Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Caelian glanced around her mother’s former bedchamber and wrinkled her nose in disgust. The linens had all been removed, the tapestries were stripped from the walls, and most of her belongings, every object that could be traced to her, were gone.
All that remained was a four-poster bed, her crystal vanity, an old desk in the sitting room, and a chest filled with ballgowns that had never been worn.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Caelian scowled. “It smells of musty parchment, wilted flowers, and death.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Sarelle breezed past her into the bedchamber and walked in a small circle, planting her hands on her hips.
Starlight shimmered around her, catching on the fluttering sleeves of her amethyst gown.
“She didn’t even die in here. It’s just strangely empty without her constant, overbearing presence. ”
Oh.
Maybe that was the cause of the disconcerting shift in the air.
Caelian always remembered her mother’s quarters as being uncomfortably stagnant.
The temperature of the room was always warmer than it should’ve been despite the weather.
Suffocating and heavy with dread. Each time she stood before Trysta’s disapproving glare, her lungs would tighten, her eyes would water and burn, and her skin would prickle with unease until she felt the need to soak in a freezing bath and scrub away the unsavory sensation.
The cloying scent of her mother’s perfume still clung to every surface, making it impossible to erase her memory completely.
“What exactly are we doing in here?” Sarelle asked, drawing Caelian’s attention back to the task at hand.
“We’re snooping.”
It seemed fairly obvious since she asked to rummage through the rest of Trysta’s things at breakfast. But Sarelle was often lost to her own musings, her fanciful daydreams usually taking priority over the conversations flowing around her.
“Snooping,” Sarelle repeated, her voice as soothing as a lullaby as she wandered over to their mother’s vanity.
She inspected a few pots of colored rouge, each of them coated with a fine layer of dust. Wiping her hands off on the silk of her gown—their mother would have been scandalized and Ariesian would be appalled—she pulled open one of the selenite drawers and peered inside.
“Are we looking for anything in particular?”
“Well…” Caelian rolled her lips together in consideration, surveying the space.
“I suppose we’re searching for a clue of some sort.
Something that might give us some direction about why Mother chose to poison Father, though most importantly, why she deemed it necessary to disguise her Druidic bloodline from us. ”
Sarelle shuddered, rubbing her hand along her arm to suppress the goosebumps riddling her flesh. “Indeed. It was a most horrific sight to behold.”
Caelian had not been present when Trysta’s true form was revealed, but Sarelle witnessed the discovery firsthand, and claimed it was a most haunting revelation.
“If it’s not too difficult, would you mind telling me about it again?” Caelian padded slowly across the bedchamber, searching for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might suggest why Trysta chose such a violent course of action. “I’m thinking it could help us in our search.”
“Certainly.” Sarelle bobbed her head, tucking a lock of midnight blue hair behind her ear.
She pilfered through the collection of perfume bottles and face ointments, holding each one up to the light pouring in from the wide bay window.
“You remember those bracelets she always wore? The jangly ones?”
Wincing at the memory, Caelian gave a brief nod. Those bracelets were atrocious. They clanged together like iron chains, a grating noise that disrupted even the chaotic wishes humming around in her mind.
“How could I forget?” she muttered, and stepped into the bathing suite, only to find it completely barren, devoid of any of Trysta’s possessions. “The obnoxious sound of those bracelets frequently caused my head to ache.”
“Yes, well, that might not have been due to the sound they made, but rather the substance coating them.” Sarelle snatched a grayish-clear perfume bottle from the vanity and lifted it up.
Swirling it once, a tiny bit of liquid sloshed against the sides, less than enough to fill even a dropper.
“She used moonshade on her bracelets, and when the concoction came in contact with the metal, it gave her the ability to control her own glamour.”
Sarelle uncorked the glass stopper of the bottle and gave the contents a hesitant sniff. She instantly reared back, corked the bottle, and tossed it into the nearest waste bin. “Ugh, moonshade is entirely too strong. And quite possibly the cause of your headaches.”
Caelian sighed and headed toward the sitting area, where all that remained was a glossy oak desk. Even from across the room, she could still smell the overpowering scent of moonshade—it reeked of crushed violets and damp moss.
“I still don’t understand why she did it.
Why poison our father? Why use a glamour to disguise the fact that she was actually a Druid instead of a fae?
None of it makes any sense, and I know Ariesian wants to uncover the truth as much as the rest of us, but I worry he’s taken on far too much as it is…
every day he appears more exhausted.” Her brows knit together. “I wonder if he’s sleeping well.”
“Unlikely. I doubt he sleeps much at all.” Sarelle’s mouth pulled to one side in thought as she planted her hands on her hips, the strange skull-like ring she wore glinting softly in the wash of sunlight.
“Now, when Solarius shattered Mother’s bracelets, the glamour she was using to conceal her true self fell away.
And she was…well, in all fairness, she was hideous. ”
Caelian blinked once, her mouth opening and closing of its own accord while she attempted to process Sarelle’s statement. “I’m sorry, did you say hideous?”
Impossible.
Though her maternal affection was lacking, and while she might have been cruel if not slightly vicious in her deceit, Trysta Starstorm was decidedly fair of face for her age.
“It was the glamour,” Sarelle explained, and a weighted, despondent sigh escaped her.
“She used the bracelets to alter her appearance, but seeing as how she was never a fae but was in fact a Druid, the constant use of moonshade grew severe. By the time the glamour fell, our mother was positively ancient. Who knows the truth of her age, or where she came from, or for how long she’d been masquerading as a fae. ”
Sarelle stilled then, hovering by the entrance to the study, her body leaning into the steadfast doorframe. She shook her head, and flecks of stardust fell around her like kisses from the night sky.
“Cae…if you had seen her face.” Her complexion blanched, the color leaching away.
“Her skin hung from her body, her eyes were hollow and empty. Moss and mold covered patches of her discolored flesh. Her hair was thin and dry like blades of burnt grass. She looked corrupted. Like she’d betrayed the earth and it had somehow scarred her. Marked her for what she was…evil.”
The final word was a hoarse whisper.
Gripping the edge of the smooth desk, Caelian steadied herself and tried not to let her emotions get the best of her.
She was not a fool, she’d heard parts of the story before, she knew her family had been keeping most of the details from her.
Attempting to protect her during her…fragile state.
But she wanted the truth now. She was ready for it.
“It sounds like something out of a nightmare.”
Sarelle blinked, her indigo eyes refocusing on Caelian, like she had finally returned from the unwanted memory. “It was wretched.”
She absently fiddled with the silver skull ring on her finger. Fiery pale green stones were set in the empty sockets of silver, and when the sunlight hit, they flashed an iridescent green.
Caelian peered closer at the piece of jewelry, unable to discern the type of animal to which the skull belonged. “That is, in fact, a skull on your ring, is it not?”
Sarelle snapped straight, and she quickly tucked her hands behind her back, hiding them from view.
“It is. Yes.” She spoke each word carefully, gauging Caelian’s reaction. “Why do you ask?”
Caelian lifted one shoulder, letting in fall in a show of feigned nonchalance.
She needed to pretend to be indifferent to the matter if she expected an honest response.
Especially since Sarelle looked slightly panicked.
She was chewing on her bottom lip and shifting her weight from one foot to the other, like she would rather be anywhere else than in the same space as her own sister.
“Oh, I was merely curious.” Again, Caelian acted as though she intended to dismiss the topic, waving a careless hand through the air while taking up a sudden interest in the drawers of the desk.
She grabbed the first bronze knob and pulled it open, only to find it completely cleaned out.
“I’ve never seen a skull like the one you’re wearing before. ”
“That’s because it’s modeled after a legend.
A myth, I suppose.” Sarelle clasped her hands together before her now, running her thumb across the glittering green eyes.
The head resembled the skull of a wolf, yet there were tiny curving horns protruding from it as well.
Creepy, but oddly lovely. “It was a gift. From Prince Aspen.”
Ah, yes.
The illustrious Prince Aspen.