Page 23 of Grave Flowers

I dreaded the next morning.

It was a lull, a horrid pause to everything.

Tomorrow, Father would arrive, Aeric would be coronated, we would wed, and then I would kill him.

But today I had to wait and fear and plan and wait some more.

Considering I was the bride, I was strangely unneeded for wedding affairs.

Bunches of white tulle with beaded blush hearts were quietly tacked up between the mourning ribbons, and deliveries of food and sparkling red wines transpired in the courtyard.

Servants bustled by with armloads of fresh Acusan flowers and satin-trimmed tablecloths.

I dismissed my girls for the day, feeling safe in only complete seclusion.

I put the plaque on my bed.

My mind was thick and uncooperative, making it feel as though every thought were coated in honey.

Time was ticking down, and the headway I’d made in Inessa’s murder led only to more perplexities, everything compounded further by my hurt from Yorick.

Desperation and determination fought within me. There had to be a reason why the plaque was here, just as there had to be a reason why a grave flower now lived in Inessa’s chambers. Where else might I find answers?

A sudden thought struck me.

Father always hid things on his person.

So did Inessa and I.

It was why the Acusan fashions were so threatening to us.

It gave little leeway for secrets. I went to my wardrobe and threw the doors open. Satin, silk, and taffeta whispered against my legs as the gowns, no longer pressed back by the door, sprang forward. I frantically shoved them aside.

Where was it? Inessa’s red dress had a mind of its own.

Why did it appear when I didn’t want it and disappear when I did?

I struggled to peer through the wall of gowns.

It was like pressing through a forest of fabric.

Hangers screeched against the gold bar, and gowns tumbled out, twisting around my legs.

There.

Silk, icy and sinuous, licked my fingers.

Inessa’s dress was in the very back.

Triumphantly, I dragged it out and cast it onto the bed next to the plaque.

I’d worn it before, so I knew there wasn’t anything obviously tucked away inside.

I hesitated, recalling how Inessa had said the silk was too thin for hidden pockets.

During that exchange, it sounded like she hadn’t even considered hidden pockets. But if the otherworld was bleeding into this one as she’d suggested, perhaps the red gown might have more to offer me.

I fetched the letter opener, then sliced the gown down the center.

The silk parted easily beneath the blade, as though the dress wished to open itself up.

I pulled apart the two sides and laid it out so it was a single piece of fabric.

Intricate seams crisscrossed it along with the knotted underside of embroidery.

I ran my fingers along them, following their paths.

At the hem, I felt something lurking inside the fabric.

My heart swelled. There was a hidden pocket after all. I picked up the letter opener to sever the stitches, but then I noticed it wasn’t fully closed. It was truly a pocket, one you could reach into. A scrap of paper curled within the fabric like a snail within a silk shell. I pulled it out and unfolded it.

It bore Inessa’s writing:

For the Father Monasterium

7 Veris Row

I turned it over.

A small note was written on the back.

Alifair, I’m in Acus.

I’ll visit soon.

Alifair—the same name on the plaque.

Had Inessa determined that Alifair lived at For the Father? If so, why hadn’t she told me? What’s more, she’d clearly been corresponding with him and had plans to visit him.

More details she’d kept from me.

Picking up the dress, I examined the stitches around the hidden pocket.

Inessa had her own way of sewing things into her gowns, and the technique was an exact match.

I plucked up the slip again, then stared down at it, perplexed.

My hand twinged. I frowned. I’d acquired yet another wound. The paper’s curling ends tipped up above a scratch on my hand. No, not just one scratch. Several. They were more like an imprint, I realized, branded onto my palm. My skin was pebbled with gravelly marks. I put the slip atop the plaque and examined my palm closer.

Inspection proved it wasn’t from yesterday’s encounter with Inessa, which would’ve been my first assumption.

It was from the palace roof, when I’d cut my hand on the gravel while visiting it with Yorick, back when I’d thought he was nothing but my friend.

The gravel had been from the guardian, not the roof.

Images of chewed silver and jagged mirror glass flashed in my mind. Inessa had left similar marks over them to satisfy her hunger. I hadn’t connected them before until now.

Had Inessa chewed on the guardian?

But she had said she could visit only me.

Was it true?

Thoughts reeled through my mind.

She must’ve been in my chambers before me because she’d tried to eat the hairbrush.

And, if that was the case, she could’ve also been on the palace roof and, while there, been driven to gnaw on the guardian.

I didn’t understand. Was she able to go elsewhere in the palace? Was she not truly tethered to me? If that was the case, why had she lied and said she was?

Perhaps she didn’t trust me to fully know her plan and worried I might ruin it with a blunder.

Yet … I frowned.

Suspicion gathered in my mind.

I tried to stay calm, but panic came with it. All along, I’d believed every word Inessa told me. Whenever there was an inconsistency, she blamed it on not remembering or things being different in Bide.

Yet was there more to it?

Maybe there was a plan she hid because it advantaged herself, possibly to my detriment.

It was Inessa, after all.

Still, what might it be? She needed me to free her from Bide—what else might she aspire for? By the Family, what else could she aspire for, when she was dead? Hurt and confusion rose in me, stirred by memories of Inessa pushing me aside to rise at the cost of our sisterhood.

My skin burned, as though remembering every slap and pinch from by her hand. My soul did too. Just as my body remembered her cruelty, it did as well. My soul held the ripples of my hurt and always would.

Still, I needed proof.

Not simply apprehensions.

I stared down at my only two clues: the plaque and the slip of paper.

The wedding was tomorrow, but I still had today.

I would go to For the Father and inquire after this Alifair to learn why Inessa had planned to visit him.

Despite my attempts to temper my emotions, fear gripped me.

So far, I’d unquestioningly trusted Inessa.

But perhaps that had been a deadly mistake.

I donned a cloak, tucked the plaque into my pocket, and slipped out to the livery, prepared to borrow a horse again.

A clatter of hooves on cobblestones startled me.

I looked up, craning my neck to peer around the rim of my hood.

My betrothed was astride a horse, similarly cloaked and unaccompanied.

He drew his horse to a stop next to me.

“Where are you going?”

His question was direct.

All I could see was the outline of his profile cutting its way against the cloak’s mouth.

“We wed tomorrow,”

I said, flashing what I hoped was a sincere bridal smile.

“I thought I might visit a monasterium to prepare for the rite and heard the one on Veris Row was lovely.

Where might you be headed alone?”

“Out,”

he said.

Only the glint of his eyes was visible inside his hood, two pinpoints of light that swiveled from my face to the gates and back.

“To take the air.”

I cocked my head, doubting him.

“But I shall accompany you.

I haven’t made Holy Admittance since returning to court.”

“Oh, there’s no need,”

I said quickly.

“Nonsense.

As you say, tomorrow is a sacred day. Here.”

He extended his hand to me.

For a moment, I didn’t fully understand his intent.

Then I realized he meant to pull me onto the horse with him.

Slowly, I took his hand. It closed around mine, practically swallowing it. For once, I felt only its strength, not its scars. With one assured motion, he lifted me onto the horse, dropping me in front of him.

I found myself pressed against him, his arms enclosing me on both sides as he held the reins, his chin near my ear.

Once he nudged the horse to walk, I felt his every motion.

Each was heightened to me.

He was graceful, his weight shifting effortlessly to guide the horse, his knees gently prodding its flanks, and his grip relaxed yet firm on the reins. As we traveled, time suspended. I found myself wishing the trip would never end. If we never arrived, we could remain in this interlude. The murderous things to come would cease to exist. It would just be us, together, and nothing more would be required of us.

“Madalina.”

I hadn’t expected Aeric to talk.

“Yes?”

“I want to tell you something.”

It was unnerving to hear him and be pressed so tightly against him yet unable to see his face.

I let myself lean against him, my body bleeding into his and my skirts tangling against his legs until there wasn’t any distinction between us.

“I was unkind in my chambers.

I wish to apologize.

You’d helped me only two nights before, and I … The moment got the best of me.”

“I was insensitive,”

I said.

Guilt came over me, even as he sought to make things right.

“We both wronged each other.

I’m sorry as well.”

Aeric’s torso contracted as he caught his breath, as though he hadn’t expected me to respond in kind.

I stared straight ahead.

How odd that we sat here, no space between us, apologizing for petty wrongs when greater ones lurked within us.

In a day, one of us would be destroyed by the other.

A divot in the cobblestones caused the horse to briefly stumble.

Aeric’s arm wrapped tightly around my waist, keeping me secure.

Before he could remove it, I put my own hand over his, holding him against me.

We didn’t say anything else.

Soon, we reached For the Father.

I paused, holding up a hand to block out the light and see the structure.

It had several steeply pitched gable roofs and ornamental half-timbering forming geometrical shapes against its white stucco walls.

Several chimneys stretched to the sky. Each one had bricks set in a decorative pattern—herringbones, diamonds, helixes—with elaborate brick toppers crowning the heads. Guardians sat among them, glowering down. The far side of the monasterium rose into limestone spires with long stained-glass windows supported by intricately carved buttresses.

Aeric dismounted and lifted me off, his hands circling my waist.

My body reflexively stiffened into a dancing posture.

He noticed and glanced down at me.

I facetiously curtsied.

Sorrow passed through his eyes, so quickly that I wondered if it was merely shade from his hood.

He bowed.

When he straightened, his hood fell back.

No matter what, clothing and shadows fled from him, as though his true form was meant to be exposed.

Neither of us said anything.

“Your Royal Highnesses!”

A monasticte of a high order bustled out to greet us.

His round cheeks flushed in pleasure at the sight of the ruler prevailing.

“Come in, come in.

We were not expecting you, but we are honored.”

Word spread fast about Aeric’s arrival, and monastictes materialized around us, drawing us inside while praising their monarch.

They came between us.

Each one clamored to receive Aeric’s Holy Admittance.

I was expelled from the sea of holy men, jostled and pushed aside. I didn’t mind because it would leave me to probe on my own.

“Stop.”

Aeric’s order reverberated off the vaulted dome in the way a pendulum reverberates against the inside of a bell.

The monastictes quieted.

My betrothed turned.

Me, I realized—he’d stopped everyone for me.

“The princess will be your queen tomorrow.”

I’d never heard him speak so strongly.

“Treat her as such.”

Immediately, the monastictes crowding me out bowed and backed away.

Aeric and I faced each other across the inlaid marble floor.

His attention was so fixed upon me, I might believe no one else existed.

“Oh, no need for any fuss,”

I said, but my voice was remote from my lips.

My lips didn’t long to speak.

They were warm and longed to be made warmer by his, a desire sparked by the intensity of his gaze, the command of his voice, the tilt of his body toward mine.

The thought was horrifyingly evocative, especially considering that we stood on consecrated ground. I was startled by its severity.

“Perhaps Her Royal Highness wishes to make Holy Admittance as well?”

one of the monastictes asked in a kind voice.

“Do you?”

Aeric deferred to me.

Not once did his attention leave me.

I returned his gaze in equal measure.

Considering the secrets we both harbored, it would’ve been wise to avoid such direct eye contact, especially as the wedding night was tomorrow.

Lips were safer.

They could whisper falsehoods, lure you with thoughts of kisses, and offer empty smiles. Eyes weren’t such compelling liars, yet we offered ours up to each other, daring the risk.

“I seek reflective solitude and shall require no attendance,”

I said.

“But thank you.”

At that, the monastictes abandoned all thought of me and once again swarmed around Aeric.

He remained fixed for a moment longer, and then, so quickly that only I might notice it, he bowed to me once again.

I watched as he pressed toward the admittance compartments, wondering if he’d be careful in whatever he admitted.

Then again, he could spend the entire time on his drunken revelries alone.

Another monasticte hurried by, attempting to catch up with Aeric.

“Pardon me,” I said.

He stopped with a frown, angled away, as though he might evade me at any moment and continue after the others.

“May I help you, Your Highness?”

“Yes, I …”

I paused.

What might I ask? All I knew was that Inessa had written a note to Alifair.

“Did my sister, Princess Inessa, happen to visit during her short time in Acus?”

“No, we never had the pleasure of her presence,”

the monasticte said.

I supposed it made sense.

Inessa hadn’t gotten to send the note, likely dying before she could.

But she’d planned to come and visit Alifair, and I wouldn’t leave until I knew why.

“Do you know any Alifairs who live here?”

I wavered, unsure what to reveal and what to hide.

“Alifair? What a peculiar name.

No, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“What about this?”

I asked.

“Might you know of its origins? It is a sacred image.”

Carefully, I removed the plaque from my pocket and held it out for the monasticte to see.

“Sacred image?”

the monasticte scoffed.

I finally had his full attention, but it was riddled with disdain.

“Far from it.

That’s a Fely relic.

It’s profane, just as your kingdom’s grave flowers are.”

“Profane?”

My Radixan pride rose.

My face grew hot and my words fast.

“How might they be profane when they are a divine gifting from the Primeval Family?”

“Were, Your Highness.

Were a divine gifting.

Whatever they are now … they couldn’t be further from it.”

The monasticte stared haughtily at me.

“Now, I understand you are Fely? Your ways do not align with the faith.

The Fely interpretations are heretical.”

“Bold words to speak to a Fely princess who is poised to be your queen,”

I said.

But even though I defended my heritage, my words rang empty.

I knew nothing of that side.

Inessa and I had never once been to the shoreline where Mother’s family dwelled. There’s no need, she would always quickly say if ever I asked. She strove to hide her accent, even though it was inlaid in her words, like thin veins of gold embedded in our stony, harsh Radixan dialect. Sometimes I would stare at her, marveling at the fact she had an entire family outside of us, one we’d never known. Any questions were met with deflection, and I suspected her lineage embarrassed her. Yet she couldn’t suppress it. It flowed from a hidden well inside her. It had been embodied in turns of phrase, her penchant for layers of jewelry, her secret commitment to the Fely understanding of the faith, and her face itself, which was a portrait of her people, no paint or canvas needed. I wished to know more and drink from this water myself, but I never could.

“Perhaps.

Boldness is needed when protecting important things,”

the monasticte returned fervently.

“Which makes me wonder why you’ve come here with such an object.”

“It’s merely an old heirloom, one about which I seek more history.

Mayhap you should restrain your judgment, especially as a man of the faith,”

I said, torn between hiding my quest and defending my mother and our grave flowers.

“You may go.”

The monasticte departed, his expression of disapproval giving way to one of disappointment as he realized it was too late to pursue Aeric’s admittance.

I returned the plaque to my pocket.

How might I find this Alifair? I thought about the address on the note.

7 Veris Row.

“Excuse me!”

I called out to a passing neophyte, whose light-red robes indicated his status.

“What is For the Father’s address?”

“Correspondences are simply addressed For the Father in Acus,”

he replied.

“The monasterium spans several streets, so there’s no number associated with it, and since it’s the largest and most famous one, no other monasteriums have the same name.”

“Oh.”

I frowned.

If there was no number, why had Inessa noted down a seven.

“By chance, are there sections with numbers? Or perhaps chambers?”

“Only the holy isolation cells,”

the neophyte replied.

“They are numbered from one to thirty and are toward the southeast corner.

I fear I might feel the call to holy isolation if I pass by them, so I avoid the area at all costs.

I’m willing to do anything for the Father, but I’m too talkative for such a pursuit.”

His eyes widened, as though considering whether the topic rising in conversation might be the pull of the Father on his heart to holy isolation.

I hid an amused smile and dismissed him.

I walked toward the southeast.

Halls spread out like tree branches stemming from one central nave.

In one hall, I caught glimpses of academia monastictes scribing on huge manuscripts with quills dipped in liquid gold, and in another, I found choir monastictes chanting melodically.

As I made my way toward the back, the doors became cruder and the passageways simpler. The monasterium shed its finery like a woman removing her jewelry. Eerie sounds reverberated through the wood, rock, and clay walls—flapping reminiscent of trapped birds, invocations that began as whispers but mounted into screams, and the crisp severing retort of tearing fabric. Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter were carved into the walls, over and over. The farther I went, the more convoluted the carvings became, the words running into each other: faughter, motherson, faother, saughter.

Eventually, I came to a large round room with a series of arched iron doors.

Hands cast from the same iron surrounded each door.

Some of the hands were closed in tight fists, while others spread open like pronged stars.

A few were limp. Grates were at the bottom of the doors. I’d reached the holy isolation cells. Monastictes engaged in the vocation lived here, receiving their essentials through the grates. From what I knew about the practice, they were allowed to speak to others only once a week through the grate and spent all their time inside their cells. Radix had such accommodation at our monasteriums, but they were empty.

“Who would’ve thought holy isolation was so popular?”

I murmured at the sight of so many doors, finding reassurance in hearing my own voice.

I hadn’t traveled far, but this part of the monasterium was so different from anything I’d experienced that I felt like I’d gone miles upon miles.

Squinting, I stepped closer to the nearest door.

On the palm of an open iron hand was the number one.

Then I smelled it.

A floral scent so intense, most would sneeze.

But not a Radixan.

I hurried to the source, guided by the scent even over the numbers.

The smell led me to the seventh door, marked with 7.

Grave flowers grew inside.

I knocked on the cell, but the minute my knuckles connected with the iron, the door creaked open a fraction of an inch. It wasn’t locked. It made sense. Monastictes in holy isolation weren’t prisoners. They could leave anytime they wished, should they decide to break their vows.

“Hello?”

I called.

There was no response.

I pushed the door.

It screeched. I had to use both hands. It had probably been years since anyone crossed over the threshold—in fact, the last person to do so might’ve been whichever monasticte resided within, when he’d entered his holy isolation. I opened the door enough to slip inside.

I found myself in a kitchen repurposed for gardening.

The smell of musty gardening tools, sulphury salt water, and grave flowers filled my nose.

It smelled of home.

Eagerly, I looked around, trying to take in everything at once.

Pots, stacked in perilously tall towers, listed on the counters.

Soil in huge canvas sacks bulged in the fireplace and the bread oven.

The spit in the oven had gardening tools hanging from it in place of a cauldron. Colorful pottery and porcelain vases filled every open spot. Small green shoots grew in some, and seeds soaked in others. Sketches and notes on different flowers were pinned to the walls, the windowsills, the inside and outside of cabinet doors, the fireplace. Vines crawled in through the windows and over a small altar set up in the corner. They curled around paintings, like the ones I’d seen on Mother’s table. They lifted the paintings, so they were suspended, clutched by the vines.

“Get out!”

A raspy voice startled me.

I turned.

A man stepped into the kitchen from outside.

He wore a simple stained robe completely unlike the heavily embroidered ones of the other monastictes and had a long beard.

Several gold and silver necklaces hung around his neck, making me think of Mother. But that was the least of their similarities. A gasp escaped my lips. Above the beard, his eyes and nose were a masculine and older version of hers, so much so that I thought I’d walked into a memory.

He lifted a knife.

For a man of the Family, he was surprisingly comfortable brandishing it.

He headed toward me, purpose in his steps, his face set.

“Stop!”

I cried.

“I’m Princess Madalina Sinet, and you—you look like my mother, Queen Agathine.”

At that, the monasticte halted.

The knife lowered.

His lips moved as he tried to speak, but no words came out.

He coughed, cleared his throat. Hoarsely, he said.

“Princess Madalina … you’re here? After all our letters, we finally meet.”

x

I, Leander Tachibana, write this account.

I’m sitting close to home.

I can hear the familiar crash of waves on rock and, when I close my eyes, the songs of our women as they poison the lines with grave flower nectar for fishing.

Maybe that part is only in my head, because the song becomes one voice—Florin, my sister. Twins are common for Felys. But while Florin and I are not twins, we sometimes pretend to be because we are so close. We were born only nine months apart, as though the Mother realized too late that we should’ve been twins.

But I must set aside longings and capture in ink what’s transpired.

King Llyr has held me captive to learn what I know about grave flowers.

After all, Felys have our own ways with them, ways we’ve protected.

He’s a dangerous man. One full of bombastic rage only superseded by his constant preening. I imagine there’s a dialogue always running through his mind, saying.

“Llyr, you are handsome today.

You are the smartest and strongest king alive.

You are adored and admired by all.”

Everyone is seen in relation to him, as though we are leaves from his central stem.

It’s “my wife”

o.

“my Fely prisoner”

or “my son”

o.

“my guards”—I would wager, in his mind, that we cease to exist once we are out of his sight, that he is oblivious to us having our own lives, loves, losses.

Queen Nerisa, rest her, was a smart woman, and she moved my heart.

I should’ve never let her unburden herself to me because it was too dangerous, but I wondered if I might use her to gain knowledge of King Llyr.

Little did I know I condemned her to death.

I got lucky, though.

King Llyr needed the knowledge living inside my head.

Only I could tantalize him into killing himself so he might be brought back as an immortal.

Of course, he isn’t senseless. He threatened to murder my family if I didn’t bring him back.

So I did.

It grants me joy to think of it.

He drank the moonrain poison confidently, with not a waver or inkling of doubt.

As he died, he said the roundabout invocation while crushing the immortalities and, as I suspected, was sent straight to Bide.

The spirits attending the Primeval Family would never grant him more mortal years here, but they must honor the invocation—so to Bide he went. His body pitched forward. I pretended to catch his large bearish frame to ease it to the soil, but I did so to steal his dagger. I was ordered to plant the portrait.

I placed King Llyr’s portrait in the roots of the immortalities and said the roundabout invocation.

But just as King Llyr learned from me, I have been learning from him.

I didn’t stop there.

I said every invocation I could think of, shouting them to the grave flowers.

The guards ordered me to be silent, but it was too late.

The grave flowers roused from their flower beds.

And all bewitchments broke forth.

The starvelings began devouring the guards, the mad minds spouted their venom, the serpentines coiled around the palace pillars, the lost souls plunged up and down—then, finally, the moonmirrors woke and, confusing the sun with the moon, blocked it out so cold and darkness fell upon us.

I thought I might’ve ended the world and that certainly I had ended my own life.

Ironically enough, it was King Llyr who saved me from being crushed to death.

The roundabout invocation worked, and a tunnel opened between Bide and the royal garden.

Grave flowers spilled out of it, ones I’ve never seen before, and there he was.

King Llyr, in the form of a specter.

“What have you done? Where is my body?”

he demanded.

“There.”

I pointed.

Overhead, the serpentines coiled around it, snapping its bones.

They tossed it to the starvelings, who devoured it.

I’d known they would.

As King Llyr watched, I slipped up to the starvelings who gulped down his body. I drew the dagger I’d stolen from him as he lay dead and sliced the pouch of acid just behind one of the mouths in the stem.

I barely managed to jump back in time to avoid the bubbling corrosive white liquid that poured out—all over King Llyr’s body.

His ghost screamed, eyes big and mouth blubbering as he watched his body dissolve into nothingness.

As it did, his ghost became a strange jiggling mass.

I thought I’d like to see him suffer, but terror filled me to see such a desecration of a soul. I stomped him out, sending him back to Bide.

Then, while chaos still reigned and the grave flowers clawed their way toward the palace, I escaped with this—the king’s book—and new hope.