Page 4 of Grave Flowers

I stood outside the courtroom.

Father was inside with the envoy from Acus, and everyone else crammed into the hall, having abandoned the ballroom.

At any other time, the council would hear the news alongside Father, but he hadn’t allowed it tonight.

Nervous energy spread.

“It’s war!”

one of the cooks whispered.

“Forget a vassal state—they want to annex us and rename us Acus.

Well, we’ll fight them to the death! Where is my cleaver?”

“War?”

A noble spun around.

Unable to determine who had spoken, he haughtily looked down his pointed nose.

“Feebleminded fools! They are here on wedding news.

Cake selection, perhaps.

I do hope it’s something tart, like lemon.”

“At night? That can’t be it.

I’ve just ordered my new gowns.

Now I’ll never get to wear them!”

Another noble, a woman this time.

She fussed at her heftly ropes of necklaces.

“But I suppose if we must fight, I might shorten them.”

“Hush! I can hear what they are saying …”

The cook pressed his ear to the door.

“Something-something ‘Acus,’ something-something ‘Acus’ again, something-something—”

It was useless.

The murmur of voices reached us, but the words were muffled by the thick doors.

Time crept slowly.

I thought I might break or shatter or melt away.

Without warning, the doors flung open.

We jumped back, eyes wide and heads swiveling.

Everyone pretended to have important business in the hall.

The servants began brushing the walls with their aprons and cuffs, since none of them held dusters. The nobles and the council acted like they were deep in conversation. I simply stood where I was, rooted to the spot. No one needed to worry. We might as well have been invisible to the Acusan emissary and guards. They marched by without casting us a glance, their boots heavy and the guards’ chainmail clinking. It was an impressive display of force—aside from the fact they had watering eyes and snuffling noses due to the assault of the grave flowers’ pollen.

Once they disappeared out of the hall, everyone surged toward the courtroom.

Everyone except me.

I knew where Father would be, and it wasn’t there.

I moved quickly.

My heart pounded hard, and I was glad for it.

It blocked out my thoughts and let me move on instinct.

If I thought too long and hard, especially now, I’d surely lose my will, retreat, and wait for the news to find me.

I slipped into a parlor and crossed to its far side.

A plaster vase hung on the wall.

A keen eye would notice that while everything else in the room was dusty, this alone was not.

Two plaster lost souls, entangled as the real ones often were, extended from the vase. I grabbed them and pulled them apart.

A portion of the wall yawned back.

I took a sharp breath and stepped inside the opening.

A candle with matches waited on a small table.

I lit it and pulled the door closed behind me. For a moment, all I could see was the candle’s flame. It bobbed, like a throat swallowing over and over. Slowly, my eyes acclimated, and the darkness nearest the candle mellowed into a watery, translucent version of itself. I stepped forward. I knew our secret passageways well, but I hadn’t been in them for a long time, not since Inessa and I were children.

The passageway moved me along until I reached a staircase.

It spiraled like an apple peel dangling from one end.

It took me up and around until it ended at a door that had a sea-salt–encrusted window.

I remained behind the door, peering through the window to Father’s true courtroom. He had many hidden spots, but this was his favorite, tucked up high in the palace. He used to come here with Mother often, and when needed, Inessa and I would be brought along as he plotted, paced, and pondered. It was a strange fortress in the palace, neither indoors nor out. The thick stone ceiling had caved in long ago, so you were eye level to the palace’s spires and sloping roofs. Pipes poked through the ruptured ceiling and bled streams of rusty water onto the ground, like severed arteries. Waterveins didn’t flourish in the garden, but they did here, leaching their nutrients from the palace stones and the brackish water.

Father was there, lit by sconced torches.

I’d expected to find him in movement; he always paced.

It made every place he was in, from throne rooms to ballrooms, seem like enclosures he wished to escape.

I was shocked to find him standing still. The only movement he made was to pass his hand over his face, which was as weathered as an old potato. Seeing him so motionless stole my breath. He was very upset. It was the only explanation.

Abruptly, I turned away from the window and pressed my back against the door.

I feared Father even when he was calm.

What was I thinking? I couldn’t face Father after he’d learned devastating news.

I wasn’t meant to be anything more than what I was: the weakest Sinet, the one who would always slip away to the garden when she could, seeking a freedom she’d never have.

I would go back to my chambers and figure out another way to help Inessa.

Father would never know I’d been here.

Suddenly, the door, which I was leaning against, burst open.

I tumbled to the ground.

Father materialized over me.

He clutched an object. It spit blinding mist at me.

“Father! Stop!”

I lifted my hands.

“It’s me.”

“Primeval pestilence, Madalina.”

Father gaped at me.

The contraption disappeared.

Father’s clothing had as many secret pockets and harnesses as Inessa’s and my dresses.

Only a bit of lingering mist indicated that the object existed. He pulled me to my feet.

“I almost killed you.”

“What was that?”

“This?”

The object reappeared from the depths of Father’s clothing, and he held it out for me to see.

“It’s a weapon I bought from an Acusan peddler who got it from the Oscura.”

I peered at Father’s black market acquisition.

Bright Crusan silver had been welded into a sphere with a silvery spout.

“Well …”

I tried to collect myself, my heart skipping about like jarring music notes.

“It’s very effective.

It threw me off my guard.”

“No, it isn’t effective at all.

The mist was supposed to kill.”

He spoke flatly.

“One of the servants has been following me too closely lately, and I thought it was him.

What are you doing here?”

“I saw the envoy,”

I said, feeling like I was venturing out onto a shaky limb, unsure if it would bear my weight or snap and send me tumbling to my death.

“I was wondering why they came and figured you’d be here.”

“You? You desired to inquire about their presence?”

Father stared down at me.

I’d spent so much of my life avoiding his eyes that I still wasn’t certain what color they were.

My imagination had long turned them into something they were not, seeing them as bloodred when his fury raged and black with no whites when deadly calm precluded an attack, whether with a weapon or words.

I forced myself to meet his stare. Tonight, they seemed as clear as water lifted with your hands from a basin, nothing to see in them except your own reflection.

“You’ve never been interested in the affairs of our court.”

My fear mounted.

I couldn’t tell if it turned me hot or cold, only that it had the same intense sensation of both.

“I was worried they might bring ill news of Inessa, given the hour,”

I said.

“I’ve missed her.”

Father continued to stare at me.

He crossed his arms, seemed dissatisfied with the posture, and planted them on his hips instead.

Then he reached over my shoulder to shove the door shut.

I jumped aside as he did.

Without any preamble, he said.

“Inessa is dead.”

There was no need to act.

My breath left my lips in a pitiful exhale.

The confirmation was a barb, hooking around the life and sister I’d once had, tearing both away along with my own flesh.

I realized the feeling went beyond metaphor. We’d shared skin at birth, webbed together. Who knew how precise the knife had been when it separated us? Perhaps I’d taken some of her flesh, and she, some of mine, and a tiny part of me had died with her.

“What happened?”

“She had a reaction to a flower berry native to Acus, one commonly eaten there.

Apparently, no one has been affected by them before, but she was.”

Father abruptly turned away, muscles bunching in his shoulders and neck.

He’d lost not only a daughter but also the strongest piece in his political games.

It was hard to know which upset him more.

“Aid was given to her, but she was gone within thirty minutes.

An accident, they say.”

I wiped my face, but there were no tears, only sea salt dragged down my cheeks by the wind.

Inessa wouldn’t have wanted me to weep.

She detested it more than anything.

When I cried after our beloved cat, Orios, died, she’d slapped me. Then she’d thrown Orios’s blanket, bed, and toys off the highest parapet, where they’d disappeared into the sea below.

“Primeval pestilence,”

Father said again, this time to himself.

He often invoked the Primeval Family and accused them of taunting him.

To his mind, they placed beautiful things just beyond his fingertips and nudged them away when he tried to grasp them, making him a king and a fool at once.

Considering the ineptitude and indignity of his snail-infested halls and rage-inclined court, I thought he might be right. Inessa’s death, though, didn’t feel like a taunt; it felt like a punishment.

I tried to keep myself from shivering.

I was here.

I needed to act.

“Do you think it was an accident?”

I asked, hoping to veer him to the correct conclusion so he might investigate it as a murder.

“My spy sent no warning,”

Father said.

He fiddled with the button on his robe and then tore it off entirely with a grunt of anger.

Button in hand, he blinked at it, surprised to find it there.

Impatiently, he stuffed it into one of his hidden pockets.

“It took forever to get him in place.

He might be compromised.

I send him letters hidden in sundries.

I’ll conceal moonrain in the next delivery and send a replacement spy … if I ever find another.”

Few wished to engage in Radixan subterfuge at a foreign court, so spies were hard to come by.

“Inessa’s death might have been a murder.

But it also could be just as they say: an accident.

The food there is different, and we have no prior exposure to it.

An allergic reaction is not beyond belief.”

“If it was an assassination, do you have suspects in mind?”

I pressed.

“Maybe someone at the Acusan court who stands to lose much over the wedding? Or perhaps one of our own traveled there and killed her so we wouldn’t become a vassal?”

A single muscle flexed beneath Father’s eyebrow.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Abruptly, he turned and paced.

His steps were light, and he moved fast, making it from one end of the space to the other in only a few seconds.

“How odd that you come to me,”

he said, not addressing my question.

“You are the princess of soil, the one who’d rather be digging in the garden than striving for the throne.

The only intrigues you manage are the ones you must, in the ballroom.”

My face burned with the sting of his disapproval, even as my shoulder ached.

It was Father who had thought I was naturally graceful as a child and might become useful overseeing courtiers at parties.

It was he who hired a dance master, Rigby, and gave him full authority to train me as he saw fit.

Train me Rigby had, running me through dances like a fine horse through its paces—and other times, like a workhorse meant to be driven to death.

“Now you are Radix’s only heir.

Everything comes to one question: Do you have the will to rise and carry our kingdom into the future?”

“Of—of course,”

I stammered, confused by the switch of topic from Inessa’s death.

“But, Father, you will live a long time yet.

You’ve only recently approached your middling years and are in robust health.

There’s no need to talk of succession.”

Father’s pacing abruptly changed direction.

His hands fiddled through his clothes.

Panic spiked through me.

Was he looking for his favorite tool of murder—his drapery cord? Was he so disenchanted with me that he wished to strangle me? The button he’d pulled off his coat reappeared. He rolled it around in his hand.

“This is not about succession; this is about purpose—specifically, your purpose,”

he said.

“I’m certain you, along with the rest of the court, have wondered why Inessa was betrothed to Prince Aeric, leaving you as heir and Radix poised to become an Acusan vassal?”

So Father knew his plan had left everyone horrified and bewildered.

Why make it, then? And why did he stare at me as though weighing my merit as I stood before him?

“Yes, Father,”

I said in the same compliant voice I might’ve used as a little girl.

Annoyance crossed his face, obliterating any grief over Inessa’s death.

I wasn’t certain what was at stake, but I could tell it was big and that I was failing.

I imagined Inessa standing in her mirror, sliding into personas like she was slipping in and out of dresses. I pictured myself in the place I was most confident: the garden, where the wild freedom of the grave flowers echoed my own longing. I spoke again, louder, stronger.

“I did wonder, as did the rest of the court.”

“Good.

You’ve paid attention.”

Father spoke so brusquely that the compliment sounded like an insult.

I understood why he might have been surprised, but I was more learned at intrigue than he might expect.

During Inessa’s mirror performances, she’d talked endlessly about governance, unintentionally educating me.

“There is something you must do for me, for Radix.”

“I am at your service,”

I said, because I knew any other answer might draw the drapery cord from his pocket.

“I always have been.”

“Except you’ve never been needed before.

Not in this way,”

Father replied.

“All will change once you learn the true nature of everything.”

“The true nature of everything?”

“Prince Aeric is the ruling monarch and will receive the title of king at his coronation.”

Father spoke conversationally, as though listing what he wanted for breakfast.

“His uncle, Prince Lambert, recently wed Prince Aeric’s mother, Queen Gertrude.

They wish to have Prince Aeric removed.

To start a new royal line descending through Prince Lambert and Queen Gertrude.”

“Removed?”

“Murdered.”

The word spun into the air along with the button, which Father tossed up once again.

Shock riddled me.

“It’s a difficult task.

Prince Lambert is next in line for the throne and has gained allies at court but doesn’t know if he has enough to secure the crown, especially since Prince Aeric is the immediate heir.

So he wishes to kill the boy and lay the blame elsewhere.

This is what you will do: You will fulfill Inessa’s mission and go to Radix as a replacement princess bride. After the wedding, you will prick the prince with your ring while he sleeps. Then you’ll apply a generic poison to his lips and take a nonlethal dose yourself. Once you poison Prince Aeric, it’ll be claimed one of his guards tried to kill you both. You will return home. Prince Lambert will be crowned king and will dispose of those who favored Prince Aeric, as they will certainly show themselves at the coronation and wedding.”

Every sentence Father spoke brought new revelations and new horrors.

I was pummeled by them, as though they were the thunderous waves of our black Radixan sea: Become a bride.

Kill the prince.

Return home … all the while knowing Inessa had been poisoned trying to do the same and was now trapped in Bide.

If Inessa couldn’t do it, how might I, when she was the sum of our successes and I the sum of our failings? Everything in me wanted to flee.

Or cry.

Or beg Father for mercy and to not foist this upon me.

My heart pounded so hard, it was everywhere, throbbing in my throat, my scar, my head. I forced myself to focus on Father’s hardened face and assume an appearance of strength. I took a breath.

“You never planned for us to be a vassal … but why risk Radix’s rage?”

It was a true question, one I must know the answer to.

“Is there some other gain?”

Whatever it was, I knew Father was desperate.

He wouldn’t hazard his rule lightly.

“Correct.

I would never forfeit our freedom, ever.

It’s only a pretense based upon the marriage.

Queen Gertrude and Lord Lambert offered us military protections should we ever require it but also—more importantly—coin. We need it, Madalina. I’ve hidden it, but our crops have been decimated.”

Father had gone on several trips to the countryside lately with only his personal guard, I realized.

He’d come back full of confidence, reassuring the court that all was well.

Starvation was always a worry, but I hadn’t doubted him, and neither had anyone else.

“We will need money to import food to survive next wintertide.

Crus and Pingere will charge us double to take advantage of our need, and, well, our coffers are drained.”

Father didn’t say why they were drained, but he didn’t need to.

I thought about the marble, fixtures, lumber, and tools filling the palace, all intended for extensive repairs.

The palace reconstruction project had taken our funds when we needed them most.

As fine as limestone was, we couldn’t eat it.

“The coronation and wedding are only a month away.

Radix is angry, but I think I can stave everyone off until then.

Once the task is finished and we have Acusan coin to fill our treasury, everyone will understand.”

I had the childish desire to put my hands over my ears.

I did not wish to hear any more.

Father continued, relentless.

“Once you return, we will arrange a marriage with one of our own nobles.

No outside blood.

Us alone, always.

After I pass, Madalina, you will become queen regnant.”

He paused.

“But I do worry.

Will you succeed? Do you have it in you to assassinate Prince Aeric and save us from the coming famine?”

I closed my hand, feeling the deep ache of my scar.

There was only one answer to his question.

If I told Father I didn’t wish to kill the Acusan prince, he would think me completely useless.

And I knew what Father did with useless things.

“Yes, I can,” I said.

“Then answer me this.”

He wasn’t going to let me off so easily.

“At executions, you often look away when axe falls.

How will you have the stomach to kill someone when you can’t watch from a chair on a dais with a glass of chilled wine?”

There was the slightest hitch in his voice.

Most wouldn’t even notice it.

My stomach twisted, sending a wave of nausea through me.

I knew he wasn’t asking about the executions. He was asking about Mother and my part in her demise.

“I do look away,”

I said.

There was one regard in which I was a Sinet: I could easily lie to save myself, plausible untruths gathering on my tongue out of desperation.

“But it’s because Inessa insisted I do so.

She wished to appear stronger by contrast.”

When our family had been three, no one spoke directly about Mother’s death.

Father never mentioned it, and Inessa had alluded to it only when she wished to control or hurt me.

Nothing was sacred in our family aside from Mother.

She alone was given reverence and honor, as though none of us wished to taint her with our Sinet ways.

“But I can do it, Father.

I simply need to prick the prince as he sleeps, correct? It—it … it’s different than having to—”

“It’s not different,”

Father said flatly.

“It ends the same way.

With death.”

“I must do it,”

I said.

“So I will.

I won’t fail again.”

Suddenly, Father shivered and looked sharply over his shoulder at the stone wall covered in flowers.

Maybe he was trying not to see what I saw in my mind: Mother’s face as she died.

“I think you’ve changed.”

He was back to his brisk self.

“Grown.

I wondered when the Sinet blood would thicken in your veins and whet your appetite.

Bloodlust runs in the family—but I’d been worried it had skipped you entirely.”

“You thought wrong.”

Another necessary lie.

It was dangerous to contradict him, but this was a dangerous game.

Every muscle tightened in my body as I waited to learn if my answer would draw wrath or admiration.

Father tossed the button into the air and caught it without ever taking his eyes from mine.

He gave an almost-imperceptible nod.

I reeled internally.

I’d come up to the roof as a scared princess wishing to help her sister.

I’d leave as a bride with my sister’s peace and my kingdom’s freedom in my hands, my own self an atrial vein to our throne, sending blood and life to it.

I fought to stay calm. If I discovered who’d murdered Inessa, perhaps that would be enough to set her free? As far as Aeric went, I could poison someone while they slept with a prick from my ring. I would strive to be clever and act boldly. It was what the Sinet family did.

“Marry the prince and kill him?” I asked,

Father fiddled with the button too loosely.

By this point, it had traveled far since being orphaned from the jacket, journeying through Father’s hidden pockets and holders in the way we passed through the secret passageways of our palace.

It dropped to the floor.

Irritation fluttered across his face. I didn’t know if it was toward me or the button. He lifted his boot and stomped. The button splintered apart beneath his heel. He looked sharply at me.

“Speak up.”

I straightened myself as though I were at the first dance of a court party and all eyes were on me, waiting for me to sweep into motion.

The stakes were higher than any dance could ever be, but I would make my way, one move at a time.

I spoke clearly and loudly.

“Marry the prince and kill him.

Consider it done.”