Chapter 16 - Two Stars
Treason could wait until after breakfast.
If Brietta was going to take her time clearing Derrick out of their bedroom so we could look for memories within Ilsa’s Presentation dress, I might as well eat.
Annalisa sat beside me on her couch and picked at the tray of iced buns on the low table in front of us. As soon as I lifted a warm bun to my lips, the memory of Riyan’s voice traced the back of my mind. “ Take a bite, you’ll love it! ”
I sighed and put the bun back down on the painted plate. As good as the bun looked, it was not filled with delicious elskaberry jam. I was not in the middle of the Bloodstone lily field enjoying them from a wicker basket, either.
I was still in Hyton Palace, wondering if each meal could be my last.
Brietta entered Annalisa’s bedroom without so much as a knock. “Come, Sera, we must go to tea.”
Annalisa shifted on her couch and gestured to the breakfast tray. “But we have tea right here.”
Brietta did not look at either of us. The belt of her robe was tightly cinched around her waist, but her auburn braid was mussed.
I did not have to make a magical connection to know something was wrong.
“This is a different tea,” Brietta said. She turned on her heel and left the room, forcefully shutting the door.
Annalisa shot me a quizzical look, but I rose from the couch and followed Brietta. I hated leaving Annalisa, but I could not risk her asking a question that I could not ignore.
Brietta marched across the hallway so quickly I had to pick up the hem of my robe and run just to keep up with her. She flung her bedroom door open and I followed her inside.
The blankets on the elaborately-carved bed were still tousled from a night’s sleep. The couch at the foot of the bed where Brietta had said Derrick slept looked undisturbed. The room seemed sparse, like some furniture was missing.
Brietta slammed the door shut and wedged the back of a nearby armchair beneath the handle. She waved her hand over her shoulder. “The wardrobe is over there.”
She was not acting like herself, but maybe she was just nervous because I was about to perform sorcery in front of her.
I opened the carved wardrobe and the soft scents of oak and vanilla filled my nose. I gently thumbed through the Hyton Blue brocades when my hand found a black linen sleeve. He had worn that shirt during the Presentation—I must have been close to where they had stashed Ilsa’s dress.
My fingers dropped to the cuff of the sleeve and I froze when a threaded pattern traced my fingertips. I lifted the sleeve—two embroidered black stars rested on the inside of the right wrist.
When we were in our fourth year of school, Derrick caught troll pox. The whole Dukedom was in a panic. Annalisa was inconsolable.
Once his letters became less frequent, I knew his illness was serious. Feeling helpless, I had quickly stitched two stars on a small rectangle of linen and sent them to him along with his letter.
I had forgotten I had done it—hell, I was not even sure why I had done it. Did the two stars symbolize him and I? Or him and Annalisa? Was it supposed to just be a wish of good health?
Regardless of why, Derrick had kept the little gift for years. Even though the stars were lopsided and sloppily done, he had them sewn on his wedding clothes.
I held my breath as my thumb traced the stars once, then I pushed past the shirt.
A glimmer of silvery blue peeked out between more black clothes and my heart jumped.
Found her.
I gently reached into the back of the wardrobe and pulled out the heap of fabric. The dark green ribbons that I had torn from my own Presentation dress were still attached to the sleeves, but the makeshift laces were gone. I laid the dress out on the floor and sat beside it.
Brietta stood over the dress with her arms tightly folded. “What are you supposed to do?”
I lifted the hem of my nightgown and loosened the ribbon from around my leg. “Not entirely sure, but I think this will help.”
I tied the choker around my neck so the crystal was flush with my throat. Calmness washed over me and I closed my eyes. I was powerful. I was in control.
The crystal warmed against my skin and magic tingled my fingertips as I reached over the dress. Each of the Man of the Mountain’s tiny tears awoke in the fabric, sparkling in my mind’s eye like a river on a sunny day.
But I was not just looking for the Man of the Mountain’s tears, I was looking for Ilsa’s.
I kneaded the dress, searching for young Ilsa—that future Duchess who had no clue what her life would become.
The sound of flipping pages entered my mind and I followed the trail my magic was leading me down. I did not find tears, but instead cold sweat.
Good enough.
I smiled and leaned into the memory’s pull.
“ Let me get you out of this. I will not touch you, I promise. ”
I recognized that voice…
Male hands untied dark green laces on the back of the dress. “ No matter what happens, I will bring honor to your name, Brietta. I swear it. ”
It was Derrick’s voice— my Derrick. I had not found Duchess Ilsa’s memory, I found Brietta’s!
I bit my tongue and released my hold on the magic.
“ You are the most noble friend, the best— ”
I pulled out of the memory and looked around, reorienting myself in Derrick and Brietta’s bedroom.
“Well?” Brietta asked stiffly.
I look back down at the dress. “Wrong person’s memory.”
“What did you see?”
My lip trembled as I gave the answer I could not refuse. “Promises made but not kept.”
Her eyes widened slightly and her grip on her arms tightened. “Try again. Make sure the memory is hers this time.”
I closed my eyes and my magic swept through the dress again. Ilsa, Ilsa, Ilsa—what did I know about Ilsa? Mother of Anders and Ragnar. Wife to Alastar the Wise. Icy beauty.
She had iced Derrick out from the beginning.
Maybe Freya had given us a clue after all. My hands traveled up to the square neck of the bodice.
The light beating of feathery wings traced my mind—my magic had found tears.
“ I cannot do this! ” cried a young woman’s voice.
I soared into Ilsa’s memory on the back of white raven’s wings. The wings disappeared in a flash of light and I took in my surroundings—plush pink and blue furniture, girls in their undergarments milling about, and a wall full of tall mirrors.
I was in the moments before the Presentation.
A tall woman with long white hair sat sullenly at a dressing table—Ilsa Ravenwood.
The shimmering dress fit snugly around her curved frame. A beautiful blue diamond pendant sat on the dressing table behind Ilsa. Even though the room was abuzz with other women lacing up their dresses and trying not to cry their makeup off, Ilsa’s violet eyes did not move once.
A woman with light brown hair walked over to Ilsa, her petal pink dress swishing around her ankles. Her lips parted as she admired the necklace. “Oh, Ilsa, is this what your father bought you for the Presentation? It is beautiful.”
Ilsa shrugged. “That is nice, I suppose. Not that I can appreciate it for myself.”
The woman in pink frowned. She picked up the pendant and held it in front of Ilsa’s face. She angled the blue gemstone so it caught the sunlight from the windows and scattered sparkles across Ilsa’s violet eyes.
The woman in pink gave Ilsa a warm smile as she moved the gem back and forth. “How about now?”
The fractals danced across Ilsa’s unmoving eyes and she smiled. “Thank you, Hilda.”
Hilda! I should have recognized her smile. If I had a body in the memory, I would have wrapped my arms around the young Hilda Bloodstone.
Hilda gently placed the crystal around Ilsa’s neck so it rested on her heart. “Who do you think is going to pick you?” She bounced with delight. “Richard Thornebow was absolutely enamored with you at the Suitors’ Ball yesterday!”
“He was quite nice,” Ilsa said fondly. Her face fell. “But with my fame, we all know who will actually choose me.”
Ilsa’s voice broke and then tears streamed down her cheeks. She wrapped her hands around her stomach and leaned forward as she sobbed.
“I cannot do this!” Ilsa cried. “He cannot force me to marry him!”
The other women shot green glares as she cried. I might have even glared at her too had I been there. All I had ever wanted was to be Duchess of Lycaster, and she was sobbing at the opportunity?
Hilda swiped the tears from Ilsa’s cheeks and took her hands. She guided the incredibly tall Ilsa from her chair and led her to the wall of mirrors.
Alastar the Wise was sitting right behind those mirrors, hearing everything. Hell, Nikkolas Bloodstone was there too.
And so was the doomed future Baron Thornebow.
Hilda gently straightened Ilsa so she stood squarely in front of the mirrors. She wrapped her hands around Ilsa’s arms and smiled at their reflections.
“I am not sure how much you can see right now,” Hilda said with a smile, “but you are radiant.”
Could Ilsa…not see?
“Today might be hard but—” Hilda’s smile grew bigger. “—you can still love him. It will just take time.”
Ilsa’s countenance hardened and I swore the temperature in the room dropped. Her cold gaze set on her reflection, unknowingly facing the man who would become Alastar the Wise.
“He can force me to marry him, but I will never love him.”
Ilsa’s words put a stamp of finality on the memory, so I released my magic.
My mind returned to an ice-cold body. I fought back a chill as I tried to comprehend everything I saw.
“It was the Presentation.” My heart raced as I panted. Searching through the memory took more energy than I expected. “She did not want to marry Alastar the Wise and refused to love him.”
Brietta gave me a considering look. “Why? She had to have a reason.”
“She…just did not want to be forced.”
Brietta hissed out a breath and looked down at the dress. “A feeling I share.”
“She was right at the mirrors when she said it—and Alastar the Wise still picked her?”
“The future Duke just needed a valuable diamond, not a happy one.”
Diamond. “She had a diamond too—a large blue one.”
Her eyes widened. “What? A diamond that size and color would be worth thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of marks. If something like that is in her vault—”
“Do you know where the vault is?”
She tightened her hold on her arms. “No. And no one will tell us unless they want to lose their heads. But if the Hytons had sold a jewel like that, my family would have known about it. It has to be in the palace.”
And if the Hytons were willing to hide away a diamond worth a small fortune, what else were they hiding in that vault?
I pushed up from the floor with a huff. Finding the vault would be the next move. We still had no definite answers, but we at least had a lead.
“Anything else?” Brietta asked.
“She was blind, at least I am fairly certain she was.”
Brietta wrung her hands together and paced across the room. I suddenly noticed the knuckles on her right hand were red and swollen.
Had she hurt herself? I followed behind her as she paced, but she stopped in her tracks.
“She did not kill him,” she said.
I crossed my arms. “Are you really saying it is impossible for a blind person to kill her husband?”
“No, what I am saying is that I understand her.” Brietta looked over her shoulder at me. “She might have been forced into the marriage. She might not love him, but…no matter what he did, even if it was horrible…she would not find it in herself to kill him. Even if she had found a way around the blood bond.”
She suddenly turned away. I stepped around a couch to try to look her in the face when something caught my eye.
A pile of broken wood was shoved into the corner of the room—shattered pieces of a chair. One of the legs was splintered, the end stained with dark red spots.
Blood.
My mouth fell open. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” She turned on her heel and headed for the door. “If you cannot get anything more from that damn dress, you can leave.”
I ran my eyes up and down Brietta’s body—no injuries other than her knuckles. Was she hiding anything under her robe?
Or…was Derrick the one who was injured?
She opened the door, but I did not move.
“No, tell me!” I said. “You really think I believe—”
“I do not care what you believe!” She gripped her arms, her swollen knuckles turning white. “Get out. Give me some time to fucking think so I can fix this damn Dukedom!”
My heart sank. She did not sound like the Brietta I knew. She sounded like…
…me. She sounded exactly like me.
I looked at Brietta and did not see my friend, but a fortress.
She had completely shut me out, just like I had done to the rest of the world for years.
Nothing I did not deserve.
I had turned my back on her when she was vulnerable on that velvet couch. I chose to make her my villain instead of reaching out with the same helping hand she had given me for years.
But if Brietta was suddenly like me, I was too late to say sorry.
Slowly, I stepped out of the room. Though my feet obeyed the future Duchess’s order, my white flame swirled around my heart, beckoning me to speak.
I could still try to find my friend again.
As soon as my feet found the blue carpet in the hallway, I turned to the still open door. “Brie?”
Brietta’s hand froze on the door handle.
I swallowed and the Nordingaard crystal radiated a gentle warmth against my throat. “I see you, Brie. I see those walls you have stacked up.”
Her brown eyes flared. No one liked to be seen, but she had to hear it.
“I had a wall just like it, for years,” I said. “It’s lonely, but you think you are safer in there.” I shook my head. “You are not safer. Or stronger. Just colder.”
The gleam returned to Brietta’s eyes and I recognized her again. “How…poetic.”
“I learned from the best.” I gave her a soft smile. “You were there for me when I was behind a wall and…even though I know I am part of the reason you have that wall…I will be here if you want to come out.”
Her lip trembled, her eyes growing glassier by the second. “Thank you, Sera.”
She slowly closed the door and clicked the lock shut.
My smile stayed on as I remembered my last promise to Riyan— try to be happy.
Though my insides were still bleak, reaching out a hand to Brietta was at least a start.
I looked down the long hallway as the crystal stayed warm on my neck. For the first time, my magic felt stable. I could not waste the opportunity—I had to chase this little spark of happiness to whatever end.
Logically, I should have started looking for Ilsa’s vault, but magic was not logic. As the crystal pulsed warmth against my skin, my heart’s desire was pulling me on a different path. I wanted to help Brietta, and Annalisa, and…
I let out a shaking sigh. Just as I had once hastily sewed two stars into linen, I needed to make sure Derrick was all right.
If I could even find him.