Chapter 45 Odessa
Forty-Five
Odessa
My butt was going numb thanks to the hard, cold floor in the crux art gallery. I’d been sitting against the wall for hours, tucked beside a stone pillar with a bronze crux sculpture on top.
Luella’s journal was open on my lap. My sketchbook was tucked beside my knee.
Father loathed my obsession with this gallery, and that seemed reason enough for me to spend more time here before we left Quentis.
There were a thousand places to read in this castle and all colossally more comfortable than this floor. But those places all had people. And after the meeting with Father in his study this morning, I simply wanted to be alone.
This empty, quiet hall gave me room to think. To lick my wounds in solitude. To read and reread this journal, cover to cover, from the story of the poisoned woman, to the man with a lionwick claw, to a warrior with white hair shedding her armor in a desert.
They were lovely, vivid stories that made absolutely no sense.
I closed the journal on a sigh, trading it for my sketchbook.
Before I forgot the details of her face, I wanted to draw Freya.
I wanted to capture her as she’d been before that awful day in the skeleton forest. As I flipped through the book for an empty page to give my horse, I paused on a drawing I’d done of Ransom.
He leaned against the railing of his treehouse in Treow, staring up at the shades and stars. His profile was an artist’s dream, strong and balanced with sharp, clean lines. But there was an exhaustion to his features, a hollowness to his cheeks. I’d shaded dark circles beneath his eyes.
I’d drawn him exactly the way he’d looked that night after the tarkin attack in Treow.
The night after the High Priest had siphoned some of the Lyssa from Ransom’s blood in the encampment’s infirmary to lessen the effects of the infection. To keep it from taking my husband’s life.
Ransom wouldn’t break a guard’s arm unless he was defending himself. I didn’t care what Father said. He was wrong. The guard must have attacked Ransom first. But the leash on his temper was getting shorter. The Lyssa was taking control.
I traced the scar on my palm.
We needed the High Priest.
I flipped to the next page. It was a sketch of Faze not long after we rescued him from death. He was curled on my pillow, so tiny and new.
This book was nearly full with sketches of Treow and monsters. Of ships and mountains. Of friends, like Tillia and Samuel Hay, who we’d left behind. Of Luella, lost to the shades.
Maybe someday Ransom would want a drawing of his mother. He didn’t talk about her, but when he was ready, I’d listen.
Each page was decorated with ornaments and patterns at their edges. They were seemingly random swirls and lines. But if they were aligned with the others, arranged in exactly the right way, it would show a map of Turah.
An incomplete map. The road to Allesaria was missing.
It wouldn’t take much to finish. All I’d have to do was spread these pages across this cold, hard floor and add a series of lines leading to the Axmar Mountains.
I took the sketch of Faze from the book. But rather than lay it on the floor, I tore off the edges until all that remained was a drawing of a baby tarkin. Then I crumpled the torn strips into a ball, destined for the first fireplace I found.
Before I could move on to the next page, the sound of footsteps pulled my attention to the entrance as Margot walked into the gallery.
She grimaced as she took in the nearest painting, then turned her back to the artwork. Her gaze skated over me on the floor, then snapped back so fast it had to have hurt her neck. “Odessa?”
I gave her a finger wave and closed my sketchbook. “Hi.”
“What are you doing in here and on the floor?”
“Reading.” I didn’t bother getting up. Moving meant she would win by scaring me out of my hiding place.
And my mantra from yesterday was still firmly locked in place.
Margot wasn’t going to win.
She took in my unbound curls and pants and scuffed boots. Her frown of disapproval was as familiar as the back of my hand. “You’ve changed.”
“No, I haven’t. This is who I’ve always been. You just didn’t want to see me.”
Margot pondered that for a moment. Then the disapproval vanished and her eyes softened. She almost looked proud. Almost. “You have changed. It’s his influence.”
“Yes, it is. He makes me better. Stronger. Braver. Happier. He doesn’t ask me to blend into the walls or change the color of my hair. He sees me for me.” Something she never did.
I expected a pointed, exasperated retort. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her waist and studied the floor.
When she finally looked up, there was an apology on her face. Maybe someday, she’d speak it, too.
Margot spun in a slow circle. “I hate it in here.”
“Then why are you here?”
“These paintings serve their purpose. They’re a reminder of what is to come.
” She walked closer and reached for the statue on top of the pillar at my side, stroking the crux’s metal beak.
“My father was a sailor who drowned in the Krisenth when I was young. His ship went down in a storm. My mother raised me on her own after he died.”
I sat straighter, glued to her every word. Never, in twenty-three years, had Margot spoken of her family.
“Mother took a job in the castle as a washerwoman to afford our life. She insisted I go to school so that I’d have better prospects to marry a wealthy man.
She worked long hours, which meant I spent long hours alone.
Our little home was my palace. I learned to clean.
To cook. To order around my imaginary friends.
When the migration came, we were assigned to share a chamber with a family of five.
One of the children, a little boy, took sick two weeks into the migration.
The healers came and locked our door, not wanting his illness to spread through the rest of the tunnels. ”
I’d heard a story like this before. Luella’s story, of how her family had taken ill while they were in a shelter during the last migration. How they’d all died before it was over.
It was the reason she’d created the elixir. So that her children would be strong enough to survive.
“When I got sick, I begged Mother to take me home,” Margot said.
“I wanted to be back in our house, in my own castle, where I could die in peace. I was fourteen. I knew I wouldn’t survive in that chamber.
Mother pounded on the door until her fists bled.
The healers let us out with the understanding that we wouldn’t stay.
And so she led me from the castle and into the open. ”
Margot took hold of the statue’s wing tip, her knuckles turning white like she was trying to break it apart.
“I’ve never heard a quiet like the one that greeted us when we left the castle.
The streets were filled with rubble and wreckage.
Every other house was destroyed. They said Quentis received the brunt of the migration that year, but as we walked, the skies were clear.
And by some miracle, our house was standing. ”
“Did they come back? The crux?”
“No.” She released her grip on the statue. “We walked in the door and startled a looter. He hit my mother so hard, she never woke up.”
I gasped, my hand coming to my heart.
She dabbed at the corner of her eye, then smoothed her skirts, lengthening her spine and raising her chin. “The migration brings out the worst in people. It’s an unfortunate reality of what we’re about to face.”
“Father says he can stop it.”
“Only if you can convince your husband to show him the way into Allesaria.”
The ball of crumpled paper felt like a lead weight in my hand. “Ransom is bound by a blood oath.”
She swept a hand toward the artwork. “Then I guess we’re doomed.”
Not if Father shared his secrets. I kept that to myself, because she might know his plans, but Margot would never betray Father.
“I’m so sorry about your mother,” I said.
“I took her place in the castle’s washroom. Did you know that? The sickness passed, and once the migration was over, I went to work in her stead until I was promoted to a lady’s maid.”
“And now you’re a queen.”
“Lucky me.” Sarcasm dripped from her tone. “Married to a man in love with a ghost.”
I’d heard ladies at parties whisper the same, but this was the first time my stepmother had admitted it to me. “Why won’t he tell me about my mother?”
Margot hesitated long enough I was sure she’d leave.
But then she lowered her voice and gave me a sad smile.
“When she died, she took a piece of his soul to the shades. He does what he must to simply keep living when his heart is no longer in this realm. It’s not meant to hurt you.
It’s because he hurts so much. You are a reminder of what he’s lost.”
I dropped my gaze to my lap. “Is that why you had a maid leave hair dye in my bathing chamber?”
She shrugged. “You have her hair.”
I wasn’t going to dye my hair again, but I wasn’t as angry at Margot as I had been earlier. “Okay.”
Her gaze swept around the room once more, her mouth flattening. “There are more suitable places to read in this castle. Why don’t you try the library?”
There were people in the library.
Before I could reply, footsteps came from the hall. “Sorry I’m late, darling.”
Margot tensed, and fear filled her blue eyes. The skirts of her dress made it impossible for me to see who’d come into the gallery, but that was not my father’s voice.
She backed away from the pillar, clearing her throat. “General Hawksley.”
His eyebrows came together, and then he spotted me on the floor. He schooled his expression instantly and bowed. “Majesty. I apologize. I thought you were someone else.”
Someone else who wore a crown in her blond hair? Sure.
Now it made sense why Margot would come to a gallery she hated. She, like me, needed a place to be alone.
Hawksley wasn’t a king. He wasn’t nearly as striking as Father, but he was handsome with a rugged edge. I could see why Margot might find him attractive. I could see why she’d risk this gallery for the chance to be alone with a man who called her “darling.”
My father certainly didn’t.
“Princess. Please forgive my intrusion.” Hawksley bowed again, then, without a glance to Margot, left the gallery.
I collected my books and stood, shaking out the numbness in my legs.
“Odessa.” She held out a hand, stopping me before I could leave. “I…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.”
Margot let her arm fall to her side. “Thank you.”
“The secrets in this family will be our undoing.”
She met my gaze. “Or our salvation.”