Chapter 37
Dear Amma,
The Citadel raided us again today, looking for peri gold—or gold of any kind.
I hid your bangles under the floorboards, and prayed they wouldn’t find them.
They found a fae object hidden by an Astolan excavator and fired him, but I don’t know what it was.
I tried to find out, hoping it was a way to get over the wall.
Every day I search for a way to cross the River to find you, and every day I fail.
—Letter from Yaseema Nazir to Mahira Nazir, unsent
Yaseema
At the end of the hall was a door, carved with the same jasmine symbol I’d seen over and over again. On the map, on the book from the palace library, engraved on my mother’s jewelry, on Kiyan.
We all have a signature, a stamp of our magic. Most of River’s is the jasmine flower.
Kiyan reached for the handle and turned, pushing at the door. I’d expected it to be locked, but it swung open easily. After the arrows and the mermaid creature, I braced myself for a new attack.
But the door opened to another darkened chamber, silent and still.
A pedestal stood at the end of the hall, lit from a hole in the rock above.
“Could that be the crown?” Kiyan asked, his voice tentative. “I don’t see any pixies here to peck out my eyes, maybe they got tired of traps?” He said the words hopefully, but I was skeptical.
“We’ll find out. I don’t see any others.”
I walked hesitantly forward, examining each step carefully for any more deterrents. I couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any magical barrier preventing us.
But nothing happened, and by the time we’d made it to the pedestal I released a heavy exhale of relief. Until I saw what awaited us.
Queen Azari’s crown wasn’t in sight.
Instead, a black oval bowl filled with liquid stood before us.
“What is this?” Kiyan’s forehead wrinkled and he shot me a concerned glance.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Nothing like this had been in any of the other vaults I’d cracked into, nor in any of my research on the ancient fae.
The liquid was clear, and the bottom of the bowl had the same golden carving of a jasmine on it. I looked around the chamber, but there was nothing else. No drawings or markings that could be instructions.
I placed my hands on either side of the bowl and released my magic, seeing if it would point the way.
The golden threads filled the room, stretching out across the chamber and climbing up the pedestal.
Then they began to weave together and collect in the bottom of the black bowl.
Kiyan let out a whistle through his teeth, still not used to me using magic, but I was concentrating on what the threads were doing.
“I think we have to empty the liquid.” I frowned at the obsidian bowl, trying to puzzle out what this new challenge was.
“That can’t be the only thing we have to do. It’s far too easy.”
I agreed, but I didn’t want to tell him the heavy dread settling in my stomach at what I suspected was required from us. I cupped my hands and plunged them into the bowl in an attempt to scoop out some of it, but as soon as I touched the surface, it turned to ice.
“How . . . ?” I stared at the bowl again, the ice back in liquid form as soon as I moved my hands away.
Kiyan tried, tapping at the ice when it formed, and then trying to punch it when he lost patience. He cursed under his breath and bent down to examine the rest of the pedestal. “Does the bowl lift?”
My hands gripped either side of the bowl and it lifted easily from the pedestal. I tipped it to the side, trying to pour it out on the ground. The liquid immediately froze, and the stone became a burn of ice against my hands.
“Ouch!” I put the bowl back, nearly dropping it from the pain. Rubbing my hands together, I tried to breathe warmth back into them. “I’m not doing that again.”
Kiyan looked up at the hole flooding natural light into the chamber, and then around the room. “There’s nothing else here. It has to be this.”
“I think we may have to drink it.” I spoke the words that had been sitting in my gut from as soon as I saw the liquid.
Silence stretched between us, and Kiyan shot me a wary look. “We don’t know what it is.”
I leaned down to sniff it. “I know. But it’s the only other option. I’ll drink it.”
“No.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
“Then we can both drink it.”
“If it’s poison, it’s better if only one of us consumes it.” “And besides, your power may unlock doors and show us the way, but mine has its uses too.”
He picked up the bowl in his large hands, ignoring the hiss of cold against his skin, his only reaction a slight grimace. This time, as he pressed it to his mouth, the liquid melted again. He lifted his brows, watching me over the rim. “To Queen Azari’s health.”
“She’s dead.”
He choked as he swallowed it, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was in pain or laughing.
“Are you all right?” I smacked him hard on the back.
“By the River—now I’m not. You didn’t have to hit me that hard, I’m not choking.” He took another long swig, the muscles in his throat moving as he swallowed with great effort.
Afterward, he grimaced and doubled over, sweat beading across his brow. “It’s not my favorite libation,” he croaked out.
He lifted the bowl once more and drank the remainder, muttering a low curse after his third drink. Then he replaced the bowl, his knuckles white as he gripped the pedestal.
“How do you feel?”
“Like my insides are being sucked out of my skin by a snake.”
“I don’t want to know how you know what that feels like.”
He doubled over with a groan again, and my own stomach dropped as he clutched his.
Dread gripped me, but it was more than just the self-serving dread I would feel if I returned his dead Captain to the Viceroy.
There was something familiar in this dread, the feeling that I didn’t want something bad to happen to him, I didn’t want him to be in pain or in mortal danger.
“Kiyan.” I crouched down beside him, my hands on his shoulders. “Look at me.”
His dark eyes met mine. “I’m fine. It’s poison. But a natural one. What limited power I have can fight this, but it’s taking everything in me.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Do you have anything cool? My magic is purging the poison from my system.”
I ran back to the lake, pulling out a handkerchief from the pocket of my canvas skirt and dipping it in the cool water, praying the jaipari hadn’t forgotten her pact in time to grab my wrist and pull me under.
Then I raced back to Kiyan, who was laying on his back in the chamber, his eyes unblinking.
“Well, that doesn’t look healthy.” I ran over to him, laying the wet cloth on his forehead. “Kiyan, can you hear me? Have I finally killed you?”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of, scholar,” he croaked.
I wiped his brow with the wet cloth, watching as his eyes refocused. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been poisoned.”
I let out a laugh. “And does that happen often?”
He gave a weak smile, and then his face turned serious. “More than I’d like to admit. The Viceroy enjoys how my magic purges most poisons from the body. Having a connection to the natural world benefits him.”
“He makes you consume poisons for him?” Revulsion curled inside me, and I’m sure it was reflected on my face.
His eyes met mine, his lips twisting. “On occasion.”
He grimaced, holding his middle, his body jerking. “More frequently than I’d like. At least that method of torture doesn’t leave a scar on my skin.”
He doubled over, retching against a carved pillar.
“It will pass,” he groaned out. “It always does.”
He pulled himself up and leaned heavily against the pillar, his eyes glassy and sweat dotting his upper lip. “I’m lucky it’s a natural poison. But don’t let me suffer in vain.” He nodded toward the basin. “Have a look inside.”
I sat back on my heels in surprise, realizing that I had completely forgotten the reason we’d come here while I was focused on Kiyan.
Running over to the pedestal, I bent over the basin, where all my magic had gathered.
The threads of gold coiled along the bottom had slowly begun to fade. There below them was a carving of jasmine flowers, set above the rest of the basin like a switch in the stone. I reached down and pressed it.
The jasmine flower sank all the way into the stone, disappearing into the recesses of the pedestal.
Nothing happened at first, and I peered into the square hole in the center of the bowl.
Then I heard it, a deep rumbling noise and then a series of snaps, as if a dozen mechanisms were clicking into place. The wall behind the pedestal began to shift, dust rising in a cloud around us. The dust hung in the air for a minute before dissipating and revealing a doorway.
“The ancient peris really loved their doors, didn’t they? I bet there’s five bloody more through there.”
“Hopefully not, we don’t have enough of you to drink all that poison.”
He snorted weakly, still collapsed against the pillar at the edge of the hall. Then he nodded at me. “Be safe, though I don’t think there’s any such thing here.”
“No. And you didn’t bring me to be safe.”
I called on my magic once more, ensuring that I was making the right choice.
Bring me to what we need.
My threads burst from me, as if they were relieved to have somewhere to go. I followed them, walking forward through the door and into another antechamber, a small room no bigger than my bedroom at home in Astola.
In the center was a small stone table, with a box on top of it. It was locked, the same keyhole as the entryway of the temple. I placed my hand on the box and felt something ripple under my skin.
Inside was the crown of the ancient peris’ queen, who had had the ability to create magic. And I was about to take it.
I threaded my magic through the keyhole, feeling it resist with a lurch. There was more than metal in this lock, but magic too. I tried again and again, pushing against the lock, my magic flooding the keyhole.
But nothing.
“There’s a lock!” I shouted back to Kiyan. “I can’t open it.”
“I’ve got something,” he called back.
I ran back to him, and he shuddered as he lifted his necklace to reveal a key and a small golden ring.
He pulled the key off the chain and handed it to me, replacing the chain and ring back around his neck.
I held it in my hand for a moment, examining the gleaming gold key that didn’t look ancient but brand-new. The bow of the key resembled a sharp jasmine flower, like flames coming out of the top.
“Where did you get this from?”
He grimaced and gripped his stomach, groaning. “Is that really pertinent information right now? I swear, woman, you’d question me about fae relics while I was at death’s door.”
“You are at death’s door.”
He blinked up at me. “Open that fucking box or I’ll become a ghoul and haunt you to insanity. I’ll give you endless puzzles that can never be solved.”
I shuddered. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
I huffed a breath.
He was right; did it matter how he got it, as long as it worked?
I ran back to the box with the key. It looked the right shape and matched the other symbols around the vault. I slid it into the keyhole, and it fit neatly.
I held my breath as I turned it.
The lock clicked open.
“It opened!” I shouted, unable to keep the excitement from my voice. It was starting to sink in what this meant, what I had done.
My mother had left me to find this relic, and my whole life I’d wanted to know what happened to her, to it.
And now I was here.
And she wasn’t.
I closed my eyes, a memory of her singing me softly to sleep, one of the many Astolan folk songs she collected washing over me. I could still feel the thread of her fingers in my hair as she massaged my scalp, the lightness of her singing voice as it sang about everything we had lost.
Being here was bittersweet, because this was what my mother had wanted for us. What she had died to get.
For a moment, I thought I would lift the lid and discover it empty, and that my mother had found the relic.
But inside, staring up at me, was Queen Azari’s crown, woven in gold like a fine net, and hanging from the end was a golden tikka.
There were no jewels—there didn’t need to be, it was so beautiful, simply wrought from Tashuna gold.
Beside it lay a small golden dagger, the size of my palm.
I picked up the dagger, examining it, looking for any inscription or clue as to what it was.
Finally, I slid it in the hidden lining of the pocket in my skirt, figuring I would examine it later.
Then I returned my attention to the crown.
I had finally found it—the relic that would help me destroy the wall and return the magic to the human world.
Now I just had to get back there.