Chapter 32
My flesh sculpted to Vera’s flesh, godly magic like warm coals burning my blood and reshaping the surface. This skin appeared soft and delicate, but it wasn’t. Like the purest glass, Vera was melted and molded through anguish. The sufferings of her childhood. Her beauty was an allusion—a mask of her own, to cover the scars lying beneath.
Donning her, I was reminded of her beginnings.
I traced the only marking on her fair skin—the scar on her arm from when the savages branded her as a child. Something about touching it made me feel closer to her—that she shared this with me and trusted me to hold it in my hands. I never wore her mask without it. It was a part of who she was—what gave her a spirit of fire.
A gust of wind struck my back, foretelling the approaching storm, prowling over the seas.
I pulled down my sleeve and yanked back Vera’s tickling curls for the tenth time tonight. Through the kitchen’s iron gate window, servants fought yawns with heavy eyes, spattered in flour and bloodred wine. I waited until no servants were beside the back door then stepped inside and staked a claim at the edge of torchlight, sewn in shadows.
Voices echoed from the dining hall, men offering last words to those departing—Knox, Evandor, Constantine, and their flock of gilded soldiers. I was eager to reap distance from Evandor’s ever-knowing eyes and the matron’s dark lullaby. Too, the princes’ company reminded me of my own beginnings. I had never felt the princess stir as much as she had in recent days. I did not care for it. It reminded me of the days to come—not the crown to fall, but the men beneath the crown. The blood to spill.
I only hoped my hands would not be painted red that night. That the gods might summon one of Carnage or Wind to deal the final blow.
Deceit lashed at the thoughts in my mind. Death comes for us all, he reminded me. Again.
Servants sluggishly cleaned trays. A wine cork popped beside bitter whispers of, These people never have enough, do they? Ever thirsty, ever barking for more wine.
On light feet, Deceit spurred my steps, and I wove past cupboards with a drumming heart.
There are still so many servants here, I uttered to the god, coiled in the dark.
Yet my servant must know to whom the petals belong. Is it Lucien Brine or perhaps your own lord? Perhaps both? Once the secrets are known, your obedience must be relinquished, dear one. The lord is to die.
I sighed my words, Death comes for us all.
Deceit growled a breath. There is no Bloodletter to end the house, Rhoswen, and you cannot wait for your survival instincts to end the Raven’s reign. The lord must fall before you’re set against a blade.
The air buckled in my lungs, something knocking against me.
“Pardon me, miss!” The something yelped.
I looked down to see Ewan stumbling on his feet with blushing cheeks.
I knelt beside him.
“That is all right, child,” I hushed, wiping either dirt or flour from his cheeks, I could not tell.
“You look like a smart one.”
Ewan shrugged his little shoulders.
“Eh, mum calls me a foolish rat sometimes.”
“Oh no, not you. I can tell you’re bright as a button.” I booped his nose and asked at the end of his giggle.
“Does someone as smart as you know where to find tea petals? I’m looking for blue ones.”
“Blue ones?” He asked with big eyes.
“Mum tells me not to talk about them,” he whispered.
“Not to touch them.”
“Can you tell me where they are?”
I lost Ewan’s attention as he looked towards his mother, scrubbing platters.
Deceit snarled, Use deception.
I swatted at the god. He is only a child.
Innocence does not endure in this age. So what if his mind is soured? Only a little.
“Can you point towards them?” I asked Ewan, wishing I could stuff the god deeper into the dark.
“I am only so thirsty.”
Ewan shook his head with pouting lips.
Come now, Princess, Deceit hissed. Persuade.
Fine, I muttered. Only be gentle with him.
In the Dark Era, this child’s encounter with a god will be the only sanctified moment in his life.
I then wondered if it was sinful to roll my eyes at a god.
Opening Vera’s lips, my lungs curdled the air. I spoke slowly to stifle the magic as best I could—only allowing a fragment of magic to touch Ewan’s mind.
“You wish to show me the petals, Ewan.”
He stood there, looking at me, confused with his lips lopsided.
“Mum says I’m not to talk about it.”
“Show me the petals.”
He pivoted away from me and towards his mother. I nearly reached out, to softly breathe more magic, but Deceit’s own breath rasped from his throat in a growl. The god’s magic filled the brim of my mind and flushed out my nostrils—putrid and burning. I coughed rancid air, the magic surrounding us.
Ewan stood, paralyzed, eyes turned to glass.
Sands, what is wrong with you? I shouted within myself, guilt a barbed wire around my heart.
The god laughed. Everything, child.
I seized the god’s magic while I could.
“Ewan, show me the blue petals.”
Slacked lips and distant eyes, he was overcome by Deception. He did not speak. He was only able to turn from me and take feeble steps. Like a corpse of the wood, his spine slouched, his arms strung from his shoulders, and his legs loosened as though they might collapse.
Each step we took, remorse straddled me for the words I’d uttered. The magic I spilled.
Lilian was raging war against dishes in the cusp of my sight, oblivious to her brainwashed son.
Ewan planted himself beside a cupboard in the corner. I imagined that if the god’s magic did not hold him up, he’d fall over unconscious. Still as a stalk with dead eyes, Ewan then lifted one arm to a lone cupboard. A single finger distended from his loose fist.
My voice came from Vera’s tongue.
“Thank you, Ewan. Go rest. If your mother asks, tell her you have a tummy ache.” A tear escaped him. I wiped it from his cheek.
“I’m so sorry.”
Ewan tottered away.
Do not apologize for the work of the gods, Deceit said in a sulky, brooding chord. Oh yes, I had nearly forgotten. You believe the work of the gods will lead you towards the very darkness we aspire to destroy.
I never said that, I scraped.
Deceit’s claws punctured. But you never denied it.
There was a hostility brewing in my mind where he lay—I could feel it like a tight noose around my neck. Deceit had come back to me this day, but he brought resentment with him. Resentment for my heart, for my beliefs that a lord of this era did not deserve death. The path we took, Deceit and I, was unclear to me, and I believed it was unclear to him.
My vow was undying—I know that the Shadows should fall, that the crown should fall, make no mistake of that.
Deceit gave silence. Violent, hostile silence.
The cupboards in my surroundings were covered in old flour and spices, with wood and paint peeling away and handles dangling helplessly. This cabinet, however, was untouched like a glorified relic. I could only assume the servants were wary of what remained within.
Kneeling down, I opened the bottom cupboard. The iron hinges did not creak, free of grime and rust. Inside, ivory linens were neatly stacked and covered in dust. I set my hands—Vera’s hands—between each linen, searching for anything apart from fabric.
There, tucked in the corner beneath a pile of aprons, was a small, iron container. Deceit’s low breath simmered along my mind as I exposed it to the torchlight. This was not the same wooden box that I’d seen in Tharen Crest, though, lifting the lid, petals rustled. Blue petals.
Deceit’s hands cupped my vision—that leathery skin made my eyes itch.
“Miss, what are you doing?” A half-holler broke at my back, hardening me where I knelt.
The game continues. Deceit’s lipless smile crossed his sunken cheeks.
Like a reed, I snapped up and twisted towards Lilian, container in hand, blood throbbing through my veins.
“Hello there,” I said smoothly.
“I am after a cup of tea.”
Lilian reached for the petals, but I guarded them closer at my side.
Colors fled Lilian’s face.
“That is no tea you need, miss.”
I raised my tone, lifted my chin, and looked down at Lilian from the bridge of my nose.
“Oh? And why is that?” I asked with snark.
“You are a servant, and I am your superior. I will have whatever I like.”
Lilian’s olive eyes outlined me.
“Your face ain’t one I recognize.”
“I am new,” I said.
“The latest to join this estate, though I should not have to explain this to you.” I whisked my dainty wrist—Vera’s wrist.
“Fetch me hot water. I should like this tea scolding hot.”
Lilian took a meager step towards me, so I stepped back, lifting the box to my lips like I might devour the container whole.
“Well, be that as it may, miss, that tea ain’t for you.”
I snapped both my wrist and voice.
“And who is it for, then? A lady should not be denied such a beautiful petal as this.”
“Miss, that tea there smells sweet but tastes bitter as dirt,” she said, shoulders in a tremor, quiver in her lips.
“It is medicine for the sick.”
“And who is to say I am not sick?” I coughed, dramatically and dryly, and looked at Lilian in the corner of my eye.
Her voice lessened.
“The tea is hard to come by, and that is all we have.”
My demand clawed at her.
“I want it.”
“Y-Y-You can’t have it.”
“Why?” Say it, I thought. Say his name.
She sighed, long and drawn, with her shoulders in a slump.
“Why?” I threw out my question again.
Lilian threw up her hands.
“Take it up with Sir Lucien, miss. I can’t help you.”
Adrenaline and satisfaction were harmony in me. I bit down Vera’s twisted, wild smile and quickly asked.
“Is this not the lord’s supply?”
“N-n-no,” she stammered.
“Sir Lucien knows a man of medicine. He’s graciously gifted us the tea for the sick.” She reached for the container, but I did not yet surrender it.
I gave my final question.
“And what of the brew?”
Lilian stumped, her face gone from worried to dumbstruck.
“I don’t know anything about a brew, miss,” she said with the first thread of confidence this night. She wasn’t lying.
“Sands, you’re such a stubborn servant.” Eyes shifting between Lilian and the poison, I spun on my heels and made my way for the exit, flinging the box onto a nearby table without further word.
Lilian let out a low breath as I stepped into the crisp, winter air.
Well, child, Deceit breathed and combed my mind with his gnarled fingers. It appears you’ve found an answer to your question. He felt what I felt in my blood—the excitement of his practice. To become another, speak as another, and deceive.
It was… exhilarating.
Beneath the low dangling sun, I stepped through the wildflowers. Lifting my hood, I cradled Vera’s face in a shroud of shadows.
Now, I only need to know why he wants me dead.
Sometimes, my dear, it is not our place to know all the unknown. A badger does not ask why a snake bears fangs, but the badger knows to show teeth and claws.
You have teeth and claws, I deadpanned.
But you have no fangs, Deceit spat with a slick laugh, his horns scraping my skull. Dearest princess, know this—the lord’s fate is written in the tomes of the Everlaides. However you delay, the lord’s death remains inevitable.
At the bend, I laid down Vera’s mask, my skin and bones snapping. The bridge of my nose arched, my eyes darkened, and her freckles were eaten by my pale complexion. Dark hairs pierced through my scalp.
The vines and weeds led me to the estate’s hillside, my gown yanked by thorns and thistles that bit at my legs. Steel ground somewhere in the distance, muffled by the roaring winds. Storm clouds loomed closer, the smell of fresh rain stifling the mildew of the wood. I once could smell the dark magic in the air—the rusty smell. I suppose I’d grown numb to it.
Passing Alistair’s study, I leaped over a vine, nearly tripped on a laurel root, and approached the fountain. My fingertips glided over the stone’s lip where the woman stood at the heart of the pool. Her smile was kind and aged and crumbling.
Steel rang again, nabbing my attention down the pebbled path to the estate, then my eyes were dragged down.
In the pebbles, there was blood.
My fingertips searched my side for memories of the wood, but there was no scar other than what my father left me. No evidence that I’d almost bled to death, apart from the cupful of blood mottling the path. With each step down the trail, I churned the rocks and soil—either permanently mixing my blood into these grounds or hiding evidence I’d ever been here. Though I suppose it didn’t really matter in this age. In the Dark Era, no one raised their brows at the sight of red.
I’d nearly finished blending the path when the steel rang again, louder, swelling in my ears. Low-bound whispers followed. Forgetting of the final red droplets, I tiptoed towards the sounds with the god spilling to the front of my mind.
Veiling behind a stone archway and laurel trees, I snuck a glimpse at the other side where whispers stirred. I saw the firelight first, torches fastened around the clearing, bolted into the ruins. Blades reflected the flames, steel whipping the air and thrashing together. Then I saw two men in combat attire, muscles locked, their clothes bleeding into dusk, sweat slick upon their brows.
“You best yield, my friend,” Evandor snickered, blades in stalemate.
Alistair’s jaw clenched. Eyes darkening, pleasure at the edge of his lips, the Raven Lord pivoted back, breaking the standstill, and scythed his blade. Evandor was quick to deflect, cleaving away his opponent’s sword and setting his own at Alistair’s neck.
Breaths were heavy between them, vapor drifting from their lips.
“You cannot blame me if the loss stings.” Evandor’s smile was unbridled. A speck of arrogance flourished in his eyes. Lowering his sword, he brushed the dust from his shoulders and held his head high.
Alistair barred his teeth and twisted his wrist in continuous motion, his blade blurring circles in the air.
“One to four. I’d be cautious not to let that go to your head, Your Highness.”
The prince’s blade drew a line in the dirt.
“Two to four,” Evandor corrected, duel arm extended.
“One more go, and then tell me about this face changer you’ve seen.”
My insides tied.