CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
“She is,” I confirmed hesitantly. “Her presence is scarce in the warmer seasons, but with the recent cold front, she should be out and about any day now.” Her version of out and about, of course, which meant no one would see her aside from me—and apparently Bjorn.
“You were saying?”
I shook my head to disrupt the lingering remnants of surprise.
“I… I followed her through the castle with very little awareness of my surroundings. I had yet to familiarize myself with the western wing’s layout”—I ignored the downturn of his lips—“so I didn’t hesitate when she slipped through a barred door that was ajar.
It was heavy; I could barely force it open.
Then, a dark spiral staircase lined with extinguished sconces. It smelled of salt and dampness.”
Bjorn’s features flashed with recognition.
“It was my first time in the dungeons,” I confirmed.
“I imagine you were frightened,” Bjorn said, softness rounding out the edges of his baritone voice.
I steeled myself with a measured breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth. I forced my hands to rest gently on the throne’s curved arms, resisting the urge to ball them into fists. It was a memory I’d prefer not to visit, but the potential reward for my honesty was too great.
“The darkness didn’t bother me. The terror-stricken scream, however… that nearly stopped my heart.” I withstood the shiver that snaked down my spine, prompting gooseflesh along my arms. “I had never heard a noise like that come from a human.”
Bjorn silently witnessed as I struggled to summon the words.
“When a door unlocked, I snatched up Miss Mystis and hid behind one of the curtains against the wall. Come to think of it, it’s always bothered me—why exactly are there curtains when the windows are boarded?”
“They’re decorative,” Bjorn said, as if it were obvious.
My eyebrows indented towards one another. Did he pick them out himself, or was there a dungeon decorator wandering around the castle I’d yet to encounter?
“The curtains are thick enough that children can hide behind them without notice. You may want to do something about that.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” he mused. “You were saying?”
“There were men. They made it sound like the one who screamed… he willingly subjected himself to that fate.” I absently traced the outline of a carving on my throne, finding solace in the irritation of rough wood on the pad of my finger. “He was a Vacant, they said, and you needed to be informed.”
I leaned forward, capturing Bjorn’s gaze with my own. “That word has haunted me all these years—but I couldn’t find a trace of it, no matter where I looked. Not even in your precious library, although we both know my time searching the shelves was short-lived.”
“Indeed.” Bjorn’s attention dropped from mine for just a moment. Perhaps that memory filled him with regret, too.
“Indeed,” I echoed, throat tight with bitterness. “It was over a decade before I heard that word again.”
“When you witnessed Master Umfrey’s crossing.”
“Vicar the Vacant. That’s what they called him.
He was… empty. As though the very essence of him had been removed.
He had this befuddled expression that never left his face.
Not once.” An expression I had spent the last few days trying to eradicate from my memory.
An expression that, if thought of for too long, slithered through me to reopen the wound I was desperately begging to close.
The pounding of my blood, too loud, signaling panic’s descent, a mere moment from inviting itself into my heart.
I steadied myself in those bright blue eyes. Forced slow, deep breaths through my nostrils. Don’t let him see. I did not look down at my hands, for I knew they would have been white with how I gripped the throne arms.
“How did Vicar survive crossing?” I managed to ask, though it came out higher than I would have liked. “I’ve been reliving the events in my mind, and I can’t make any sense of it. The stories—”
“Not all of the stories are true, but as you witnessed, my dear Princess, not all are false.”
I straightened my posture in response to the way he addressed me.
I was a royal, but it was the first time in my life I had power.
Power to ask the questions, and to receive the answers.
I could not let that go to waste; there would be plenty of time to succumb to my fear.
So, with my chin raised in a mediocre attempt at regal poise, I decided to take the reins of our covert meeting.
“Vicar crossed the Threshold at your behest as a final bid at saving the life of his daughter.”
Bjorn dipped his head in a quick nod.
“And when he returned, he was without memory. He did not know of Sentinels, he did not recognize Lunamor as his home. He could not even recall his own name. He was, however, very much alive.” I flashed Bjorn a dark glare, the question implicit.
Apparently implicit wasn’t good enough, because Bjorn’s silence blanketed his chambers.
Only the embers from the hearth, sputtering their dying breaths, disrupted the quiet.
As we stared at one another in a tense impasse, I inhaled the scent of burnt ironbark deeply, willing calmness into my bones.
I didn’t have to press Bjorn on Vicar’s death; if it meant Bjorn might end the conversation altogether, it wasn’t worth the risk.
After all, it really was the Threshold I wanted to know more about—Vicar wasn’t my concern, so I pushed his and his family’s faces from my mind.
“Have you crossed the Threshold?” I asked finally.
“No.”
“But you know someone who has?”
“I do know a Scholar who resides in Grenythwood.”
I hesitated, breath catching for a beat. Beyond the Threshold was supposed to be an uninhabitable bog of terror, not a place where people resided.
“So there are people who live there,” I clarified.
“Many people, yes.”
My pulse quickened. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d had such an open exchange with another person, let alone someone whose mind was brimming with information I sought.
“This Scholar you speak of…” I began, gathering myself by leaning into the balls of my feet, “…is that who you sent Vicar to see?”
“No. I also happen to know an herbalist in the area.” His tone was steady, as if we were discussing what spirits would be served at the feast tonight.
“An herbalist? Grenythwood has an herbalist? Are they… is it a kingdom, like Lunamor and Hollowmire?” I tried to mitigate the audible aspects of my disbelief, but my wide eyes and dropped jaw betrayed me.
“No, not as such. They do not have a king, for example.”
“But they do have an herbalist brewing potions that can heal a prolonged, incurable sickness in mere minutes?”
The implication of my question hovered between us.
“It is not what you think, Princess.”
“I’m glad to hear that, because what I think is the King’s Scholar conspired with a commoner to obtain sorcery from outside the wall, which would be madness in and of itself. But to then bring that sorcery into this kingdom? To risk the safety of each and every—”
Apparently I had done away with Bjorn’s graciousness, for the syllables of his interruption were clipped.
“Do not pretend to comprehend the situation before you, Princess. I won’t hold your ignorance against you, but I will not abide by your suggestion that I have put any innocents in danger.
Risks were taken by those with full knowledge of the potential consequences.
Particularly where the Umfreys are concerned. ”
I had no reason to believe him, yet there was a determination in his wide-set eyes that settled something deep in my stomach.
“Then it wasn’t an elixir,” I said carefully, still intent on learning the truth.
“It was a natural concoction not permitted within Lunamor.”
“If it’s capable of healing a child so near death, and if it’s not sorcery, why wouldn’t it be permitted?”
Bjorn inhaled deeply, situating elbows on the arms of his throne, fingertips meeting in front of that barrel chest to press into one another.
“Sorcery is much harder to define than the Council would have you believe. And, as you witnessed with Miss Astrid, not all of it is dangerous for Lunamorians. But it is an impossibly difficult task to persuade a set mind against self-serving beliefs.”
His words directly contradicted everything I had ever been taught, and that meant they were very likely treasonous.
I should have left his chambers that very moment.
I should have protected myself by refusing to associate with those whose opinions differed from the Council and my father, but instead I leaned forward, features crumpling under the weight of my desperation for the answers I sought.
“Lunamorians who venture beyond the wall are lost, but those who enter the fog risk more than their lives.” The words I’d heard for my whole life were bitter on my tongue as I recited them.
“If Grenythwood is not this dangerous, abominable place where you risk forfeiting your soul—why are we allowed to believe it is?”
“There are several reasons, the foremost being the Threshold,” Bjorn said.
He ran a hand over the sky blue of his robe, and I wondered if it had been difficult to set aside Soran hues in favor of Lunamor’s.
“Once you have crossed, you cannot return. If you do, in all likelihood, you’ll be rendered Vacant. ”
“In all likelihood? So there was a chance that Vicar could have returned with his memories intact?”
“In his case, there was no doubt as to the sacrifice he was making.” A palpable sadness lowered his already deep voice.
I looked to the round, painted window behind Bjorn. Our meeting’s end was looming, but there were still so many questions I wanted—needed—to ask. This was not the time to bother myself with the plight of the Umfrey family.
“Make no mistake, Princess,” Bjorn said, drawing my eye once more. “Grenythwood may not be teeming with soul-eating demons, but it is indeed home to more than the errant Scholar and herbalist. I would not call it a safe place. Not for any Lunamorian.”
“Is Vicar truly dead?” The words escaped me too quickly, forced out by Astrid’s small face swirling in my mind’s eye. The image of her, accompanied by a growing lump in my throat.
Bjorn bowed his head in confirmation.
“How did he die?”
From the window, a beam of sunlight sliced through the air, reflecting off one of Bjorn’s metal contraptions.
I clicked my tongue with a sigh. It was time for me to return to my chambers, or I would suffer the consequences of my recklessness.
The set expression on Bjorn’s face revealed he had no intention of telling me Vicar’s fate regardless.
“I must go,” I said, rising quickly. “If I’m late, this morning of all mornings…”
“Of course.” Bjorn stood, sidestepping his desk to escort me to the door of his chamber. His somber demeanor did little to diminish the buzz prickling my extremities.
“I have one more question.” I turned Bjorn’s way just as he grasped the handle. “I assume you read the note that Vicar left for Phinara.”
“That is not a question,” Bjorn stated as he stared down at me.
“He wrote, ‘Cross if necessary.’ Why do you think that is?”
Bjorn released the handle and drew his hands together. He surveyed his chambers briefly before those piercing, wide-set eyes returned to mine.
“I doubt we will ever know for certain what Master Umfrey experienced in Grenythwood, or why he would write such a thing. If I were to speculate, I would say he knew how dangerous it would be for his wife and daughter should the Council learn of their transgressions.” Neither of us voiced the obvious—that their transgressions were his transgressions as well.
“Perhaps he felt that whatever they might experience in Grenythwood would be… preferable, to what the king is capable of.”
I nodded, although I would need time to contemplate his words before grappling with the unease souring my stomach. With finality, I turned towards the door, not quite ready to leave the King’s Scholar’s chambers, but resigned to my duties.
I expected Bjorn’s outstretched hand to reach once more for the door’s handle, so when he instead ran his thumb over the moonstone of my cloak’s pin, I startled.
“This was your mother’s,” Bjorn said. It wasn’t a question.
“How did you—”
“The moonstone is fully transparent. Undeniably Soran, to anyone who knows better. Fortunately, most don’t.”
I looked down at the moonstone as though I were seeing it for the first time.
When illuminated, either by the sun, moons, or flame, the most striking blue glowed within the gem, a liquid-light spilling across its face.
It was set in two silver moons, their patterns delicate and complex.
A small chain extended from the bottom, where an intricate bird, also crafted from silver, lay with outstretched wings.
I leaned back, grasping the bird between my fingers and extending it to the opposite side of my cloak, pinning it closed. It was the only possession of my mother’s I’d ever found, and I had little interest in allowing anyone else to touch it.
“Do you know what species of bird that is?” Bjorn’s question was innocent enough, but it sliced through me.
I kept my gaze lowered, ignoring the pain that bubbled at the base of my throat. He reached out, gripping my shoulder with his large palm, and when I raised my eyes to his, I felt compelled to ignore the instinct to shove him away.
“It’s called a snowpetal. You’d never see one here, but they’re quite plentiful up the mountain.” His striking blue eyes twinkled in that Bjorn-like way, and I found the ire in my heart melting.
“A snowpetal,” I repeated, looking down at the puffy creature with its wings outstretched. They must be tough little birds to survive a Soran winter. It was a small kindness, for him to offer me that bit of knowledge, and I would not forget it. “Thank you, Scholar Bjorn.”
“You should keep it with you at all times.”
I hesitated there, still clasped by his large hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I say, dear Princess. And one more thing. Just as with Master Umfrey, there is no doubt in my mind. You, of all people, cannot cross the Threshold.” All traces of familiarity and softness, replaced with stone; he was certain, he was cold, and he was resolved.
When he leaned forward, sparks crackled in the hearth beside us.
“If you do, you will not return unmarred.”