Chapter Thirty-Eight Ayleth
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ayleth
A forest scene fills my mirror’s glass. The trees are barren, their bark blackened and slick. Red rivulets run down the trunks and drip from the tips of the knife-sharp branches, pooling in gruesome puddles near the roots.
And there is more, Shade tells me.
The image in the mirror shifts, displaying a lake that appears filled with blood. A mountain that looks as if it’s slashed to pieces, tracks of crimson oozing down its sides.
“It’s spreading,” I murmur. “And you’re certain it’s her?”
Yes, my queen, my Huntsman rasps.
Dread coils tight in my belly. The creature isn’t wasting any time making good on her promise. It’s been a week since the attack. How much longer until she returns to the palace?
“How is she doing this?” I demand, though I’m far more frustrated at myself than at Shade. “And why can’t you find her?”
I do not know, he replies. She is beyond my reach.
Which shouldn’t be possible. Then again, none of the creature’s abilities should be possible.
And I’m no closer to uncovering answers than I was when all this started.
We’ve returned to Ignatius’s lair every night since our first meeting, but Sybil’s journal, with its cryptic message, is our best lead.
And even it yields more questions than answers.
I turn away from the mirror and start pacing in front of the fire, my mind sifting back through my memories of the night Queen Sybil died.
She’d been almost manic, muttering about ravens and blood and snow.
Could she have been referencing the lost princess?
Could she have somehow set all of this into motion?
Callen, predictably, is incredibly unhelpful, merely complaining about the fact that he’d unwittingly married two witches.
Sybil wasn’t a witch, though. Of that much, I’m certain.
But she knew something. I would give anything to be able to summon her from the grave and discover what it is.
But perhaps there is something we can do to stop the creature, Shade says, bringing me out of my mired thoughts.
“What?” I ask. “We can’t banish her. Not if she’s using hearts to anchor herself. And we’re not strong enough to fight her.”
At this point, even Margaret’s army might not be sufficient.
We could be strong enough, Shade replies.
I pause. “What do you mean?”
The fire crackles, shadows dancing in the corners of the room. One of them slithers over to the slender box near Callen’s mirror and winds around the Bloodstone crown.
Finish what we started, my Hunstman presses. Destroy the rest of the witches’ power. Make this our realm. Then nothing can stand against us.
Malum expands in my chest, as though reaching for the idea.
“To destroy their magic, we have to find them,” I point out. “And the Heirs are in Rycinthia. We cannot touch them there.”
There is a witch here.
A log collapses in the fire.
“Jacquetta,” I say. He nods, his shadows curling around him. That feckless part of my heart twinges. “She’s only one. Taking her power won’t make a difference.”
That’s why I’m hesitating, I tell myself. Not because I care.
We do not need to take it. Shade replies. Use the witch to lure the others. That is what she desires, is it not? To summon them?
Lure the others. I briefly considered such a plan when I first captured the other witch but guessed that Jacquetta would never fall for the trap. Shade is right, though. Jacquetta has been begging me to call the Heirs. I could agree. Let her think she’s won. And then…
My attention drifts to the crown. Deep within the broken shards of the Bloodstones, I think I see the faint shimmer of the witches’ magic. I could seize the rest of it, just as I vowed to do when I broke the Veil and released Malum.
“Would it work?” I ask. “If I do this, could I be…as powerful as her? The creature?”
Yes, my queen. Shade’s eyes glitter in the dimness. Even more so.
That deep, hungry instinct rears up inside me. Memories of the last attack resurface: The chasm in the Great Hall. The statues waking. As horrifying as the ordeal had been, I cannot deny my own fascination with such power. What would it feel like to wield that force? And yet…
“Jacquetta and I made an agreement,” I say, more to myself than to Shade. “I promised her that she could leave if she helped me.”
Shade’s shadows twist around my torso.
And how many promises has she broken?
Too many.
Still…if I take this course, it would close the door on any possibility that Jacquetta and I might make our way back to the witches we used to be.
Once, I wouldn’t have cared. Would have slammed that door shut myself.
Thrown away the key. But Jacquetta fought beside me during the battle at the ball.
She healed Nox. Helped me rescue Blodwyn.
And then there was the way she looked at me in Ignatius’s lair.
You’ll be next, she’d said. Like she cared.
Does she?
“Let me think about it,” I say to Shade.
He’s quiet a moment, his shadows wending around his body.
As you wish, my queen, he rasps. But do not forget the promises you made to us.
One of his shadows brushes against me as Shade fades into the darkness. In the silence that follows, the long-ago words of the prophecy come back to me:
Every throne carries a cost.
For the first time since I shattered the Veil, I wonder if I’m willing to pay it.
—
The very next day, reports begin to flood in from around the realm, detailing more instances of what Shade showed me in the mirror: Whole forests withering overnight.
Animals found dead, their corpses mangled and leaking that strange, blood-like substance.
Even Roland has sent word that the Mines are worsening.
Entire tunnels have caved in for no apparent reason and an increasing number of Dwarves are missing.
It’s as though the realm itself is breaking apart beneath my feet.
And this is only the beginning. Should the creature return…
Shade’s plan rolls around in my mind. Every instinct screams at me to act on it before it’s too late. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I’m certain.
Certain of what? that voice whispers.
I still don’t know.
“No, no, Fitz,” Joan chides, nudging the dog away from something dead. “Don’t eat that.”
After a particularly contentious council meeting, I decided to escape the palace for an hour or so.
Given the recent events, the court is confined to the immediate grounds.
I ran into Joan wandering the gardens. It’s only been days since the scene with Anora, but Joan already looks older—tired and sad.
I recognize her grief from the weeks after Jacquetta left Stonehaven.
That empty, hollow feeling that absolutely nothing will fill.
“How are you?” I ask gently.
“Fine,” she says with a shrug. “I mean, not, obviously. Part of me didn’t believe Anora would really leave. Even as I watched them load her carriage, I thought, She’ll turn around. She’ll come back. Foolish, I know.”
“It’s not,” I say. “And I’m so sorry.”
Joan blinks her tears away before they fall. “Don’t be. Perhaps I should take a lesson from you from now on: guard my heart more carefully.”
It’s exactly the advice I would have given her.
But something in me shrivels at hearing her say it.
Joan is an eternal optimist, always believing in the good in people.
Even, somehow, in me. This version of her is…
wrong. Like the reports of the poison snaking through the realm. A dark thought wends through my mind:
Am I the one who poisoned Joan?
Fitz barks, diverting my attention to the right, where an annoyingly familiar laugh carries down the path. Margaret and a trio of other ladies round the corner. The duchess spots us, then waves and veers in our direction. Wonderful.
“Your Majesty!” she calls. “Marquess! Just the two people I hoped to see.”
Fitz is about as enthused as I am. He growls, laying his ears flat as the duchess approaches.
Margaret frowns down at him. “I don’t think that animal likes me very much.”
“Don’t mind him,” I say. “He’s probably just acting on instinct. Like your falcon.”
The scratches on the duchess’s face are almost fully healed, only faint pink lines remaining beneath her powder.
“Speaking of poor Vengeance, she never did return,” Margaret says, clicking her tongue.
“Maybe she preferred the wild,” I reply. Or simply preferred being away from Margaret.
“I hope so,” she says with a sigh. “But it’s far more likely that she’s lying dead in the forest. Not everyone can handle being given so much free rein.”
She plasters on one of her courtier’s smiles.
“You said you wanted to see us?” I ask.
“Yes.” The duchess goes on. “I’m hosting a party for the victors of the Wisdom trial. With all the fuss, they never got to celebrate. Did you hear—it’s down to just two now. Blodwyn and that Warbeck boy.”
I did not hear. At the council meeting, I was told that there were still three remaining. Which means Margaret has no doubt been meddling. I wonder what she offered the boy from the eastern provinces.
“Who knows,” the duchess says with a light shrug. “There’s still over a week left. Perhaps even he will withdraw. And then things will finally be back the way they should be.”
Without you, her gray eyes say.
She scrapes the barest of curtsies and then sweeps down the path with her ladies in tow.
“A party?” Joan asks, tugging Fitz along, who is still growling in the duchess’s direction. “Does that woman care about nothing else?”
“Nothing that doesn’t serve her own purposes,” I comment. “You should have seen her after the ball. I think she was thrilled about the attack. It gave her another opportunity to dangle her army in front of our faces. Remind us that she’s not lifting a finger unless Blodwyn wins the trials.”
“Do you think the princess will win? Now that it’s down to two?”
“She’ll have to sway the majority of the nobles,” I say, doubtful. “With so many having fled court, and after what happened at the ball…”
Talk of the curse—and Blodwyn’s part in it—has reached a fever pitch since that night.
I’ve even overheard some suggesting that the princess should be sacrificed to the creature, as maybe that will end the current crisis.
If Blodwyn is pitted against the Warbeck boy, who did not have an undead princess promising to exact revenge against him, I’m not sure she’ll stand a chance.
Which is what you wanted, that voice reminds me. She is your enemy.
Maybe. But in the hours we’ve spent studying the books in Ignatius’s lair, I’ve seen more of Blodwyn than in the last three years combined.
We may not be friends, but I catch glimpses of her true nature through her icy veneer.
The princess is smart and talented. Witty.
And…afraid. Just like I used to be, terrified of a life that loomed too large for me. Desperate for anyone to pull me back.
Above my head, crows circle.
Five—a warning.