22. Twenty-Two
twenty-two
Neira hadn't known how truly isolated her life had been to this point.
The palace of Duskport, sprawling as it was, always felt crowded, overstimulating to the point of unbearable. No matter where she turned, there were people.
It started in the mornings, with her maids coming two hours after dawn to wake her, feed her, bathe her, dress her; by the time her morning routine was done, it was halfway to noon and she was always in desperate need of a nap. When she looked out of her windows she could see the harbour, the bay, the many ships coming and going, countless souls going about their day down there. When she left her rooms, the hallway was manned by guards slowly patrolling. Outside of the royal wing, servants hurried, nobles strolled, gardeners tended the elaborate gardens hidden within every courtyard.
It was never truly quiet. That was what she missed the most, Neira realised on her third day. She had declined two invitations from the court's ladies already – not because she scorned them, but because her head was never silent, always filled with whatever was going on around her. She had yet to build her walls high enough to keep the noise from influencing her moods, from grating on her nerves. A crowd of gossiping women, all vying for the attention and favour of the king's bride, would surely send her to a days-long bed rest. She had found polite excuses not to attend so far, but she knew that soon she would seem the shrew.
Her maids were nervous around her still. Attentive, yes, and perfectly respectful, but they weren't Safir. They answered her questions with deference and honesty. They bowed and kept their voices low when asked, and brought her all her favourite foods. They flattered her when she insisted on her own dresses, the few she had been able to bring, instead of adhering to the court's preferred fashion, and they never, ever disagreed with her on anything.
Gods below, she was bored out of her mind.
Erqis had only once visited her, on the second day, for a hurried meal before he had hastened off again, his apologies sincere – a king's duties never stopped, especially when the king had been away for close to a month. Neira hadn't expected herself to actually miss her obnoxious captor but here she was, sitting and watching the ships, and wondering what he was doing.
One of her maids entered the sitting room and bowed.
"Your Majesty." The girl’s voice was warm, and there was an eager gleam to her blue eyes.
Your Majesty. They called her that already, despite it not yet being her official title – she wouldn't be crowned queen until Erqis had married her. If he truly planned to at all.
"I bear a gift."
Neira glanced at the maid, careful to not move her head and disturb the careful braiding another maid was in the middle of. Aubri, Neira recalled, and the girl braiding her hair was Susa. "A gift? From whom?"
"The king, your Majesty. Here, look." She came closer and held out a leather-bound book. It was thick although not quite a tome, with the title stencilled in golden letters, delicate vines and flowers etched into the cover. "He says there is more where this came from – which is the library. Well, he didn't say that, but I suppose there are more books there."
Neira took the book and opened it. Children's tales, lovingly illustrated. She nearly smiled. "This is exquisite. There is a library?"
"Yes, your Majesty. In the southern wing."
"Oh, that one is my favourite," Susa piped up, leaning over her shoulder to peer at the pages. "A young girl flees her evil stepmother and moves in with seven attractive men who live in the woods and are all obsessed with her."
"You would enjoy that," Aubri replied dryly. "Don't forget the part where they expect her to do all household chores and cook for them, too."
"So?"
"Or the part where the stepmother finds her and kills her, and they put her body into a glass coffin for preservation . We all know what that means."
Susa drew herself up indignantly. "You wouldn't understand true love if it bit you in the behind, Aubri!"
"You wish someone would bite your behind." Belatedly, the young women remembered just who sat between them. "Your Majesty, I am so sorry…"
Perhaps the spirit of Safir was beside her even here. Neira grinned and dog-eared the page. "I will have to read this one first, it seems."
It turned out that Susa's version of the fairy tale was not the one in the book, although Neira wouldn't have been surprised if Erqis had sent her illicit literature. Susa, however, had been adamant that her version did exist, and Neira could think of no better use of her time than to look for that book. If the library was truly as grand as Aubri had made it out to be, surely a copy of it had to be there.
Her maids dismissed for the afternoon and her mind made up, Neira set off in search of the library.
Both her maids, as well as many other of the palace’s inhabitants, were in half sleeves, the weather balmy. Before coming her, Neira hadn’t even owned clothes with such a thing. Where Erqis had had the time to fill her wardrobes with dresses, she didn't know; what she did know was that his taste was deplorable: pastels wherever one looked, all of which, her maids had agreed with her, washed her out pale as a ghost. She much preferred her own clothes, but after the first day they had proved to be unbearably hot and stuffy for the climate. She'd need a tailor soon.
Dressed in the darkest thing they had found, a mauve dress with teal embroidery along the hems and bodice, she wandered down the guarded hall. Her sleeves were tight to the elbow and then slit open to reveal more embroidery in the lining, the neckline stretching from the round of one shoulder to the other.
It was decidedly too fussy to wear on a regular day, especially for her quest to find the smut, but at the same time, compared to the court, Neira was still woefully underdressed.
At least the nobles of Duskport stood out. She knew when to incline her head in greeting and when to merely give an approving half-smile, and aside from a few quick pleasantries, no one seemed intent on cornering her for conversation.
By the time she reached the library, her feet were complaining. The royal wing was in the west of the palace, up two flights of stairs, and reaching the southern wing, where not only the library but also the officiars' offices were located, took her almost a full hour despite her brisk pace.
She had gotten lost twice. If nothing else, it brought into perspective what kind of palace she now lived in, what the kings passed had used it for. The entirety of Malvea could easily be governed from here and there was entire city here within the palace walls. Staff and nobles alike had little need to venture down the cliff road and into Duskport proper. Work, community, beauty and leisure all happened here, within the gardens and plateaus and dining halls. From an outsider's standpoint, it was fascinating.
The library, likewise, had been built with grandeur in mind. A tale-keeper came to the door to let her in, a kindly older man with round spectacles, who flushed to the wisps of white hair on his head when she inquired about the book she was seeking. He gave her a general direction within which she might find such a book, and then let her explore.
The high, narrow windows were closed to keep the salt of the bay breeze out. It was quiet, the air was dry and cool, and gods – the books . There had to be thousands of them. The entrance hall was as vast as the throne room itself, with the same general oblong design. The lower floor provided tables for study and deep, comfortable armchairs for leisurely reading, and where the walls didn't have windows, the bookshelves reached to the ceiling. Several ladders were dotted around the room, and two winding staircases led to a broad catwalk halfway up. It was held up like a bridge with more bookshelves for pillars, filled with books from all sides.
Finally, there was peace.
Neira turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. For the first time since she had arrived in Duskport, the frantic clawing at the inside of her throat abated; for the first time, she felt like she could breathe.
The book did exist. Along with several other so-called retellings of popular tales – all of them delightfully sordid, crafted around the core plot points with a more mature mindset.
She had devoured one right there, where they had been tucked away on the second level far in the back; first leaning against the cool wall, just for a peek inside, and then sitting on the ground between bookshelves with her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankle.
Neira wished she had brought a satchel to tuck the books into, but ultimately decided that she'd take along one for the evening and then return to read another the following day.
Her stomach growled as she bid the tale-keeper goodbye; perhaps a quick nip to the kitchens was in order. Only, much like everything else in this place, Neira had no idea where the kitchens were.
She wandered until she was hungry enough to be willing to ask someone for directions. People, after all, were the one thing that even she could find here.
Around the very next corner, she found some. A cluster of nobles and servants alike stood in one of the hallways, murmuring frantically between themselves.
"What is going on here?"
One of the women turned to her. "Your Majesty! It's nothing. Please, will you allow me to accompany you? Back to your rooms, perhaps?"
She was a lady some years older than Neira, a heavy necklace of gem-crusted sapphires around her bobbing throat. Her words were urgent but she didn't look harried – no, she looked like she just got caught in the act. And all that did was make Neira more curious.
"Step aside."
The lady ducked her head and moved out of her way. One by one, the whispering nobles and wide-eyed servants stepped aside, until Neira spotted the servant they were all crowded around.
She was a young girl. The abject horror frozen on her face was only accentuated by the dark blood that had sprayed across it. Her throat was a ruin, as if the blade used to kill her had been dull or serrated – or worse, as if it hadn't been a blade at all. Her apron was soaked through at the chest. And her forearms were mutilated; Neira could see a bit of bone beneath the savaged flesh.
The clawing was back.
The walls seemed too close suddenly and panic scrabbled inside of her like a small critter desperate for escape. As desperate as this poor girl must had been to escape her murderer, if the blood splatters on the stone floor and both walls were any indication.
"What happened?!"
A young man holding a sobbing girl wearing the same apron met her eyes. While the nobles’ eyes were bright with excitement, his own were sombre. "We don't know, your Majesty. We just… we just found her here. Like this. She was already…"
He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. The girl he was comforting sank to her knees with a heartbroken wail.
"Quite the scandal," remarked one of the aristocrats behind them, a half-smile on his face. "And just when our fair young king has returned! An ill omen, perhaps."
He looked straight at Neira, no doubt keen to see her reaction.
Her reaction, Neira found, was hot fury that washed away the rising panic. She had a lifetime's worth of experience with men like this.
"If you wish to dabble in omens, find a soothsayer to entertain you. Far from here." Her words were clipped, icy. She turned to the rest of the crowd. "Disperse, now . This entire display is shameful." Her knuckles were white around the book she still clutched, but her tone gentled when addressing the servants. "Have her brought to the temple she patronised. We will find out what happened here."
Still shaken, Neira fled the palace. The great halls seemed more like a chicken coop than a proper court, the nobles and courtiers abuzz with the horrid discovery. Their sordid delight about it didn't sit right with her.
The sun was just beginning to set when she stepped out onto a broad terrace jutting out over the cliff, the air bracing as the day faded and took some of the warmth with it. Ragged shreds of cloud were chasing each other across the blushing sky, the view clear all the way to the barrier islets in the bay and beyond.
There was no one around. Neira took a deep breath, tinged with florals.
She hadn’t been sure where she was going through the maze of corridors, but somehow her feet had led her here. The terrace went halfway around the palace, lush flowerbeds broken by winding mosaic paths. A waist-high stone banister ran along the edge and she strode for it, just to have something she could hold on to. Her fingers curled around it tightly; gulls screamed across the bay, and the city nestled along the gentle curve began lighting the glass-encased torches that would burn through the night to illuminate the streets.
One large ship was peeling slowly away from the harbour's long-reaching docks, as if its load was too heavy even for the strong wind. As it ambled towards the largest gap between the islands, she wondered where it would go – Green Harbour surely, where all trading ships went.
If she had stepped into that little boat beneath the castle that day, she could have seen it: a trading port of a city, built onto a circular island nestled into the gulf that the realms of Hertha and Huldra, famously at war with each other constantly, created by curving around it like a sickle.
Huldra, where Ramin had surely arrived by now.
She wondered if he liked the snow. Winter ran cold in Brightmere, but snow had never fallen as long as Neira had been alive; Huldra, by comparison, sat so far north that winter never fully faded there.
She propped her forearms onto the low, stone wall, leaning into it heavily. The drop below her was a free fall of a good seventy feet. Far below the water was dark and choppy, as if the ocean was throwing its rage relentlessly against the stone, hoping to topple the entire cliff and the palace along with it one day. Hoping that she, too, would topple over, would succumb to that churning embrace.
The girl's face wouldn't leave her mind. The horror on it, the twisted agony…
Neira ran her hands over her face as if she could push the memory away. When she lowered them again, her eyes were stinging and it had nothing to do with the wind. She couldn't figure out why it bothered her so much, why the gaggle of gawking, tittering nobles felt like such a violation to not only the servant girl, but to herself as well.
She didn't know the girl. Had never even seen her before, recognised her status only by the apron tied around her waist, her clean but well-worn shoes.
And still.
It felt so different than the other dead bodies she had seen - all within the last few weeks, if she thought about it. Before Erqis had come, there had been no death around her. Which was ironic, considering what she knew now of the people who had populated her court. The bodies of the guards executed in the throne hall the day Erqis arrived, and then Arwess and Renger – could they even be counted as dead bodies? As killing? When had they last truly drawn breath?
She turned away from the railing to fill her eyes, her mind, with the meticulously kept flowerbeds, vibrant with summer blooms. Maybe their beauty would chase away the servant’s haunting face. Someone took great care to keep the garden presentable, that was obvious, the colours complimenting each other, and-
And there was something black that didn't belong there, just across the path. Among the thick carpet of pink, short blooms, just before the soaring stems of the yellow flowers planted along the middle of the bed, lay something furry.
Neira brightened. She bent over the lithe creature curled up among the blooms. A little black cat, young and thin, enjoying a nap in the last warm rays of sunlight.
"Hello, you," Neira called softly, reaching down to brush her fingers over the dusty, short coat.
It was cold. And stiff in a way that made no secret of its final rest.
Neira’s heart twisted in sympathy at the sight of dried blood on the kitten's nose. More death. As needless as the rest.
"You poor thing. Did you fall from one of the windows?" Neira stroked the delicate ears, followed the line of its back. "My brother would have liked you," she told the furry body, gently stroking the dirt from its fur. "He begged for a kitten ever since he heard a story about one. Mind, there were no cats in all of Brightmere... I would have liked you, too."
Perhaps she was just destined to be surrounded by death. It certainly felt that way.
Neira was no stranger to what longing felt like, that odd hollow twinge under her ribs, but she'd never felt it travel down her arm-
The kitten stretched under her fingers, the long tail curling, all its claws extending. It rolled onto its back and blinked up at her as if waking from a deep sleep.
Something green glowed in its large eyes, curling through them like illuminated smoke.