Page 21 of Grave Flowers

Decima was gone when I exited the theater, but Sindony waited, her foot tapping impatiently against the marble floor.

She didn’t say anything when I appeared.

Rather, she turned on her heel and strode down the hall.

I followed her, apprehension mounting, especially as she took me through turns I’d never been before. The palace narrowed around us, and soon we were in a secluded wing. No servants, guards, or courtiers were present. I wavered, alarmed at the isolation. Finally, Sindony stopped at a round door. She removed a key from her pocket and opened it, her hands moving with a quick and flawless grace that was surprising, considering her usual clumsiness.

“He’s waiting in there,”

she said, not bothering to curtsy.

My apprehension turned to complete trepidation.

Why did Prince Lambert wish to speak to me here? As far as I knew, he was still my ally, but perhaps something had changed.

Things did so all the time at court in Radix. Sindony considered me smugly. I’d gotten her wrong—what else had I gotten wrong?

“And what does he want?”

I asked, lifting my chin.

“You’ll see,”

she said.

With that, she left.

I nearly ran after her, half wishing to follow her back to the known parts of the Acusan palace.

There was nothing to do but open the round door and enter. I did so quickly, trying to assess where any threats might be.

I was outdoors but not outside.

Four walls adorned in ornamental stonework surrounded me, but there was no roof.

A trellis laced its way above my head.

Woody vines crept over it, and reddish flowers grew in clustered stalks from them. Each stalk drooped toward the ground, forming a ceiling of fragrant hanging blossoms.

A small stone bench with a back sculpted into a heart sat near a fountain, and beyond that was an even smaller table made from curling iron with matching chairs.

Crimson flowers grew in freestanding terrariums, all of which were mounted on elaborate marble bases.

The terrariums looked like birdcages, the panes of glass set amid delicate walnut-stained casing.

All the flowers seemed content within their small confinements, not a single leaf or blossom reaching toward the sun or pressing against the glass, as though they had everything they needed right where they were.

Prince Lambert stood by the fountain.

He appeared to have shrunk, like his bones had lost density overnight.

He was perfectly still except for his eyes.

They kept darting to the right of him, perhaps hoping to find Queen Gertrude standing there, as she had in life. The fingers on his right side spread wide in the way hands did when waiting for someone to slip their fingers into their empty places.

But Queen Gertrude would never hold his hand again.

“I was told you wished to see me?”

I asked, as the round door closed, sealing me into the garden.

“The queen is dead,”

he said, and his voice trembled, as though he couldn’t believe it.

His gaze darted from the bench to the table and chairs.

I realized, suddenly, that this garden had been made for two people.

The bench could accommodate only two bodies, and there were only two chairs at the small table, which had just the right amount of surface for drinks or food for two. The positioning of the atriums and fountains made it so three, even standing, would feel like too many. It was a space meant for one soul and their counterpart—a secret garden, a lover’s garden. As Prince Lambert surveyed the surroundings, the desperation in his face grew, and he stumbled forward, as though he wished to step into the past and be with Queen Gertrude again. This had to be where they planned and plotted, hidden away within the palace.

“My condolences for your loss,”

I said carefully, warily.

The intimacy of the garden tightened around me.

I imagined I could scream at the top of my lungs and it wouldn’t reach past the walls; the stones and sky would claim the sound before anyone else heard—not that anyone was around to hear it, as this part of the palace was devoid of traffic.

“She was the love of my life,”

Prince Lambert said, his eyes leaping faster and faster between the bench and the table.

“I—”

I didn’t know what to say.

His openness wasn’t simply vulnerability.

Not to me.

It was unpredictability, and as such, it was terrifying.

“I’m truly sorry.”

“Sit.”

He pointed to the bench.

Stiffly, I stepped over to it and sank onto its edge.

Now that I sat upon it, I noticed the bench’s heart-shaped back was shot through with an arrow.

To my surprise, Prince Lambert came and settled next to me. He put his arm around me, his touch gentle and his hand cupping my shoulder. I went stiff. Gold glinted at his neck. I recognized Queen Gertrude’s necklace, the one representing her house. He wore it now. It was a bold move, considering his own house was the reigning royal one and the Montarios had been criminals. He truly loved Queen Gertrude. It scared me because now that she was gone, he was lost.

“It isn’t the same at all,”

he muttered, pushing off the bench to stand once again.

I quickly did as well.

“You’re too short.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Death leaves … gaps.”

Finally, he focused on me, but he squinted and tilted his head, as though if he saw me from the right angle, I might become Queen Gertrude.

“Holes.

They must be filled.

Even if no one else can ever truly fill—”

He stopped, throat bobbing as he swallowed over and over.

I waited, not daring to even shift.

“My beloved is gone, but I must complete what we started together.

It’s what she’d want.

You must take her place.”

My thoughts dashed apart.

Take her place.

What did he mean? Marry him? Didn’t he remember our agreement? Radix didn’t wish to be a vassal.

It was the whole point of our allyship.

“It’s the only option.

Once you wed Aeric, you must kill him, as planned.

Then you will wed me.”

“I—Why?”

“There’s nothing to fear.”

Prince Lambert almost seemed to speak to himself.

Queen Getrude had been his strength.

Without her, he floundered, even as he plotted.

He was stunned, grieving, and scared, all at once.

“Your former marriage to the crown prince will add legitimacy to my claim to the throne.”

A tiring yet terrifying familiarity came over me.

Everyone treated me like wine, expecting me to assume the shape of whatever vessel I was poured into from one cup to the next, never knowing which cup it might be or who tipped it one way or another.

The more I tried to control my life, the more others swept in to do so instead.

“I’m honored by the proposition,”

I said carefully.

“But my father would never agree to such a thing.

I am his only heir.

I must return to Radix and, after he passes, rule.”

“You have less power than you think, Princess.”

Prince Lambert’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m not proposing marriage.

I’m commanding it.

Gertrude always loathed Claudius’s small ambitions and wished he would expand.

Now I can make her dreams come true so her brilliance may live beyond the grave. Marrying you will grant me control over Radix in addition to Acus, making us truly preeminent over Crus and Pingere. From now on, I must be your only alliance, your only plan—not your father, or your Family-forsaken kingdom, or anyone else. You’ll convince your father to accept the marriage. Or, if he refuses, use your secret grave flower poison and kill him.”

Convince Father or kill him? I listened in dismay, unraveling where I stood.

“I shall give you good reason to comply.”

He reached into his pocket.

“Decima, your former lady-in-waiting, talks often with her cousin, Sindony, and had much to tell me about you.”

I’d never known Decima and Sindony were from the same house.

All the improperly fashioned buns, too-tightly laced dresses, and hair-iron burns weren’t clumsiness or inexperience—they were subtle revenge because I’d fired Sindony’s cousin.

I let out a breath of shocked annoyance.

Swiftly, Prince Lambert grabbed my wrist.

I let out a cry of alarm.

A small round object bit into my palm, digging deep into my skin.

“Sindony told Decima that you converse with the owner of this constantly.”

He released me.

I looked down.

Yorick’s pin.

The one I’d left in Luthien’s grave in case I needed to blame someone for Luthien’s death.

I almost threw it down, as though I might free myself by doing so.

Somehow, it had resurfaced, a buried secret seeking the light, seeking discovery.

The starvelings, still too young to properly function, must have shuffled it to the surface of the dirt as they devoured Luthien’s body. Their acid clung to the metal and stung my skin.

I needed to use the pin against Yorick as I’d planned.

It didn’t seem like Prince Lambert knew about Luthien’s death.

But Sindony had told him I was seen often with Yorick.

If I didn’t do what he said, Prince Lambert could accuse me of conspiring with Yorick against the Acusan crown. The court was wary and torn about replacing Aeric with Prince Lambert, but when it came to me, an inferior Radixan princess, they’d execute me easily, no true evidence needed.

I knew what I had to do.

Betray Yorick and make Prince Lambert think Yorick had pursued me to advance himself and threatened my well-being if I didn’t obey.

But simply saying it wouldn’t be enough.

Prince Lambert wouldn’t believe me.

I’d need to prove it.

I’d have to tearfully ask Prince Lambert to arrest Yorick for manipulating me and testify to it in court. The best I could do for Yorick was ensure he had a skilled executioner. I closed my hand around the pin. I didn’t want to see it, not as I betrayed the boy who had worn it, who’d danced with me, who had been my first true friend.

Yet, even as my mind spun with solutions, I knew something, just as strongly as I knew I stood in a dress picked for me with care by Yorick.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t betray him.

I could.

My Sinet blood and sense of self-preservation writhed through me. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t betray him. And there was a difference between couldn’t and wouldn’t, a difference that didn’t feel like the weakness I loathed.

“Yorick is a friend,”

I said, and I was surprised at how calm I sounded.

“Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Perhaps he lost the pin on a stroll.”

My fingers loosened around Yorick’s pin and opened, revealing it.

It sat in my palm like a petal on the surface of a pond.

I didn’t regret my choice because it meant I had one, that I wasn’t simply wine poured into cups or a soul driven only by instinct and survival.

For once, I’d decided to do something purely because it was right.

Prince Lambert was deathly still.

Then he lashed out.

He smacked the pin out of my hand.

It pinwheeled across the ground. He grabbed my arm. Yanking hard, he jerked me to him. I steeled myself, resolve giving way to panic, certain he would accuse me of conspiring with Yorick.

“You’re as mad as they say,”

he said.

I stared blankly up at him.

He thrust me against the bench, and I collapsed onto it, gripping the head of the arrow piercing the heart to steady myself.

“I heard the rumors on the night you arrived and danced alone in front of the court.

Most said they were stunned by your skills, but it struck me as amiss.

Then Decima asks Sindony about you, and she says you seek the shadows and send everyone out of your chambers.

She says she hears you speaking to your dead sister through the door. I thought it might be grief. But then she also hears you speak to Yorick. She’s seen you walk through the garden, arm in arm with the air. That you’ve rested your head on nothingness.”

A wave of shock claimed me.

Every thought my mind tried to form was torn apart.

“What—what do you mean?”

“You speak to the dead jester.”

“The—the dead jester?”

“Yorick.”

Prince Lambert stood over me.

“He was found in the fountain shortly before you arrived.

He’d drunk himself into oblivion, drowned, and since no one claimed his body, he was buried in the common grave.”

Yorick … dead? But—but I saw him.

Spoke to him.

So did everyone else—didn’t they? Our encounters ran through my mind.

I’d danced with him at the ball and—and—the next day, Sindony had said, The way you danced … everyone is talking about it. It seemed to defy gravity. You looked like you walked on air.

More.

There was more.

When Yorick asked me to dance, he said, You’ll dance with no one.

I shook my head. I clung to the bench like a drowning soul. But nothing could save me from this truth.

Yorick was a ghost, a shade, a spirit absent of its flesh and bone.

Just like Inessa.

“Madness may grip you, and I care not, so long as you do what you must.”

Prince Lambert’s voice reached me from afar.

“If you dare cross me or try to raise Radix against me, I’ll send you to a closed order until the end of your days.

Do you understand?”

He gripped my shoulders and shook me.

My teeth clicked together, and the world jostled around me, as though I’d been sent tumbling even though I sat on the bench.

“By the Family, look at me.”

I struggled to focus.

“Tell me.

Do you understand?”

I nodded, speech stolen, riddled with shock.

“Well, then.”

He settled onto the bench next to me.

“You may go.”

I sprang up, hurrying to the round door.

Suddenly, I sensed Prince Lambert behind me, his breath on my neck, his fingers brushing my dress.

My hands lifted to defend myself.

I spun around. I’d been mistaken.

Prince Lambert still sat on the bench.

He looked down to his right, searching, once again, for the woman he’d never see again.

I stumbled back out to the main halls of the palace.

Frenzied horror washed over me.

I’d just been commanded to wed Prince Lambert and learned Yorick was dead.

Prince Lambert had accused me of being mad, and I believed it. I felt mad. The halls were a blur of tangled funnels. My mind couldn’t focus long enough to remember which way was which. Faces spun around me, murmurs growing loud in my ears and dying away as servants and nobles stared. I hardly registered them. Dizziness made me list. My hands groped for furnishings that lurked just ahead, yet they found only empty air.

Somehow, I found my way back to the theater.

I burst into it.

“Yorick!”

I screamed, then clamped my hands over my mouth.

He was dead.

I remembered him saying he had plans.

What might they even be? Hurt spread through me. He’d betrayed me. Never had I ever protected anyone at such risk to myself, and now that I had, I’d been stabbed in the back. I crashed against the curving theater wall, imbalanced and lost. Blood welled on my lips. I staggered backstage.

The door to Yorick’s room was shut.

I threw it open.

Emptiness yawned behind it.

There was no bed, no actress’s vanity, no glowing flowers, no silken fabric draped across the ceiling.

It was all gone.

Only two things remained: his black cloak on a hook and an object in the middle of the floor—Mother’s plaque.

I grabbed it and held it tight. I sank to the ground and pulled my knees to my chin.

I whispered to Yorick and Inessa, but neither came.

My ghosts, it seemed, had abandoned me.

ACT III

Exeunt Scene

“And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.”—Hamlet

MAD MINDS

Grave Flower

Experiment Nine Appearance

Mad minds have exquisite symmetry.

Eight rounded petals sit amid a green leaf frill.

Their centers are hard and as white as bone.

If you slice it with a knife, it reveals a soft, wiggly pink substance, and if you poke it with said knife, it weeps a clear liquid that induces a person to reveal their wrongdoings.

Today was different.

I didn’t bother with the invocation.

I poured the mad minds into his water and had the guards call me once he drank.

My wife begged me not to, but it must be done. He raved. Oh, how he raved. But it was useless. He confessed all manner of trivial things going all the way back to his childhood. Apparently he wasn’t very good at sharing his toys.

I realized I must direct his confession.

I sent a guard to fetch a portrait of myself so the Fely prisoner might see it and speak freely about me.

The idiotic guard brought a wedding painting, depicting my wife and me.

However, it worked.

My Fely prisoner talked about how he’d kissed my wife when she’d secretly visited him in his cell and hated himself for doing so because it might put his family at risk should it be revealed.

He says he must be strong because I wish to make myself immortal and he will never reveal how.

I slipped away before the poison wore off and called for my wife.

She wasn’t anywhere. Then I heard footsteps in the walls. She was in the hidden passages, trying to escape. But I know them well. I caught up with her in the grave flower garden just as she reached the gate. Desperately, she begged me to forgive her, but she knew I wouldn’t. I strangled her there and then with my belt.

But I didn’t tell the Fely prisoner.

Not yet.