stall. Clove’s tail swishes.
“Is that all?” I ask, flexing my fingers.
He shakes his head.
“I was told to give you some information about what will happen to you after this is all over.” His words shake near the end.
I ball my hands into fists. Marchus takes in a deep breath and bows lower so he can’t see my expression through the helm’s thin slits.
“A reward for aiding in the murder of the Crown Prince.”
I release my fingers and start toward him, not because I want to hurt him, but because I sense a massive misunderstanding forming.
He thinks if Ramiel dies, it will be my doing.
And he isn’t necessarily wrong.
But how can I clear it up?
The mark?
My cheeks burn.
Aldorin had said she knows I feel something for Ramiel that I’m not aware of yet. Love. But it couldn’t be… Not when the bond between us dictates a fabricated version of what true love is.
Marchus stands.
“Your obedience is to the king,” I say shortly. “But mine is to Ramiel. His father doesn’t support him. He wishes him to fail. It’s time to pick a side, Marchus. The cruel king, or his brave son.”
I brush past him. One step, two, and then I’m running to the arena. The drums have stopped, and there is nothing but silence.
I hope I’m not too late.