Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
The golden light falls away, whisking the phantoms of young Alaric and Soren into the star-swept darkness of the mountaintop. Grown Alaric, however, remains curled over his knees, sobbing. I don’t realize I’m crying, too, until Delphine reaches over and wipes an icy tear off my cheek.
“It’s just the cold,” I whisper. “I’m not…
” But I can’t finish. I’m too wounded by the ragged ache inside my own chest. It doesn’t matter that Besnik died years ago.
A loss like this never gets easier to bear.
You just learn to live with the bone-deep pain.
You go on dressing the infected wound, knowing it will never fully heal.
Alaric rocks back and forth, howling his brother’s name, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
But undeniably convenient, Rowenna says.
I’m surprised and relieved to hear her voice again after our little disagreement. It was wrong of me to purposely make her mad. Clearly, I need her help to see things from a strategic, rather than emotional, perspective.
It’s almost uncanny, how perfectly this new information about Alaric could work to my advantage.
Soren commanded Alaric to purge the memory of Besnik’s death, and not only did Alaric disregard Soren’s request, he somehow found a way to relive the event.
A way to prove Soren killed Besnik—a revelation that would be devastating for both men, should the truth come to light.
The Vanzadorian people would never look at Soren the same.
They might even hesitate to give him their memories if they feared his temper and lack of control.
At the very least, his reputation as a strong, compassionate ruler would be shattered.
And if he learned Alaric’s disobedience was to blame for his fall from grace, Soren would ensure no one ever looked on his son again. Period.
A shiver overtakes me, lifting the hairs on my arms.
This could be the answer—a way to weaken, or even eliminate, both men—and I know, deep in my bones, Rowenna arrived at this same conclusion.
It’s why she was sneaking up the mountain.
Why she was murdered. She must have caught Alaric reliving these forbidden memories, and he must have killed her to keep his secrets safe.
It would have been so easy. No one would have seen or heard Ro fall from such a remote location.
But could Alaric really have taken another life so soon after reliving Besnik’s death?
I consider him, still curled in on himself like a pill bug, too distraught to even notice a threat, let alone overpower one.
And his cryptic words from our argument in the solarium come back to me, rife with new meaning:
You know nothing about the blood on my hands or how it haunts me.
There’s no question Alaric Alaverdi is haunted, but I’m beginning to think it’s by his own demons. Not my sister’s ghost.
But if he didn’t kill Rowenna for discovering his secret, who did?
I suppose Alaric could have gone to Soren for help, but that would have required admitting he’d kept the memory of Besnik’s death.
Something he’s clearly unwilling to do, seeing as how he treks all the way up the mountain to view it.
So maybe Rowenna bypassed confronting Alaric and took her knowledge straight to Soren?
She could have tried to blackmail the Vanzadorian king in exchange for better terms for Tashir.
He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her to extinguish such a threat.
But if that were the case, wouldn’t Soren have come down on Alaric too? He would have destroyed the memory of Besnik’s death at the very least.
“What do you make of all this?” I whisper to Delphine. “What did we just witness?”
“I don’t know.” Delphine slowly shakes her head.
“It felt like a memory, but I didn’t know it was possible to relive them like that.
We can recall the memories we choose not to give to the earth, of course.
And it’s popular among the courtiers to pay a siphoning tax that allows them to store important memories in prized possessions—in addition to keeping them in their minds—for added assurance they won’t be lost to the tithes.
But as far as I know, siphoned memories can’t spring to life in glittering detail.
If they could, the courtiers would be obsessed with replaying their proudest moments for all to see. ”
I think of my own most cherished memories—all the moments I’d relive if I could—and every one includes my sister: dancing in the apple press during the harvest festival, racing barefoot through the wheat beneath the summer sun, and ordinary nights in our bedchamber when we’d whisper and giggle in the dark until our bellies ached.
Bringing those memories to life would be the next best thing to resurrecting my sister—the real Rowenna, not the mercurial ghost she’s become on this mountain.
What if they’re one and the same? My irritating inner voice resurfaces. What if Rowenna has always been deceitful and self-serving, but you were too blinded by devotion to see it?
I vehemently shake my head, but another parade of memories is already marching across my mind: Rowenna flirting mercilessly with Middeon Kalendi in order to get invited to dinner with his family so she could gauge his mother’s opinion on her proposal for the planting rotation, as she was one of the only ministers whose vote was undecided.
After the vote was cast, Ro never spoke to Middeon again.
Or the time she purposely told Janesa Ofa the wrong time for their debate on irrigation techniques, so she’d win by default.
Ro claimed she’d been too busy cleaning up one of Father’s messes to properly prepare, and she refused to be publicly humiliated due to someone else’s mistake.
I was quick to defend her both times. Middeon had led on his fair share of girls over the years and deserved to be humbled a bit.
And Janesa was a know-it-all who was determined to best everyone in the classroom—my sister especially.
If Ro wrote a three-page report on the merits of pest control, Janesa wrote six pages.
If Rowenna volunteered to help a primary child learn to read, Janesa would take on two pupils and ensure they were sounding out words twice as fast. She needed to be put in her place.
They both did. That’s something all of Rowenna’s “enemies” had in common.
If my sister was cruel or deceptive, it was always with reason.
More often than I care to admit, that reason was defending me.
So you’re admitting she could be cruel and deceptive? The maddening voice of doubt persists, twisting my words.
No.
Yes.
It’s not like it happened often. These are just a few moments across an entire lifetime.
That you could recall at a moment’s notice?
Say something to defend yourself! I silently beg my sister.
But she’s glaringly quiet. Probably too incensed to answer.
Perhaps because she isn’t there at all…and never has been, my deepest fears whisper.
What if I invented her voice to fill the Rowenna-shaped hole in my life? Because I didn’t trust myself and my own judgment?
I double over, feeling like I’m going to be sick.
Delphine places a gentle hand on my back.
“I’m in shock too. When King Soren said Besnik’s death was a tragic training accident, we had no reason to question him.
Soren adored Besnik. Though I do remember some rumbling from Besnik’s valet after the accident.
The boy insisted Besnik was too responsible and meticulous to have requested power early or to have pushed that fledgling power too far.
But we all attributed his claims to shock and grief. ”
Delphine fiddles with the end of her braid before continuing.
“If that’s really what happened, and not some alternate reality Alaric invented, I can’t fathom how Alaric has maintained such a close relationship with his father all this time.
The anger and resentment would be crushing.
Alaric would never be able to show a hint of remembrance or a sliver of resentment—not with his father and the inquisitors watching. ”
“But would they be watching?” I ask. “Soren was supposed to purge the memory of Besnik’s death too.”
“Do you really think King Soren would put himself in such a vulnerable position? Leave his fate in the hands of the son he just tried to kill?” Delphine shakes her head.
“I think it’s much more likely he also retained the memory, and the excessive praise he heaps on Alaric now is a way to ease his guilty conscience—and test his son. ”
I try to swallow, but my throat has gone drier than the Tomb Flats. I can’t fathom living like that. Forced to love a monster, knowing every word out of Soren’s lips was a lie.
Alaric’s cryptic refrain makes so much more sense now.
You’d drink this much, too, if you were me.
I rest my forehead on my tented knees, wishing I could purge the memory of Besnik’s death.
But that just makes my stomach churn with guilt and disgust, because it’s precisely what the Vanzadorians do with unpleasant and inconvenient memories.
Not to mention, it’s the crack I’ve been searching for since I arrived on the mountain.
The fracture that could set the kingdom of Vanzador to crumbling.
Like the fractured gemstone that set all of this in motion.
Those scattered, spinning pieces are an important piece of the puzzle too. Soren called the broken jewel the Flesh of Callahan and said it was part of a triad. A group of three.
Like the three words written in Callahan’s journal.
And the three words carved into the walls of Delphine’s chamber.
Blood, flesh, bone.
If the Flesh is a gemstone, might they all be? Could the key to Soren’s power be hidden in jewels that could be potentially stolen? If young Alaric was able to get his hands on the stone of Flesh, who’s to say others haven’t tried?
That Rowenna didn’t try.
Cold certainty drips down my back like freezing rain.
This is how she planned to save Tashir. I know it as well as I know the twisting halls of the hillock palace.
She planned to steal the gemstone triad and command the earth herself.
If Ro possessed Soren’s ability to move the earth, we wouldn’t need him or his seeds-forsaken treaty.
She could protect us herself and return home to take her rightful place as queen of Tashir.
But she must have gotten caught. Soren said he’d be keeping the gemstones somewhere safer than the royal coffers going forward, and Rowenna must have figured out where.
Then Soren made her death look like an accident because he knew he’d never be able to bring me back to Vanzador in Rowenna’s place if they were responsible for her death.
It’s all so painfully, laughably clear.
And it makes my next steps so perfectly, brutally clear.
I need to finish what Rowenna started. I need to steal the gemstone triad and return to Tashir with Soren’s power.
But I have to be extremely careful. If he suspects I’m searching, he’ll send me to join Rowenna in the Great Fields Beyond.
I must come at this from a completely different angle.
One they’d never suspect.
I scramble back across the scree and stare at Alaric, still quietly rocking back and forth.
It’s difficult to watch—difficult not to feel compassion for him, when I know exactly how he feels.
That’s part of the reason I don’t stride over there, spewing threats and making demands.
The rest is more strategic. If Alaric hasn’t already cracked under the weight of his secrets and Soren’s scrutiny, I’m not likely to break him.
If I approach him with empathy and understanding, though—if I offer the kind of support he’s never had—I might be able to earn his trust and trick him into leading me to the gemstone triad.
The smallest pang of guilt pricks my conscience at the prospect of capitalizing on his grief, but Vanzador has never hesitated to use our weaknesses against us.
I have to put Tashir first. I have to be the leader my people need.
Yes, yes, yes! Rowenna’s voice bursts back into my mind, as fierce as the swirling wind. She feels closer and more alive than she has in days. There’s the sister I know and love. I knew you’d figure it out.
But for some reason, her praise doesn’t feel as frothy and fortifying as it used to. On the contrary, a wave of queasiness grips me as I push to my feet and make my way across the clearing toward Alaric.