Chapter 9
Nine
Ivy
The previous time I entered the Capital Palace, I was racing at Stavros’s heels, no thought in my head except preventing an impending disaster. I’m not sure the enormity of that act sank in until this moment.
Where I’m perched on the broad stone wall that surrounds the palace, all of the front courtyard sprawls before me. Dark splatters and scorch marks discolor the polished cobblestones and squares of garden.
I can’t tell how many of the blotches are from the attack we intercepted weeks ago and how many are more recent. A sour, faintly rotten scent laces the cool winter breeze.
Definitely recent is the refuse scattered across the grounds.
A soiled velvet vest lies crumpled here, a torn silk gown there.
Broken chunks of marlwood and porcelain litter the terrain as if some looters had second thoughts after running out with one or another treasure and opted to destroy them instead.
I spot at least one brownish lump where a particularly ornery intruder relieved themselves on the palace’s front steps. Through the swelling horror, I wrinkle my nose.
I can almost hear Julita’s horrified voice. Really, have they no limits at all?
Do the looters not realize that even if they’ve decided this king was false, the point is to find a new ruler they’ll want to lead them? And that ruler will prefer to move into a palace that’s not shit-stained?
They’re not even finished. As I watch, concealed from view by the blessed charm Tinom provided me with that dangles from a fine chain around my neck, a few figures hustle out of the palace.
One is dressed like a noblewoman in an ornate embroidered gown, though her hair has fallen loose from its typical courtly style with only a few small curls still pinned up.
The two men behind her are well but more plainly dressed—merchants, perhaps.
They’re all carrying ill-gotten gains: the woman a bundle that could be clothing or wrapped jewelry, one man a box gilded with gold, the other a stack of fine plates.
My jaw clenches. People like them benefitted the most from the king’s rule, and now they’re picking apart his legacy like vultures descending on a carcass. And they see themselves as the height of society?
How could they so easily turn on the family they pledged their loyalty to?
The only good thing about the current situation is that someone has propped open one of the double doors.
Tinom’s charm, the same type he was wearing outside the Temple of the Crown the other night, keeps me from being seen as long as no one knows to look for me, but I can’t pass through walls.
If people start wondering why doors are swinging around apparently of their own accord, I’ll be in trouble.
When the latest looters have hurried out the gate and the courtyard is momentarily still, I slide down the wall and slink across the grounds, carefully dodging the worst of the mess.
The charm also only obscures smaller sounds.
If I bang into anything and someone looks over, they might spot me through the illusionary magic.
I pass the purpling body of a guard who was clearly not a daimon, partly obscured by a garden shrub. A twinge of sympathy prickles through my chest.
I might have feared the Crown’s Watch and their ilk, but that woman was only doing her job. She gave her life in an attempt to protect the king’s home, maybe even after she had reason to believe he’d no longer be returning.
As I slip through the door and creep down the main hall, I have to avoid more figures coming in and out of the rooms where they’re rummaging through what’s left of the furniture and snatching the art still remaining off the walls.
The noxious stink thickens. Whiffs like putrid meat reach my nose, along with the tang of urine and a rank note of body odor.
The source of the latter becomes clear in a matter of seconds. In several of the side rooms, the furnishings have remained mostly intact. Packs of men and women in questionable states of cleanliness sleep on the thick rugs or lean against the tables while they chatter in rough voices.
They wear a mix of clothing from cheap cotton to fancy silk, all of it smudged and stained. The fervor burning in many of their eyes reminds me of the Order of the Wild’s march.
These must be the scourge sorcerers and their allies, the followers Lothar has installed in the capital to maintain control.
My magic jitters against my ribs, pleading with me to let it wash away the wretched scents. To hurl all these intruders out through the windows in a hail of shattering glass.
I clamp down on it and hurry onward.
When a woman already carrying a set of gold candlesticks under her arm approaches one of the rooms filled with new inhabitants, a man snaps at her. “This spot belongs to the Order of the Wild for now. Grab what you want wherever else.”
She scurries off without argument. Whatever the locals have seen of the Order, they don’t appear keen to pick fights.
I weave through the halls, following Petra’s directions, leaping to the side when a couple of teens come racing out of one of the doorways just ahead of me. More blood stains the floors, but I don’t come across any more corpses until I pass a room wafting the worst stench yet.
That door has been shut. I pause and nudge it just a crack open, then recoil in revulsion with a defensive flare of my magic.
Decaying bodies, mostly guards and nobles from what I glimpsed of their clothing, sprawl in heaps beyond the doorway. The Order mustn’t have felt like bothering with trying to bury them yet in the hardened winter ground, so they simply dragged them out of the way.
Maybe they like the idea of the rotten scent winding through the palace, reminding everyone who ventures inside of the fate they could meet if they fall out of favor. As if the spirits of the murdered linger on to haunt this place through the stench.
Julita might have found that idea darkly amusing. As I dart up a staircase to the second floor, avoiding a soggy spot in the carpet, I find myself imagining the other arch remarks she’d have made, no doubt alongside an indignant huff.
The people would rather see the palace turned into a refuse heap than be ruled by the Melchioreks? Can they not think past the end of their noses?
Another lump rises in my throat. It’s easier not to think about the friend I lost, not to miss her constant presence in my mind—occasionally irritating, but so often rousing and encouraging—when I’m surrounded by other companions. When I’m on my own, the emptiness in my head yawns louder.
Julita never hesitated to stand up to the evils she saw brewing in Florian, even though she had a more direct reason to fear scourge sorcery than the rest of us. She sacrificed what remained of her life to save me from her brother.
She’d have been so horrified to see the wreckage the scourge sorcerers have already left in their wake despite our efforts.
Shoving the grief aside with a few hasty blinks, I turn a corner and pad down a narrower hall. Another left, then a right, and all the way at the end…
I stop in my tracks, my gut dropping. A bulky, square-jawed man in a guard uniform is standing outside the door Petra directed me to—the one that leads into the royal family’s private quarters.
He must be with the scourge sorcerers, or they wouldn’t have left him alive. I guess it makes sense that Lothar wouldn’t want anyone other than his sycophants rummaging through the most personal remains of the king he murdered.
Is the former magic advisor himself staying in those rooms? I shudder at the thought.
It doesn’t really matter if anyone is beyond that door if I can’t get past it myself, though.
I edge closer, setting my feet silently as I study the guard. Without Rheave’s daimon senses, I can’t tell for sure, but I suspect this fellow is one of his brethren in animated clay. There’s a sort of blankness to his expression that looks like more than human boredom.
I could simply stab him and hope he collapses back into fired clay. But then whoever assigned him to this spot would realize someone must have broken in.
What I really need is to draw him away from his post for long enough for me to slip inside.
I backtrack to the previous hall and glance around. No one else seems to be stationed nearby. He’ll probably come running at any nearby disturbance.
I step into one of the rooms where the door stands ajar. Most of the smaller objects have been looted, but a display cabinet stands by the wall, the glass panes of its windows cracked.
They’re about to face a lot worse than that.
Gritting my teeth, I grasp the side of the cabinet and heave. With a shove against the wall for extra leverage, I send it crashing to the ground.
And oh boy, does it crash. The frame thumps against the floor hard enough to echo, the glass shatters, and the wood splits open down the back.
I dash back into the hall and duck through a different doorway just before the guard bustles around the corner on stomping feet.
The moment he’s stormed into the other room, I bolt all the way to the door he was guarding, dipping my hand into my pocket. I pull out the ring Petra gave me with the Melchiorek crest and press it to the spot beneath the doorknob.
There’s no click of the lock, but the door opens at my nudge. Lothar’s people must have broken whatever magical protection it had on it.
As soon as I step inside, it’s clear someone’s been through these rooms. Rather aggressively, too.
Side tables lie overturned. Upholstery has been cut open. All of the paintings have been yanked from the walls, some propped against them, some tossed aside.
I skirt a broken plate and hurry deeper into the apartments, eager to get out of this place as quickly as possible. Stale air trickles into my lungs, containing a lingering trace of a floral perfume that perhaps Queen Ishild liked to wear.
What if Lothar managed to ferret out King Konram’s most secret hiding place? I might have risked venturing in here for nothing.
He might already know that Petra is the greatest threat to his Order’s authority.
Petra warned me not to take anything from her siblings’ rooms, as much as they might appreciate a few tokens from the lives that’ve been wrenched from them.
We don’t know to what extent the conspirators have catalogued the contents of these quarters to notice if something’s gone missing—or how easily they might be able to track those items.
Still, my gaze veers toward a sitting room I can tell was once Prince Jacos’s from the model ships perched in one of the cabinets.
I wish I could bring the royal teens a little something they might find comfort in.
They didn’t have a chance to carry anything with them from the palace in Regica but the clothes on their backs, which are stained and travel-worn now.
But really, what would they care about getting back other than their parents, which I can’t accomplish even with my fathomless magic?
So I push onward, through a larger sitting room with forest-green curtains and gold leaves rippling across the wallpaper and into a vast bedchamber that could contain the entire apartment Tinom arranged for us.
A four-poster bed stands in the middle of the space, more forest-green fabric draped around it. A deep gouge has been cut in the mattress, feathers spilling out of it onto the floor.
Lothar knew there might be something hidden in here.
The wardrobe doors and dresser drawers hang open, various kingly outfits of velvet, silk, and wool scattered around them. The mirror on the wardrobe is cracked, as is the porcelain wash basin nearby.
None of that matters as long as the one item I came for has gone undisturbed.
I crouch down and squirm under the bed. Dust tickles my nose, and I rub my face to prevent a sneeze.
Then I take out Petra’s ring and slide its face across the floor.
The boards beneath my flattened body feel perfectly smooth. There’s no reason for anyone to suspect a secret cache lies beneath them. But toward the headboard on the lefthand side, right where Petra told me to look, a gleam lights up on a circular spot that matches the ring’s crest.
I press the ring to that etching, and a small wooden hatch lifts to reveal a square of thicker darkness.
Normally I’d hesitate to shove my hand into a magically hidden space with contents unknown. Today, I’m trusting that Petra wouldn’t send me into a trap.
The opening is only about twice as wide as my arm. I reach in and fumble through the empty recess beneath.
Well, it’s not entirely empty. Though the first object my fingers encounter isn’t a letter but dry leather. What feels like a book.
Interesting. I might as well bring that back too, because I doubt King Konram would have hidden it here unless it was important.
I wriggle the book out and tuck it into the largest pocket on my skirts. Then I grope around in the secret cache again.
There. My hand closes around a piece of folded parchment.
I pull it out and squint at it for just long enough to confirm it’s got the blood-sworn sigil sealing it. Tucking that away too, I push the hatch shut.
In an instant, the floor looks as seamless as ever. King Konram outsmarted Lothar in at least one way.
The guard has no doubt returned to the door that leads into this part of the palace, but that’s all right. I’ve already identified my escape route.
I lope back into the sitting room and ease aside the heavy curtains. The pane is shut to keep out the winter chill, but it’s designed to open in the summer.
I peer down onto the grounds below, at the back of the palace with a pleasant view of the larger gardens and the hunting forest beyond. When I’m sure no one’s wandering around down there at the moment, I pull the window open, clamber out onto the ledge, and slide it shut in my wake.
It’s a longer drop than I’d prefer to jump given the choice, but I’ve done worse. Ignoring the niggling of my magic offering its help, I brace myself, skid partway down the stone side of the palace, and launch myself into a roll that diffuses the worst of the impact.
Then I’m off and running to deliver the key to our true queen’s succession into her hands.