CHAPTER TWELVE
C HAPTER T WELVE
Ruby paces the servant’s corridor, biting her fingernails as she waits – only two remain. The rest were pulled by the shaking hands of a guard so green he might have passed as her son.
The curtain that separates the servants from the dining hall suddenly stirs, and Ruby holds her breath, but no one emerges. It settles once more, and Ruby resumes her pacing.
One week, the Queen had given her. One week to yield the impossible. Ruby cannot begin to venture where Dawsyn Sabar might be hoarding a hundred or so humans. When last she saw her, Dawsyn had been merely grappling with the quandary of it.
Ruby had given her what she saw as the only possible solution: to parade the survivors through the Mecca, to force the Queen to publicly accept their arrival.
Dawsyn had, at the time, seemed to have considered the idea. Yet not a single new arrival had been sighted across Terrsaw, much less a hundred of them. The forests and villages were teeming with guards, and if Dawsyn meant to stash them somewhere in Terrsaw, she imagines they would have been found by now.
No, Ruby thinks. They’re not here.
But if not Terrsaw, then where?
The curtain stirs once more, but this time it is drawn back. Silk skirts appear, heavily embellished in Terrsaw wildflower embroidery. Garish crystals line the hem, the waist, the bust, matched by diamonds hanging from the neck of Cressida, the Queen Consort. The entire garb loses its splendour as soon as the curtain shuts out the light. Here, in a servant’s hallway, Cressida seems smaller. Just a woman in costume.
But her glare is still disintegrating.
“Ruby,” she greets, her voice hushed.
“Your Majesty,” Ruby returns. Mother forgive her but she cannot do away with the formalities so easily. Years of training forbids it.
Cressida looks furtively to the curtain and back again. “This is foolish,” she hisses. “I told you whatever need be said must wait until nightfall.”
“In case you were too deprived of oxygen to hear it,” Ruby hisses back. “Time is running out.”
Cressida looks torn between slapping her and gouging out her eyes.
“I have summoned the iskra witch to the palace,” Ruby continues. “She is due to arrive this night.”
Cressida narrows her eyes. “The iskra witch? And what exactly do you plan to do with her?”
“She might be of use. Perhaps she has a way–”
“The iskra witch is good for very little,” Cressida interrupts. “And completely at the mercy of my wife, as you well know.”
“Which may make her a motivated ally. A powerful woman, forced to remain an outcast, threatened with the full might of the palace–”
“And as unstable as a three-wheeled wagon,” Cressida finishes. “Truly, the woman is of limited substance. You cannot expect to bribe a hermit with societal freedom.”
“I do not expect to bribe her at all,” Ruby says. “I expect you to.”
Cressida barely contains a huff of mirth. She shakes her head. “The iskra witch cannot help us.”
“And yet, she comes. We may as well glean all we can from her. She will not answer to me, but to you,” Ruby nods her head to Cressida, “she may reveal something useful. Perhaps she has some method to find those who want to remain hidden.”
A small clamour comes from somewhere beyond the dining room.
Cressida’s eyes go cold. “Glacians?” she mouths.
“No,” Ruby says, ushering Cressida backward. “Just the guards returning through the Eastern tunnel… with the iskra witch.”
Cressida delivers her most lethal of glares. “So I see you’ve forced my hand.”
Ruby stares right back. “As you’ve forced mine.”
Despite being freed from the dungeons, Ruby is not free to wander the palace at will. She is confined to a servant’s sleeping quarters and only allowed out when summoned by Alvira.
Thankfully, years of servitude to this castle has lent her the knowledge of every hidden hallway, every servant’s stairwell, and the benefits of courting friendships with most of the palace staff. Darius, the kitchen hand, has been most instrumental, given his tendency to leave lock picks in her food.
Ruby makes her way to the throne room through a private corridor. It is the same one the guards would use to evacuate Queen Alvira and Cressida should they need a quick escape. One only needs to access the library to find it, hidden behind the colossal map of Terrsaw that adorns the wall.
She has never walked these ancient tunnels without feeling slightly panicked. She curses those ancient kings and queens for constructing tunnels so impedingly narrow. Ruby must turn her shoulders sideways as she hobbles down the passageway, biting her lip against the throbbing in her hip and ribs. Cobwebs catch her eyes and mouth, and she resists the urge to splutter and spit. These walls aren’t so thick as to muffle her presence.
When the passage curves to the opening of steep steps, she breathes a sigh of relief. At the bottom, she turns to the wall and runs her fingers between the stones until she finds the seam. She follows it down to a handle – a hidden door to the side of the throne room, concealed only by the Terrsaw flag hanging on the other side. She will have to hope it is enough to conceal her now.
Carefully, Ruby pulls on the handle. In small increments, she widens the gap, until she can place one side of her face to it. She doesn’t dare allow anything more than the width of one eye – just enough to see.
Beyond the edge of the green flag, Ruby spies Alvira and Cressida, adorning their respective thrones. Alvira’s expression is regimented, alert, while Cressida (and for this, Ruby must credit her) looks bored. Her eyes drift slightly to Ruby’s and then away.
“I gave no orders to summon the iskra witch,” Alvira is saying, her brow furrowed.
“I did,” Cressida answers seamlessly. She waves her hand in front of her as if the matter is of little import. “It seemed a good time to pull out all our tricks.”
Alvira scoffs. “The iskra witch is hardly that.”
“In any case, Your Majesty, we were unable to locate her,” comes the voice of someone unseen. A guard.
Alvira pauses. “You went over the river?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am. When she did not respond to our signals, we crossed the river to find her.”
Alvira swallows discreetly, her eyes remaining trained. “Without orders to do so,” she quips. An aching silence follows, broken only by the clearing of someone’s throat, the slight jostling of the guards’ armour. “So the iskra witch is missing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” comes the answer. “We found her cabin, but that was not all, Your Majesty. It seems that she knew to expect us. We found a letter. Addressed to you.”
Ruby’s heart pounds. She watches as a guard comes into view, approaching the throne with his head bowed and his hand outstretched. In it is a folded piece of parchment, blotted with a wax seal.
Alvira takes the letter, suspicion clear on her face. She holds it up to the light, turning it over in her spindly fingers. “Very well,” she says without looking back to her audience. “Go.”
The sound of clanking steel announces the departure of the guards and in their absence the throne room becomes eerily silent. Even the sound of Alvira’s breaths echo.
Ruby watches as the Queen slits the wax seal with her fingernail, and as she does so, something falls into her lap. Something too small for Ruby to make out.
Alvira retrieves it and holds the small object at eye level, her expression clearly bemused. If only Ruby could make it out. She presses closer, squinting, trying to see–
“You might as well come out, Ruby,” Queen Alvira says dispassionately. She does not bother to look in the direction of the concealed door. “You did orchestrate the witch hunt after all, I presume?”
Bile descends into Ruby’s stomach; her spine turns rigid.
“Come out, little rat,” Alvira beckons. “No use scurrying away into the walls now. Let us see what you make of this.”
Ruby draws in a deep breath; her pulse hammers, her hands sweat. Despite it, she is determined to walk out of this hole with her chin held high.
Cressida’s eyes flash with something like fury as Ruby steps into the light of the throne room. Stupid girl, they seem to say.
In contrast, Alvira does not deign to spare Ruby a glance. “Whatever your intentions were in fetching yourself a witch,” she says, “it seems they have been lain to waste.”
Ruby speaks quickly, before she loses all nerve. “I only sought her assistance,” she says, “in locating Dawsyn Sabar and her… band.”
“Her band?” Alvira repeats, the inflections lashing the air. “Is it a rebellion she leads, or a merry crew of misfits?”
Ruby says nothing. Her years at Alvira’s knees have taught her when to stay silent.
“Well, it seems the jolly band has gained itself an iskra witch,” the Queen continues. “Yennes is with Dawsyn Sabar as we speak.”
Ruby’s eyes widen. She stares at the parchment in Alvira’s hand, wishing it were transparent. How did Dawsyn come to find the iskra witch? How did she convince a woman so timid to follow her to the Ledge?
Whatever questions arise, they are suddenly thwarted by something more alarming; Alvira does not scowl at the parchment before her. She does not crush it between her hands at having lost another asset in this battle. No. Instead, the Queen’s eyes glint. She grips the page with something akin to mania. She smiles, and it reminds Ruby of animals. Wolves.
“You shall have to thank whatever saints you pray to, Ruby,” Alvira states. “They have indeed provided you with a way to redeem yourself.”
Cressida’s eyes spark with warning, flicking between Alvira and Ruby. Careful, she seems to say.
With energy that belies her age, the Queen alights her throne. She walks briskly past Ruby, shoving the letter and the object it encased in her hands as she sweeps by. “You have a journey ahead of you, Ruby. Alert me when your scouting party is ready.” And just before she leaves through the heavy double doors, she adds, “Oh, and if I find you meandering in the tunnels again, I’ll throw you back to the dungeons.”
The doors close behind her.
Ruby lets out a breath, her chest aching at having held it in for so long.
“What does she mean?” Cressida says lowly, her voice icy. “What is it?”
But Ruby cannot answer. She can only stare down into her palms, at the abused parchment, inked in words meant for the Queen.
Your Majesty,
I’ve left the means with which to find me…
Whatever else is written remains obscured by the object that rests upon the cursive.
A slightly bent, silver ring. A gaudy bauble of little value, except perhaps for the small onyx stone it encases. Ruby recognises it instantly.
Ryon Mesrich’s ring.