Page 17 of Grave Flowers

The same shame followed me the next day as I met Duke Cheston for tea in one of the palace’s many parlors.

Sitting across from him, I kept telling myself it was good to keep my mind open.

Inessa didn’t know everything, and neither did I.

For all we knew, we’d gotten it wrong and Aeric wasn’t the killer.

“Your Highness,”

Duke Cheston said, smiling at me over the teapot and teacups crowded onto a small table.

“I am honored.”

“The honor is all mine,”

I said.

A servant poured our tea and departed.

I took a drink and hid a flinch.

Even though I’d put no sugar in it, it was the sweetest tea I’d ever tasted.

“I know King Claudius was well loved by his people.

I’m sorry about his passing.

I imagine these past few months have been challenging, especially with Prince Aeric betrothed to a princess such as me.”

“A princess such as you?”

Duke Cheston, who had been drinking the syrupy-sweet tea with abandon, paused midsip.

“Oh, a Radixan,”

I said, watching him closely to see if he disapproved.

“And one who is half Fely, at that.”

“I admit, I was worried when I heard about the proposal.”

Duke Cheston set his teacup down and spoke to me with sincerity.

“King Sinet is known as a difficult man, yet you’ve been nothing but lovely.”

He smiled at me in an almost grandfatherly way.

“I believe people should be judged for themselves, not their houses.”

“That’s very gracious.”

Duke Cheston was not proving to be a very worthy suspect, but perhaps he might know someone who was.

From what I’d observed, he was one of the most preeminent nobles at court.

“And do others here share your sentiments?”

“We Acusans try to embrace whatever comes our way.

It’s how we shine.”

He spread his hands out in imitation of a sunburst.

“And we would love to share that shine with you, Princess.”

“How kind,”

I said, even though I’d had quite enough sunshine to last a lifetime.

“Do you think Prince Aeric will make a fine king?”

“I do.”

Duke Cheston picked up his teacup but didn’t take a drink.

Thoughtfully, he cupped it.

“King Claudius worried about sending him away so young, but I think he’s thrived.”

“Oh?”

I thought about Aeric and the melancholy that always settled on him when talking about the monasterium.

“Did King Claudius not wish to send him to the monasterium?”

“No, not at all.”

Carefully, Duke Cheston used a tiny spoon to dollop more sugar into his tea.

“In fact, he often spoke about how he missed him.”

“Then why not bring him back sooner?”

“It’s a good question,”

Duke Cheston said, with the mystified voice of someone who had never asked a question in his life.

“I remember he once said it wasn’t safe, but that doesn’t make sense.

I think he simply missed him, as any father would.”

Not safe? I frowned.

Perhaps there was more to why Aeric had been sent away than I first realized.

I hesitated, trying to delicately probe.

“And what do you make of Queen Gertrude’s quick marriage to Prince Lambert?” I asked.

Duke Cheston took another sip of tea, but this one was long and slow.

“I admit, it was shocking.”

“Perhaps Queen Gertrude never forgave her husband for executing her family?”

I attempted to pry more information from Duke Cheston.

“Forgive me if it’s insensitive to mention it, but I’m trying to understand the Acusan court.

Did you think it was a bit brutal for King Claudius to punish the entire house for selling ecclesial positions?”

Duke Cheston frowned thoughtfully.

It was, after all, old history.

Old history that, unlike the Montario family, had never died and still shaped Acus today. “No,”

he said finally.

“You must understand.

The Montarios didn’t simply sell religious offices.

They controlled a neighborhood in Acus and terrorized the families by demanding so-called protection money.

When one of the families couldn’t pay, they killed them—including the children—and dumped the bodies at the monasterium, where the monastictes who’d purchased their offices buried the corpses.”

“Ah,”

I said.

I supposed I shouldn’t have trusted Prince Lambert to share the entire truth about Queen Gertrude and her family.

“Sparing Queen Gertrude was a great mercy,”

Duke Cheston said.

He shuddered slightly.

“I remember how she begged King Claudius to save her family.

She lost her voice and refused to eat or drink while they were imprisoned.

Finally, King Claudius had the physician drug her wine so she might rest, and while she was unconscious, the Montarios were executed.

He thought it’d be easier that way and that the whole nasty business would be over. It troubled him greatly, though. He wondered if he should’ve let her say goodbye, but he was more than generous with her. He allowed her to give them a noble burial on religious grounds despite their crimes and supported her petition for her inheritance. They say she never drank wine again after that.”

Duke Cheston reached for the tiny spoon again and scooped up more sugar for his tea, as though he might shovel the grim story away.

“But things are much better now.

It was a sad chapter, an abnormality to our kingdom’s brilliant and prosperous tradition.”

I sat back in my chair.

Any house trying to assert dominance in such a blatant, grotesque manner had to be extinguished.

But matters were complicated.

It was hard to know who truly bore guilt and who simply bore the wrong last name.

“Your Highness?”

Sindony peeked her head into the parlor.

“We must begin preparing you for the court party tonight.”

“Thank you, I shall be there shortly,”

I said.

I smiled at Duke Cheston.

“I appreciate your time and insights.”

He took another drink.

It was more like a gulp.

When he set the teacup down, his eyes were bright again, and he no longer seemed troubled.

He grinned at me, his breath billowing with sweetness. I’d never met a more stereotypical Acusan. If sad things bothered him, he pushed them away with sugary tea.

“Certainly, Your Highness,”

he said.

“I’m happy you’re joining us during a better time.

As I said, we shine, and so will you.”

It was hardly a better time for Acus, and it was certainly a horrible time for Radix.

My steps were heavy as I climbed the stairs.

Since the wedding was only four days away, Father would have already departed.

The thought of him traveling across the rocky shoreline toward me made my heart race. He’d be evaluating me once he arrived. I’d learned more about Queen Gertrude, which was good, but had discovered no new suspects. Aeric was still the main culprit and my true foe.

I’d told myself Inessa didn’t know everything.

It seemed she might.

The quicker I accepted who Aeric was, the better.

I should be grateful.

My duty to Radix aligned with my duty to my sister.

When I killed Aeric, I would ensure Radix’s freedom while setting her free. It was simple, elegant, easy.

I only had to make sure he didn’t kill or arrest me first.

At the party that night, Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert appeared.

I didn’t relish their presence though I wasn’t surprised.

With the wedding so near, they would be speaking with their allies at court and trying to gain more—and keep an eye on me.

Queen Gertrude, who laughed and chatted but didn’t drink, turned her head every now and then to find me. I resolved to give her nothing of interest and sat in the chair on the dais, just as I had at the first party. I thought about her begging King Claudius to spare her house. She was so cold and controlled that it was hard to imagine the scene. Yet perhaps I could sense a long-lost vulnerability in her. Her expression reminded me of a winter pond: perfectly frozen on the surface but with hidden depths underneath, if you could only crack the ice.

To my surprise, Aeric joined me on the dais.

I stiffened in my chair as he settled next to me.

It was strange to simply sit next to him while knowing he sought to destroy me.

My hands tightened on the armrests, and my toes curled in my slippers, my body instinctively wishing to flee, even though there was nowhere to go.

“Not dancing?” I asked.

“Not tonight,” he said.

“No dancing and no wine? Whoever are you?”

Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert noticed us speaking, and I determined to appear calm, so they might think Aeric and I conversed about trivial things.

“Now, now, don’t think too highly of me.”

He lifted a goblet.

I hadn’t noticed it held low at his side.

“I thought I’d join you in your aversion tonight.”

“My aversion?”

“To dancing.”

“I’m surprised you remember,”

I said.

We hadn’t discussed my antipathy to the dancing in any detail.

In fact, it had been a passing comment as we sat outside the Oscura.

“I remember everything,”

Aeric replied, a statement that made my fingers tighten even more on the armrests.

However, he gazed distantly at the party, as though far from me, from it.

The party, though, was very aware that their monarch was sitting quietly and suffered as a result.

Whenever someone laughed too loudly, they glanced toward us as though seeking permission. Attention split between Aeric and Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert. Only the theater troupe, which had somehow connived an invitation, remained unaware. They indulged in the festivities without restraint and were practicing some sort of activity that involved several members forming a pyramid.

“For example,”

Aeric said.

“I remember there was a certain botanist, and now there is not.”

I wasn’t prepared for this, not here, not now.

The ballroom’s effects were suddenly dizzying.

This was a party—yet Aeric was using it as an opportunity to interrogate me, just as he had during the one cup.

Anger countered the panic.

I welcomed it. I needed it. I needed to strengthen myself and remember who I was. He sought the upper hand once again, but he’d forgotten that I was a Sinet. If he had the upper hand, I would slice off his fingers.

“I beg your pardon?”

I blinked at him.

“A botanist,”

he said evenly.

While I was stiff in my chair, he was the opposite.

He slouched in it, elbows crooked, feet crossed at the ankle.

Even his head was tilted against its back. He still stared vaguely at the party, making me even more disconcerted because his words were directed fiercely at me.

“There was one working in the garden who disappeared.

Only people don’t truly disappear, do they? They simply get put places.

Dungeons, kingdoms of exile … graves.”

“Whatever are you babbling about?”

I hid my terror behind disdain.

Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert stood on the outskirts of the ballroom.

Both watched us from afar.

By Family fortune, they couldn’t hear what we said.

“Your playmaking has made you quite dramatic.

Given your emphasis on ‘grave,’ you seem to imply he was killed.”

“Interesting,”

he said.

A slow smile cut across Aeric’s lips.

There was too much satisfaction in it.

I waited, fighting off dread and resolutely clinging to my appearance of confusion.

“Excuse me?”

“I never said the botanist was male.”

“Indulge my assumption.”

Inwardly, I scrambled, siphoning from every reservoir of Inessa and Father that I had within me.

I couldn’t afford a single misstep, and I’d already made one.

“Most of the botanists I’ve seen are men aside from Annia, and I can’t imagine Annia running about slaying her staff.

Perhaps you should have more female botanists tending your gardens—unless you prefer women as brides? That has, after all, been what you’ve relied on Radix for.

Brides upon brides.”

He paused, eyes amused and alive.

“Brides upon brides? Please note, I’ve only had two thus far and am hoping there will be no need for more.

Hardly the quantity your phrasing implies.

The botanist, by the way, was named Luthien.

Must’ve been Crusan from the sound of the name.”

My attempts to divert Aeric’s attention had failed.

“He was a very odd fellow.

I noticed him bumbling about when your sister toured the grounds.

Clearly, he’d never worked a day in a garden.

Then, today, I overheard Annia say she’s suddenly shorthanded. Simply seems odd to me.”

“Why would it be odd for someone to leave their job?”

I asked.

My scar ached from rubbing against the wood.

I forced myself to relax my grip on the armrests.

To my relief, I noticed nobles speaking with Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert, distracting them.

“You said he was Crusan.

Maybe he didn’t like it here.

You Acusans think everyone would be happiest if we all lived like you, but it isn’t true.”

“Ah, so you admit as much?”

Aeric asked.

“Admit what?”

Every turn of conversation brought a new level of fear as I tried to verbally evade him and remain nonchalant.

“That you and, I would assume, Radix does not like Acus nor wish for its involvement?”

He’d switched topics, abandoning Luthien to guide us toward the sentiments between Radix and Acus.

I suspected he did so intentionally, striving for information in any way he might pry it from me.

But I was aware of it, and I’d move with great caution.

“We do not.”

At least for once, I didn’t have to lie.

“As I thought.”

The insouciant smile was still on his lips, but he was unrelenting.

“It makes me wonder, if Radix is so committed to their independence, why did your father agree to the betrothal? I suspect it puts him in danger as well from his own people.”

“This is quite delightful conversation for a party,” I said.

Aeric shrugged, raised his goblet, and took a long drink.

Laughter, music, and the tinkle of the glass-figurine dancers overhead raged loudly in my ears.

The merriment made my own panic thicker, and I tried not to drown in it.

I should tell him something private and close to the truth. Leaving unanswered questions in his mind would only drive him to hunt down the answers more. I took a breath. It was risky but necessary. I cut a quick glance at Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert. They were still involved in conversation with the nobles.

I leaned against the arm of my chair so I was close to Aeric.

Assuming a pitiful expression, I put my hand on his knee and looked up at him through my lashes.

That alone made him rigid, as though my touch alarmed him.

“My father needs Acus’s provision,”

I said in a low voice.

Father would loathe me for telling Aeric, but it was the only way to explain the betrothal without admitting I was never going to be an Acusan queen.

“Our harvests failed, and our coffers are empty after my father spent too much trying to repair the palace.”

“I didn’t know.”

Aeric glanced from my hand on his knee to my face.

The insolence faded from his eyes.

Famines plagued indiscriminately and everyone feared them, though the smaller kingdoms were much more vulnerable.

I wondered if he might put his hand over mine, but he didn’t.

“The situation must be dire.”

“It is.”

I took advantage of the moment.

“Though your examination raises questions in my own mind.

Why did you accept a betrothal to us? Radix doesn’t have much to offer you.”

Aeric took another long drink of wine.

I waited, wondering if he was simply doing what he always did—remaining inseparable from the inside of his goblet—or if he was buying time to consider the best answer.

He lowered the goblet.

“I admit I was surprised my mother suggested it.”

Instinctively, he glanced at Queen Gertrude across the ballroom.

She spoke intently to Prince Lambert.

Anxiousness heightened in me.

What did they speak about.

“Certainly, I was prepared to wed.

It’s my duty as king.

As for the betrothal, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

There’s much division between the four kingdoms, despite our shared faith. But there are advantages we’ve never explored. With Radix as a vassal, Acus would have an interest in funding roads between the two, allowing for better commerce and trade. We could institute educational courses in Radix’s monasteriums and allow commoners to work in either kingdom to increase prosperity. If Radixans work here and send coin home or vice versa, it increases the wealth for both kingdoms, which in turn makes life better and safer for everyone. Radix also has a plentitude of rocky land, something Acus greatly lacks. We could use the rocks for infrastructure and to build things like bridges, walls, and fortifications. It makes perfect sense.”

“It makes no sense,”

I said shortly, pulling my hand from his knee.

“I beg to disagree.

I am Acusan.”

Aeric lifted his goblet as though saluting himself.

“We always think we know best.”

I wished to tell him the truth.

The one thing Radix wanted more than anything was something he could never offer: our independence.

He didn’t understand and couldn’t, not really.

The Acusan people loved security and safety and sweet things. We did not. For better or for worse, our pride could never be beaten nor bribed from us. He could offer us every coin in the Acusan coffers in exchange for becoming a vassal, and we would not accept it. Even if I saw the advantages for us, it didn’t matter. No matter who wore the crown, Radixans were their own true rulers, and they would never submit to an Acusan king.

“If you know what’s best, it’s only for yourselves,”

I said.

“You don’t know us.”

“Perhaps,”

Aeric replied.

A smile lurked in the corner of his mouth.

“You’re much fierier than your sister, aren’t you?”

I was startled.

I’d never considered myself fiery.

Not when Radix was so foggily wet and damp all the time.

I’d always felt crafted from the same elements, full of doom and gloom and shifting fog.

“The fire belongs to you,”

I said.

“And to the Acusan sun, of which I want no part.”

I kept leaning closer to Aeric to hear him better.

Every closed inch between us demanded another.

I was pulled to him like a moth to a flame or a fish to bait.

Abruptly, I sat back.

“Oh?”

he asked.

“For a princess who claims not to want anything here, you’ve traveled far.”

“I want to do my duty for my family and my kingdom,” I said.

“And what of your own heart?”

Now he leaned toward me, as though we always must be what the other was not and remain in opposition, even in posture.

If one of us was relaxed, the other was rigid.

If one of us leaned close, the other leaned back.

“What does it wish?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Impatience surged through me, and I didn’t bother keeping it out of my tone.

I thought of my sister, who relied on me for her peace, of my kingdom, which relied on me for its freedom.

“To be born is to be cast in a role.

To have a role is to have a duty.

It isn’t that your heart doesn’t matter—it’s that your heart knows, always, there is some part it must play.

If you abandon your duty entirely, your heart will break. If you embrace your duty entirely, your heart will likely still break, and what of it? Who are we to expect anything else when all who’ve gone before us have faced the same and broken some parts of their hearts for us?”

Aeric lifted his goblet to his lips again.

This time, his drink was different.

It was fast and desperate, as though he sought to lose himself within it.

When he lowered the goblet, there was no guise to his face, only a stare that was so open, I wished to look away.

“I’m envious,”

he said, and I was shocked at how broken his voice was.

“You know who you are and what you are.

You know what to do and how to do it.”

“Your Highness!”

Horatio, one of Aeric’s friends, stepped onto the dais’s lowest step.

His presence cut between me and Aeric, demanding the focus we’d been giving only to each other.

“You’re much too somber tonight.

Come, we will make you merry.”

Seeing the exchange, the other guests cocked their heads toward us, waiting for their monarch to respond.

Prince Lambert had been kissing Queen Gertrude’s neck, but she pushed him off, eyes narrowing at us.

“I’m sitting with the princess,”

Aeric said, continuing to refer to me without the possessive, making me feel like an entity all my own, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“It is all the merriment I require.”

“We are most happy the princess is here!”

Horatio sensed Aeric was defending me and quickly changed tactics.

He turned to the crowd, then shouted.

“Let’s raise our goblets to the betrothal of our gracious monarch and our beautiful soon-to-be queen.”

Aeric stood.

Only I noticed the hitch to his rise, the subtle abruptness masking his hesitation.

I didn’t stand.

I didn’t dare. Not with Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert there. Frenzy spread as the guests hurried to procure goblets and participate, eager to show their support. Bottles popped up as servants raised them overheard to show where the goblets might be filled, and the crowd surged like flocks of beak-bobbing birds to whichever servant was closest. The drunken, confused theater troupe didn’t know what was happening but added to the frenzy by dismantling their pyramid in a desperate effort to secure more wine.

Goblets were timidly offered to Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert.

Holding up her hand, Queen Gertrude turned away.

She strode from the ballroom, Prince Lambert following close behind her.

She would not toast her son. Some of the nobles followed them.

“To our prince and the princess!”

Horatio shouted.

He lifted his goblet.

Wine splashed over the sides.

The guests who’d managed to get wine in time raised their goblets too. A goblet was extended to me. I hesitated. Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert were gone. Slowly, I took it and stood. As I rose, the crowd hummed in excitement. Aeric and I raised our goblets toward the crowd and took a sip. Horatio wasn’t done. Pleased by his success with the toast, he cried.

“A kiss! A kiss for the happy couple!”

I stiffened, finding myself panicked and fearful … and, though I didn’t dare acknowledge it, desirous, deep within.

“No need,”

Aeric said.

“There’ll be enough kissing at the wedding.

As Yorick once said, ‘delayed gratification is the most exquisite’ and I’m inclined to agree.”

He was rejecting a kiss.

I knew it was out of respect—he didn’t wish to force a kiss on me before the entire court—but our talk of hearts and duties left me empty.

I was allowed no far-reaching desires of my own, but a kiss, even one I should not have, might be mine to command.

Perhaps I’d take it. I could explain it as strategy if word got back to Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert, especially as the court had demanded it. It would be different from the kiss on the balcony. That one had overwhelmed my reason. But this kiss I’d take with clear eyes and a closed heart, knowing it was the last of its kind. Such a thing existed, didn’t it?

“Nonsense.”

I addressed the party.

“Why wait when we don’t know what tomorrow brings?”

Aeric was the one to go rigid now.

Even though he was a foot away, I felt his confliction.

For once, he reminded me of Radix: foggy, disordered, confused.

He stared at the crowd, but his gaze didn’t focus. It was adrift, and I had the desire to snatch it, to call it home to me, to draw it to mine one last time. The party fed on my response. They crowed and raised their glasses again, and half of them turned to kiss each other, as though they were us.

“Well,”

Aeric said, setting his goblet on the arm of his chair.

“I am yours and, as such, yours to command.”

The guests cheered again, and those kissing redoubled their passion, so all I saw was the underside of jaws and the vanishing of lips, arms encircling necks and bodies pressing together as though they wished to climb inside each other.

Aeric still didn’t look at me.

He’d said he was mine to command, but he stared out at the party in the way someone stared out at the sea, seeing something vast and limitless and being made tiny by it.

It wouldn’t do.

I stepped toward him, carried on the moment and my own craving that I needed to kill—yet wouldn’t, not right now, not this second.

Suspicion crossed his face, but there was something else within his gaze: a fierce, unquenchable longing.

At the last moment, all distrust disappeared, and he came to me with decisive abandon, and he truly was mine to command.

Our kiss was desperate and ragged, as though we’d changed much since the last time, even though it had been only two nights before.

Without thought, my leg curled around the sturdiness of him, and I was hoisted in the air.

My gown’s thin silk skirt collected at my thighs, and suddenly I adored the Acusan immodesty.

Aeric’s hands pressed against my flesh, every finger indented against the suppleness of my skin.

I never wanted him to stop.

“Huzzah! Huzzah!”

Horatio led the crowd in cheers.

Their voices grew loud, reminding us we were not alone.

Dazedly, Aeric set me down.

He reached for my hand, thought better of it, and instead gestured grandly toward me.

“Your future queen!” he said.

“Our queen, our queen, our queen!”

the guests called in response.

Their voices thundered as one.

I curtsied in gratitude, and the chant grew.

It dove and swept through the ballroom, growing louder and louder. I dared to glance at Aeric, thinking my sudden favor might threaten him and deeply relieved Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert hadn’t witnessed the kiss and the crowd’s response. But there was only pride in his eyes. I wished I hadn’t seen it. The cheer fell apart and turned into the usual sound of a court party.

“Excuse me,”

I murmured.

“I wish to take the air.”

I hurried from the ballroom.

The chanting played in my ears, over and over.

Never had I been publicly proclaimed as a queen, and the Acusan court had cheered for me as though I was theirs, accepting me, wanting me.

But I would be their queen consort for mere hours before killing their king.

Everything was upside down.

I lifted my fingers to my lips.

I’d been hailed as queen by a kingdom that wasn’t mine and kissed by the boy I’d murder.

I lowered my hand. During our conversation, I’d spoken to Aeric about duty. I would do mine. It didn’t matter how I felt. It didn’t matter that, though I feared Aeric, I couldn’t seem to hate him.

“Your Highness? I was passing the ballroom and saw you leave.”

Yorick joined me in the hall.

“Where are you off to?”

“Nowhere. Bed.”

A thought struck me, and I welcomed it.

I would lose myself in plotting so any thoughts of Aeric would be strategic, nothing more.

“Actually … there is somewhere I’d like to go.

The queen’s quarters.

I wish to visit them without anyone knowing.”

“I’d love to assist, but I believe they are secured and have been since Princess Inessa’s death,”

Yorick said.

“The only way in would be through the king’s chambers, and those are well guarded, as Prince Aeric lives in them now.”

“How might I get in?”

“You could seduce him,”

Yorick offered.

I blushed, my face warm and my lips even warmer.

“I’m not certain the prince trusts me enough for seducing to work,”

I said.

My tone was placid even as my body betrayed me.

“You could seduce a guard instead.”

“Perhaps we should avoid seducing as a tactic.”

I considered my options.

If I couldn’t get into Inessa’s chambers, I’d investigate elsewhere.

“Could you take me to the palace roof?”

“Prince Aeric’s haunt?”

“Yes.”

Aeric spent many nights prowling up above our heads.

Maybe there was a reason that went beyond brooding.

I should see it for myself while he was at the party.

“Do you know the way?”

Yorick did indeed know the way.

The palace roof was accessed by a winding set of stairs.

As we progressed, the steps became narrower and steeper, and the ceiling dropped lower and lower.

If we weren’t going up, I’d think we were going down. I thought about Aeric ascending the stairs alone, over and over, to get to the roof, haunting this strange slip of space. The image brought loneliness over me, but it wasn’t mine—it was his.

We reached the top.

The world went from a narrow, stifling, and dark canal to a wide, breezy, and star-studded sky.

Guardians faced away from us on the ledge, reduced to hulking shapes with forked tails, arched haunches, and pointed ears.

From this vantage point, I saw that each guardian had two tails, one belonging solely to itself and another long one that bound it to the other guardians’ second tails, so they were linked.

“Here you are, Your Highness.”

Yorick gestured grandly.

“Prince Aeric’s place of skulking.

Imagine if we took it over.

We could set up a tiny table and drink tea from tiny cups.”

I stopped midstep.

Yorick’s suggestion reminded me of a time Inessa and I had tried to make a place of our own.

It was right after I’d stolen the scarf from our parents’ chambers.

Inessa grabbed my wrist as we left our slumbering father behind. We scampered off, winding up and through the hidden passage until we were spewed out onto the palace roof.

Panting, we collapsed together in a sweaty heap.

Icy, salty wind thrashed about us and nipped at our bare legs.

Looking at each other, we burst into laughter.

We jumped to our feet and rushed to the side of the roof. It was nothing but a sloping edge. Sheet copper, patinaed green, formed jagged teeth along it. The wind was even stronger, as though the Primeval Family were trying to blow us over the edge. It only made us more euphoric, the peril becoming another thrill to add to the first. Inessa snatched the scarf from my neck and waved it above her head. The wind grabbed it as though it were an offering, yanking it upward. She released it. We howled in pleasure as it flew away.

Finally, we collapsed again, cheeks ruddy and eyes bright.

“Look, I also took this.”

I showed her the plaque.

“Mother will miss it,”

she said.

Then she shrugged.

“But it’s all right.

She’ll think a servant stole it.

Look, it has a name at the bottom: Alifair.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“It’s a Fely name.

Maybe it’s the name of the Fely who painted it.

Let’s keep it up here,”

Inessa said.

“This can be our own little chapel, and we can fill it with whatever we want.”

“All right!”

Together, we set it up against a jut of copper.

I let out a sigh.

“How scary that Father was napping the whole time I was there.”

“You could’ve killed him,”

Inessa said.

Her eyes were still bright, and she smiled.

“You could’ve just slit his throat right there.”

“And then what?”

“Ruled, silly.”

“Remember, I’m the scared one.

I could never do something like that.”

“You are the scared one,”

Inessa agreed.

Then she nudged me.

“But that means you’re also the brave one.”

It was one of the nicest things Inessa had ever said to me and one of the last of its kind.

Shortly after, Father put us in competition, and everything changed.

Sometimes I would still climb alone to our tiny chapel and sit in front of the plaque.

We’d never gotten to fill it with anything else, and the wind that had claimed the scarf eventually claimed the plaque too.

Now I was atop a different palace roof while Yorick suggested we claim it for ourselves, reminding me of how my sister and I never had.

I let out a sigh, as though I might breathe the memory away.

“It might be difficult to set up a tiny table with tiny cups if Prince Aeric is often up here,”

I said.

“Though I do like the idea.”

It was humorous to think of such a setup because the palace roof was desolate and nothing but stone.

I wandered to the ledge.

My stomach turned.

The garden was crafted in miniature, far away and tiny. A guardian was next to me, its teeth bared. It was smooth, aside from one crumbly patch that caught on my skirt. Carefully, I tried to work it free, but its sharpness cut my skin and tore a hole in the fabric. Upon closer inspection, I saw it wasn’t truly a crumbly patch but rather tiny gouges in the stone, made from something very small but sharp. I gave it a firm tug. Loose gravel beneath my feet made me stumble. My slippers had no purchase. I fell onto my backside with a thud, the gravel digging into my palms. I’d come here seeking answers, and the palace roof seemed to attack me, protecting its monarch.

“Ouch!” I cried.

Yorick hurried to my side.

“Let me help you up, Your Highness.”

Once I was upright, he examined my palm and carefully picked pebbles from it.

They didn’t match the stone on the ground.

Instead, they were the same limestone as the guardians.

I let out a defeated sigh and leaned against the sturdiness of the guardian’s sloped back.

“We need to be careful with you,”

he said, noting my inflamed scar.

“I’m fine,”

I said quickly, pulling my hands away.

My palms stung terribly.

I peered hopelessly around the roof; I’d learned nothing.

“Is everything all right?”

Concern filled Yorick’s voice.

“Everything is all right,”

I said, more defeated than ever.

“Or maybe nothing is?”

Yorick asked gently.

He leaned against the guardian with me.

“Maybe,”

I admitted.

“Here’s one thing to lift your spirits,”

Yorick said.

“I heard the cheering.

The court loved you.

They embraced you, and I would wager most want to see you wear the crown.

There’s much you can do here, should you desire.”

He didn’t understand.

My aim was to help Radix.

I recalled Aeric’s plans for our two kingdoms.

I’d never thought an Acusan monarch would wish to do anything other than expand their control through a vassal. Yet Aeric’s vision truly would benefit us both. I sighed. It didn’t matter. Radix would care not, but perhaps, once I was queen regnant after Father died, I might strive to implement educational programs and research how we could harvest our rocks for export to Acus and maybe Crus and Pingere as well. In all my avoiding the crown, I’d never considered what I’d do with it if it found its way onto my head.

“I’ve missed our conspiring.”

Yorick dropped his head onto my shoulder.

“We should do this more often.

Who should we murder next? Let’s kill Horatio.

I fear he’s more handsome than me.”

I laughed.

“I’m hoping to keep the murders to a minimum.”

“Fine.”

Yorick sighed with playful huffiness.

“I suppose we can’t murder people because they’re more beautiful than us.”

“You have nothing to fear, Yorick.

No one is as beautiful as you.”

“Not even Horatio?”

“Not even Horatio.”

“Good.

Horatio lives, then.”

Another laugh escaped me.

I leaned into Yorick.

He straightened, letting me rest against him.

“Perhaps jester was your true calling after all,”

I said.

“You always make me laugh.”

“You’re too kind, but it’s because I’m so sad.”

“Sad people are better at making others laugh?” I asked.

“I think so.

We laugh so we don’t cry.”

Gently, he wrapped his arm around me.

“Anyways, where might we put the tiny table?”

Later that night, nothing was right.

Everything about my bed was too soft and too comfortable.

Or maybe it was that I was too rigid, strain locking my bones and joints into points of tension.

Even the darkness in my chambers was infuriatingly mild, and I could see the outlines of furniture and furnishings, much to my frustration. Seeing them meant I was awake when the only thing I wanted was to fall into the nothingness of dreamless sleep.

At first, I thought I imagined a bizarre stirring within the palace.

The only sounds usually drifting into my chamber were the footsteps of guards making rounds, their boots characteristically heavy, and the occasional servant, their steps much lighter.

But I heard … running.

It came from up the hallway and grew louder until the quick steps passed right in front of my chamber and continued down the hall.

I sat up.

There was more running, heading in the same direction.

I heard shouting.

“Come! They need everyone!”

I jumped to my feet and ran through my chambers to the door.

I threw it open and looked out.

No one was there, but more panicked voices filled the palace.

I followed the commotion. It grew the farther I went, until I joined a stream of people heading in one direction. We went up a flight of stairs and down a wing I’d never been before.

Everyone assembled at the very end.

The nobility stood uselessly about while the servants moved this way and that, trying to be helpful.

The theater troupe looked terrified but also thrilled.

A guard was posted. He kept everyone back from two elaborate doors, one of which was splintered open.

I spotted Yorick in the milieu and hurried to him.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s Queen Gertrude.

They broke her door because she was inside alone.

Prince Lambert is in the chambers with the physician now.”

“Is she ill?”

I asked.

She’d been fine only a few hours ago at the party.

“Dead, I think.

Apparently, she was screaming … and then she stopped screaming.

Never a good sign.”

Dead? Queen Gertrude? My mind whirled.

Aeric swept into the hall.

Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t in nightclothes.

He wore the same attire he had at the party, and his hair had the windswept quality of someone who’d been outdoors and up high. He halted. His eyes moved around the hall, flitting over me before landing on the guard posted outside his mother’s chambers. Thick fear engulfed me, but he didn’t seem to see me or anyone else. For a few moments, he didn’t move, he only stared, as though wishing to forestall the inevitable. Then, reluctance emanating from his every movement, like a man condemned, he walked to the guard.

The guard whispered in his ear.

I saw Aeric’s suspicion come true.

Anguish filled his face, the sort that you witness only in the exact moment of pain, when there hasn’t been any time to process it or apply any thought to it—the sort of moment when you feel it in the way you would being stabbed.

Raw shock, raw pain, raw grief, with nothing to cut against it or save you from it. I almost looked away. The moment was too painful to watch … if it was real. I’d long suspected Aeric was a masterful actor. If Queen Gertrude was dead, Aeric was the most likely culprit, even as he stood there with reddening eyes.

“This wasn’t you, was it?”

Yorick whispered to me.

“What?”

“You know … all your murder and mayhem.”

“No, it wasn’t,”

I said.

Aeric entered Queen Gertrude’s chamber.

I had to gain entry as well.

“I must go.”

I approached.

The guard raised his hand to stop me, but realizing I was Aeric’s betrothed, let me by.

I rushed into the chamber.

My stomach twisted, threatening to fill my throat with nausea.

Queen Gertrude lay on the ground.

She was pale, all color drained.

The caverns of her eyes and mouth seemed to float against the whiteness.

She stared sightlessly. Even though there wasn’t any life left in her, her face contorted with terror, as though she’d been poured into a mold of fright.

“My love!”

Prince Lambert cried.

Spittle flung from his lips.

He knelt over her.

“My love! No! Don’t leave.”

A physician knelt on her other side, his brow furrowed in confusion.

The queen was dead … but she bore no wounds.

I thought for certain I’d find her stabbed or strangled.

Perhaps she’d been poisoned? But even then, poisons left traces: foaming at the mouth, skin turning blue, vomiting. I glanced at her nails. Moonrain, the most discreet of all poisons, still left crescents on the fingernails. She had none. Aside from her terrified expression, Queen Gertrude was completely untouched.

Numbly, I scanned the chambers.

She must’ve retreated against the wall and turned away from her attacker because nail scratches slashed the paneling.

It was as though she’d been so frightened, she’d tried to claw her way out.

What had happened?

I turned back to where she lay, confounded and horrified.

I’d thought Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert were the true powers in Acus, but here she lay, dead.

The physician took her pulse and examined her as the head of the guard moved about the chambers, making certain no one hid in the wardrobe or under the bed.

He went from window to window.

Every single one was locked, and none of the panes were broken.

“Do you think it was an assassin?”

a younger guard asked.

The head of the guard shook his head, wearing the same confusion that the physician did.

“If it was, they managed to come and go without a trace.”

I returned my attention to Aeric.

He stood back from Prince Lambert, staring down at his mother.

His shoulders were slumped, and his head tilted forward, a picture of defeat.

The fear captured in Queen Gertrude’s face was alive in me. Aeric appeared defeated, but perhaps this was a moment of triumph. Perhaps it had begun. He’d confirmed his enemies and started killing them—us—off, one by one in secret. Suddenly, for the first time ever, I wished Father was present so he might protect me. He was my only true ally and still a long way off. Until he arrived, I was isolated and vulnerable to the forces around me, and those forces were rising as the wedding drew near.

Aeric knelt on the other side of the queen.

At first, I couldn’t comprehend the emotions on his face, so subsumed as I was by terror.

Fingers shaking, Aeric took Queen Gertrude’s hand and held it.

His eyes reddened more. He swallowed several times. A vague, odd familiarity reached me. I remembered how Yorick had talked about losing his mother. I could see Yorick’s pain in Aeric’s pain, one old and past, one new and present, but both the same. How strange, though, to know it might all be an act. Yet I could believe it. I’d witnessed Inessa practice trembling and weeping. She’d always smirked afterward, even as tears still stained her cheeks.

Aeric’s eyes met mine.

Immediately, I shrank against the wall, and he leaned back on his heels.

Pain pressed up against his features, as irrepressible as mist against a windowpane.

Abruptly, he broke my gaze, rose, and stalked farther into the chamber.

He was a solitary figure.

No one came near him.

He was truly alone, as was I.