Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Elara
“Bring me everything you can find,” I say as I pace the length of my oaken desk in the royal chamber, candlelight flickering across the littering of books. “Every scrap of paper. Whatever Kael stacked, studied, or scribbled—I need to see it.”
Miss Hampshire tosses a final piece of wood into the flames of the hearth, rises, and wipes her sooty nubs on her apron. “His Late Majesty wasn’t fond of leaving ink behind.”
I press a palm to my lower belly—something shifts there, deep and dull. “There has to be something.”
Her gaze flicks toward the doors, then back to me. “He had to make certain Death never caught the scent of his plan. What he did put to paper, he hid like contraband. Burned the moment it served its purpose and—”
The doors burst open.
A young, breathless messenger stumbles in, followed by a minister I vaguely recall from a dizzying onslaught of introductions. His soft hands, which have likely never seen a day of hard labor, clutch a rolled map.
“Your Majesty! Forgive the intrusion, but the dam has failed!” the minister wails, practically shaking out the map over the books I carefully gathered from Kael’s old room. “The Crying Valley is… It’s gone.”
“Gone, Your Majesty,” the messenger heaves. “Saw it with my own eyes.”
“The lowlands are underwater,” the minister continues, sweat starting to shine on his bald head, flattening the few white wisps he has left.
“Graves washed out. Coffins shattered. Corpses sick with rot are floating onto fields, into creeks.” Panic flutters in his throat.
“The risk of the pestilence spreading is immense, with the runoff chasing straight toward two other townships. What will you have us do?”
All moisture seems to evaporate from my mouth, leaving my tongue dry, my throat itchy. What will I have them do? I don’t even know where these lowlands are. Never heard of them in my life!
“I—” My voice cracks.
I swallow. Swallow again, pulse fluttering against my throbbing esophagus. I know how to stretch a sack of flour. Know how to lime a grave. But I have no fucking clue how to stop a damn flood.
Air whirls behind me with how Miss Hampshire busies herself with lighting another candle, only for her to shift closer to my back.
“Have them open the dikes to the east.” Her whisper barely reaches my ear, let alone the room.
“It’ll flood the grazing lands, but push the flood west and save the townships. ”
I glance over my shoulder, her eyes hard, unblinking beads. She’s feeding me the words.
Turning back to the minister, I straighten my spine. “Open the eastern dikes.”
The minister frowns. “Your Majesty, the grazing lands—”
“Won’t feed a single gaping mouth if they’re already stuffed with grave dirt,” I say. “We’ll deal with the consequences of the flooded grazing lands once they come into existence.”
He blinks in surprise, offering no more pushback on the matter. “And…the bodies, Your Majesty?”
Moisture returns to my mouth, if only some. Graves. Corpses. That, I know!
“Where do most of them collect? Show me.” When he points out the affected area on the map, I search its surroundings, gaze trailing over forest, rivers, mountains…
Mountains. My nail runs along the words scribbled under the illustration of a triangle.
“With how scarce the salt is, I assume this mine isn’t currently being worked? ”
“No, Your Majesty. Not in many years. It is nearly depleted.”
“Perfect. Use harvest wagons with wide wheels to collect the bodies,” I say. “Dump them into the mine. The salt will dry the bodies, contain the rot some.”
“But the rites—”
“The dead care less about the rites than the living care about keeping rot away. Do it. Now.”
The decisive crack of my order snaps them into motion. They bow, low and hurried, and scramble out the door.
When the latch clicks shut and silence returns, so does that dull twist in my lower belly. I press my palm against it once more, but it does nothing to stop how it radiates into my lower back.
“Your Majesty?” Miss Hampshire takes a step forward, eyeing my hand on my stomach.
“I’m fine,” I say, straightening my spine. “Just…the corset thing.”
“One of the crueler mandates of royal fashion, but it helps keep the chapel gossip down about the realm having a queen.” She steps behind me once more. A tug here, a tug there, and the damn pressure eases its bite. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” Nodding, I stride over to the window. “Also, thank you for helping me just now.”
I pass the bloodstain that clings to the wooden floor. Whatever lay hidden beneath wool for decades has faded into a pale rust color ever since I ordered to have the rug removed. To show the handprint that sits deep inside the oak, raw and vulnerable—a daily reminder of what this curse took.
The things it can still take…
I close my eyes and press my forehead against the cool pane of the window. Wed him. Bed him. Crown him dead and slit his throat. How can something that sounds so neat be so impossible to achieve?
A throb starts behind my temple. Somehow, I managed to drag Death into a chapel and make him my husband, no matter how his vows dripped with pure poison. But the rest?
The memory of the open grave crashes over me, hot and humiliating. I tried to seduce him in the dirt, desperate and clumsy, and he shattered me without even undressing. He took my frantic offering and twisted it until I was the one unraveling, leaving me soaked in his seed but certainly not bedded.
How am I supposed to tempt a creature who knows desire as a weakness to be exploited?
And why is he so adamant about clinging to this wretched curse?
What does it give him, other than an endless harvest of souls he’s tired of?
He looks at the world like a man exhausted by his own doing, yet he fights to keep the very thing that seems to be draining him alive. Why?
“The original documents about the curse.” I lift my head and look back to where Miss Hampshire draws the velvet comforter from my bed. “Where can I find it?”
I need to see it for myself. Maybe there’s something Kael missed, a nuance hidden to male logic, a hint. And even if there isn’t, being thorough, leaving nothing to chance will, at the very least, ease my mind some.
Miss Hampshire’s gaze flicks to my crown, then away again, as if she doesn’t like looking at the gold fused to my skull. “You may wish to try the—”
Three knocks on the door. Urgent.
An annoyed huff escapes me before I shout, “Enter!”
Hinges grind.
A young footman stumbles in, flushed and panting, mud on his shoes. He skids to a stop at the sight of me. “Your Majesty,” he blurts, bowing too low, too fast. “There are people at the gates.”
Miss Hampshire’s eyes narrow. “How many?”
“Dozens. More and more each hour,” he says, voice trembling. “Said they’re not leaving until Her Majesty hears them out. Guards are getting nervous. One of them sent me.”
Nerves tingle beneath my fingernails. “I’ll receive them in the throne room, I guess, and listen to them. Every single one.”
Miss Hampshire’s gaze flicks to me. “You cannot hear all of them.”
Desperation makes people unpredictable, and that’s the last thing I need right now. “Things will get worse if I don’t.”
She mumbles something under her breath, but eventually, she gives a nod. “If I may suggest…” she says slowly. “Standing in a throne room is well and good, Your Majesty, but the people may find new hope if they see you out there. Especially with your…your husband.”
“My husband?”
“At one of the orphanages perhaps.” She pauses, her eyes flashing with a distinct, calculating intelligence. “If the Queen is seen walking the halls of the parentless, offering aid alongside her husband, it shows stability.”
She’s got a good point there. “I’ll bring it up with the minister.” And then I’ll somehow have to convince Vale to do me this husbandly courtesy, which will undoubtedly be a whole new ordeal. “I’ll still see these people, though. Is until the morning enough time to arrange this?”
“A prayer dressed up as a plan.” Miss Hampshire crosses herself, then looks at the footman. “I will seek out the acting palace commander to make arrangements. Now go. Tell the guards to keep them still until the morn. Tell the kitchens to prepare a large kettle of runny porridge.”
“Yes, Miss Hampshire,” the footman says before he spins around to hurry out of the room.
The door shuts. My shoulders sag before I can stop them. The corset may be loosened, but the pressure in my skull remains—crown humming, bloodstain staring.
I drag a breath deep enough to hurt and let it out slowly.
“I don’t know how to do any of this,” I admit, the words tasting like weakness and honesty all at once.
“Floods. People at the gates, begging me for answers. And the worst part?” I scoff.
“Even if I break this curse and stop the rot, I’ll still be stuck being queen. ”
Miss Hampshire watches me, the tired lines around her mouth deepening, her half-hand tapping once against her apron, like she’s counting the beats it takes for a woman to crack. “Time never made for a poor teacher.” A pause, then her gaze hardens back into competence. “The chapel.”
My mind stutters, trying to catch up. “What?”
“The documents of the deal struck between the crown’s first king and Death,” she says. “Might be in the olden language, but the chapel is where you should find it, Your Majesty.”
My fingers mindlessly stroke over my belly. “Right. I’ll talk to a priest after I listen to the people.”
Miss Hampshire’s eyes narrow on me. She steps closer, her tone dropping into something that sounds almost maternal. “The monthly bleed coming?”
I frown. That’s something I haven’t even considered, making me hesitate for a moment before I say, “I don’t know. It’s been forever since the last time.”
Miss Hampshire nods. “A pillow of warmed chestnuts then, just in case,” she says briskly. “I will have a maid fetch it for you.”
“Thank you.”
She leaves, and the room exhales. I don’t ready myself for bed. I don’t even sit. I can’t.
I return my attention to the window, the energy inside me a mix of nervous caution and excited anticipation. One step closer to breaking this curse, but it seems like merely a hand in a furlong. How am I supposed to love a creature as vicious and heartless as Death?
“It is impossible,” I whisper to the glass, the condensation from my breath fogging the view of the outside world.
The air in the room shifts.
It isn’t a sound. It’s a pressure change, like the sudden drop in the atmosphere before lightning strikes. The hair on my arms stand up, faster when the shadows in a corner don’t just lengthen, but detach.
They stitch themselves together into black cloth. It ripples through the air before it settles into velvet and black curls, darkness weaving rapidly into the shape of Vale.
“Wife,” he purrs, and the word is not affectionate. “You have gates full of mourners. Floodwater full of corpses. A brother drowning in rot.” A lopsided smirk lets his teeth flash. “Tell me…do you love me yet?”