Page 147 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

A hot, sickly breeze swept the circular room. Two of the torches flanking the statue flared to life, their flames sputtering against the stillness. On the altar, the topmost book began to glow, its light slow and pulsing, like a heartbeat.

Even the Bugul Noz sounded unsteady. “Thank you,” he murmured. “That one is yours.”

Garin didn’t speak. He strode forward in silence, lifted the glowing red book from the altar, and turned away from the statue. He sank onto one of the stone benches lining the sanctum, tucked the book into his vest pocket, and dropped his face into his hands.

“Where did you get it?” Lilac asked quietly. He’d been searching for it.

“It came to me, as with everything here. I did not seek it,” the Bugul Noz said, sounding tired. “Just after the war, His Majesty, John the Gentlehand, had thrown it into the courtyard pond in a fit of rage one night. It’s been calling out to you these past few weeks.

“What is it?” Garin’s voice was a scrape against their throats—a nicking blade.

“I don’t know,” he said wistfully. “I myself cannot read any of the closed books or journals here, not until they’re reunited with their original owners, or those who can use them most. Even then, I’m not privy to the information unless someone decides to share it with me.

I’m stuck with the unbound letters, manuscripts, and whatnot.

” He tapped his head with a sad smile. “Memorized most of them.”

A strange, unnatural stillness had fallen, thick and heavy. Even the pair of torches seemed to hush their flames. Garin’s fury, moments ago barely restrained, had been swallowed whole—as if the chamber itself demanded silence.

“You’re next, Your Majesty.”

“Do it if you want to,” Garin interjected, releasing a handful of his hair. “ Only if you want to. If not, I’ll get us out of here.”

The Bugul Noz’s eyes bulged in protest, but Lilac stepped up the statue, glaring up at the woman, raising her chin and sheathing the Dawnshard.

Her eyes fluttered shut and spoke from within. Deep within.

“ I am Eleanor Trécesson, daughter of a house that fears its own blood.” The words reverberated in her own ears, skull, and bones.

“Queen by blood and burden. Daughter of Henri, who named me ‘Lilac’ for the softness he invented to make sense of me. A softness he yearned. A flower—fragile, sweet, blooming in spring.”

Her voice sharpened, but didn’t rise. “But the season of my birth is the only soft thing about me.

He never understood that lilacs root best in ruin.

That they bloom in silence, and thrive in the abandoned soil of crypts as well as castle hedges.

He named me gently because he could not bear the thing I was becoming.

“I speak now not as a bride, nor as a daughter, but as the blade he tried to silence in moments when love was rationed like breath. I was given fire before I was given choice, and tonight I carry both.”

The woman ran through the cobblestone alley, even as no one chased her.

Her turnshoes splashed through puddles fouled with soot and slop, her too-large cloak flaring behind her. The eve was dense, thick with mist dulling the sound of her slamming footfall.

Somewhere, far behind, the abbey bell tolled midnight.

She didn’t hesitate, not when the alley twisted unnaturally, not when the shadows bent in directions they shouldn’t, or when she thought she saw one of her husband’s castle guards lurking in the fog.

Not even when the crooked sign appeared ahead of her, exactly where it should’ve been—above the warped door adorned in peeling red paint.

The Fool's Folly .

The jester carved into the sign grinned wide, its remaining eye whittled to a jagged hole. It was watching over her. Judging. The Folly never forgot the Fool’s whims.

Even those done in the dark.

She pulled the wool hood over her head and entered without knocking. The brothel’s warmth hit her—cheap perfumed heat and candlelight, bodies pressed close in shadows, laughter rising and falling like the waves during a full moon.

At the bar on the far wall, she spoke the words without ceremony. “Moonlit Path Tea.”

The barkeep didn’t flinch. A deep scar crossed his face, curling like a smile that hadn’t belonged to him; his amber eyes flashed orange.

He polished a glass that didn’t need cleaning and nodded toward the hallway behind the bar, just as she’d been advised by the tea maker in Paimpont years and years ago.

She’d been here many times before, up to just a few months before, for a simpler sort of tea. Yet it hadn’t felt simple at the time.

Behind the curtain, the air cooled. The hallway narrowed into a short stairwell carved into the earth.

The candles lining the walls burned blue, flickering in the absence of wind, their flames bending toward her as she passed.

She descended quickly, though her breathing had changed—shallow, strained.

Above, the brothel throbbed with noise and sin. Before her—below—the silence thickened like the air.

The apothecary walls were ancient stone.

Shelves flanked the room, heavy with jars filled with pressed flowers, floating organs, silver dust that moved in circles without wind.

Herbs hung like trophies—dried, curled, and beckoning.

A cauldron sat at the center of it all, bubbling with something that smelled of burnt cloves, satsumas, and rusted iron.

The woman tending it wore a blood-red robe, her back hunched slightly from her long years bent over the brew. Her face was pale and smooth tonight, untouched by time, her probing amber eyes deep set and shaped like fine almonds.

She stepped into the chamber, her voice too loud in the quiet. “I need to see Aimee.”

The robed woman turned slowly, her eyes reflecting the candles but showing none of her usual fire. “It’s been a while, Katella.” Her watering gaze flickered down to her womb. “I take it her teas have worked for you and the king?”

“It’s urgent, Madame Toranaga,” Katella pressed, her words rushing out. “I cannot keep it.”

“I see.” Madame Toranaga merely twiddled the gold tassels at the end of her robe. “Your wedding night was last month.”

“And it has been two cycles without my bleed,” Katella said.

“Breathe, dear. John might be generous, but you are worried about upsetting him. Is that right?”

Katella nodded, the lump in her throat growing.

“Kings are permitted to keep their bastard children all the time. Surely you can ask.”

“It is not a bastard child.”

Madame Toranaga crossed her arms, skeptical. “Come, now. Who was it? A friend? A farmhand?”

She blanched and shook her head.

The witch’s eyes narrowed. “Then how? ” Madame Toranaga demanded.

“I don’t know.” Katella’s voice was barely a whisper. “I thought it was a dream, a pleasant dream?—”

“He died in the attack,” the witch whispered, suddenly tugging her back to the door. “In the ambush. Alor is dead, Katella. Stop being ridiculous, you’re doing yourself no favors by being here. Say nothing about this. He is dead , you hear me?” She shook her at the arm. “Dead.”

Katella sobbed, and she reached into her cloak pocket, producing a crinkled piece of parchment. “I should have stayed awake, comforted him, assured him it was going to be all right.”

Madame Toranaga’s eyes danced fleetingly across the paper. She didn’t even finish it before crinkling it and stuffing it back into Katella’s palm, shutting her eyes against the words she consumed. “You were never here,” the witch breathed. “I will not end the king’s pregnancy.”

Katella shook her head fervently. “But you don’t understand. It’s not?—”

“I understand enough, Katella. In doing so, I’d put my entire business and the girls in jeopardy—I’m sure you understand.” Madame Toranaga drew near. “If I get word you tried to end it yourself, I will come after you.”

Katella tried to resist, but the witch was strong. She cried and begged, until Madame Toranaga gripped her by the shoulders.

“It’s early on enough. Tell the king’s physicians the child came early, that’s all. It happens often. More than you think.” She brought her porcelain face near. “ Burn that letter. ”

Katella’s crying stopped, and despair took over her darkened features. “But you help women like me all the time.”

Madame Toranaga shot her a dangerous look. “Those are not women like you.”

“But—”

The witch left her a moment, disappearing into the array of low shelves that lined the northern wall. When she returned, she pressed a small book— the green one —into Katella’s hands. “Hold your head high, keep your mouth shut, and never, ever repeat this to anyone.”

Madame Toranaga shoved Katella back into the darkened hallway and slammed the door in her face.

Blinking through her tears, wiping at her face, Lilac waited to be thrust back into the sanctum.

But she remained there in the silent dark, the cries and desperate bellows of her ancestor’s pleas ringing out into the desolate pit of memory. Fear filled her, and she violently rubbed at her eyes, only to open them to…

The foyer. Her foyer.

Sunlight streamed in as bright as day, and there was a small crowd at the open doors.

A round-faced young girl flanked by a man and a woman stood outside.

And in front of her was another child, with her back to Lilac. Shorter. Younger. Auburn brown hair and a crooked stance, as if she couldn’t wait to leave whatever dull conversation her parents had roped her into for formality’s sake this time.

“What do you say, Lilac?” said Henri. His hair was lush and brown, leaving no gaps atop his scalp.

“Maybe she’s not ready,” Marguerite crooned, inspecting her manicured nails. “Perhaps this was a poor idea.”

The girl’s parents exchanged silent glances, then looked to Henri.

“Nonsense,” he laughed, twirling his mustache as he did when he was nervous.

He bent to the girl’s height and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re going to come live with us next week, understand?

You can visit with your parents every turn of the season if you wish. You and Eleanor will be fast friends.”

The girl’s face lit up spectacularly, but fell when Marguerite said, “You will serve her. That is it.”

Her parents ushered her back out, toward the awaiting carriage. Hedwig scurried in, and scooped up the girl with brown hair, who’d covered her ears with her parents’ bickering.

“How would you like to bake a pie with me, young lady?” Hedwig said, with a playful poke on the belly.

Young Lilac went away happily in her chef’s arms, her own wrapped around Hedwig’s neck.

But Lilac—the one who’d weathered both time and memory—remained in the middle of the foyer.

“What was that?” said Henri, turning on Marguerite furiously and motioning for every guard in the room to leave. “You will not speak to her that way.”

Marguerite stepped to him, her voice low and angrier than Lilac had ever heard it. “I shall speak to her as I please. Do you truly believe I welcome the bastard echo of your infidelity, wandering these corridors like a prancing ghost?”

Henri’s hand rose, brushing his brow, as if trying to press the truth back into his skull. “You agreed?—”

“I said she would not be cast into the gutter,” Marguerite cut in.

“Not left to rot in the streets. Not abandoned , as I was forced to abandon my own.” Her throat bobbed, her eyes glistening.

“Twins, Henri. Torn from me, at my father’s command.

I have never seen their faces. Riou scoured the records for me.

And you have never been any help.” She shrugged, silent tears falling. “Never.”

“And what,” Henri snarled back, his expression twisting.

“And if we found them, then what? You’d bring them here?

Filled this castle with three crownless girls with nothing to their name, surround and overwhelm the one with the timid voice and anxious hand, and call that mercy?

Would they be gift to our daughter? Each a persisting monument to what I failed to sire?

” He motioned around the foyer. “No boys? No men? ”

Heartbreak flashed across Marguerite’s face. She sniffled. “Let Agnes take Piper, then, Henri.”

“Agnes will leave Piper for dead,” Henri warned. “Or worse.”

“She is no better than me.” Marguerite turned for their tower stairs, her skirts dragging behind.

“She will know no kindness from me under this roof. She won’t find warmth here.

Not from me.” She looked back once, over her shoulder.

“And you? You think there’s anything in you that resembles warmth or love? ”