Chapter 1
I loathe very few things, but among them is the strong scent of a scratchy and oblong purple flower.
Lavender.
Its fragrance dominates soaps, waxes, and flavorings, all to hide the sweet musk of fresh death. The perfume haunts, like the gloom before dusk breaks to take the sky over in moody combinations of blue, orange, and purple.
I torture myself with the scent because it reminds me of my mother.
My fingers spread over her dusty bedcovers, the stiff down feathers resisting the pressure of my palm.
They crunch and crackle like leaves in snow when winter has greeted autumn a week too early.
As I release pressure, soft particles of dust pool around my hand, leaving the shape of my long fingers behind.
Her humble room has been vacant for thirteen years, but her death hits me like it was yesterday—every year on this day, I relate to the little prince who clung to her breast for motherly love.
The maids no longer care for her chambers, yet in honor of her life, they continue to supply a fresh vase of tall-stemmed lavender flowers.
They must know I visit once a year on the anniversary of her death, and therefore try to brighten the graying room while I am in it.
I breathe in, slow. The sharp floral stench burns my nostrils, sends my heart to my throat.
Lavender is the ceremonial flower of death, and also, tragically, my mother’s favorite flower.
Alone in her chambers, I am at peace. No hiding, no pretending, accompanied by the faint memory of my mother lingering in the static air of her bedchamber.
If I close my eyes, she is alive and vivid in front of me: her eyes are bright, her black hair falls around her face, and a smile touches her cheeks when she beholds me.
It is only on this day each year that I’m able to reimagine her so coherently, so I look forward to it with bitterness.
The only thing I have left of her is the ring I’ve worn since birth, which now only fits my littlest finger.
The dragons entwining over the silver symbolize my tie to the royal family, but it means more to me now, for at its center, I’ve had her ashes pressed into a glass oval.
My fingers brush over it as her face disappears from my memory.
I say a quick prayer to Arioch Faundor, the founder of our kingdom, even though I know he won’t answer my pleas to protect my mother in the cosmos. I’m aware she’s more likely to be burning wherever damned souls go, but on a day like today, maybe he’ll stoop to listen to my desperate thoughts.
Light streaks in from a parted window, casting reflections off the disrupted dust like jewels. A ray of sun catches on the black oval of my ring, but I turn the silver around so it won’t sparkle so happily.
Today is not a happy day.
The sun awakens Arioch’s blistering summer, humid and hot, trapping the putrid scent of lavender captive in its muggy clutches.
Pinching my nose, I back away from the bed and glance around the unused room, which is covered in webs of dead arachnids and displaced with rotted wood furnishings.
The sea-colored vase at the center of her dusty dresser is the one thing living in the room, and the only object with any color, sitting pristine among the dust-covered furnishings.
After dumping the flowers into a wooden basin, I make my way into the hall, stretching my arms above my head.
Because her death was long ago, I no longer cry for her.
Years ago, I’d need my mother’s maid, Bernadette, to dry my eyes on her apron during the entire week we remembered her death. Now I’m content to visit in silence.
Before I realize it, I’ve entered the library. Spines glimmer with gold bands and silver letters, cracked down the middle from repeated use. I’ve read all of the books we have, so I have Bernadette secure foreign books from the few kingdoms we are peaceful with.
There aren’t many, so my reading has all but come to a standstill.
I run my fingers along the curved shelf, then hobble to the desk tucked away near the basking window. A fresh cup of tea and two letters sit, waiting for me. The wax seals on both letters have already been broken, and both are addressed to my father, King Azriel.
No one in the kingdom knows of me, or, if they do, they are sworn to a lifetime of secrecy. Maids and certain guards are required to ignore me, whilst managing to serve me with the least disturbance to the rest of the castle. I am the thorn in my father’s side until he has me married off.
Long ago, I would have been offended at the prospect of being sold to a lesser family, say that of a duchess or countess. But now I know it’s my father’s way of showing me pity. If he can feel such a thing. Or perhaps he merely wants to be rid of me.
Either way, it’s been a long time since I’ve objected to his desire for my leave.
It’s the women who take one look at me, realize I’m not my full-blooded brother, and refuse any formal engagement.
So with a glance and a sigh at the contents of both letters, each announcing the arrival of a noble lady from discreet foreign nobility, I nestle into the nook by the window and stare out at the courtyard.
I wish I had something new to read… I do hate revisiting old stories. I would hate for my favorites to lose their glow upon a second read. Though magic isn’t something humans like me possess, I believe there’s a sort of magical quality to books.
My brother is gone at war, and has never been the type to read.
Our last proper conversation was years ago, and the last time I saw him was months ago.
War keeps him away. Decorating him with the honor required to ascend the throne.
Meanwhile I’ve spent my days sipping tea, reading books, meeting with eligible bachelorettes, and playing music for the mice.
If my mother were still alive, maybe I’d have been given the opportunity to learn the art of the sword, the strategy of battle. But no matter how many times I tried to sneak into training or listen in on important conversations, I had always been discovered. My father has eyes everywhere.
A gardener carries a bulky burlap bag of soil over one shoulder, his body hunching forward as he moves slowly to a bed of lilies. I watch him with dry amusement, wondering if he’ll bend back and crack his spine, then let out his usual groan of pleasure.
I long for a life like his. Simple, unburdened. The only task: to tend to a species that will never berate or talk back to him.
My eyes drift to the letters, aglow under a ray of sun.
Maybe I’ll find a forgiving wife, one who will receive me without judgment, one who will allow me to shed my title and live a more interesting life, somewhere outside the boundaries of Arioch.
When I look again into the courtyard, the gardener has disappeared. I frown.
With a sigh, I slide from the window. Now that my classes are finished, I’ve nothing better to do with my time than to sit and wait. It’s terribly boring.
I leave the letters behind and return to my chambers. They are in the far-left wing, which is opposite to the rooms of the king’s consorts, where my mother’s chamber rots.
As I pass by uninteresting lengths of walls covered in portraits, my heart sours.
Soon, my brother’s face will join those of the kings of centuries past. As with all past kings, the identity of the crown prince is kept from the masses until his coronation.
When I was but a boy, I’d thought maybe my face would appear alongside them one day.
Curly haired, like my father, and green-eyed like my mother, but nothing like the hard edges and flaming irises of my older brother—the true warrior between us, the one who will one day become king.
But I know the truth. And I’ve come to peace with it.
My likeness will never take form here.
I push the golden handles and open the large oak doors of my chambers, which are slightly bigger than my mother’s but still not as befitting of a prince as are my half brother’s.
The far wall is decorated with unused swords and daggers, gathering dust from the moment they left the smith’s table.
When I was a boy, I’d try to swing one of the heavier swords, but I couldn’t lift it from the ground once I pulled it from its iron hooks.
A soldier had been called to replace it, and I received a scolding from my mother for trying to handle the dull blade.
With a stretch of my arms, I kick my boots off and flatten myself against the still-cool fabric of my bed’s cloth covers. I ought to savor the frigidness before the sun peaks and humidity ruins everything with its hot summer breath.
“Ramiel,” a familiar voice calls from the doorway before I can even sigh in relief. I twitch at the sound, but the crackly warmth of Bernadette’s voice makes me smile. The head maid is the closest thing I’ve had to a mother since my own returned to the earth.
“Come in,” I say, rolling to one side.
The gray-haired woman peeks through the crack in the door and, with her small, judging eyes, appraises the room to determine what needs to be returned to its proper place.
It’s like she’s expecting someone uninvited to jump out and scare her.
I don’t blame her—I wasn’t an easy child to raise—but with my twentieth birthday and the coronation of the crown prince coming quickly, she ought to be a bit more at ease.
Anxiety quickly displaces the hazel in her eyes and her skin pales, beads of sweat speckling along her small forehead.
Her composure stiffens as it does when she disciplines her undermaids, and the expressiveness of her shrunken pupils and flattened lips tells me she isn’t here under normal circumstances.
Her gaze finally settles on me as she kneels slowly a few feet in front of my bed. She places her hands daintily on her stained apron, brushing the folds down. A rare smile tugs at her lips, smeared with grief. It’s quickly erased by a twitch in her jaw.
Her paling face and the worried crinkle between her brows send my heart straight to my throat.
“You have my attention. Speak.” The phrase comes out harsher than I usually say it, reflecting my own paranoia. Still, the maid doesn’t flinch at my demand.
Bernadette bunches her dirtied skirts in wrinkly fists. Her breaths come out as weak and shaky as a leaky bellows. Once her eyes lock with mine, they hold me with such intensity, I can’t bring myself to look away. “My boy,” she whispers dryly, the sadness in her voice slicing through me, cold.
I lose my practiced composure and for a moment, my entire body is weightless as I wait, suspended in the choppy silence of her breath. Her eyes glisten with budding tears. I collapse with her on the floor, grasping her shoulders tightly before I pull her head of tangles to my chest.
“What happened?” I ask. “Has he hurt you?” I quickly check her for any signs of my father’s favorite punishment: branding his servants with the A of Arioch.
But, with relief, I find he has yet to mark Bernadette.
I lift her hands, which would have otherwise continued fiddling with the edges of her apron.
Her fingers are like ice. “ Seven hells, Bear. What happened ?”
Her lip quivers as she barely squeaks the words out, but they’re there and they’re nothing I would’ve expected and everything I’ve always dreaded.
“Xavelor has been slain.” She sucks in a shaking breath. “Rami, your brother is dead.”