Page 19 of Grave Flowers

Primeval curses.

Despite all futility, I tried the door again.

It remained as bulwarked as before.

With growing annoyance, I realized it made sense.

Inessa and Aeric had been betrothed but not yet married.

The insufferable Acusan propriety probably dictated that the door be secured until the wedding.

Still, there was hope.

While I couldn’t easily pick the lock out in the hallway where the public entrance was, I could attempt to now, if Aeric continued to sleep.

I looked around for anything tiny, sharp, and pointy.

The bedchamber was orderly, with a desk situated by an unlit fireplace.

I went to it, hoping I might find a letter opener.

Nothing was on it aside from an inkwell and blank parchment, some made from linen and some from vellum.

I tried the drawers. Gold-trimmed keyholes in intricate, peculiar shapes formed black mouths waiting for keys. They wouldn’t budge. Same with the small cabinet next to it. I wondered if I might find a decorative lapel stickpin in the oak wardrobe. It was huge, probably about three times my height and just as wide, its sides curving in and out like a violin. I tugged on the hanging brass pulls. Just like the drawers, the wardrobe was safeguarded.

I turned in a slow circle.

Aside from Aeric himself slumbering in the bed, there was no indication of who inhabited these chambers.

No effects were scattered across the dressing table, not even shaving tools.

No stacks of books were on the round table near the bed, no vessel of water for nighttime drinking. No favorite nightrobe or slippers were there. Everything was tucked out of sight and secured with the twist of a key, as though anything personal to Aeric were a secret, even items as ordinary as a handkerchief. He had purged his chambers of himself. Nothing could be deduced about him from the rooms aside from the fact he was either very persnickety about clutter or very suspicious of prying eyes. I walked around the furnishings once more to see if I’d missed anything, but every surface was bare and clean, even the dust too unwelcome to settle.

A glint on the dressing table caught my eye.

I went to it eagerly.

A hairpin adorned with a single ruby sat in the middle, blending with the wood grain.

I picked it up and recognized it immediately. It was my hairpin, one of several that had flown out of my hair the first night I’d danced in Acus, curtesy of Sindony’s incompetence. Aeric must have picked it up after the party. I stared at it, its wire digging into my fingers. The only personal item in the entire chamber was mine. I glanced from the pin to Aeric’s limp form, as though he might explain himself, my heart swelling with a peculiar heat mixed with uncertainty. I forced myself to focus.

The pin would act as my skeleton key.

I rushed to the private door and knelt.

Sweat beaded my brow, but my hands were steady and sure.

Not only had Inessa and I been instructed in picking locks by Father, but we’d found great recreation in the activity and would do it for fun, intruding on many poor courtiers in all manner of compromising positions.

The pin aligned to the wards inside the lock cylinder and, with a firm push, twisted the bolt away.

The door yawned open.

Quickly, I straightened the pin, returned it to the desk, and went back to the bed to make sure Aeric was still asleep.

I peered down at him.

He was in the same position as before, but his head kept twisting on the pillow, almost in the way one does with fever.

“Aeric?”

I asked softly, trying to see if he’d wake up.

Startlement filled me at the sound of his name in my voice.

I hadn’t spoken it to him before.

He had a straightforward two-syllable given name, yet there seemed to be multitudes of mysteries strung within it, within him. In the privacy of my mind, I called him Aeric or my betrothed, the two identifiers much too intimate for our circumstances. If I were wise, I’d refer to him as nothing but the prince of Acus so I might hear the name of his kingdom and remember my own.

Oblivious to me, he slumbered on.

Swiftly, I abandoned Aeric’s bedside.

I slipped past the door and gingerly pulled it shut behind me, finding myself in a paneled hallway that ended in another door.

The door to the queen’s quarters. I went to it and cautiously nudged it open.

Heavy curtains covered every window.

Purply shadows layered against other shadows, indicating where furnishings were.

I didn’t move, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

My senses awakened before they did. Both my nose and lips tingled. The chamber had a scent, one so thick, it was as though the room were a perfume bottle that held it. I’d never smelled it before, but I loved it. It was richly sweet, with the freshness of a blossom opened to the morning. Another note underscored it, akin to charred wood. It only made it more desirable. The aroma reminded me of both a flower and its thorns, the two coming together to lure and threaten at once. The fragrance was so thick, it had weight and heft. It filled the chamber with water vapor and made it silkily warm. It collected on my pores and the tip of my tongue, dewing me with bittersweet beads.

It had to be a grave flower, somewhere in the chambers.

Only grave flowers were so complex.

But it meant it was dangerous.

I held my breath in case the vapor was poisonous and fumbled forward.

A sheet covered a nearby chair.

I yanked it off and tore it into strips as quickly as I could.

I tied one over my mouth and nose and used the remainder to wipe myself off. Then I grabbed another sheet and pulled it around myself like a blanket, attempting to cover every bit of exposed skin. The flower’s humidity seeped through the fibers of the sheet, and I still smelled and tasted it with every breath, even with the lower portion of my face covered. What grave flower was this?

Then I heard it.

An eerie whisper flitted around the chambers, coming first from one side and then the other, as though a creature slunk around the perimeter of the room.

It was high-pitched, feminine in octave and lilt.

My scar pulsed, a feathery sensation rippling all the way to my fingertips.

I panted. Every breath drew the fabric tight against my mouth, making it harder to breathe.

The whisper came again.

A strange compulsion came over me.

It was the sort that beset you when you knew eyes were upon you and that you must seek them out.

I lifted my chin.

My gaze traveled up the walls to the ceiling. Horror gripped me, driving my strength from me.

Stems, leaves, and roots spread above my head.

The leaves were dark green whorls, while the roots and stems were black.

They’d swarmed over a large chandelier, encasing it so only glimpses of crystal sparkled between the leaves and vines.

One giant flower sat in the center of the ceiling. A dark red stain spread out underneath it, as though the plaster had been daubed in … blood? The leaves and stems spread from it. Gurgling liquid ran through the stems, making them swell at different points, all rushing to the large blossom. The flower’s outer petals were a soft, misty gray that darkened at the center until they were pitchblack. Shiny teardrops ran over the petals, weeping from the center but becoming absorbed before they ever fell. Tucked between them was an odd shape, something that didn’t quite seem to go.

A human arm swung down.

It hinged on the elbow and swayed back and forth.

A wound split the side of the hand.

Webbed, dense tissue clustered around the gash, as though pushed aside by the gaping laceration.

It ran to the wrist.

Black liquid trickled from the limp fingers.

I stumbled back in terror.

Suddenly, the hand lifted.

It jolted and shook, then reached forward, trying to grab my face.

A bizarre gravitational pull gripped my hand—no, my scar.

It felt like a fiery string of pain tied my scar to this gruesome hand and that the two wished to join, to clasp, to interlace. With a shriek, I grasped my own wrist and pulled, desperate to free myself from the force dragging me to the other hand. My skin stretched cruelly. Tiny tears appeared in my flesh. Agonizing, grinding pressure descended on my wrist bones. At any second, my wrist would snap like a twig. I was hauled forward, despite my feet trying to dig into the slick marble.

I threw myself back.

My body weight pulled against the force.

It was enough to break its hold.

I toppled to the floor, my head striking the wall. A bright explosion of pain spiked through my skull, but there wasn’t time to assess the damage. I staggered to my feet; the blow had left me dizzy. I collided into an oil painting on the wall. It clattered to the ground, the frame splintering on impact and the canvas tumbling free.

The large blossom stirred, as though the grasping hand had awakened it.

Its petals shook.

More tears wept from its center.

They splattered onto the marble in bursting drops. The flower made a strangled gulping sound, as though it’d swallowed air and water at the same time. Gulp by gulp, it drew the arm back into itself, reeling it up and in. The hand still reached for me, but just before it disappeared between the petals, it turned on the flower. It tore at the petals. Its nails slashed and left deep gouges. The flower shuddered and hissed in the same strange soprano but didn’t stop.

Finally, the arm disappeared.

I thought the blossom might go back to sleep, but the tears grew heavier.

Petals unfurled from the top of the flower like a frill.

It expanded its reach, making the rain fill the room. A droplet landed on my skirt with a sizzling sound. I batted at my nightdress as though it were an ember. It ate through the fabric. I needed to escape before any drops touched my skin.

I plunged toward the door so I might escape back to Aeric’s chambers, casting fearful glances up as I did.

At the sound of my retreat, the petals grew even faster and surged like a tide across the ceiling, trying to reach me.

Desperately, I grasped the knob.

I looked over my shoulder once more. A long strand of dark hair fell out from where the arm had been. It was immediately slurped up.

Something else hit the floor with a thud.

Desperately, I dove forward.

My hands closed around something wooden and rectangular.

I clutched it close to my chest.

Then I ran back to the door, burst through it into the passageway, and shut it behind me just in time.