Chapter Thirty-Nine Witch, Ghost, Villainess
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Witch, Ghost, Villainess
The minstrel Merel enjoyed much favour in court.
Lia and Lord Popenjoy were both fond of songs and thus kind to singers.
As Merel was a foreigner unaccustomed to the ways of Eyam, they had to explain to him about the enchanted weapons the aristocracy possessed, orichal steel and lost magic.
Every noble family had one. Almost every family.
“What happened to your family’s enchanted gauntlets?” Merel asked one day.
“My stepsister Rahela was lost to the abyss while wearing them,” said Lia. When Merel murmured condolences, the queen shook her head. “Don’t grieve for her. She was a wicked woman who deserved her fate, and the truth is, she does not matter. She has been dead for a very long time.”
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Despite the hideous confrontation at court, Rae’s head was strangely clear today.
She had decided to leave the court early in the morning, after she had left the cursed necklace in a heap of gold and walked away as Key slept.
Even before she faced Lady Katalin’s accusations and found herself with no defence possible.
The woman was right. Rae wasn’t her daughter.
She was using Rahela’s body, and the real Rahela was nowhere in this world.
That truth made Rae seem a monster.
She needed to go. Perhaps to find Emer and Lia, perhaps to seek the Cobra; perhaps the goddess would take pity on Rae and say she had done enough, but Rae couldn’t stay and watch Key fall in love with Glacia.
Except she couldn’t abandon Key without a word.
When people hurt you and leave, hurt is all you’re left with. The wound is the end, forever and ever. So how can it heal?
Rae saw no way to avoid her fate. She would have to tell Key the truth.
Key was taking tea with Glacia now, the winner of the Queen’s Trials.
The thought of Key made pain twist in Rae’s chest as though he held her heart between two impossible iron claws.
But if Rae went to the hero and heroine, if she explained all the real truth at last, perhaps they would believe her. Perhaps the story would turn kinder.
The truth was the only answer. In the clear light of day, it had occurred to Rae that Key would probably not marry Glacia right away.
Not right after sleeping with Rae. That didn’t make any sense.
She tried to hold onto her new clarity as evening drew its shadows down.
Perhaps this was the effect of the potion, her true heart wanting to tell him the truth at last.
She had promised Key she would tell him one day. The pearl of truth was still glowing at her throat. He would have no choice but to believe her now.
Half agony, half hope, Rae crept towards the door in the shadowed hall. She looked at her feet, rather than her hand opening the door. When she had to do what scared her, she did it, but she didn’t have to look at it.
The malachite floor beneath her feet was dark green like the sea at evening. Rae’s slippers were white with red tips, as though she had ventured into the sea and found the rising tide was blood.
The Room of Peace and Pleasantry was brilliantly lit, cream with gold embellishments. The chandeliers were confections of sparkling crystals, the gleaming walls lined with mirrors.
In one mirror, iced over by the glass, Rae saw the profile of the Emperor.
Wild black hair curving over his brow like a crown turned to ragged shadow.
The edge of a terrible smile, the light of one burning eye, matching the fiery light of the jewel in his sword hilt.
His orichal iron claws shone with dark enchantment, running red as though the metal had veins of fire.
The clawed gauntlets that had toyed with a strand of Rae’s hair, run along her spine, and caught hook-sharp in the laces of her stays.
The shadow of the claws was thrown on the gleaming wall, as huge and curved as the teeth of a sabretooth.
In the cruel trap of the Emperor’s claws, incongruous and absurd, hung a dainty porcelain teacup.
In another mirror, as if lost under ice, Rae saw Glacia’s reflected face. The shy girl who loved books, the girl Rae had specially chosen to be the heroine of the story. She had convinced herself they belonged together, and now she saw them together.
The Emperor’s claw pressed the teacup to Glacia’s pallid lips. Glacia was pale all over, nothing but pallor, from ice-white mouth to light-drained eyes.
She was dead. Key had killed her.
Rae stumbled back. The Emperor’s head jerked and swivelled around, moving too sharp and too fast, like a nightmare creature in a horror movie.
Any thought of him as Key ebbed away, the sharp, selfish urge to survive overcoming all else.
The Emperor was the threat. Rae was in danger. She needed to run.
She stayed.
One step back, and Rae couldn’t see the mirrors, only the occupied chairs. If she had stood on this spot when she’d opened the door, she wouldn’t have seen anything wrong. She wouldn’t know Glacia was dead.
Pretending this was the case, Rae fixed a natural smile over her horror, as carefully placed as a painting over a crack on the wall.
“Sorry to interrupt. I’ll come back later.”
She closed the door before the Emperor could respond. If she lingered a moment longer, something would betray her, and the Emperor would know for certain that she knew.
Behind the door she heard the rumble of Key’s voice, but Rae was already racing through the shadows, out of sight.
Rae had to escape. Now.
Flee the Palace on the Edge, and find Lia and Emer in the Cauldron. Get away from the heart of the story and the monster waiting as if in the centre of a labyrinth for those who wandered in unwary.
She had to go. But she couldn’t leave the ice princess.
Despite the pounding of her heart like a fist on a door, warning she should escape, Rae walked with a firm, steady step through the tunnels to the Rooms of Despair and Lingering.
The keys she’d taken from the dead were clutched in her fist, metal teeth biting into her palm. She couldn’t go without Vasilisa.
Glacia was dead. It was Rae’s fault. Rae was the one who pushed her towards Key, who had judged Glacia by ridiculous rules.
Glacia, who prayed to a strange goddess when she was frightened, and who had loaned Rae her favourite book.
Rae could never return it now. Rae had fed Glacia to the dragon, imagining he was a prince.
It was Rae’s fault Vasilisa was imprisoned below the Palace on the Edge, a princess instead of a queen. A captured princess, chained waiting to be eaten by a monster. According to a story’s laws, a princess was prey.
Another guard waited in the dungeons, watching over the single prisoner. Rae gave a nod to the impassive gold mask and, of course, the ghoul simply stood and watched as she walked by.
Vasilisa, lying on her straw pallet, smiled when she saw Rae.
The smile dropped away in amazement when Rae started trying keys in the locks of her cell door.
The keys almost slipped from Rae’s grasp, cold metal sliding against sweaty skin, but Rae hung on desperately.
Sweat stung her eyes like tears, she tasted salt as bitter as despair between her lips, but it was only sweat.
She had no time to think or weep. She was rescuing the princess.
“What are you doing, Lady Rahela? This is treason!”
She needed to say something powerful and convincing.
“Come with me if you want to live,” said Rae.
Princess Vasilisa stared in outrage. “That clears up nothing at all! Kindly tell me what’s happening.”
“The Emperor murdered one of the maidens of his tower,” said a voice from the mouth of the dungeon. “A helpless and blameless lady, killed on a brutal whim. Lady Rahela is right. We must get you out of the palace at once.”
Rae hadn’t realized she had hope before it was lost. She ran from Key because running was what you needed to do to survive, because trust was impossible and dangerous. If she’d stayed and demanded an explanation, she would have felt so stupid when she died.
Yet she’d hoped it was a misunderstanding, that there was a reason for him to kill Glacia. But Key had slaughtered a man in the courtyard this morning. Key killed as easily as he breathed, she had always known that. And Key was killing more now.
Rae didn’t recognize the voice. When she turned, swinging Vasilisa’s cell door wide open, she barely recognized the man. His clothing was in disarray, as if carelessly thrown on. He wore a sword at his hip.
On second glance, Rae saw the crumpled shirt was lilac, with poetic sleeves and elaborate embroidery. When Fabianus looked at Vasilisa, the grim lines of his face relaxed and he resembled himself again. The fool of the court, who only wanted to waltz his lady about a dance floor.
“Will you trust me, and come with me?” Fabianus asked.
The princess stepped through the prison door and laid her hand in his. “I will.”
“Let’s go quickly,” Rae suggested. “Follow me. I know a secret tunnel that leads out into the Cauldron, and once we’re in the city we can find our way to the gates. Come along. The dead won’t stop me.”
Rae turned to lead the way out of the Rooms of Lingering and Despair, and found a spear barred her way.
The guard standing before her pushed his gold mask up. The face beneath was alive.
“The dead will not stop you. They must mindlessly obey our lord,” agreed Conn, the guard who had cut Key’s throat, the guard for whom Rae had begged mercy. “But I live. I serve my god. And I will stop you. Traitors.”
Rae clenched a gauntleted fist, but before she could swing, a throwing-knife sailed through the air and struck the guard’s spear to the ground. Rae looked towards the princess, who she knew had battle training, only to see the fool of the court advance.