Chapter 29
In spite of the fact that the retinue dispatched to Velindra won’t return for another few days, my father hosts my Gracing celebration that night.
I attend. I have nowhere else to go, and I can’t muster the energy to fight Evelyn and Brynne.
They’ve maneuvered me into a stuffy gray dress, and now I sit in the dining room at the head of a table set with the china we only use on rare occasions.
Platters stretch before me, but they offer only standard fare, hardly an upgrade from what we usually eat.
It doesn’t compare to a fae dinner. Or even a fae lunch.
Conversation surrounds me, but I sit stiff, unfeeling, a wooden puppet with a hollow core.
Now and then, I catch hold of words, enough to surmise that my Gracing has somehow overshadowed this morning’s display of rebellion.
My family seems to have collectively decided my antics can be ascribed to my recent ordeal, and no one brings up my public renunciation of Ishanna.
Not even my father. It’s like it never happened.
Easier for them that way, I guess. Easier than asking why.
I pick up my fork, push a bite of boiled potato around on my plate. Set my fork down again.
“Not hungry?” My father sits to my left, as is tradition—the Gracing celebration is the only time an Aethrolian monarch cedes the head of the table. Now he gazes at me with soft eyes, his anger over me “losing” his most precious asset apparently forgotten.
No surprise, because I’ve been Graced with a talent Aethrolia hasn’t seen in generations. One that makes me even more valuable than Carina.
“No,” I rasp, my voice unfamiliar. It’s as hollow as the rest of me—raw sound with no true meaning. “I’m not hungry at all.”
“Well, you should eat. You’ll need your strength. I’ll have you start working at the treasury tomorrow.”
A scoff falls from my lips. The treasury, where I’ll use my Grace to make my father richer than he already is.
Dryness prickles in my throat. “Doesn’t having unlimited money go against the principle of austerity? Violate Ishanna’s teachings?”
My father pops a bite into his mouth and frowns. “If Ishanna hadn’t willed this, she wouldn’t have Graced you with duplication.”
Duplication.
A rare blessing. So rare that I can’t even remember the name of the last Vandenore that received it, only that their reign was characterized by an abundance rarely seen in this kingdom.
I pick up my fork again, weigh it in my hand.
Some new force lives inside me now, and I let it flow, let it surge to the tips of my fingers.
When I drop the fork, two utensils clatter to the tabletop.
Both real, both indistinguishable from one another.
They’ll stay like that for as long as I let them.
For all time, unless I take them in my fist and let my magic flow in reverse, collapse them into one again.
This will be my life now. Duplicating things—coins and valuables, whatever I’m asked. If I wanted, I could duplicate this whole set of china, use a new one every day and smash it at the end, which wouldn’t matter because I’d already have made ten more for tomorrow.
The possibilities are endless.
And I don’t care at all.
This Grace is useless. Absolutely useless if it can’t bring Amriel back to me. Which it can’t, so I rub at my sternum, as if I can physically push down the ache there.
Right now, I need to feel nothing. Dead. Numb. Blank. I won’t survive until tomorrow, otherwise.
“Excuse me,” I say, “but I don’t feel well. I think I need to go to bed.”
My father’s frown deepens, but to my surprise, he doesn’t fight. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. At the treasury. Be there at noon.”
It’s not a question. I’m not being asked.
I’m being directed. Pointed. Utilized.
How strange to think that this was all I ever wanted. But my mind was so small then, so inexperienced. I had no idea what life could truly consist of, how many colors exist in this world beyond the drab grays and browns of Aethrolia.
Now they’re colors I’ll never see again. Because even if I could return to Velindra, I don’t know that I could stand it. Every room and hallway, every firefly wandering past…they would only remind me of him. Each one would be another crack driven through my heart, another knife jabbed into my guts.
With a heavy sigh, I push back my chair.
Evelyn glances up, her brow crooking in concern, but I wave off her attempts to stand.
I just want to be alone. At least in the darkness of my own bedroom, I can close my eyes and pretend that Amriel is sleeping beside me.
That we’ll wake up together in the morning and this will all be okay.
Upstairs, I slide into bed without bothering to take my dress off. My descent is more of a collapse than anything else, and I end up on my side, my cheek mashed against the rough-spun sheets, my arm wedged awkwardly beneath me. My hand deadens in moments, but I don’t bother to rearrange myself.
I sleep.
Dreams don’t touch me, but disembodied sounds invade my rest—bones breaking, limbs cracking. A body hitting the earth.
The sounds of the end of the world.
When I wake, my eyes are puffy slits, my cheeks wet. A moment of panic overtakes me as emotion bubbles to the surface, but I stuff it back down—the grief, the ache, the raw, consuming rage. It all ends up in a lockbox that I lash shut and stash in my deepest recesses.
I know I’ll have to feel everything, eventually. But right now, all at once…I don’t trust it not to kill me.
Dawn buds outside. I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, forcing myself to think of something else.
Mostly my Grace, because I don’t understand why I’ve earned it now, after renouncing Ishanna.
Does that mean the goddess is real? Does she grant each Vandenore magic, after all?
Or is my Grace simply in my blood, an inevitability that comes from being born into the royal family?
Maybe our magic manifests at whatever time it likes, regardless of what we’ve done, what rules we’ve obeyed.
Or maybe, if Ishanna does exist, this is my reward for finding my own truth.
Maybe she never intended me to belong to her at all.
I think until my brain spins in circles, then I give up.
At the end of the day, I don’t actually care anymore.
I only care about escaping this room. I can’t keep lying here atop this tear-stained pillow, breathing this stale air, so I drag myself from bed and into the hall. The castle is quiet, most everyone still at morning prayer.
My absence there will have been noticed, but oh, well. I’m not setting foot in that temple again.
I shuffle down the corridor, then to the floor below, making my way to the castle library more by accident than by choice.
But once I find myself staring at the rows of leather-bound spines, an idea hits. I make for the far wall and locate the Registry of Graces. The book is heavy, enough to make my arms ache as I lower it to the floor and pry back the cover. I sift through dusty pages until I land on Alanna’s.
Cursecraft, her entry says.
I sit back on my heels. I knew that, and I never doubted Amriel’s story—I saw the truth in his mind. Still, anger creeps through me as I contemplate the ancient ink. Did Aethrolia know what their queen had done? What truly started the war?
Maybe. Or maybe not. I’ll probably never actually know.
I turn a few more pages, eventually landing on mine.
Sariah Vandenore, age 28, it says. And beside that, duplication.
Whoever inked the entry has underlined duplication, as if marking my Grace as noteworthy.
Which it is. I can create an unlimited supply of money, or valuables, or whatever strikes my father’s fancy.
I don’t even know the name of the last Vandenore who could.
Easy enough to find out, though. I flip backward and eventually land on someone named Elyria, who was apparently Graced with duplication three hundred and twenty-six years ago.
Her entry is underlined, too.
I stare at it for a long time, then return to mine, waiting for joy to blossom.
For me to feel something over having finally, finally read my own name in this book.
But my heart is a cold, drab room, absent any life, and eventually, I snap the book shut and lever myself up, then wander away, leaving it on the floor.
Outside, someone hurries through the hallway, nearly knocking me over. “Watch it,” the woman snaps. “You’re in my—”
Her voice dies the moment I turn. She sinks back, her gaze falling to the floor. “Princess, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
Princess. I flinch, but she doesn’t seem to notice, just barrels onward.
“I was just on my way to the throne room, and…forgive me. I shouldn’t have run into you like that.”
“The throne room?” I frown. “Why were you going to the throne room?”
“The fae,” she says.
My stomach bottoms out. “The fae?”
“Yes.” She nods hurriedly, as if that explains anything.
“What about them?” My voice is tight, my fingers clenched at my sides.
“Well, they’re here. Arrived just a few minutes ago. A whole cohort, and they’ve brought back your sister, and I heard they’re making some kind of appeal to the king, and—”
I don’t hear the rest. I’m already turning away, breaking into a sprint. The fae. Here. In my father’s throne room.
That’s all I need to know.
The hall’s windows stream past, a blur of light and shadow, of drab stone and dusty glass. I streak past it all, then I’m bursting through the doors to the outside, sprinting through the garden and back into the castle through the east wing, then down the hall.
The throne room doors loom ahead. I pelt toward them, my breath coming in jagged spurts, my heart beating loud enough to fill the entire hall.
I don’t know why I’m so desperate. I’ll burst into the throne room and catch Calen and Ravenna’s gaze, see the pity there, and know with certainty that Amriel is dead, that I’ll never hear his voice again.
And then I’ll break completely.
And yet something is drawing me, pulling me toward those doors, a force that has me flying. I’m a lightning strike zipping toward the mountain top. A river seeking the sea.
I’m inevitable and unstoppable and…goddess help me, I’ve only felt this way once before, in the presence of one man. Or two, really. Two different versions of him.
I reach the doors at full speed, careening too quickly to stop, but I barely feel the impact of my body against solid wood. I’m already recovering, my hands closing around the handles, my shoulders burning as the tall doors fly open.
Beyond lies darkness and torchlight, the buzz of too many people.
But I don’t hesitate. I have to know.
I fling the doors wide and hurtle inside.