Chapter Fifty-Five Ayleth
Chapter Fifty-Five
Ayleth
Stonehaven looms like a sleeping beast in the night.
Even with Roland’s tunnels, it had taken us nearly a day to reach the Sanctum. Shadows churn above its broken, craggy walls. Murders of crows wheel above the dilapidated turrets, their ominous calls prickling my skin.
“Ayleth,” Jacquetta asks, “are you certain about this?”
Absolutely not.
“It’s the only way,” I say, as much to myself as to the others. “I’ll go in the front. That’s what Mother will expect. As for the rest of you, there’s an entrance in the kitchens. It leads to the back staircase. Jacquetta, you remember?”
She nods. “Of course I do. But—”
“Mother told me to come alone,” I repeat. We’ve had the same version of this argument about a hundred times since we began the journey here. “You remember what happened at the cottage. I won’t put the rest of you in danger. Besides, I have Nox.”
The Nevenwolf gives a short growl, his crimson eye gleaming in the night.
Jacquetta sighs. She and Joan exchange a wary glance, likely wanting to protest further, but they must realize that it won’t do any good.
“Here,” Joan says instead, pressing a small vial into my hand. “In case you find her first. Just a few drops of this.”
The antidote is a rich purple color, like a tiny beating heart in the palm of my hand.
“Thank you for this,” I tell her. “And for everything.”
“No farewells,” Joan says firmly. “We’re making it out of this—all of us.”
She might be the only one convinced of that.
“Right, then.” Roland clears his throat. “If we’re going to do that, then we better get a move on before that mother of yours figures out we’re here. Lovely family, you lot.”
Nox snorts, as if to agree. Joan squeezes my hands one last time, then joins Roland.
“Keep them safe, will you?” I ask Jacquetta, indicating the others. “If I don’t…”
“Stop,” Jacquetta says. “No farewells. You’re coming back. Blodwyn, too.”
I don’t bother to argue with her. Instead, I lean in and press my lips to Jacquetta’s, kissing her with everything I have. Like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do—because it might be.
Jacquetta pulls back first. “Until later.”
“Later,” I agree, praying that it’s true.
She peels away and I watch her go with the others, waiting until the last trace of them disappears into the night.
Then I face the Sanctum. Its dark windows look down on me, like so many eyes watching.
And I get the strangest sensation…that it recognizes me.
That it’s been waiting for me. But I cannot tell if it’s welcoming me or warning me away.
—
Cold crackles over my skin, like breaking through a ward, as I enter Stonehaven’s grounds.
Memories flash through my mind as I pass the places where I used to play with the other witchlings—annoying the chickens or helping with the few horses we kept in the stables.
The remnants of the front garden, where I would spend hours tending the herbs and vegetables, always complaining about the heat.
The side exit Rhea, and sometimes Jacquetta, and I would use to escape into the forest. Above my head, crows wheel around the bones of the South Tower and I can almost see the ghost of my former self staring out at me.
Inside the Sanctum isn’t much better. The halls are cold and tomb-like as I step through the front doors, Nox padding along beside me.
The shadows, which usually flock to my presence, creep up the walls like climbing vines, avoiding me.
The distant snap and pop of flame reaches my ears and I follow the sounds until I reach the cloister.
Just like on the night of my Ascension, the coven fire is lit, blazing bright gold and scarlet against the darkness. But I don’t see Mother. Instead—
“Blodwyn.”
Nox follows as I leap over the low wall of the cloister and rush to the princess.
She’s laid out in front of the fire as if for burial.
Dread hums inside me. The dark purplish color of her veins has spread, webbing outward to cover the backs of her hands and all the way up into her hairline.
I press my hand to her chest, but I can’t tell if it’s moving with her breath.
Can’t tell if I can detect her pulse beneath the frantic rhythm of my own.
“Hold on,” I whisper, digging the vial of antidote out of my pocket.
“Ayleth.”
My own name stops me cold. Nox snarls a warning. Mother stands at the entrance to the cloister, pallid moonlight glazing the broken stones of the Bloodstone crown. Even now, that old yearning aches within me.
“You’ve come home,” Mother says. “Just as I knew you would.”
Shadows undulate in the far corners of the cloister. Shade materializes from their depths, his crimson eyes glowing. Nox growls at his former companion, his hackles raising. But I signal for him to wait. For now.
“Mother,” I attempt, stepping protectively in front of the princess. “Please. Let Blodwyn go. Whatever you want with her—”
“Whatever I want?” A corner of Mother’s mouth lifts. “She’s for you, Daughter. All of this is for you. Including them.”
Them? Wind whines through the decaying stone. Mother beckons and then several figures emerge from the shadows. Panic grips me, worried that she’s captured Jacquetta and the others. But then I register the familiar shine of green eyes. Diviner eyes.
“Sindony?”
The other witch struggles against the dark ropes of shadow wound tightly around her. And she’s not alone. Three more, who I assume to be witches, are dragged out alongside the Second, all of them similarly bound.
“What’s going on?” I demand. “What are they doing here?”
“As I said, they’re for you,” Mother replies. “I saved them for you as a gift. They’re yours to punish. A fitting end, given their treachery.”
Punish? My pulse kicks up as comprehension dawns: Mother must have captured Sindony at the attack on the other Sanctum.
Who knows where she found the others. She’s been holding them here.
Torturing them, probably. Exactly like Ignatius used to do with his own victims. Sindony’s gaze locks with mine, all her haughty superiority replaced with terror.
Mother really has lost her senses.
“But you can deal with them soon enough,” she goes on. “After we finish matters with the princess.”
The ribbon of dread between my ribs winds tighter.
“Mother, please,” I beg. “Whatever you have planned—”
“This isn’t my plan,” she interrupts, a hint of impatience in her tone. “It’s yours. You set this into motion the moment you broke the Veil. The moment you took your first heart.”
Initially, I assume she means Callen, but she doesn’t.
She means her own. Her latent heart of magic.
A memory of that night flashes back: Mother crumpled on the ground before me, begging for mercy.
Shade offering me the orb of her power. Even now, my former Huntsman’s eyes gleam—but there is no remorse in them. Only hunger.
“That was a mistake,” I say. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t doubt yourself now,” Mother cuts me off. Steps closer. “It may have taken me some time to realize it, but I owe you a debt for that night. Because once I was free of the covens’ magic, I could discover my real power. A power that can be yours as well.”
Much as I try to resist it, desire flickers within me. The dregs of my own wounded power expand, as if reaching for such an idea. But I shove them down.
“I don’t want it.”
Mother merely arches an eyebrow. “Then why are you here, Ayleth?”
“For Blodwyn. She—”
“Will kill you,” Mother says. “She’s the last of the line of White. She will be your death, or you hers. Don’t you understand? Your fates are intertwined.”
Just as with Callen. That place on my left ribs where I used to feel the pull of the king trembles slightly. I look back at Blodwyn, her lips a stark red against her pale skin. Her dark hair spread around her.
“She’s just a girl.”
“A girl who will become a queen if you do not stop her,” Mother continues, drawing even nearer. Nox growls a warning. “But you are the queen, Daughter. The true queen. And there is one final piece of the prophecy left to fulfill.”
The prophecy. Would that I never heard those wretched words.
“This isn’t—”
“A beating heart must she drown,” Mother recites, ignoring me, “if she is to wear the crimson crown.”
She smiles at me, all teeth. Then, before I can comprehend what’s happening, Mother moves to the nearest captive and plunges her hand into the witch’s chest. The other witch screams, raw and guttural.
There’s a gruesome tearing sound as Mother’s hand resurfaces, the witch’s still-beating heart clutched in her grip.
My stomach roils, bile climbing up my throat as Mother raises the witch’s heart to her lips, just as she did with the Follower’s heart at the ball, and sinks her teeth into the flesh. Blood dribbles down her chin and neck.
“I’ll admit that it’s a bit grotesque at first,” she says, her lips slick and stained garnet. “But well worth the power within.”
Within. A memory surges up: the book Jacquetta found, where Ignatius had drawn the diagram of the heart with its golden center. We guessed that the creature—Mother—was using hearts as an anchor, but we were wrong.
“This is the source of your magic?” I ask, horrified. “You’re eating witches’ hearts?”
“Not just witches,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Dwarves. Animals. Even mortals carry a form of latent magic, crude though it is. And such power is ours for the taking. Like plucking apples from a tree.”
All I can do is gape at her. Mortals? Dwarves? I recall Jacquetta’s stories of the animals found with their hearts removed. Roland, who told me that Miranda left the village. But she didn’t leave. Mother hunted her down.
“This is the missing piece,” Mother goes on, lifting the ragged remains of the dead witch’s heart. “All you have to do is be brave enough to take it.”
She gestures behind me, at Blodwyn’s sleeping form, and understanding hits in a rush.
“You want me to…” I trail off, the words too awful to speak aloud.