Chapter 15
I’ve grown used to the weight of people staring at me.
When we first moved to the slums, we were obvious outsiders, and then during the Retterheld, particularly at the balls, I was constantly aware of eyes following me across every room.
People I didn’t recognise from my past. Rettlings, like Zara, who made glowering at me her life’s work.
And of course, I get it here too, in Isthyr, every time I step outside the palace. Sometimes the looks are filled with animosity. Other times with a nervous trepidation that borders on hope.
But those looks are from strangers or at least people who don’t really know me.
This, the way my friends are looking at me now, is enough to make my ribs constrict around my heart.
I’m being poisoned. I’m slowly dying.
Little Raven? Fen asks. You’re panicking.
Just a little, I admit as my heart continues to knock. I’m okay. Let me learn more and then I’ll fill you in. I gently disconnect my mind from his.
My death also means Fen’s, and I have no desire to put him through that panic until I know more, not so soon after the Veil.
Gods, I can hardly believe it.
I arrive in Isthyr, survive being burned alive, and somehow that’s only the beginning. Apparently, someone decided a month-long poisoning would make a better welcome gift than a basket of muffins. If this is how they treat long-lost royalty, I’d hate to see what they do to their enemies.
I look at Caz and then at the book in her hands. ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘No, that can’t be right. Magnus would have said something.’
‘It’s here. I’m sure it is. The language… Maybe I’m getting it wrong, but—’
‘Give it to me,’ Benny says, grabbing the book and dragging it over towards himself. He skims the page, frowns, flips it over, scans the next. Flips it back.
The way his face suddenly pales is all the answer that I need.
He swallows hard as he looks up. ‘Caz is right. It says you have twenty-eight days, Rose. One moon. That’s why your hands are throbbing. It’s a slow-acting poison.’
I don’t doubt that if I hadn’t been sitting, I would have toppled to the ground. As it is, my entire body begins to tremble, and I feel deathly cold. ‘I don’t understand. Why did he not say anything to me?’
They all stare at me with the same expression of confusion and fear. All except one, whose eyes shine with a terrifying rage.
‘We need to find him. Now.’ Kyor launches himself to his feet. ‘And we will get answers.’
Without waiting for us to respond, Kyor sweeps out of the room, but I’m soon on his heels. The moment he spots our morning chaperone, Stefan, the air sharpens around us, and somewhere above, the chandelier gives a brittle chime.
Stefan knew. He had to. He went through it. Through the Veil. He had to know the consequences.
Before Kyor can put a lightning bolt through his heart, I’m there between them.
‘Did you know?’ I demand, knowing the answer but needing to ask the question all the same. ‘Did you know what would happen to me if I didn’t complete the other stages of the Veil?’
‘Everyone in Isthyr knows what happens if you don’t complete all the stages of the Veil,’ he says coolly. ‘It is why no one ever undertakes it without careful consideration.’
‘Fuck you!’ Kyor snarls. ‘She wasn’t given a Godsdamn choice! It was the Veil or death.’
Stefan inclines his head, conceding the point. ‘True. Nonetheless, this has given me a chance to better assess your powers. You’re right that emotional outbursts do seem to strengthen your magic.’
Emotional fucking outbursts? I’d like to see how he’d respond to unexpectedly learning he was slowly being poisoned to death!
Though, annoyingly, it’s very obvious what he’s talking about. Great cascades of ice coat the walls around us, and icicles form on the banisters and the bottom of the chandelier.
‘This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?
’ Kyor pushes me to the side to have his turn with Stefan, spitting his words through clenched teeth.
‘You weren’t going to actively hurt her.
You were just going to neglect to tell her she was going to die.
That’s how you planned to keep your fucking throne. ’
‘I assumed that if Magnus had not told you, he was simply waiting for an opportune time to do so,’ Stefan replies.
A snarl rattles from Kyor’s throat as he and I hear the complete lack of denial in his answer.
‘Stefan is right, Rose.’ Magnus’s voice cuts through the air from behind me. ‘I’m sorry. It was my place to tell you, no one else’s.’
I swivel around to find Magnus standing only a foot behind me, my friends behind him.
Thessa is comforting a wan Caz, and Ruben and Benny are close enough to touch.
But as for Magnus? He stands apart, dressed as he was when we first met, in his slightly tattered garb, his face tired.
An attempt to make me feel sympathy for an old man?
Maybe that’s the excuse he’ll offer – failing memory.
Well, there’s no chance I’m buying that. I’m not buying a single thing that comes out of this duplicitous man’s mouth.
To think that I thought he was better than Korvane. But all rulers are the same, toying with their people for their own entertainment and dark purposes. To imagine otherwise is a fool’s errand.
‘Please, Rose, let me explain. Come, we shall sit. I need you to hear my side of things.’
‘She’s not going anywhere with you,’ Kyor snaps.
‘This is it. We’re leaving.’ Kyor’s hands crackle, sparks of lightning bouncing between his palms and reflecting in the chandelier above our heads.
He looks at me, and I read the desperation in his eyes.
‘We’ll go back to Wrohelm. We’ll find some healers.
They’ll be able to get this poison out of your blood. ’
‘No, they will not,’ Magnus says evenly. ‘The only cure for that poison is the Veil itself.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say as panic grips me.
‘You don’t have to. It is the truth all the same. Ask your friends – the ones whose magic shows them the truth.’ He glances at Benny and Caz. I’ve never told him what their powers are, but clearly he’s better informed than even we knew.
‘It’s true,’ Caz says, tears glazing her eyes. ‘She has to complete the Rite or she’ll die. No healer can save her. Only completing the Veil will.’
‘Please,’ Magnus entreats again, ‘just let me explain.’
I look back at the group, then to Kyor, each movement intensifying the weight in my chest. I need the Issen’s help.
The entire point of my coming on this trip was to learn to control my magic and find a solution for William’s growing lace pattern.
Even if I didn’t have some type of magical poisoning flowing through my veins, I still couldn’t go back. Not yet.
‘I will listen to you,’ I say, my eyes locked on Magnus, ‘but it’s not because I trust you.
I don’t, and now I doubt I ever will. We may share blood, but we’ll never be family.
I’ll hear you out because I’ve got no other choice.
And the others are coming with me. Whatever you have to say, they deserve to hear it. ’
I ignore the sadness in his eyes. He can be sad.
I’m fucking dying. We move into a room adjacent to the dining room, and though there’s more than enough space for us all to take seats, Magnus remains standing.
I contemplate following suit, but I want to be seated when I hear this, if for no other reason than to protect my knees from buckling.
‘You knew.’ Kyor’s sneered words break the silence. ‘You forced Rose to start the Rite of the Veil knowing that the only way she would survive was by completing the rest.’
‘Yes,’ Magnus says, ‘but I did not have a choice.’
‘All men have a choice,’ Thessa says softly.
The king finally moves towards a seat – a wooden high-backed chair – but rather than taking a place upon it, he walks around the back and rests his arms on the top before closing his eyes and drawing in a long breath. When he opens his eyes again, they’re looking straight at me.
‘I know Toren has spoken to you about the dissent among our people,’ he begins. ‘I believe Uzra has spoken to you of this too, Prince Kyor.’
I’m surprised to see Kyor nod.
‘Perhaps it is my fault,’ the king continues.
‘We certainly have more Morathkian defectors than I ever expected we would, and some of my people feel that in my old age I have forgotten how to lead. When you came through the pyrrhic, Ranveeg and some of the other generals wanted a harder line. No one is supposed to be able to find the pyrrhic as it is only visible to those who have seen it from the other side. Ranveeg insisted it must have been a defector who had given the location away. Not knowing who betrayed us and unable to punish them, she wanted your deaths instead.’
‘But it was the ring,’ I protest. ‘I can’t explain how exactly, but it was—’
‘No, I believe you. But that story is not an easy sell, especially not among those who do not want to believe.’ He sighs.
‘The number of expansionists in my court has grown of late, and she called for a vote. The vote was between those who believed you were thieves – which was how you came into possession of the ring – and should be returned to the land beyond the mountains, which would have meant certain death for most, if not all of you, and those who believed you were the lost princess. Greta Ranveeg is a woman who wields fear to lead.’ He sighs.
‘She has never been to the Morathkian court, but I believe she would be well-suited to it. Anyway, while her methods are not ones I would ever choose, I have seen that they are effective if it is victory and not peace that you desire. I could not risk that vote, not in the current climate of resentment we find ourselves in, but what I could do was to suggest the Rite of the Veil. To prove you were a princess, you would have had to step through it at some point. My actions merely brought that forward.’