Chapter Thirty-Five Blodwyn
Chapter Thirty-Five
Blodwyn
After two days in seclusion, the walls of my chambers are beyond suffocating.
Even in my menagerie, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, like there were eyes staring out at me from every corner.
And that was nothing compared to my dreams. Every time I tried to sleep, I saw the lost princess clawing her way out of the darkness.
Her hand plunging into the Follower’s chest and tearing out his heart, just as she vowed to do to me.
You will pay the price, her haunting voice echoes in my ears.
“Blodwyn!” Verity hurries over to me as I make my way through the halls. I left my rooms the moment the guards permitted it. “I was so worried about you. I tried to at least send a note, but they wouldn’t allow it.”
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “Really. What about you?”
“No harm done,” she says, waving me off. “Though that awful Master Parnell questioned me and Mother for hours. He even wanted to know what we had for breakfast the morning of the ball. As if we might have been hiding Followers in our porridge.”
She rolls her eyes. I don’t envy her, counting myself lucky that the crow-like steward didn’t bother with me. “Do you know if they found anything?”
“I assume not,” she replies. “I was hoping you had information.”
I shake my head. I don’t know anything. At least not anything more than what I shared with Ayleth.
Who is a witch.
The secret has been spinning around in my brain for days.
After the initial shock had worn off, I found that I wasn’t totally surprised.
Maybe I didn’t guess that Ayleth was a witch, but I sensed that she was different.
Her uniqueness was part of the reason I warmed to her.
Part of the reason Mother trusted her. And, though she could never show her true feelings, I knew that Mother was sympathetic to the covens.
I heard her and Papa arguing about the war on several occasions, Mother always begging him for peace.
What would she want me to do in this situation?
Several courtiers glide past us, not even bothering to hide their stares. Farther down the hall, I spot Elinor and Constance. They freeze when they catch me looking at them, then abruptly hurry off in the opposite direction.
“I take it you’ve heard what they’re saying?” Verity nods toward the retreating courtiers.
“Not all of it.”
But enough to gather that the court seems to be as petrified of me as it was of the lost princess. And that there are plenty in the palace who would be happy to let the corpse-like Matilda feast on my heart if it means saving themselves.
Cursed, that voice hisses.
“Vultures,” Verity mutters. “And they have another think coming if they assume I’m just going to let them hand you over to…whatever that was.”
A smile twitches at my lips, picturing Verity bludgeoning the lost princess with a pall-mall mallet. And she wasn’t the only person who defended me. A memory rushes up: Gavin shooting at the creature. Warning her to stay away from me.
“Have you heard anything about Gavin?” I ask, attempting to keep my tone casual.
Verity grins. “Oh, are you concerned about him?”
“No,” I say. “It’s just…he was injured during the attack.”
“Well, I haven’t seen him,” she says. “But I’m sure he’d welcome a visit from you, seeing as he saved your life. Again.”
She’s right. It is the second time Gavin has intervened on my behalf.
Why does he keep putting himself in such danger?
Surely it would be easier for him to let me die.
Get me out of the way so that he can take the throne.
I shake the questions away. There are much bigger matters for me to worry about than a boy with gold-flecked eyes.
“I need to talk to you about something else,” I say, changing the subject. “The book you gave me. The one about the princess.”
Verity frowns. “Princess?”
“It was with the pile you handed me in the garden,” I explain. “An older volume. Do you know where you found it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, a crease digging between her brows. “I don’t recall a book like that. Maybe I picked it up by accident.”
Maybe. But after the events of the past few days, I’m starting to wonder if anything in this palace occurs by accident.
“Blodwyn, here you are.”
I stiffen at the voice: Aunt Margaret. She sent a few notes to my chambers while we were sequestered, but I ignored them. Even now, that old anger kicks up, picturing her dressed as Papa at the ball, his crown sparkling on her head. Perhaps the only thing she really cares about.
“Ah…” Aunt Margaret has noticed Verity. “Hello. Verity, is it?”
I’m surprised she’s deigning to address her.
Verity curtsies. “Your Grace.”
“I am sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping to have a private word with my niece. Blodwyn, would you join me for a walk in the gardens?”
I should refuse, if only to show my aunt that I can’t be ordered around anymore. But I know Aunt Margaret. She’ll just keep pushing until she gets what she wants.
“Fine,” I agree. “A quick one.”
Verity throws me a questioning look, likely asking if I want her to come along. I shake my head. This is something I need to do alone.
—
Our footsteps crunch in the quiet. Winter has only deepened in the short weeks since I’ve returned to the palace. The gardens sparkle with frost and a light blanket of snow covers the ground. A biting wind nips at my cheeks.
“It’s rather early for such cold,” Aunt Margaret comments.
I make a vague noise of agreement and pull my cloak tighter around myself. If my aunt imagines that we’re just going to pretend that the ball didn’t happen, she’s sorely mistaken.
“You get that from your father, you know,” she says, sliding me a knowing look. “That stubborn sullenness. He used to do this all the time as a child.”
“I’m not sullen,” I insist. And I’m not a child.
Aunt Margaret merely raises an amused eyebrow.
“Very well.” She gestures ahead. “But if you don’t want to talk, then why don’t we try our hand at the hedge maze?”
She leads the way and I trudge after her.
So much for keeping this walk short. And I hate the maze.
It takes an age to solve. More than that, the paths always seemed too narrow, made even tighter by how tall the walls stretched.
Even now, as we cross through the opening, I get the sense of being trapped in a cage.
Like the story Mother once told me of the princess who was cursed to sleep behind walls of bramble until true love’s kiss roused her.
Or like the lost princess confined to her tower.
A crow calls above us, its shadow swooping across the path.
“I used to be quite good at this,” Aunt Margaret goes on. “Not your father, though. He wasted hours out here, trying to master it. I admit that I wasn’t much help, though. I used to bribe our brothers to confuse him.”
She winks at me conspiratorially. Weeks ago, a story like that would have made me laugh. Now all I can think about is the woman from dinner, who Aunt Margaret brought out strictly for the pleasure of tormenting her.
“Is that your idea of fun?” I ask. “Making people feel small and insignificant? Or maybe you just prefer pretending they don’t exist.”
Aunt Margaret is quiet a moment. She adjusts the hood of her fur-lined cloak.
“You’re angry with me,” she says at last. It’s not a question and I don’t bother to answer. “Very well. But perhaps you should consider that this situation is a touch more complicated than you understand.”
She sounds like Ayleth. “That seems like a convenient excuse for trying to get away with whatever you want.”
I expect Aunt Margaret to argue back, but she just laughs. “You really are my niece.”
If she means that as a compliment, I don’t take it as such.
“And you’re not entirely wrong,” she allows. “I do try to get my way. As frequently as possible. There’s a reason for that. I’ll tell you what it is if you cease scowling at me.”
She glances at me and I realize that I am scowling. I smooth my expression.
“Fine,” I reply, clipped.
Aunt Margaret nods and turns us down another path.
“We both know that it’s not easy to be a princess in this family,” she begins.
“But for me, it was even more difficult. I was a fourth child.” She pauses.
“Well, technically, I was third. I am older than your father, no matter what he might have told you. But I was last in line for succession. For everything, really. Especially affection. My own father showed little interest in me.”
Much as I try to fight it, that deep, yearning place inside me—one I have felt since I was old enough to understand Papa’s disappointment in me—pulses.
“I had to make myself seen,” Aunt Margaret goes on. “To carve out my own place at court, independent of my brothers. My actions at the ball may have appeared callous to you, but I was only doing what I have learned is necessary in order to survive.”
The wind picks up, rattling the hedge walls.
“Still,” I say. “The costume was one thing, but everything else? The woman at the banquet? That wasn’t just callous. It was cruel.”
“Maybe. But I think you’ll discover that it requires a certain measure of cruelty to succeed in this palace.”
“Then perhaps I don’t want to succeed,” I mutter.
Aunt Margaret tilts her head at me. “If that’s true, then I’m curious to know what you do want. There aren’t many options for women in the court. I should know.”
I can’t argue with that. In fact, I think of Constance and Elinor.
It hadn’t even occurred to them that they could enter the trials, or that their worth shouldn’t be tied to marriage.
Would those two young women be so vapid and vain if they weren’t being strangled by the confines of the White Palace?
Can I really fault Aunt Margaret for trying to fight her way free?
“Ah,” Aunt Margaret says, breaking me out of the thorny questions. “There’s the center.”
She pulls me along with her into the next section. It’s a wide, circular space, nearly swallowed by the huge statue looming in the middle. A rendering of a man sitting under an apple tree.
Braxos.
A chill nips between my shoulder blades at the notion that I’ve somehow summoned my ancestor with all the reading I’ve been doing about the lost princess.
“Spectacular, isn’t it?” Aunt Margaret comments, examining the statue. “From what I recall, it was commissioned just after Braxos was crowned.”
It is a stunning piece. The top half represents the peasant Braxos was—the life he was born into—but the water beneath reflects a different image: that of a king. If that’s what he was.
“You don’t like it?” Aunt Margaret asks, reading my expression.
“No. I mean…” I pause. Does she know about the legend? It’s probably better if I don’t push to find out, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “What if Braxos didn’t win the trials?”
“Didn’t win?” she asks, her eyebrows lifting. “Where on earth would you get an idea like that? Is this the latest rumor spreading around court?”
Maybe she doesn’t know. Or she’s just very skilled at lying.
“I’ve heard a few people discussing the possibility,” I say with a shrug. “And if Braxos wasn’t actually the winner, then—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Aunt Margaret interrupts.
“Doesn’t matter?” I repeat, confused. “The trials are the whole reason we’re here.”
“Precisely,” Aunt Margaret agrees. “And regardless of what occurred during the first trials, it was Braxos who wound up sitting on the throne. One way or another, our family claimed the crown. And that’s why I’ve brought you here today—as a reminder of that fact.”
The crow calls above our heads again.
“The third trial, for justice, will be here before you know it,” Aunt Margaret goes on.
“It is by far the most important challenge, and not only because it’s the last. During the trial, you will be given a judgment to decide: a disagreement over a land boundary, a squabble between nobles, it’s of little consequence.
But the majority of the court must accept your ruling.
They must side with you, Blodwyn. And we all saw what happened when they were given that choice before. ”
Her gray eyes glitter in the winter light. And I know without question that I was correct about the ball. Aunt Margaret had been pitting me against the court on purpose, just to prove her point.
And she was right, that voice supplies, colder than the wind. They chose her and not you.
“You need me, Blodwyn,” Aunt Margaret says. “We might have our differences, but I think we can both agree that we should put those aside and focus on what’s important.”
“And that’s the trials?” I huff a laugh. “From what I’ve come to understand, they’re scarcely better than a popularity contest and—”
“The trials are everything.” Aunt Margaret grips my wrist, her long fingers like a vise. “We are standing at the cusp of a new age, Blodwyn. If you succeed, we can invent our own rules. But if we lose the crown, we will never get it back. And then all this will have been for nothing.”
Fire blazes within her gray eyes and I know then, without a shadow of a doubt, that—should I lose—I will be nothing, too.
The crow circles overhead, its sinister cry like laughter.