19. Rosalina
Rosalina
There are details in Sira’s dining room I’ve never noticed before. During the haze of my thralldom, my focus so intent on the Prince of Thorns, everything around me became a blur.
Now, sitting at Sira’s long table in the Tower of Nether Reach, I take in every detail, just as I did on the journey here. It was a half-hour trip from Cryptgarden, pulled in a carriage by a pack of grinjaws, the hyena-like canines that serve the goblins.
I never opened the curtains in the carriage before.
But this time, I did. The scenery was mostly gray rock, sometimes enclosing us in vast, jagged tunnels, other times giving way to sheer cliffs with nothing but darkness yawning below.
Now and then, we’d drive past glowing mineral veins in the rock that would light the entire carriage up, fractured rays scattering across the velvet seats, as if we’d driven straight through a kaleidoscope.
I pressed my face against the cool glass as a forest of tall crystals glittered outside, a reminder that even in the dark, light persists. A light I’ll find in the Prince of Thorns again.
When I tried to show Heidigog the glowing trees, all she did was shrug. She’s seemed so sad lately. Here in the dining hall, I swivel to look at her standing behind me in deference. There’s a weight to her shoulders. That hasn’t always been there, has it?
I look around. The dining hall is cavernous, its vaulted ceiling lost in shadow, the obsidian walls flickering with a pale glow from the mounted lanterns.
We sit at a long table made of bloodred wood, a bowl of soup before each of us.
Velvet chairs enough for an entire party line each side, but there’s only me and her.
Sitting at the head is Sira, Queen of the Below.
It’s really not fair that someone so terrible is so damned beautiful.
Her high cheekbones are as sculpted as blades, her hair a midnight black.
It’s as straight and silky as a shampoo commercial, the kind of hair I was so jealous of as a teenager.
A crown of blackened silver spikes rests upon her brow.
Even her gown, a gunmetal gray threaded with green, seems alive, shifting with the smallest flickers of light.
She doesn’t smile, and I’m glad of it. Somehow, she seems more sinister when she smiles.
Unable to stand her stare anymore, I ask, “Where is the Prince of Thorns?” I glance to the empty seat beside me where Caspian usually sits. We are often summoned to meals with Sira, but this is the first one where he hasn’t been in the carriage with me or met me at the entrance to Nether Reach.
Sira doesn’t respond for so long, I wonder if I’ve turned invisible. Then she cricks her neck, and her gaze refocuses on me with slightly less intensity. “My son’s duties are taking him far longer than usual. He’ll join us shortly.”
I nod and place my hands in my lap. This might be for the best. Since seeing Dayton, I’ve kept my thoughts my own, but the closer I am to Caspian, the harder it is. There are still traces of that bargain in me that want to fall back into my devotion to him.
This meal, with my mind so clear, could be the perfect opportunity to learn some things about Sira, as long as I can manage it while pretending to be Caspian’s thrall. It’s the state in which she finds me the most appealing.
At least Caspian hasn’t given Sira the rose yet. He keeps it tucked tight in his cloak. Why hasn’t he handed it over? Sira must not know he has it.
“Are you going to stare at your food all night or eat, girl?” she says, leaning on one of her armrests.
I nod and turn my attention back to the soup in front of me: a bland gray thing with a swirl of white in the middle. I have no idea what it is, only that it’s tasteless. Maybe I should be grateful for that. I shudder to think of what Sira’s favorite food is.
Dutifully, I sip my soup. It’s cold.
When I finish, I look up at Sira with my best thralldom gaze.
Sira motions for her goblin servant to clear our dishes. Heidigog grabs mine and takes it to the kitchen. Another goblin places a platter of charred eel and blood-drenched marrow before Sira. Beside it, a goblet of obsidian nectar swirls. My stomach roils.
“Oh, don’t look so disgusted,” Sira sneers. “I had something special prepared for you.” She snaps her fingers at Heidi. “You, goblin. There’s a special plate for my son’s pet in the kitchen. Atop the marble platter. You’ll know it.”
Her words are not comforting, but when Heidigog places the platter down in front of me and lifts the lid, all I can do is gasp.
It’s a whole pizza, glistening with bright red tomato sauce and bubbling white cheese. I’ve never seen anything like this in the Vale.
“This is what you ate in the human realm,” Sira asks as she leans forward on her elbows, smiling, “isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say. I’m confident she won’t poison me; I’m much too useful to her alive. But something wrong twists in my gut.
“Go on,” Sira urges. “Try it.”
I glance to Heidigog, whose yellow eyes narrow. She gazes down at the pizza like a human might look at a cockroach. As tasty as it looks, I don’t want to eat it. But Caspian’s thrall wouldn’t say no to Sira, so I can’t either.
I grab a slice. It’s cold, despite the steam rising from it. The crust is slippery…
But with Sira’s ever-watching eyes following my every movement, it’s all I can do to bring it to my lips. I bite down, and the pizza dissolves into inky black shadows.
I cough and sputter on the smoke. Heidi gives a great gasp, whirling her short arms and knocking the tray lid to the ground with a clatter.
The pizza on the plate dissipates into a cluster of shadows. Illusions. Like the fake vial she created within Mount Rhuvenmark to deceive Caspian.
“Oh, you have the same expression as your mother when she’s been fooled.
” Sira bursts into a laugh, whether in genuine amusement or simple cruelty, I can’t decide.
“You know, in the Above, Aurelia and I used to play these little games on each other all the time. She once tricked me into eating a delectable moonberry pie, but it tasted of mud. Then I covered the soles of her feet with thistlebind. She stuck to everything for a week.” Sira lets out another string of laughter.
Were my mother and Sira once friends? I couldn’t imagine playing those kinds of pranks on someone I cared about.
Sira’s laughter fades, and she taps her chin. “Aurelia always thought herself so clever. I got the best of her in the end though.”
My hands clench into fists beneath the table; she’s speaking of the bargain she used to trap my mother. Perhaps if I can get her to speak more of it, I’ll find a loophole. Fae bargains are all about their wording. “The Prince of Thorns told me your magic far exceeds even the queen’s.”
He never said that, but she’s vain enough to believe it. A smile spreads across her face. “Of course it does. It’s the reason your mother came to me, to learn a power only I understood.”
“To save my father’s life,” I say.
“To bind one’s life to another.” Sira stands, gaze faraway. “Everything in our world is woven together by life and spirit. You need to pull back the veil from your mind to see the threads.”
“Can the Prince of Thorns do this?” I ask. What I want to know is how she did it. The more I learn of her powers, the more we can undo her.
“Perhaps, but he is a child of the Below,” she says. “The fae of the Above have an easier time of spotting what would stay hidden. We can see the spirit of things as you see mist rise from a lake in the morn. But the light on land makes it harder to see.”
A part of me understands what she means.
I’ve seen the souls of fae when I reached across the oceans to connect to the sirens and when I turned the Deep Guard to snowy owls.
I saw the threads that make up Astrid when I tried to turn her back from hare to fae.
But I’ve never tried to see the spirit of other living things in the Vale: the trees, the flowers, the grass. Or Castletree itself.
I itch to try it, but with Caspian’s bargain holding my magic at bay, it’s nothing but a prickling beneath my skin.
“We’ll see how Castletree holds up once we take the surface,” Sira continues. “Perhaps if you keep being so good, we’ll let it stand. It’ll need redecorating, of course, and the Queen’s Tower needs to go. The only magic left in the Vale will be mine and my son’s.”
My stomach twists, and I try to control my breathing. The thought of Sira touching Castletree sickens me. I feel vulnerable without the comfort of my magic simmering below my skin.
Sira, still smiling, waves her goblet. “This is empty.”
The other goblins have returned to the kitchen, so Heidigog dutifully steps forward and grabs the bottle of inky nectar. The first few drops land in the goblet, the consistency more like oil than wine. Then Heidigog’s hand slips. The bottle tips too far, and nectar splashes over Sira’s sleeve.
For a moment, silence. My pulse pounds.
Sira sets down her goblet with eerie grace. Then she flicks her fingers. Shadows slither from beneath her chair like living smoke, curling toward Heidigog.
The goblin whimpers, stumbling back. “I–I’m sorry, Your Majesty. Please, I—”
Sira barely looks at her. “You are a disgusting disgrace.”
Her shadows strike.
Heidigog shrieks as the darkness wraps around her wrists and ankles, lifting her off the ground. The tendrils squeeze, twisting and tightening as if testing how much she can take before her bones snap.
No, Heidi! I clench my fists under the table, nails digging into my palms. My breath comes fast, shallow. I’m supposed to be Caspian’s thrall. Powerless.
If I give myself away, I’ll never get the rose back from Caspian. This is about so much more than just one person’s pain.
If I move, if I so much as flinch wrong—
She will know I’ve been lying. Know I’m not just another broken thing in Caspian’s collection.
Heidigog lets out a thin, choked cry. The shadows wind higher, curling around her throat.
Something inside me snaps.
I lunge from my seat, throwing myself between Sira and the goblin, arms outstretched. “Stop!”
Sira’s eyes flash, sharp as cut obsidian. “You would question my judgment? Why?”
Heidigog falls to the ground, trembling.
I stare at Sira. “Because she’s my friend.”
Sira smiles. “Then you’ll be more than happy to take her punishment.”
A shadow lashes at me, and all goes dark.