Chapter 44
Guinevere
A moment later, Corvin and évandre drop a dripping Alaric in through the window, scrambling in behind him. He straightens and catches sight of the object in my hands.
For a second, I don’t recognize the joy in his expression. It changes his whole demeanor, making him seem almost young.
He runs to me and reaches for me, checking himself at the last moment. “Your skin. Does it hurt?”
I shake my head. It’s excruciating, but none of that matters with his heart in my hands. He is looking worse for wear too, his long hair blackened at the tips, his face smudged with soot and ash and raw and blistered in places from the fire.
I hold the box out to him. “This is yours.”
His larger hands close over mine and I wince. He pushes the box back gently toward me. “No. It is yours.”
There’s no time to say more. The door bursts open and Melantha strides in, surrounded by five armed guards. She stops dead when she spots the box in my hands. “Thief! How did you find that?”
“It never belonged to you.” I direct my next words to palace guards. “I have no wish to harm you, but if you stand in my way, I cannot guarantee your safety. Stand aside if you wish to live.”
The guards look between me, Alaric, and the three tall gargoyles. First one, then each of them lays his sword at his feet and steps back, arms raised in a gesture of surrender. “Yes, princess.”
“Traitors!” Melantha turns and runs.
I smile at Alaric. “Bring her back.”
I don’t need to tell him. He’s already racing after her. He catches her before she rounds the corner in the corridor, grabbing her by the neck and hauling her screeching back to the solar.
The gargoyles gather up the guards’ weapons. And now I’m faced with the task of deciding what to do with my stepmother.
Alaric binds her hands behind her back, and I look at her, trying to see what both he and my father saw in her to be so blinded.
She is beautiful, I suppose. Her features elegant, classic.
But knowing her like I do, there’s a sharp edge to her beauty that distorts it into something else.
Her brows too high, her chin too pointed.
Or perhaps Alaric’s spell is already wearing off, leaving her beauty brittle and ready to snap.
“You little bitch,” she spits at me. “Do you think they will follow you when they see what a monster you’ve become?”
“I am what you made me.” I straighten my back, but her words cut to the bone. I am a monster. There’s no denying it. And why should they follow me any more than they should follow her?
I turn away in disgust.
A young boy stops aghast in the open doorway. He looks between the bound queen and the gargoyles and Alaric and finally his gaze falls on me. His mouth drops open. He dips his head in a bow. “Princess Guinevere, I have been sent to say that monsters are at the gate. The guards are needed.”
Melantha cackles wildly, and we all look at her, surprised. She fingers a long necklace with a round charm dangling between her breasts. “Imagine what they will do if they cannot find any meat. They might scale the walls and eat us all.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Corvin strides toward her and tears the chain from her neck. He holds up the bone disc and his lips move as he mutters, reading aloud words in a language I don’t recognize.
évandre and Raban gasp as he finishes, and I look between them.
“This charm is designed to attract monsters. The script is Akhaedian.”
I stare at her. “Is it true?”
She only laughs.
I step forward, slapping her across the face and silencing her. “How long? How long have the people of Blackthorn suffered and died because of you?”
She lifts her chin and meets my eyes, but still she’s silent.
Rage boils inside me. My fingernails dig into my raw, burned palms.
There’s a terrible pounding from below. The messenger boy in the corridor makes a sound of terror low in his throat. “Please, princess. The monsters. Someone said there’s a monster in the royal crypt too. He will devour us all.”
He’s visibly shaking now. With a curse, I step away from Melantha. “Bind her firmly. évandre, keep watch over her. Alaric, take the guards and the hunters and defend the walls. Raban, go with him.”
I take the charm from Corvin and examine the thin bone disc. Hoping I’m doing the right thing, I snap the disc in two, dropping the remains into the fire.
Then I turn back to Melantha. “In the morning you will pay for everything you have done. Right now I will do what you should have done and save Blackthorn. Corvin, come with me. Let us see about this monster in the crypt.”
The messenger boy follows as Corvin and I gather weapons and head down to the crypt. He wrings his hands sadly. “Your Highness, please. I heard there was a fearsome monster down there.”
I slow for a moment and turn to him. “Don’t worry. We will take care of whatever we find down there.”
He follows anyway but stays quiet, his big brown eyes bulging from his head like turnips as we near the large stone door.
The crypt is where my ancestors are buried; their stone sarcophagi line the deep dark cavern with inscriptions to honor them. My father took me down once I had learned my letters and made me read each one aloud before we could come up out of the chill.
I shiver just thinking about it, even though I no longer feel the cold. As we near the door, the great pounding comes again, shaking the door, reverberating down the corridor. Boom, boom, boom.
“The monster!” The young boy stares at the door, terrified.
“How could a monster get into the crypt?” Stepping forward, I place my open palm on the door, snatching it away again when the banging starts up, fiercer than before.
There is no other way in or out. If there is something in there, it would have had to come through these doors, but they are locked.
I try the handle myself just to be sure.
“Princess, are you sure we should open that? The doors seem sturdy. They would hold.”
“Blackthorn will never get any rest with this banging going on. I did not come here to leave things unfinished.” I turn to the messenger boy. “Fetch the steward. Tell Robards we need the key to the crypt.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He’s off in an instant, scurrying back down the corridor.
Corvin and I wait. My skin aches. Every movement feels like it will crack me in half.
“You should sit,” says Corvin.
I shake my head. “I cannot rest until they’re safe. I left them to her for too long.”
“Just while we are waiting.”
I still refuse. Even as I watch, my skin fuses back on my body and the angry welts start to sink.
Corvin approaches the doors, running a hand over the ornate carvings, inspecting the lock. “This is good craftsmanship.”
“The doors were imported when the castle was first built.”
“Hmm. And you are certain there’s no secret passageway or eroded stone?”
I’m prevented from answering when the Robards rushes toward us, red faced and breathing hard. He pushes his thinning hair back over the crown of his head. “Princess Guinevere! Oh, but you look a fright. Is it really you?”
I take the key from him with a sorry smile.
It would take too long to explain now. I’m surprised he could recognize me after my ordeal in the courtyard, but perhaps the magic is working faster than I realized to heal me.
“Thank you for coming so quickly. I think you had better return to your rooms while we open the crypt. I do not know what is inside.”
“Surely there is someone who could do that for you, Your Highness.” He gives Corvin a strange look. “Though I see you have brought support.”
“I have and I will be fine. I want you to go back upstairs and keep the other servants away for now until I give the word.”
He bows. “Yes, ma’am.”
I turn back to the door. Keeping one hand on my sword, I approach slowly, slipping the long metal key into the lock. I hear Corvin move into place behind me.
I turn the key, expecting the banging to start at any moment, but there’s only silence.
We wait, but for a long moment nothing happens.
When I can stand it no longer, I reach for the brass handle and fling the door open, lifting my sword, but I am not prepared for what steps out of the dark.
His face is paler than I remember, the eyes sunken in pits of black. He wears his finest robes, and there’s a light circlet on his head. His hair has been neatly brushed.
My father shuffles forward on bare feet, and for a dreadful moment my breath catches in my throat and I raise my arms ready to embrace him. “Papa!”
Then I remember, and the bitter memories of his withered frame in the huge bed flood back, bringing stinging tears to my eyes. I make an incoherent noise, frozen in place as the wight approaches. I cannot speak. Cannot move. I can only watch as he staggers from the crypt.
Corvin’s sword slashes through the air. I scream.
On instinct, I dive in front of the blow, catching the blade in my back.
I cry out, stumbling into my father’s arms, holding him though he can’t hold me back. Above the cloying scent of perfumed oils is the stench of death. His rotting flesh seems brittle on his bones. Cold and hard, unyielding to my touch.
“Princess! Forgive me.” Corvin pulls his sword away, leaving a gash I feel in the sting across my shoulder.
He reaches for me, and I push him away. “Do not touch me.”
“Princess, this is not your father.”
I drag my father’s corpse away from Corvin, backing toward the crypt. “This is all I have left.”
Corvin’s face is contorted in horror. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Leave me,” I sob.
My father’s corpse shuffles aimlessly toward the door again. I try to catch him, but Corvin darts into the way. “I cannot do that.”
With a growl of frustration, I run to my father and pull on his arm, trying to get the ghoul to turn. “Come back to bed,” I tell him. “Come and rest.”
He doesn’t react to my touch. His unseeing eyes face forward toward the corridor. I drag his body back to the uncovered sarcophagus closest to the door. The one laid out for him. Silken pillows line the coffin. He should be resting here.
Every time I try to push him down, he sits again, straining to get up. I’m weeping now, tears and snot streaming down my face, but I can’t make him lie down.
Curse this black magic that did this to me. Curse the magic which has disturbed the well-earned rest of good people. It’s not right.
“Come, let us go. We’ll lock the door again now we know it’s not a threat.”
I round on Corvin. “I won’t leave him like this!”