Chapter 11 - Under the Rainbow
The Duke of Lycaster was still a threat even in his sleep.
As Brietta and I walked through Hyton family quarters, my eyes stayed glued on the rearing bulls carved into the twin doors at the end of the hallway. Duke Hyton was behind those doors, I was sure of it.
I fought the shiver that skittered up my spine, but not because the Duke was mere paces away. A sickening feeling that I could not name pulled at my chest and I could not tear my eyes off those carved doors.
Maybe that sickness was because my mother was likely there too. My stomach turned and I fought the urge to gag.
“Are you sure you are all right after that faerie wine?” Brietta said stiffly. “Five glasses is more than most can handle.”
I nodded, though my heart ached at the absence of the usual warmth in Brietta’s voice. “I just followed what Annalisa was—”
“Brie!”
Brietta and I both turned to the thick-tongued shout. Annalisa finished dragging herself up the stairs. Her curls slipped out of her knot as she stumbled toward us.
“Brie–Brietta!” Annalisa’s eyes were glassy and drooping, but her voice was sharp with urgency. “I am sorry. I am sorry I used to act like such a cu—”
Annalisa gagged and bent at the waist, heaving the contents of her stomach onto the floor.
My hand flew to my face, but the smell of the faerie wine already stung my nose. Annalisa dropped to her hands and knees and retched again.
Brietta wrinkled her nose, but her brow softened. “Oh, Anna—”
“Lady Hyton,” a man whispered behind us. “It is past curfew.”
We both turned. A palace guard slowly approached us, his eyes on Brietta. I tightened my grip on my Nordingaard crystal, completely hiding it from the guard.
Brietta’s brow hardened again and she gestured to poor Annalisa. “Can you not see that the heir’s twin sister is in distress?”
The guard caught up to Brietta. “You know His Excellency’s orders—”
He gripped her elbow but Brietta yanked her arm away. “Do not touch me!”
Her voice echoed around the hallway and the guard’s eyes went wide. He looked over his shoulder at the door with the carved bulls.
The last thing we needed was for Duke Hyton to appear. I quickly knelt beside Annalisa. “I-I have her, Lady Hyton.”
Brietta gave me a stiff-lipped, yet approving look before whipping her head forward and lifting her chin. She walked further down the hall, the guard only two paces behind her.
She slammed Derrick’s bedroom door shut as I helped Annalisa onto her feet. The guard reached for his belt and the jingle of keys echoed in the hallway. A lock clicked.
Annalisa started crying, but I rubbed her back and kept my head down. “Where is your bedroom?”
“T-to the left.” She hiccupped. “Three doors down.”
I wrapped my hand around the handle of what Annalisa said was her bedroom door and pushed. The door opened without so much as a creak.
Strips of moonlight peeked through curtains. A stiff-backed couch and a low table sat near the left wall. On the far right was a large wooden bed.
Annalisa gagged again and I rushed her inside. I grabbed a pot from the floor and held it under her face just in time.
Her knees buckled and she crashed to the floor. I quickly set the crystal on her vanity so I could catch her.
I wrapped my arm around her shaking back and held her hair up. She spat in the pot and sobbed. “That damn wine…made me feel…I want it to stop. I want it to stop!”
Annalisa had gotten sick from the wine from the Ashmore kitchens before, but never so bad that she cried. Maybe I could distract her.
I looked over at the bed and what I had mistaken for a canopy was actually a large tree painted on the wall—but it was not a normal tree. Streaks of red and pink formed the bark. The leaves were blue, violet, and orange. Doves with periwinkle feathers perched on the branches. Two lilac chipmunks poked their heads out of a hole in the trunk. Green fawns with white-dappled backs nibbled on orange grass near the baseboard.
I spied a golden vixen that peeked out near the bottom of the bedpost. “Why are none of the animals their normal color?”
Annalisa sniffed. “Why should it be? The ugliness of the real world does not belong in my bedroom.”
With Annalisa’s poetic babble, it was a wonder that she and Brietta were ever enemies in school.
My eyes wandered up the painted tree where the leaves morphed into flying birds on the ceiling. I found two ravens flying over the bed, their black feathers highlighted with green and their beaks a shining gold. Ravens painted in green and gold? How very…Ravenwood.
Maybe it was a sneaky tribute to her grandmother, Ilsa Ravenwood.
I could not help myself. I had to know. “Look at those ravens, they are lovely—”
“No!” Annalisa shrieked. She skittered away from her bed until her back slammed into a chair. Tears crept down her cheeks.
I dropped to my knees in front of her. “Anna? What is wrong?”
Her lip trembled as her eyes stayed bolted forward. “The wine made me forget…but it all came back. It all came back again!”
Her breathing quickened and I grabbed her hands. “What came back? Anna, tell me!”
Annalisa slammed her eyes shut and cried. The patter of raindrops echoed in my ears. I glanced out the window—it was a clear and cloudless night.
Though if Evereon let me into his mind with the song of a sad violin and Astrid did the same with the flutter of butterfly wings…
I looked back. The light between Annalisa’s eyes that only I could see shone like a tiny beacon.
She was calling for me…
My Nordingaard crystal started glowing on the vanity and my heart leaped into my throat. I had to break the magical connection. What if Annalisa saw the crystal’s light?
I pulled my hands away and my white flame quieted. Annalisa quickly grabbed her knees and pulled them tightly into her chest.
“ Raindrop, Raindrop, make the rain go away, ” she sang into her knees. “ Your rainbow will come some other day. ”
I let out a silent sigh and gently guided Annalisa to bed. She protested when I eased her onto her back, so I rolled her onto her side in case she got sick again.
I crossed the room to the vanity and snatched up the crystal like it would run away. My trunk was nowhere in sight. I had a room prepared somewhere, but I could not just go around opening doors around the palace looking for it.
Looks like I had to stay with Annalisa.
I silently climbed into bed. I stuffed the crystal beneath my pillow and settled in next to her.
I was no stranger to sleeping beside Annalisa since we used to be dormitory mates. On her sixteenth birthday, she had cried into her pillow for so long that I even let her sleep in my bed.
I had just wanted her to finally be quiet, and hopefully write to her twin that I had been kind so I could curry some favor, but a shared bed became part of her birthday ritual every year.
She just hated being alone, though she would never admit it.
Her twenty-second birthday was in two days, might as well start the tradition early.
I rolled over and faced Annalisa’s back. “Just like Ashmore, huh?”
Annalisa was still sniffling softly. Maybe I could change the subject to something more pleasant. “What were you singing earlier?”
She rolled over and faced me. Her eyes were glistening. “Mama calls me Raindrop…because I used to cry a lot.”
I gave her a smile. Annalisa had cried more in the past two weeks than in all the seven years I had known her. Selection Night was rougher than any of us had expected, and everything that happened after…
Well, I understood. Deep within the bleak coldness of my chest, I understood.
A thin smile pulled at Annalisa’s lips. “Mama used to sing ‘ Raindrop, Raindrop, make the rain go away ’ to help me calm down. Then my sisters started singing it to…do the opposite.”
Her six older sisters all shared names with gemstones, but they sparkled like sewage. Ashmore had collectively sighed with relief every time one of them graduated.
I eyed a peacock with sunset-colored feathers in the tree above us. “Your sisters are horrible.”
“No, they were right. Hytons cannot cry.” She sighed. “ Your rainbow will come another day. Too bad my rainbow never came.”
My white flame pulsed with a gentle heat around my heart. Maybe just like with Brietta earlier, finding my heart’s desire was not just about finding Riyan.
I could not risk more people knowing about my sorcery…but my friend needed me and I wanted to help.
I kept my eyes on the ravens and thought of my brothers. “Maybe your rainbow is coming.”
She snorted. “Not in Lycaster. The storm never ends.”