Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
For the second time in our brief relationship, Alaric and I march in a royal funeral procession.
Though, this one feels wildly different from Rowenna’s because Alaric walks beside me.
He wears a jacket of bagrava-purple silk that was made to match my gown, and our hands remain tightly clasped the entire time.
Even in his grief, he makes certain to never get even a hair’s breadth ahead of me, so we’re equals—stride for stride.
A stone pyre has been erected in a large public square, and I feel myself getting unexpectedly emotional when Alaric touches a torch to the kindling and sets alight the remnants of Soren’s body we recovered.
Initially, I was horrified to learn they burned the dead in Vanzador, rather than burying them.
But now, as I watch the dancing orange flames and curling black smoke, it feels right.
Like an ending and a beginning. Our journey started on the burning fields of Tashir.
It feels right it should end with fire too.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, and I don’t know if I’m referring to the pyre itself or the overwhelming sense of peace I feel, acknowledging that people can be both good and bad.
The smiling, laughing Soren who chatted with his people in the square was every bit as real as the merciless tyrant who allowed Tashir to burn.
Just as the sister who told me bedtime stories and ran with me through the cornfields was the same woman who lied to me in her letters and made alliances with Von Nevus.
We all contain multitudes, and it’s okay to mourn and celebrate both.
“It is beautiful,” Alaric quietly agrees.
Once the fire has burned down to embers, we turn away from the blackened altar and the painful past it represents, and move toward banquet tables and stone-throwing courts that have been arranged around the perimeter of the square.
Toward Alaric’s coronation, which deserves a celebration all its own.
The dancing is vigorous, the wine free-flowing, and the number of people who drop into a curtsy or kiss the back of my hand is staggering.
They praise my generosity and willingness to grow bagrava, despite the toll it has taken on my people.
They thank me for supporting Alaric in his bid to expose the truth about Soren.
And they thank me for the jubilant celebration and how it’s lifting their spirits.
Even the healers who are back at the palace tending to the sick sent letters of approval and thanks before the event.
I make certain each of them knows none of this would be possible without Alaric, our new king, and Delphine, my new head of household and organizer of the festivities.
It was her idea to have a memorial and coronation all rolled into one.
“The people need a chance to grieve, but also a reason to celebrate,” she insisted, and she couldn’t have been more right. She also couldn’t have planned a more perfect event.
I’ve felt like a proud parent watching her these past few days, boldly collaborating with Queen Tessa and the courtiers on decorations and menus, and bustling around the palace to direct florists and chefs like she’s been doing so all her life.
Delphine’s been so busy, I’ve hardly been able to steal a moment with her, and I squint through the throng now, hoping to catch a glimpse of her new silk gown with her golden hair tumbling down her back, instead of her old maid’s uniform and customary braid.
But she must be ushering in the next course of food or performers because I don’t see her anywhere.
“There you are!” A horde of dancers whirls past, and Elodie Tomasko takes me by the hands, spinning me into the chaos before I have a chance to say no.
Just like the first time I met her, it’s impossible not to be swept up in her warmth and enthusiasm.
Though it’s a different kind of enthusiasm than when I first arrived at the Fortress.
Like Delphine, my noble friend has transformed before my eyes.
Instead of worrying over every wrinkle in her gown, she spins with reckless abandon, completely unaware of the filth marring the hem of her rose-pink skirt.
Unbothered by the braids falling from their pins and sailing around her head like a windmill.
She has never looked more radiant—free from courtly pressures and gossip.
“I love seeing you like this,” I shout in her ear as we sashay through a tunnel of dancers.
“Not as much as your husband loves seeing you like this,” she replies, looking me up and down with a wicked grin. “He can’t take his eyes off you. I told you this gown was perfection.”
I glance over at Alaric, who’s been on a raised dais in the center of the square for the whole of the celebration, reassuring councilors and negotiating with merchants and entertaining courtiers. But finally, now, he’s coming.
“Do you mind if I steal my wife for one dance?” Alaric’s voice is as thick and rich as freshly tapped syrup, and I imagine it dripping down my body.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Elodie says with a playful curtsy. “She’s all yours.”
Alaric offers me his hand, eyes glittering brighter than the veins of silver in his mines. “It’s been killing me to stand up there and watch you dance with everyone else,” he murmurs in my ear.
“Maybe you should stop being such a patient, empathetic king,” I say with a playful wink.
I rest my head against Alaric’s chest and listen to the rhythm of his heart, calm and steady, as we sway beneath the blazing torches and glittering stars. One song bleeds into the next, and the musicians and dancers around us change, but I could stay here forever, locked in Alaric’s embrace.
I’m so blissfully content, I yelp when someone taps my shoulder.
I shake my head and laugh as I pull away. “I suppose I shouldn’t hog every dance with the king.” But when I step aside, there’s no new partner to take my place. Frowning, I turn to find Delphine standing with her head bowed, her new gown rumpled and torn.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I take her hands and lift them to inspect her. “I told you you’ve been working too hard—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she chokes out, “but I need you now, Indira.”
She looks up, her face stricken and pale. A look of unspeakable loss.
“Cloudia?” I whisper. “Is she…?”
I can’t bring myself to say the word. She can’t be dead. Not now, when we had plans to move her into the palace as soon as the healers situated the sick from the factory. Cloudia was finally going to receive proper care, and Delphine was going to have more time to sit at her sister’s bedside.
“But she was doing better,” I. “She was having more lucid moments. She led us to the hidden hospital!” I point out, like that somehow precludes her from dying.
“I’m afraid it’s the end,” Delphine whispers, “and I don’t want to be alone.”
“Let’s go to her at once,” Alaric agrees, pushing through the crowd. “I’m sure there’s something more that can be done.”
“No!” Delphine shouts so loud, the nearest revelers turn to stare.
She steps nearer and lowers her shaking voice.
“You can’t leave your own coronation festivities.
It would send the wrong message to the people.
And if this is truly the end, I’d like it to be just the three of us—just family.
” Delphine’s watery eyes find mine, and I feel my own eyes burning, with tears of empathy, of course. But also with gratitude—and love.
She considers me part of her family.
With Alaric’s blessing, we weave through the crowded courtyard and pound down the twisting streets to their damp little cottage that smells of mold and sickness.
Delphine drops to her knees at Cloudia’s bedside and strokes her sallow, sweaty face. The girl’s entire body writhes and jerks as unintelligible words dribble from her lips.
“I’ve tried everything,” Delphine says with a defeated sigh. “I used the rest of the medication you made, along with every other remedy the healers ever prescribed, but they only seem to weaken her. She’s slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Each of Delphine’s cries tears through my heart like a blade, but I force myself to remain calm. We can’t both fall apart.
“I’ll make a new batch of medication,” I say resolutely. “I’ll use twice as much bagrava as before. That has to strengthen her.”
It will also likely wreak havoc on her body and mind, since she isn’t an empty vessel like those affected by the memory sacrifices. But there’s no point worrying about long-term consequences when the next few minutes aren’t guaranteed.
I move to the other side of the bed, lean down close, and speak in a slow, soothing voice.
“Stay strong, Cloudia. I’m going to help you,” I promise.
But when I reach for her hand, she jerks violently.
Her fingers close around my wrist, squeezing to the point of pain.
I cry out and try to free myself, but Cloudia’s other hand joins the fight, crushing my fingers in her vise grip.
“What are you doing?” Delphine reaches across her sister. “Stop this! You’re hurting Indira.”
As she struggles to remove her sister’s clawlike fingers, I feel a familiar pulse of vibrating energy.
“Wait!” I shout, and instead of trying to pull away from Cloudia, I place my hand on top of hers. The vibrations immediately intensify. “There’s something in her hand,” I tell Delphine. “Something that feels like the hum of a siphoned memory.”
Delphine’s eyes widen and dart down. “What’s in your hand, Cloudia? Show us.”
At last, Cloudia stops moaning and writhing and falls back to her pillow.
She’s so stiff and still, I start to fear we’ve lost her to oblivion, but then, finger by finger, her left hand uncurls to reveal a length of broken chain—the kind Vanzadorian men wear to fasten their jackets.
This one is platinum and inlaid with enormous obsidian jewels, but the final link is bent and wrenched open.
“Do you recognize this?” I ask Delphine. “Is it a family heirloom or something?”
Delphine shakes her head. “Our family has never owned anything so fine.”
“Then where did it come from? Could someone have given it to her?”
Again, Delphine shakes her head. “No one visits except me and the occasional friend who checks in when I’m working late.
But none of us have riches like this.” She studies the chain and glances around the room, bewildered.
“Unless…” Delphine’s gaze settles on a trunk in the corner.
“That’s where Cloudia keeps her sewing kit and tools.
She often did alterations and embroidery work for the nobles.
Maybe this is from one of her projects. Maybe she retrieved it because she wants me to sell it to cover the cost of her funeral.
It’s so like her to be thinking of me, even in her final moments,” Delphine says on a shaky whisper.
It’s a nice thought, but wholly improbable. “Won’t the damage diminish its value? And how did Cloudia retrieve it from her sewing trunk when she can’t rise from bed? What are the odds it would also contain a memory?”
Dread swells in my belly like black bloated roots in stagnant water as I point out each inconsistency. Something about Cloudia—and all of this—feels very, very wrong.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Delphine wrings her hands through the bedclothes. We both sit there, staring down at the foreboding chain. “Do you think we should try to view the memory?” she eventually asks. “It feels like Cloudia’s trying to tell us something.”
Heart pounding, I nod, free the chain from Cloudia’s slackened grip, and murmur the words Alaric taught me before I lose my nerve.
All at once, the room fills with glittering light, and I think I must be hallucinating because the swirls form a face I recognize. Eyes lips, freckles, and hair that could only belong to one person.
My sister.