Chapter 9
9
Oriana was visiting Lara when I brought her breakfast the next morning. I deposited the tray on a table and curtsied, but when I started to leave, Oriana stopped me. “Stay. I’m almost done.” She frowned at Lara. “As I was saying, I’m disappointed in your comportment yesterday. You should have remained for the entire event.”
“They were only going to insult me more,” Lara said sullenly.
“You must be hard as stone. Treat their insults with the disinterest they deserve.”
Lara sipped from her mug of tea, casting me a glance. I could tell she was embarrassed that I was witnessing this scolding.
“Do better, and don’t forget that your actions reflect on all of us. I will not allow you to humiliate Earth House.” Oriana swept out of the room, and the door clicked shut behind her.
Lara’s posture sagged, and she stared blankly at the far wall.
I moved the breakfast tray closer to her. “Here. Eat this while I choose an outfit.”
She obeyed, eating slowly as if rote actions were all she could manage. I felt a wave of pity. She must feel like a constant disappointment to Oriana.
“What events are you attending today?” Maybe I could distract her.
“A party,” she said distantly. “And then a formal dinner.”
Two outfits to plan. Two hairstyles. I didn’t know if I could manage it, but I would try my best.
I selected a chestnut-brown dress for the party that fit tightly in the sleeves and bodice but flared out into voluminous folds. The hem and neckline were lined with sapphires and emeralds, and the wrists were draped with delicate blond lace.
Lara let me dress her in silence. I ushered her into the bathing room, where I fiddled with cosmetics until I found a combination that might look good with the dress. She held still as I applied sweeping brown-and-gold eye shadow and pink lipstick. It didn’t look as good as what she had done yesterday, but it would do.
Anya would laugh uproariously if she could see me now, I thought as I brushed Lara’s hair. She had been the one interested in beautiful things. She would have been rolling on the ground with hilarity as she watched me trying so hard to fit in to this opulent world.
I blinked back tears, then realized Lara was watching me in the mirror. “Forgive me.”
“Tell me,” she commanded.
Her hair reminded me of Anya’s. Not the color—Anya’s had been golden brown—but the length, wave, and shine were similar. I brushed Lara’s hair gently, wishing with all my heart that Anya were here with me. “My best friend died. When we ran across the bog.”
Lara’s expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
A tear rolled down my cheek at the simple kindness, but I dashed it away. “I can’t help thinking about her. She would have been much better at all of this than I am.” I waved the brush to encompass the clothes, the makeup, everything.
Lara was silent as I started on the hairstyle. Today I’d do three simple braids that met at the back of her head with the rest hanging loose.
“My older brother is dead,” Lara finally said. She raised a hand to cut off my sympathy. “I never knew him. He was the son of Oriana’s first consort, and he was…He died the year before I was born. But he had already passed the trials. He was meant to be the next prince of Earth House, if Oriana were ever to relinquish the position. He would have been much better at all of this, too.” She laughed bitterly. “Even Selwyn would have been a better choice for the heir, but he’s only sixteen and I’m twenty-three, so it falls to me.”
I braided her hair carefully, grateful for the gesture of trust. “So we are both ill-suited for our positions.” When she didn’t respond, even to snap at me, I smiled at her in the mirror. “That’s why they’ll never expect it when we succeed.”
After a few moments, Lara smiled hesitantly back.
The party was held at Fire House. I pretended not to know where we were going as Lara and I ascended the spiraling ramp. As had happened at Light House, we stopped short of the fiery hall itself, instead turning into one of the rooms near the top of the ramp.
The walls were lined with iridescent velvet that shifted from crimson to gold depending on one’s position in the room, and the ceiling had been painted to resemble billows of smoke. Faeries stood around small tables, sipping flaming beverages and nibbling at small plates of food.
Aidan cast me a quick grin as I squeezed in next to him at the wall. “Welcome to Fire House.”
“It’s beautiful.” The aesthetic was simple and elegant, the main decoration provided by those mysteriously shifting walls. Flames danced in an enormous fireplace at the back of the room. “So what is this event?”
The sprite rolled his eyes. “Same as the others. They talk, they eat, they insult each other in various witty ways.”
I stifled a laugh. “You seem disenchanted.”
“Let’s just say I miss the days when I didn’t need to attend these gatherings.”
I studied his master, the sole candidate from Fire House. Edric was slim and charismatic, with dark skin and a cloud of inky hair. Rubies glittered on his fingers as he illustrated some point to the admiring ladies gathered around him. His crimson tunic reached to his polished black boots, and firelight played across more rubies sewn into the garment.
“Is Edric ready for the trials?” I asked.
Aidan looked at me with affront. “Of course. He’s brave. He’ll do well.”
I bit my lip, wishing the same could be said of Lara. “Is the first trial the Fire trial?”
“I don’t know.” Aidan glanced back at Edric. “I assume not, since he hasn’t mentioned anything to me.”
We watched and listened as the Noble Fae glided around the room, greeting one another with false smiles. Three of the candidates gathered nearby, and I could tell by their gowns that they hailed from Void, Illusion, and Light.
“Which virtue do you think you’ll do best at, Karissa?” the Light candidate, a willowy brunette, asked.
“Hedonism, of course.” The Illusion candidate dimpled. Karissa’s red hair was darker than the male Illusion candidate, Markas’s—his was coppery, but hers gleamed the same crimson as the walls. “And of course you will excel at cunning, Gytha.”
Gytha laughed. “Of course. Also at hedonism, I dare say.” She smiled poisonously at the Void candidate. “I’m not really sure what your strengths are, Una.”
Una smiled back coolly. Her black hair was braided in a thick plait to her waist, her dress bore no ornamentation, and she hadn’t bothered to apply any cosmetics—not that her sharply beautiful features or glowing russet-brown skin required augmentation. “Yes, I prefer not to be so obvious,” she said with delicate emphasis, casting a dismissive glance over Gytha’s overwrought ivory gown.
I suppressed a snicker.
Gytha and Karissa left after that, arms linked and heads bent together as they shared what I presumed was some piece of malicious gossip. With no one else to talk to, Una drifted around the room. She stopped beside the Void prince and the long-haired faerie I’d overheard him speaking with last night. She didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest by them.
“Who are they?” I asked Aidan, nodding at the midnight-hued trio.
“You really don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“That’s Prince Hector, Lord Kallen, and Lady Una of Void House. They’re siblings—Hector is the eldest, Kallen the second, and Una the youngest and a half-sibling.” He paused, then lowered his voice even further. “They had other siblings a long time ago, but they were all killed during the rebellion.”
The rebellion five hundred years ago, the one that had been the end of Blood House. I matched his whispering tone. “Did Hector and Kallen…participate?”
Aidan shook his head. “They were born after the rebellion. Their father, the previous Void prince, was spared after he bent the knee. Hector has no children, so Kallen is his heir.”
“Hector seems close to the king,” I observed, remembering how he’d been standing to Osric’s left when I’d first arrived. Now that I recognized house colors, I realized his opal brooch was a tribute to Illusion House and the king.
Aidan cast me an odd glance. “You must be thinking of Kallen. The long-haired one is Prince Hector. He rarely visits court. I’m actually surprised to see him today.”
I looked back at the trio, reassessing my earlier judgment. The long-haired, fierce-looking brother was Prince Hector? He must be exceptionally powerful, considering how terrifying his younger brother was. Kallen had brutally murdered someone in front of hundreds of Noble Fae without changing expression; what was his older brother capable of?
As if sensing my stare, Kallen looked at me.
I dropped my eyes immediately.
“Careful,” Aidan whispered. “They call Kallen the King’s Vengeance. He spies and kills for the king, and they say nothing goes on in Mistei that he doesn’t know about. Some servants say you shouldn’t even think about him or he’ll know it and appear out of thin air.”
I shivered, thinking of how he had stared into the blackened chamber I’d been hiding in. “That seems unlikely. Right?”
Aidan chuckled. “They aren’t gods, you know.”
Diverted by the talk of gods, I realized I knew little about Fae religion. In Tumbledown, we’d worshipped faint, inaccurate memories of the Fae—the echoes of something that now, laid bare to my sight, I knew hadn’t been worthy of worship at all. “Do the Fae worship any gods?” I asked, wondering what these vain, violent, terrifying creatures would hold sacred.
“No. We worship the magic itself,” Aidan said. “More specifically, we worship the six Sacred Shards it originally came from. You’ll see the Shards depicted in artwork throughout Mistei—they’re rumored to have fallen from the sky long ago.”
I hadn’t noticed yet, but I would look for it. “Six Shards, six trials, six virtues.” Six years between sacrifices of innocent human victims, too. “What are the virtues?” I asked past the flare of anger at the thought of the solstice ritual.
“Courage, discipline, cunning, strength, hedonism, and magic.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Hedonism doesn’t sound like a virtue.”
“To the Fae it is.” His eyes flickered like embers. “Don’t tell me humans have forgotten how much we revel in trickery and pleasure.”
How exactly did they plan to test hedonism, and did I have to watch? “Our village Elder chose to omit the part about pleasure.”
“The human world sounds dull.”
I considered the gorgeous room before me full of duplicitous, dangerous faeries. “I suppose it is.” It certainly seemed that way now—a place of poverty and small-minded people. Then I thought of the glorious pink wash of sunrise over the bog, the open sky, and the scent of growing things. The wonder I’d felt after finding unknown relics. The simple pleasure of spending an afternoon with a friend.
I couldn’t tell him I wanted to go back. That would show weakness. So I thought of Lara and pasted a bored look on my face.
“It won’t work, you know,” Aidan said.
“What won’t?”
“Trying to pretend you don’t miss it.” His dark irises were now almost entirely overcome with flame, and his face shone with crafty intelligence rather than his usual geniality.
“Why is that?”
He grinned, and the intensity immediately drained out of him. “Sprites have a small gift, but a very useful one. We can sense secret desires.” His gaze returned to Edric, and I wondered what he’d learned about his master over the last few months.
“What do you do with that information?” Could he sense my plan to escape? Or did he simply know that I missed the human world?
“Whatever we like. Mischief, for some. Making bargains. Or simply using the information to better know the people we’re close to.”
“What do you specifically use it for?” I was growing tired of faerie evasion.
He chuckled. “I like you. You don’t talk around things. You ask what you want to know.”
“And do you answer?”
His smile was so bright it eased some of my wariness. “I don’t use it for anything. I just like to know people. Although if I were to sense something dangerous to Fire House, that would be a different matter.”
My secret desires had nothing to do with Fire House, so I felt safe there. I returned my attention to the party, watching Lara fake a smile at something Gytha was saying. The other Light candidate, Garrick, watched their interplay with a sneer on his face, then interjected with some cruel witticism that made Gytha laugh and Lara flush.
“You faeries certainly make it hard to trust,” I told Aidan.
“Good,” he said. “It’s dangerous to trust down here. Protect yourself and those closest to you and stay wary.”
I felt like I’d seen three different Aidans in only two days. The cheerful servant, the tricky sprite, and the cynical voice of caution. What was I to make of this odd Underfae? “You seem…complicated.”
His snort was loud enough to attract the notice of nearby nobles. He looked down instantly, suppressing his chuckles, although his shoulders still shook.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. You’re very straightforward by Fae standards. It’s a rare trait.”
I was getting accustomed to faerie insults. “You mean I’m simple.”
“Oh no, not at all. You’re complicated in a different way.” Those fiery eyes met mine again. “It should make the next few months interesting.”
Edric snapped his beringed fingers, and Aidan sprang to attention. “One more thing,” he whispered. “The first test is Void. The trait is courage. And knowing them, it’ll be conducted in complete darkness.”
He winked at my shocked expression and walked away.
I was desperate to ask Aidan more about the first trial, but the party concluded soon after that, and Lara and I made our way back to Earth House.
“Well?” she asked as we entered the water tunnel. A kaleidoscope of fish darted around us. “Did you learn anything from the other servants?”
“I did, actually.” I had no idea why Aidan had changed his mind and told me about the first trial, but he had. Because he liked me? Because it amused him? “The first test is Void and courage. It will likely happen in complete darkness.” I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard yesterday between Prince Hector and the deadly Lord Kallen. If Void’s test was first…“I heard something about a labyrinth, too, but I’m not sure if that’s related or not.”
“Oh, Shards,” Lara said. The faerie equivalent of a curse? “It probably is.”
Rather than heading to her room, she stopped at a different door carved to depict a pine forest and a cascading waterfall. She knocked, then beckoned for me to follow her inside.
This room was even larger than Lara’s, and for a moment it didn’t seem like a room at all. Living trees lined every wall, their branches twining together to form a verdant ceiling that mirrored the lush grass underfoot. The furniture—a variety of sturdy oak desks, dressers, and velvet-upholstered chairs—seemed oddly out of place, as if the pieces had been dropped into a forest clearing by a whimsical hand. A behemoth of a green-curtained bed loomed from behind a folding screen.
Oriana sat at her desk, writing. She looked up as Lara entered. “Did the party go well?” she asked.
Lara sat on a deep-cushioned couch. “It did. Gytha and Garrick are vipers, but you already knew that.”
“Did you react?”
“No, I was perfectly stoic. Kenna heard some interesting gossip, though.”
Oriana’s gaze flicked to me, and I curtsied. “I heard that the first trial will be Void and courage, and that the test will likely be in total darkness.”
“And?” Lara prompted.
“A separate conversation I overheard mentioned a labyrinth.”
Oriana’s indrawn breath was audible. “Of course,” she muttered, discarding her quill pen and turning to face us fully. “Void House has always delighted in extremes.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. I glanced at Lara, but her attention was fixed on her mother. “If it’s the Labyrinth of Chaos, I don’t know much about it. Only that it’s pitch black and supposedly impossible to escape.”
“It can’t be impossible or no one would ever have passed the test. Assuming this is the same test they’ve done in previous years, of course. I don’t know.”
Because her memory had been magically erased. I supposed it made sense—if the trials happened every decade or so and the Fae lived forever, they would quickly run out of new tests.
“The Labyrinth of Chaos is a legend,” Oriana explained. “No living faerie outside of Void House has ever been inside it, at least that we can remember. It’s where they once executed their prisoners. They would release them at the edge of the labyrinth with no light or supplies and tell them to find their way out.”
Lara leaned forward. “That doesn’t sound impossible. Some of them must have survived.”
“Perhaps. There are two things that make the labyrinth so difficult, though. One of them is Void’s love of chaos. The labyrinth isn’t orderly. There are no patterns. Every path you take will be different—a different angle, a different width, a different length or slope. From above, it would probably look like nothing but abstract scribbling. It will be hard to remember where you’ve come from.”
Lara grimaced. “What’s the second thing?”
“There are monsters in the labyrinth. Flesh-eating Nasties. The only way to escape is to find the exit before the Nasties find you.”
Silence fell over the room.
“Oh,” Lara finally said.
Oh, indeed.