Chapter Thirty-Seven
Six Weeks Earlier
It was All Hallows Eve—a time for dark things, some would say, but in the Kingdom of Aragoa, it was an excuse to wear a mask and pretend to be someone or something else for a night.
The King and Queen hosted a masquerade ball, and the whole Kingdom was invited.
The revel occupied every ballroom and banquet hall in the lower castle.
Nobles and people from the caverns bumped shoulders, stumbling and tossing back glasses of deep red wine, which was all the more disturbing when no one looked human—bodies adorned in elaborate dress, their heads donned to look like dark crows, emerald-eyed foxes, and all manner of creatures tusked and tailed, warted and whiskered.
There was a charge in the air, like the night was spelled for misfortune.
I could first sense it when the King and Queen took their customary dance to officially open the ball.
She in her mask of a white lioness, and he in the mask of a lion, meant to be a matching pair.
But the King stumbled through the dance, clearly drunk, not looking in the Queen’s face once.
It was embarrassing to watch, honestly. And when it was over, he left the masquerade quickly, apparently considering his duties fulfilled for the evening.
The Queen’s mood soured after that, and it hung over the revelry like a thundercloud as she sat seething on her throne. I actually empathized with her at the time.
After an hour or two, Cerise was terribly drunk as well, laughing hysterically in her tiger mask, dressed in an elegant navy suit and dancing with anyone she could grab hold of. I’d spent most of the evening watching over her, making sure she didn’t do something she would regret the next morning.
I wasn’t interested in drinking and dancing, not when the only person I wanted to dance with was taking his studies too seriously to participate. I wanted to be in the library with Kole, Waffles on my lap, book in hand, but instead I was at the masquerade, trying to avoid small talk.
“It’s getting late,” I told Cerise around midnight, when the party was becoming so raucous I was seriously concerned about getting back to our dormitories in one piece.
But Cerise’s eyes were glazed over as she watched a group of noble-born girls in pretty dresses laughing together.
In the center of their brood, a girl in a pure white dress stood like a queen holding court.
I didn’t recognize Princess Belladonna behind the white feathers of her swan mask, and neither did Cerise.
And then their eyes met. Even over the noise of the crowd, I could hear the hitch in Cerise’s breathing.
Without looking at me, she handed her wine to me and said, “It’s no use, mother dear. I cannot finish my weaving. You may blame Aphrodite, soft as she is.” She grinned devilishly at the swan-masked girl.
Knowing what I know now, I wish I could have warned her just how perilous it can be to fall in love with a Roquelart.
“You can’t quote poetry at me to get out of leaving,” I complained, following her as she stumbled toward the noble girls.
“I think I can—you love linguistics. Words are your weakness.” And then she waved me off, determined to go flirt as she stumbled into the crowd.
I sighed. I supposed I should stand guard while Cerise made a fool of herself. I found a step to sit on and pulled a book out of the pocket of my dress.
“You of all people would bring a book to a party,” drawled a voice over me.
My stomach clenched, and I looked up. Prince Roze stood over me, wearing the most elegant suit I’d ever seen—all black, gold stitching of roses and thorns winding up the lapels and the tie.
His face was covered in a mask like a stag with devilish prongs twisting up from his head, but I could still see the unmistakable sneer on his lips.
“Is my reading disturbing Your Highness’s evening?” I snapped.
“Why did you even come if you’re just going to sit in the corner and read—” He snatched up my book.
“Hey—”
“Tales of the Brothers Grimm,” he read. “My, your tastes are macabre, aren’t they?”
I glared at him. “Don’t you have anyone else to bother? I’m sure there’s some half-drunk nitwit duchess waiting for your attention.”
“Jealous, Sinclair?”
I snorted. “Give me back my book.” I made a grab for it, but he held it high over my head. “Are you five years old?”
“What will you give me for it?” he crooned.
“How about I resist the urge to strangle you?”
“So violent,” he said with a devilish smirk. “I like it.”
My cheeks burned. “Give. It. Back.”
“Beg.”
My blood lit on fire. This was so like him. Prick.
“Come now, Sinclair,” he taunted. “It can’t be that difficult to offer your Prince some deference. Just a little respect. That’s all I ask.”
I stepped close, my face an inch from his. I could feel his breath on my lips. “The day I beg you for anything is the day I die.”
He continued to smile at me. “Maybe I should beg. Would you like that, Sinclair? Me on my knees before you?”
Something hot and confusing shot through my body. I had to get away from him.
“Fine. Keep it,” I muttered, weaving as much disdain as possible into my words. “Maybe you’ll actually learn something.”
I heard him chuckle behind me as I stormed out of the ballroom. I stomped through several halls, just wanting space to take a breath. There were so many bodies around that the normally frigid castle was warm. I’d started to sweat through my dress. The lights and the sounds were overwhelming.
I walked until I’d calmed down, my pace slowing as I found empty halls.
I would check back in with Cerise in a few minutes—see if she was ready to leave, or if she’d found someone she’d rather go home with.
In the meantime, I studied the architecture and the paintings that adorned the walls.
Every room in this part of the castle was the definition of extravagance—wallpaper with embroidery so thick it stood inches off the walls, vases of hand-painted porcelain, murals painted by masters that stretched across every ceiling.
The whole castle was a work of art, and I found it far more interesting than the party anyway.
I wandered for longer than I realized, exploring the beauty of it.
Eventually, I opened a door to what I thought was another gallery and was surprised to find that it was a balcony, now closed in with glass, Mists pressing against the panes. I almost turned back when I heard voices. But then I stopped dead in my tracks.
One of the voices was unmistakable—Roze. I quietly crept behind a column.
“What could possibly be your reason for this?”
“That is not for you to question.” My brows rose. That was the voice of the Queen.
“She’s no one. What’s she done to you that you would ask this of me?”
“You are at my command—”
Roze sighed deeply. “I’m tired.”
“I don’t care how weary your drinking and lazing about in that ridiculous school makes you. You will follow my orders.”
“I—”
“That is my final word, Prince.”
Roze was silent. A moment later, the Queen’s figure came into view, and I shrank back into the shadows of the colonnade. She swept through the door leading back into the castle.
I peered around the edge of the column. Roze Roquelart’s back was to me, hunched over the balcony’s edge, hands gripped on the railing. His back heaved deeply, almost as though … he were crying.
It broke him to be his mother’s knife in the dark. I realize now that this was the moment she first commanded him to kill me, that the disobedience that would follow was what led to that infernal tattoo being magicked onto his arm.
He was so trapped, in this life of pain and isolation. Who wouldn’t become cruel in those circumstances? Who wouldn’t embrace the role of the sadistic murderer his mother wanted him to be, just to survive?
He turned and stepped away from the balcony, and I was so lost in thought that I didn’t react quickly enough. He lifted his head and spotted me among the shadows.
“You,” he growled, voice like pure venom. “Get out.”
“I—”
“Get out!” he roared.
I whirled toward the door and rushed back into the castle.
Roze and I had a rivalry, a mutual dislike of each other, but he’d always been cold, aloof.
Never had he spoken to me like that, with pure fury.
Even now, I’m unsure whether it was embarrassment that made him shout me away …
or if he was trying to protect me from himself.
I raced down a hallway, paying little attention to where I was going. Finally, I found a dark, desolate place. I slid to the floor against the wall and buried my head in my knees.
I tried to catch my breath.
But then a soft scraping noise sounded from the end of the hall.
I jerked my head up.
The hall was dark, but there was a figure at the end of it. A person—tall, swaying gently like a phantom. I remained frozen where I sat, unable to move as it came closer.
And then it came into the light—the King.
I supposed King Alexandre had once been handsome—his hair was still golden, his frame still tall and proud, adorned tonight in black finery. But his flaxen locks were disheveled and thin, his eyes red-rimmed with enormous dark circles sinking them into his head.
He was pacing the hall, his steps uneven and frantic. “Bones and blood, bones and blood. What else? What else?”
He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily for a moment, and then his eyes lifted.
He spotted me.
“What are you doing here?” he growled.
“I—I—” I stuttered. How did one address the King? I muddled through a curtsy, but it only made the King sneer at me. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” I said.
I started to leave the hallway.
“Stop,” he commanded.
I obeyed, but I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. The King was clearly drunk out of his mind, and there was nothing good that could come from an encounter with a man of power in a dark hallway.
“Sir?” I said, keeping my tone formal.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I blinked. “My name is Viola Sinclair.”
“Sinclair,” he hissed. His lips formed a tight line. There was anger in his face that I didn’t understand, like I’d offended him somehow. I’d never encountered him in my life, but now he was looking at me like he hated my very existence.
“Brown hair. Curly. Like your mother,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But your face is your father’s. Yes, I can see it—in the nose and cheeks—”
I stammered, confused. The woman I thought of as my mother had yellow hair. Certainly, neither of the people I thought were my parents knew the King.
But now I know that Alexandre was remembering his love, my father, a king with hair like night whose face I’d never known.
“Too long,” he murmured. “Damnable Mists … too long. And it’s my fault.”
“Sir?” I was no longer certain that he was even in his right mind.
“Too long … my people … my fault … too damned weak …”
“Should I go find someone?”
“No!” he barked, and wiped a hand over his mouth. “No.” He took a step forward. “You and I are fine … right here.”
Apprehension roiled in my gut. His breaths were so labored—he seemed on the verge of collapse.
“Listen to me carefully, girl. You can’t trust her.”
“Sir?”
“My wife,” he spat. His face was beet red, his eyes watering. Had he taken something? “My damn wife.”
I opened and then closed my mouth, having no clue how to respond.
“I know what you are,” he said, lowering his voice. “I know what you do. You—you can stop it.”
This is the moment I should have run.
I know now what he meant. He knew who I was the moment he heard my name, the moment he remembered in his addled state what he and León had hidden up their sleeves. A daughter. A dark meiga. A power equal to the Queen.
“Your Majesty, I don’t—”
He careened forward, an inexplicable look of fury on his face. The King grabbed the skirt of my dress, curled an arm around my waist, and slammed me into the wall.
“The darkness,” he cried. His eyes were pure fury, and I wasn’t even sure if he was actually seeing me or some hallucination. There had always been rumors that the King was half mad.
“Don’t you see, girl? It’s her! It’s her that’s doing this to me. She wants it all. The whole rotting Kingdom.” He was nearly crying. “I can’t stop—I’m not strong enough—” And then he dissolved into tears.
“Sir—” I said, trying my best to sound comforting, but still full of fear. My shadows already ached to be set free.
“YOU!” he shouted, snapping his attention back to me and slamming me back into the wall. He held my arms by my sides, shaking me, and I whimpered, tears of fear beginning to slip down my cheeks.
“The darkness,” he growled again. There was so much hatred in his eyes, but something else too. Grief. “You can stop it. You. You. Before she—” His face turned ashen gray as he stared at me, and his eyes—a thin sheen of white covered them.
“Beast of darkness. Death dressed as innocence. Set the darkness free.”
“Please stop,” I begged through tears. Shadows pushed from my fingers, curling around my hands.
“Stop holding back! You can stop this! You can save our Kingdom! You!”
Alexandre roared, throwing himself at me and shoving his fist against my windpipe. I choked. My vision spotted, and in moments, my lungs burned. I kicked my feet out uselessly against him, clawed at his arm with my nails. Nothing broke the adamantine grip he had on me.
Black started to blur the edges of my vision. He was killing me. I was going to die.
Alone. In a dark hall. At the hands of the mad King.
Unless …
As soon as the thought was born, my shadows took it as permission. As soon as the fear for my life took hold, they burst from me like a dark inferno.
I wasn’t even sure how far they reached, how much they filled that dark hallway.
Instantly, I was surrounded by night, and I fainted. When I woke, the King’s body was next to me, his silver eyes staring at me. And I knew that the killer in me wasn’t gone.