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CHAPTER SIX

ROOK

Though our dinner is nothing but dumplings, mustard, and wine, I relish this humble food more than any royal feast at the castle. The taste of the dumplings brings me back to my childhood, a memory so powerful that I have to close my eyes for a moment.

My mother, stroking the battle-scarred table in the castle kitchen, her fingers idly tracing the grooves. Laughing when I bite a raw mushroom and grimace. Her laughter always sounded like bells.

She didn’t often journey downstairs into the underbelly of the castle, since that was beneath her rank as the king’s courtesan.

He expected her to dress in silk gowns, even in the winter, and to always keep her wings folded demurely along her spine.

Her tail’s existence remained no more than a rumor in public.

She obeyed, since she had little choice.

I swallow more wine to banish this memory back to oblivion.

Tonight, I want to forget.

Lark serves me more mushroom dumplings. “You’re looking scrawny,” she teases. She hasn’t been taller than me since we were both thirteen. Not that she will ever let me forget it.

“Thank you,” I say, for the distraction more than anything.

Outside, the evening sky deepens to the color of a plum as night falls upon the kingdom of Chymeria. An owl hoots from the forest. The hearth fire casts a golden glow inside the cottage.

Everyone I love in this world is safe here with me.

Pyrah’s red hair glints with reflected flames. I’m lost for a moment in her beauty. She locks eyes with me as she drains her wine. Desire smolders inside me, still under my control. When she pushes her empty goblet over to me, I raise my eyebrows and pour her another drink.

“Have you ever been to the Underworld?” Pyrah asks me.

“No, never. The Demongate has been hidden ever since I was a baby.” I frown at my sister. “Since we were babies. In truth, the birth of demonic twins may have been the reason why Dulcamara wanted it closed.”

Lark hops up from the table. “That reminds me.”

She washes any trace of dinner from her hands and hurries over to one of her bookshelves.

She runs her finger along the gilded spines before stopping on one of them.

It’s a book I haven’t seen before, one that looks ancient, bound in midnight blue leather.

It thuds open on the table and releases a puff of dust from its yellowed pages.

“The Demongate is a portal,” Lark says. “It's very old, very powerful. In the Underworld, many believe that the demon gods themselves created the Demongate.”

I tilt my head, trying to read the page in front of me. The text was written in ornate, archaic Umbric runes, and it's hard to make out any of the words.

Lark flips through the book until she finds an illustration of a moon-shaped pool, a perfect circle, buried in the ground like a well. The water gleams blue with paint that must be crushed lapis lazuli, a color more valuable than gold. I wonder how my sister acquired this book.

Pyrah leans over the table. “Is that the Demongate?”

“A thousand years ago,” Lark says. “Things have changed since then. This book claims that the Demongate in the Overworld was buried by frightened humans, though it was unearthed a hundred years later. The king of Chymeria built a gatehouse around the Demongate and demanded tolls from everyone who traveled between the worlds.”

“Nine hundred years ago.” I drink more wine, letting it linger on my tongue. “That must have been King Aurius the Great. He was famously rich.”

“Infamously,” Lark adds.

I narrow my eyes. “What happened in the past nine hundred years? We both know our mother traveled here through the Demongate not too long ago.”

“The gatehouse of Aurius was destroyed in a rebellion, since the common folk believed their kings had been corrupted by wealth. The Demongate was buried under the rubble, though it can never be destroyed.”

“Why does no one in the kingdom of Chymeria know where it might be hidden?”

“That's not true. The royal family has always known.” She twists her mouth. “Present company excluded.”

I grimace. “We never were a part of the royal family.”

Our father made that clear.

Pyrah glances between us. “Where did King Aurius build his gatehouse? Wouldn't there be roads and inns around the place, for all the travelers?”

“Netherhaven.” Lark’s eyes gleam. “We all know the city has nine gates, but why not a tenth? The Demongate? Even the name of the city holds clues to its true history. Nether means ‘under’ and haven means ‘harbor.’ This city was once a safe harbor for Underworld travelers.”

“That’s a legend,” I say, “nothing more.”

Lark taps the illustration in the book. “There's always some truth to legends.”

“The city would have prospered because of the Demongate,” Pyrah says. “They would have been rich. Why would they ever close the gate between the worlds?”

I let out a sighing growl to indicate my displeasure. “Greed always has less power than hatred. There have never been many demons in Chymeria, but even that has been too many. Many humans want to keep the kingdom…pure.”

“Fucking hypocrites,” Lark mutters. “Their own king had bastard twins with a succubus.” She replaces the book on its shelf before returning to the table.

I grunt. “Our mere existence infuriates many people.”

Pyrah must be emboldened by the wine, because she says, “We all must have bounties on our heads. I wonder which one of us is worth the most?”

“Rook,” Lark says, without hesitation.

I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”

“You’re the Gray Prince.”

“You’re an escaped prisoner from the Forgotten Tower.”

“You both helped me escape.”

“True.” That was why I had captured Pyrah in the first place. I down the rest of my wine to fortify my confidence. “Honestly, I'm curious. You never even told me why the queen locked you in her worst dungeon.”

Lark leans back in her chair as if putting some distance between us. “God.” She sighs out the word. “I was a fool.”

I top off her wine, then pour myself another drink. “Fools run in the family,” I deadpan.

Lark laughs, though it sounds a bit bleak.

“Once upon a time, our father expected me to become a succubus courtesan in another kingdom. He never cared much for my potential as a sorceress. Queen Dulcamara stabbed him in the back and conquered the throne. And our lives changed irrevocably. Rook hid in Hexfall, but I lingered in the castle and studied magic.”

I don’t envy the choices my sister had to make. She survived the queen’s rule by pretending to submit to her. She didn’t escape, not like I did, and she had to endure small cruelties every day.

“I started traveling between villages, peddling spells,” Lark says. “That’s how I saved enough gold for this cottage in the Thornwood.”

“What happened?” Pyrah asks, in a quiet murmur.

Lark’s gaze falls to her goblet. She tilts it, watching the dark liquid ripple within. “I betrayed the queen.”

My hands curl into fists on the table. “Betrayed?” I repeat. “Badly enough to be locked in a dungeon?”

“Queen Dulcamara asked me to be one of her royal sorceresses.” Lark keeps staring into her wine, perhaps ashamed of her decisions. “And I said yes.”

“Fuck. Lark…”

“I know. I said I was a fool. I did her bidding until she asked me to do something unforgivable.”

“You expect me to believe she didn’t ask you to do unforgivable things every day?” I ask, more than a little sarcastically.

“Believe it or not, she didn’t.” Lark glances into my eyes. “But this time, she went too far.” She averts her gaze. “That’s a story for another night.”

“I understand.” I sit rigidly in my chair. “Some things are too painful to be shared without hurting yourself again.”

Pyrah rests her hand on the table, close enough to touch me, but she gives me the space to decide if I want contact. I place my hand on hers, craving this moment of small intimacy.

We eat without speaking for some time. The crackling of the hearth fire fills the silence.

“Lark,” I say. “Tell us the legend of Hexfall.”

My sister eats another dumpling and licks the mustard from her claws. “Once upon a time, there was a human king who scorned a sorceress and regretted it. The end.”

Pyrah laughs, her eyes glittering in the firelight. “That can’t be the whole story.”

“Which king?” I ask.

“King Mallex the Wrong,” Lark replies.

I nod, since this makes sense. “His statue stands in the courtyard at Hexfall. Who was the sorceress?”

“She wasn’t just a sorceress but a princess.” Lark’s eyes glow a brighter red as she tells the story. “They were betrothed to marry, sight unseen.”

“What happened to them?”

“Her name was Aetherlin of Myrkland. She traveled hundreds of miles from the north, all the way to Chymeria, and met King Mallex in Hexfall the evening before their wedding. When he saw her for the first time, Mallex couldn’t hide his disappointment. He called her ugly before his whole court.

“In revenge, Aetherlin cursed Hexfall. Overnight, thorns sprouted from the ground and tore down the castle. By the time the roses bloomed, Aetherlin had abandoned Mallex, and the Thornwood has grown here ever since.”

Pyrah toasts this ending before drinking her wine. “King Mallex was your grandfather, wasn’t he?”

“Great-great-grandfather,” I correct.

“He must have married another woman, since he had children.”

“He did.” I rub my thumb over my lips, trying to remember. “Queen Cerise. Don’t remember much about her, other than her being our great-great-grandmother.”

Lark taps her claws against her goblet. “Queen Cerise was obedient enough to avoid the history books.”

Pyrah wrinkles her nose. “How boring.” She reaches for the bottle of wine to pour herself a third cup, but I stop her before she can.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Not drunk yet.”

“Impressive.” I surrender the bottle of black wine. The warmth of alcohol heats my blood.

Pyrah frowns into her goblet. “What happened to Aetherlin?”

Lark shakes her head. “No one ever told me her story. They cared more about the king.”