Page 8 of Grave Flowers
In preparation for the betrothal ceremony the next day, I donned a new dress specifically made for the event, which meant it was the same one Inessa had worn.
It was slightly more covered than the party dress, but not by much.
It was dark green, symbolic of Radix.
The skirt was covered in our grave flowers, but as talented as Acusan sewists were, they had never seen grave flowers, and it showed. Every flower, from the beauties to the lost souls to the mad minds, were depicted perfectly upright, seeking the sun. They looked nothing like my bloodthirsty, salt water–craving creatures that thrived in the damp and the dark. A red lace underpinning went beneath the green silk dress to represent Acus. It wrapped up my neck and extended down my arms to where it hooked around my middle fingers. The rest spilled out beneath my skirt, creating a train. A matching red veil draped over my hair, and a thick green silk headband secured it in place, though my scalp ached from Sindony’s overzealous yet futile styling methods.
I stared at myself in the mirror, uneasy.
My scar throbbed.
I could feel where the glass had dragged its way through my hand and the spot where it had torn free.
I’d told my girls I’d cut my hand on the letter opener in my parlor. I also hid the bitten mirror and broken glass, but it was as though Inessa had gnawed on me. Her tooth marks were deep in my soul, leaving me raw and ragged. She might appear at any moment. I always had to be on my guard so that if she did, I wouldn’t react the way I had last night. I wondered what everyone was saying about me after I’d fled the dance floor.
“Sindony?” I called.
She hurried to my side like an overeager puppy, coming much too close for personal comfort.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“The party was such a thrill.”
I made myself sound innocent and earnest.
“Everyone was as kind as could be.
Tell me, did the court seem to like me? It was my first public appearance, so I hope I did well.”
“Oh, the guests say you were just captivating,”
Sindony reassured me.
“Everyone is talking about your dancing and saying you looked like you walked on air.”
“I’ve had years of training,”
I said, hoping people would think the moment Inessa had dipped me was simply talent and not supernatural intervention.
“I wish I might dance in such a way.
You enchanted everyone.”
“Thank you.
My dance master would be glad to hear it.”
Rigby had eventually gone back to his native Pingere, and I’d heard he died after an ill had swept through, but he was alive and well—and perpetually displeased—in my memories.
“And were you all right?”
Sindony prattled on.
“The guests were worried you were unwell because apparently you left early.”
“The climate here is so different.”
I watched her closely to see if she bought my excuse and spoke loudly enough for the other girls to hear as well.
“I’m not used to such thin air.
I should’ve bid everyone good night, but I was afraid I was going to faint.
How embarrassing would that’ve been?”
Sindony nodded sympathetically, eyes wide as though she could think of nothing more humiliating than fainting in front of everyone.
With any luck, she and the other girls would tell others so word would spread through court.
“Hopefully I won’t faint at the betrothal ceremony.”
Giggles tittered through the girls.
Good.
“After the betrothal ceremony, I think I should have some time outside,”
I said.
“It’ll help me adjust to the weather.
Perhaps a trip to the garden would be best.”
“The garden is magnificent,”
Sindony said.
“You’ll enjoy it, Your Highness.”
“Wonderful.
I’ll look forward to seeing it.
And the rest of the palace, including the queen’s quarters once they aren’t cordoned off.
I’ll need a tour. I hear there’s a library, a solarium, and a theater. I’d like to see everything.”
“You can, but …”
“But what?”
“Prince Aeric is planning a play, so the theater has been quite busy.
It’s an original script.
He’s written it himself.”
Excitement danced across her face.
I smiled back at her, hiding my confusion.
A play? Of all the childish pursuits … wine and plays.
What next? An exotic pet? Aeric’s life was built on decadence, but it couldn’t hide his true crime:
Allowing his rule to rot before it had even begun.
Still, it would be good to know everything I could about Aeric’s actions, especially as he was writing the play himself.
“What is the play about?” I asked.
“It’s a retelling of the Primeval Family creating our world,”
Sindony said.
She paused and giggled.
“It isn’t very good.”
“I see.
Thank you.”
Only, there was nothing to see or learn.
The Primeval Family fashioning our firmament out of a bursting star was one of the most common myths depicted in plays.
Did Aeric really think he had a fresh interpretation?
“Oh, it’s time!”
Sindony exclaimed.
“You’re off to see your beloved!”
I suppressed a grimace.
My beloved? More like my idiot.
Acus’s cathedral was staggeringly beautiful.
I stood in the narthex, waiting to walk down the aisle to where Aeric stood at the altar with the monasticte.
I peered into the nave.
It was my first time experiencing the giftings of the four kingdoms used in a service as they had been intended.
Flowers, representing Radix, were arranged in ribboned boughs around embroidered panels.
Round ovals painted by imagers in Pingere whose hands had been specially blessed by monastictes hung at intervals on the panels. They featured scenes of the Primeval Family in their celestial court. Sacred silver vessels from Crus—aggressively flashing in the light, which was fitting for our militant neighbor—were arranged carefully on the altar. Monastictes wore vestments indicative of the liturgical calendar, green for the springtide during which the Mother and Daughter cast petals to the earth, and embroidered black ribbons in reference to the holy mourning. Every aspect was perfectly executed. No wonder everyone found Acus so pretentious. All our monastictes cared about was the alcohol content of the brews they drank from the sacred vessels and the euphoric effects of inhaling incense.
The choir began to sing.
As Inessa had said, it was the same song we had in Radix, though the choir was much larger, in tune, and much more varied and emotional with the inflections.
However, just as in Radix, there were no instruments, only human voices soaring up to the vaulted cathedral ceiling.
Without any prompting, I knew when to start walking down to the altar. Adjusting the red veil, I proceeded.
It had been difficult to see Aeric from the narthex, and for a few moments, I still couldn’t.
On either side of me, guests stood in rows, watching.
In our cathedral, Father had installed benches for the royal family and nobles, but there wasn’t a single seat here.
Everyone was on their feet. I knew why Father had gone against tradition. If someone wished, they could attack with ease right now, and I wouldn’t be able to anticipate it.
Aeric waited.
He was in formal attire, but since it was Acusan clothing, it was still largely insubstantial.
The armholes dipped low on the sides, exposing the outline of his ribs.
A cape angled across his chest to his shoulder, and a sword was at his waist. Just as I stared at him, he stared at me. I realized I needed to smile. To disarm him and appear like his beguiling bride.
He smiled first.
The same laziness from the party swam through it, as though he were nothing more than a boy in a tavern seeing a pretty girl from afar.
Since he was smiling, I felt like he had stolen it from my usage and I no longer could utilize the tactic.
Reflexively, it made me wish to frown, but that also wouldn’t do, so I tried to drain my features of any emotion and simply appear blank.
I found myself winded.
Granted, the aisle was long, but it wasn’t exertion that stole my breath.
It was the simple weight of everything, of trying to hold too many things at the same time—my haunting by Inessa, the impending marriage to and then murder of Aeric, the freedom of Radix and my future as queen regnant—and not knowing when I might set any of them aside.
Atop it all was Aeric’s lazy smile coming closer with every step, an image of light carefreeness that made me feel cast from the heaviest of metals by contrast.
I reached the end and tore my gaze from Aeric’s stupid face.
Swirls of smoke billowed around me as I was censed, and the monasticte, who clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice, began a lengthy, drawn-out rendition of the betrothal service.
I stood still, seeing and hearing nothing yet feeling so much that I thought I might combust.
Coldness touched my hand.
I jumped, certain it was Inessa.
Panicked dread sent my heart lurching up into my throat.
But it was Aeric. His fingers gently brushed the back of my hand, crossing the bony ridges of my knuckles. I found myself drawn into the light of his eyes. Every bit of him was loose and relaxed, as though his body longed to lounge against a wall. His eyelids hung indolently—almost sleepily—low … but behind them, his eyes were bright, alert, reflections of the infernal sunshine soaking into every nook and cranny in Acus. I snatched my hand away from him, my heart pounding, though I wasn’t certain why.
The monasticte cleared his throat and glowered at me.
It was the point in the ceremony for me and Aeric to take each other’s hands.
Aeric had been trying to prompt me, nothing else.
Both his hands extended, waiting.
His lackadaisical posture made it seem as though he didn’t care whether I took them or not, even in the middle of the sacred ceremony.
Slowly, I put my hands into his.
I expected Aeric’s hands to be soft.
Everything about him was so hedonistically lighthearted, as though he were made from feathers and sparkling wine.
To my surprise, his hands were startlingly rough.
Calluses formed edges on his palms, and several small slashing scars crisscrossed them. His grip was light, but the scars were rough against my skin. I could understand the calluses because even though Aeric had been raised in the monasterium, Father had said he’d been instructed as a prince. His hands had likely been hewn into hardness by fencing, hunting, archery, and horseback riding. However, I wasn’t certain what would’ve caused so many scars.
Curiosity dragged my gaze back to his face, wondering who might’ve hurt him in such a way.
Such tiny, precise scars could be caused only by another human.
Sunlight fell on his face, and I could see him clearly, every plane of his features illumined like a holy painting from Pingere.
Primeval pestilence, he was wine ill.
Beneath the informal smile, his face had a grayish pallor, and he swallowed with great determination.
Sweat beaded his forehead in translucent drops.
Last night’s party wafted from him, a bouquet of stale wine and hints of earthy pipe smoke, hidden beneath bay leaf soap and freshly applied cologne.
Perversely, I liked the scent. It served only to make me more infuriated. I almost dropped his hands, sympathy gone. Truly, everything was a game to him. How had I not murdered him last night?
For the rest of the service, I refused to look at him again.
Why should I? He wasn’t worthy of my attention.
Real threats, real monarchs, real power—those alone deserved my focus, not this ridiculous prince who was wrung out on wine.
Perhaps I should’ve been relieved. I didn’t relish the thought of murdering anyone, but it would be easier to kill him if I didn’t respect him. And I certainly didn’t.
The service concluded.
Most of the attendees were quickly ushered out of the cathedral.
Aeric, now officially my betrothed, ambled off without a word to me, most likely to vomit behind a pillar.
I noticed Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert across the way.
They’d observed the ceremony from the royal alcove but were now speaking to two nobles.
I slipped behind a chamber intended for holy admittance to listen, fervently hoping I might learn something to help me free Inessa.
“A happy day!”
one of the nobles said.
“Much happiness to you, Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert, over the betrothal of our prince.”
“He seems to be a happy boy today,”
Prince Lambert said, his tone light.
A happy boy.
I’d never heard a reigning monarch referred to in such a rude way … but then, I had to admit I shared the inclination.
One of the nobles made a sound of dismay.
“Oh, it’s only a jest, Duke Cheston.
All young men are happy when they have an endless supply of wine and parties to drink it at.
Don’t you agree, Lord Luc?”
“I do.
It makes me wonder if Prince Aeric can reach his potential fast enough,”
Lord Luc said, his head inclining toward Prince Lambert as though he were a puppy hoping for a pat.
His deference made me think Prince Lambert and Queen Gertrude had already swayed him to their side.
“We are, after all, the most powerful kingdom.
If he were the monarch of one of the tiny, barnacle-like kingdoms that cling to our great hull, it would be different.
But we maintain the stability of the whole continent.”
“You speak of improper things! And in front of the queen consort,”
Duke Cheston sputtered.
Apparently, they hadn’t gotten to everyone.
“King Claudius spent much time raising the boy for this precise moment.”
“I am not so sensitive,”
Queen Gertrude said smoothly.
She wore a dark gold dress.
The hue contrasted with the bright, shiny gold pendant she always wore.
Idly, she stroked it.
“There’s no need to pretend my son has been anything other than drunk lately.”
“Oh, I’m certain Prince Aeric will surprise us all.”
Duke Cheston failed to understand her cues and rushed to comfort her.
“Worry not about it, my queen.
You only just endured the shock of losing your husband and have been a paragon of strength for our kingdom since then.”
“I’ve had to be stronger for longer than you realize, Duke Cheston.”
Queen Gertrude’s voice was sweet, yet her words were not.
“I lost many before him.
Anyways, if you don’t mind, I’m tired.”
Lord Luc and Duke Cheston said their goodbyes, leaving Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert alone.
I watched closely.
As soon as they were gone, Prince Lambert excitedly turned to her.
“You’re tired?”
“No.”
Queen Gertrude’s response was swift and severe.
“I know what that feels like, and this is not it.
Now let’s depart.”
A hand touched my elbow.
It was a monasticte.
He drew me away.
“Dare I ask if you’d like to partake in the cup?”
the monasticte asked.
He frowned disapprovingly at me, as though he knew I’d done something improper.
“I know the tradition isn’t observed in Radix.”
He was right.
After betrothal ceremonies, couples were supposed to share a single cup of wine to show they would hold everything in common, the good and the bad.
We’d long abandoned the practice in Radix, but Acus, being Acus, seemed to still follow it.
I thought for a moment. It would give me time alone with Prince Aeric. He was another person who’d known Inessa during her last days.
“Of course we do,” I said.
“The other one said you didn’t.”
“The other one?”
With a start, I realized Inessa must’ve declined the ritual.
I wasn’t surprised.
If something didn’t benefit her, she refused to do it for artifice’s sake.
“Well, we … sometimes do and sometimes don’t.
Regardless, I would like to.
Please, lead the way.”
The monasticte huffed and motioned for me to follow him.
I did, my thoughts turning back to Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert.
He’d been excited that she was tired, and she’d quickly dispelled his enthusiasm.
It could only be one thing. They were attempting to make a new heir as soon as possible, one to replace Aeric and end King Claudius’s line forever.
I was so lost in thought that I was startled when the monasticte harrumphed at me, indicating I’d reached my destination, which was a small room.
Woven tapestries hung from display dowels.
One was so big that it practically created a partition.
It depicted the Family, each member holding one of the giftings. The Daughter held a demure grave flower as she stared upward with holy aplomb.
The monasticte left, and I paused at the threshold.
Inessa had been through the betrothal service with Aeric while wearing the exact same dress.
But she hadn’t participated in the ritual.
As meaningless as it was, something was finally mine and mine alone.
I entered.
Aeric rose from a stool, holding a bottle of wine.
How surprising.
He addressed me.
“My love—er.”
He stumbled to a stop as I stared at him without any amusement.
“My … betrothed? My princess? What do you prefer?”
“I prefer you don’t use ‘my,’”
I said to my wine-ill betrothed.
“Certainly.”
He cleared his throat.
With an overabundance of declarative emphasis, he said.
“Princess.”
Several baskets of colorful thread and whets sat on a bench beneath a window.
Aeric cleared the baskets aside, managing to do so without setting the wine bottle down.
“Would you care to sit and have the cup?”
“I would.”
I perched on one end of the bench, and he settled on the other.
“We’re supposed to share a cup, but I thought you might prefer two at this point in our … association,”
he said carefully, as though wary of my reaction.
“I would, thank you,” I said.
Solemnly, Aeric procured two chalices made of Crusan silver from a nearby cabinet and poured wine into both.
His hand trembled a little, making the bottle’s neck scrape against the chalices’ mouths.
Either he was very sick from last night’s wine … or he was nervous about something.
He certainly couldn’t be nervous about me. For that, he’d have to care about impressing or wooing me, and he hadn’t made the slightest effort at either—in fact, everything he did worked to the contrary of such romantic gestures. Wine ill it was.
Aeric held out a chalice.
“The other one, please.”
I reached for the one he’d intended to keep for himself.
“I like the jewels on it.”
It was one of the first things I’d been taught as a princess.
Never take the glass offered, lest it be poisoned.
Aeric, though, nodded and handed it to me without hesitation.
I felt the need to keep my guard raised around him, but he certainly didn’t seem to have any vigilance.
He took a sip and grimaced.
“Perhaps”—he took a shallow breath—“I should switch to water.”
“It may be wise.”
“Except it’d be a travesty to waste this.”
He didn’t even have the wherewithal to be ashamed.
Instead, the sly grin from last night returned, as though the situation entertained him.
I took a drink from my chalice and winced.
Radixan wines were tart, bitter, and the only dry thing in the kingdom. This wine was sugary and rich. Its sweetness made my teeth ache. However, it was pleasingly strong, much more so than ours. Our wine was more for function than enjoyment. The alcohol content was low so it could be drunk over a long period. Warmth spread through my body, chasing away the chill of the cathedral and the pervasive fear hanging over me. Aeric again attempted to take a sip but violently shook his head and lowered it.
“The travesty is how green your face is,”
I said, annoyance growing.
“Your concern for my health is moving,”
Aeric replied dryly.
“Though perhaps I should be more concerned for your health, specifically regarding your bones.
The way you danced last night defied everything I’ve ever known about the pursuit.
You practically bent in half.”
If only he knew why.
Even if Inessa hadn’t been there, Rigby had practically beat new joints into me, ones that could twist abnormally, grace forced from me in the same way as sweat, tears, and blood.
“Are you all right?”
Aeric asked, his tone suddenly softer.
“You look dejected.”
“Oh, dancing simply isn’t my chief pleasure,” I said.
“Well, you’ll never need to dance on my accord,”
he said.
His voice was kind.
“I did want to ask if you’re adjusting to your new home.
I … heard you dismissed one of your attendants.”
I stiffened, defensive. “And?”
“She’s the daughter of a loyal family who has long served us,”
Aeric replied.
“Her firing ruffled so many feathers, we could restuff all the pillows in Acus.”
“Her service was lacking,”
I said unapologetically, even as shame rose within me at the memory of tears filling Decima’s eyes.
“This morning, her parents came to me and asked for her to be reinstated,”
Aeric said.
“They are elderly and rely on her income because she is their only child.
It was quite the scene, involving beseeching.
Lots of it.
I’d rather be impaled than beseeched, but it seems to come with the job.”
I took another swallow of wine.
Decima had done nothing wrong, but I needed to persist.
Sinets never backed down from their decisions.
“If the parents are elderly and unable to earn their keep and their daughter is unruly, how are they beneficial to you?”
I responded the way Inessa did whenever I questioned why we had to do cruel things, laying out brutal stepping stones of reality and, when necessary, lies.
“How can they serve you in any meaningful way?”
“They are my subjects,”
Aeric said without hesitation.
“The question should be how I serve them, not the other way around.”
I had never heard such a thing articulated sincerely.
Our sacred writes were full of contradictory moralistic concepts like the servant monarch and the holy fool, but such drivel belonged there, with the leather tomes in monasteriums.
Of course, Aeric had been raised in one.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have left. Those concepts didn’t work in an actual court. I let out a scornful laugh, one first coined and perfected by Inessa.
Aeric’s face stiffened and then went blank.
There was nothing to draw from it.
He might as well be a portrait, one painted with no talent or soul and completely devoid of emotion.
It was enough to make me swallow down the laughter and take another self-conscious drink of wine. Worry came over me.
“What did you tell her parents?”
I asked.
If Aeric had rehired the girl against my will, I would look like a fool, and the show of power would do the exact opposite—it would reveal how powerless I really was.
“I gave the father a job of equal compensation in the stables,”
Aeric said, voice as lacking in emotion as his face.
“I told them that if my bride does not wish to have their daughter in her employ, I will not require it.”
“Thank you,”
I said, and I meant it.
Aeric hadn’t undermined me, and he’d helped the family at the same time.
“No need,”
he said.
“You may run your chambers however you wish.”
How strange it was to have someone grant you authority.
In Radix, power was a limited resource for which everyone scrambled.
Once secured, no one dared give it up or vest it in anyone else.
I nodded, feeling thankful, confused, and awkward all at once. I switched my goblet to my other hand, determined to regain my composure and naturally move the conversation to Inessa’s death. Bizarrely, that seemed safer than whatever this conversation was.
“I admit, I may have been too impatient with Decima.
As you might imagine, I am mourning my sister,”
I said.
“I was wondering if you might tell me about Inessa’s last days.”
I already knew she’d visited the garden, but who else had she seen, and what else had she done.
“It would bring me comfort to know.
What were they like?”
Aeric was silent.
Perhaps I’d pushed him away too much by laughing at him.
I waited, dread building with each passing moment.
Finally, he said.
“When Inessa was here, she spent much of her time in her chambers.
Then, after the betrothal service, she asked to tour the garden.
It was where she tried our flower berry, which is called flora 1.393.”
Abruptly, he extended the wine bottle and poured more into my chalice.
I smiled in gratitude and took a sip in a show of appreciation, trying to keep things pleasant between us.
“She asked to visit the garden? After spending much of her time in solitude?”
So Inessa had requested to tour the garden.
Perhaps it was inconsequential, and she had simply been bored but … perhaps someone or something had prompted her to do so.
“I suggested we visit the solarium, but she insisted.
I assumed it was because she missed the Radixan royal garden.”
I barely suppressed a snort of disagreement.
Inessa would’ve never missed our garden.
The reason I loved our grave flowers—the fact they were uncontrollable—was exactly what Inessa had hated about them.
If something couldn’t be bent to her will, she loathed it, as though it’d deprived her of owed capital and thus deserved to be destroyed. A pang struck my heart. Inessa might not have missed our grave flowers, but I did. Very much so.
“I don’t believe I offered you my condolences,”
Aeric said.
“Losing a sister is no small thing.
Were you close?”
I blinked at the personal question.
For that, I did need another drink of wine.
I took it, long and slow, the disgusting sweetness coating my tongue.
“We were,”
I said.
It was true.
Inessa and I knew each other best.
But it was the sort of closeness that caused my feet to bleed during dance lessons: skin enclosed in a pointed toe, rubbing against leather until it tore.
“As much as we could be.”
“Ah,”
Aeric said.
He paused.
“The Radixan court is not known as an easy place.”
“No.”
It was the first heartfelt, honest thing I’d ever said to him.
“It isn’t.”
“Were you sad to leave it behind?”
I took another drink of wine, thinking about the grave flowers raising their heads in grumpy welcome every time I approached, the pungently salty food that had ruined me for other flavors, and the ballroom where part of me was forever chained.
Aeric didn’t know it, but he’d struck a tender spot in me, the same sort that made my shoulder ache every time I heard dancing music in remembrance of Rigby’s stick.
Radix never gave more than it took.
It was the underside of a rock—moist, crawling with phlegm-skinned creatures, dirty and dank. But it never pretended to be anything else. It told you the true cost of love and loss and let you decide for yourself what was worth clinging to.
Whatever I was, I was a Radixan, through and through.
Perhaps that was why I had such a hard time being a Sinet.
“Everyone longs for home,”
I deflected.
I didn’t wish to speak about myself any longer.
“What was it like being raised in a monasterium?”
“Austere.”
Now Aeric’s gaze dulled.
“Not a pillow in sight, lest comfort bring you into sin … or so they said.
I had no pillow, but I still acquired penances faster than a stray dog acquires fleas, so perhaps the theory doesn’t hold.”
He smiled congenially, but a wistfulness hung in his voice.
“There were bells.
They rang three times a day for the canonical hours.
I used to escape to the bell tower often.
The bells were like giant mountains nestled together, solemn and restful.”
“Sounds lonely and free, all at once.”
I didn’t know what had inspired me to make such a personal inference, yet the way Aeric spoke about the bells reminded me of my grave flowers.
“It was,”
Aeric agreed softly.
“What happened to your hands?”
My lips were numb with wine, and the question came clumsily from them.
Only one of Aeric’s hands was visible to me.
It was wrapped around the belly of the chalice, while the other was down at his side.
His fingers tightened, as though hiding the damage.
“The monasticte attempted to strap the irreverence out of me.”
He spoke vaguely, in the way you might when talking about a misfortune happening far away.
I took another sip, forcing away my guilt over being so insensitive … and the strange urge to take his hands in mine.
“It didn’t work.”
“What?”
He frowned, confused.
“The attempts to cure your irreverence.”
I meant it as a jest, a barb at Aeric’s frivolity during royal mourning, to quell my sympathy for him.
But just as my question about his hands had been clumsy, my response was too.
“Perhaps,”
he said in the same distant manner, one shoulder lifting in a shrug.
Silence pervaded the room.
I tightened my own grip on my chalice.
“I might ask what happened to your hand as well.”
I fought not to glance down at my scar or to try to hide it away.
After Inessa had touched it, it had the look of a fresh cut, and now that glass had torn through it, it was rimmed in pink.
“An unfortunate encounter with a letter opener,”
I said.
Frustratingly, our conversation had a life of its own despite my efforts to guide it.
It wound down different paths, ones I did not wish to tread.
Determinedly, I added.
“I heard you’ve been rehearsing a play.”
“I am.”
“Whatever for? Especially during royal mourning?”
The grin that had vanished from Aeric’s face returned.
I hadn’t known it was possible, but it was even more insolent than before.
If he was offended at my insensitivity over his hands, it didn’t show—which made me nervous.
I’d thought he was easy to read, yet the more time I spent with him, the less confident I became. His emotions eluded me. More troubling, I couldn’t quite pin the thoughts behind them.
“A play is always the thing,”
he said.
Reflexively, forgetting he was wine ill, he raised the chalice to his lips.
He winced at its strong scent, swallowed thickly, and lowered it.
“Still not ready.”
I downed the rest of mine and held out a hand.
“Give it here.”
Surprise crossed his face, and he surrendered it.
“One cup after all,”
he observed.
“Next you know, we’ll be kissing.”
After the exchange about his hands, I wasn’t prepared for such flirtation.
I almost choked on the wine and barely managed to keep from coughing.
Kissing? Us? The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, yet at the mention of it, heat somehow filled me, and I didn’t think it was just from the wine.
“I try to avoid kissing wine-ill kings,”
I said, determined to regain my dignity and steer the conversation back to the play.
“And you won’t.
I’m not king yet.
At least not in name.”
“I also try to avoid kissing wine-ill princes.
Though I recall you bore the title of king last night.
Not in name but rather physically.
Upon your … chest.”
By the Family, why was I mentioning Aeric’s chest? The mortification I’d been trying to escape only worsened, and I struggled miserably to hide it.
“Oh, you mean this.”
Aeric reached one hand to his collar and undid its frill.
I was flummoxed.
I didn’t know if turning away or watching would give him power.
The choice was made for me as his fingers unfastened his shirt. I couldn’t have looked away if I’d tried. The garment was already exposed on the sides, but the front parted into a V, and he pulled one half aside. The word was still there, though much fainter than last night. However, it didn’t command my attention as much as his form did. Aeric’s chest was strikingly strong. Even more captivating was the way in which it narrowed at the waist. I nearly choked again, even though I had no wine in my mouth to blame. I rectified it by taking another sip. A mix of amusement and flirtation radiated from Aeric, cutting against his wine-ill pallor.
“I’m not certain it’s very becoming to write ‘king’ upon oneself.”
I meant to be vicious but sounded merely breathless.
“Whatever are you, a jar in need of labeling? Fasten your shirt.”
“As you command, Princess.”
Indolently, he leisurely closed his shirt, making me vastly relieved and peculiarly disappointed at the same tim.
“I imagine it’s a no, then?”
“A no?”
“To the kissing.
After all, if you consider semantics, I’m neither a wine-ill king nor a wine-ill prince.
I’m the ruler prevailing, which is its own title entirely.”
His audacity left me speechless.
I had the urge to use my wine for something other than drinking and splash it in his face.
“What you are is on the verge of vomiting.”
“Haven’t you heard?”
he returned easily.
“Kissing is the cure to being wine ill.”
This wouldn’t do.
He was flirting with me—and gaining the upper hand at that, leaving me disoriented and too hot, even though I was hardly wearing anything.
I thought about Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert, how they dismissed him as boyish and drunk.
They weren’t wrong, but there was something about the way Aeric flustered people—me among them—that made me wonder just how much of it was him having fun and how much was something else entirely.
“Perhaps you should find one of the girls from last night’s party because I will not be assisting you,”
I said hastily.
Soberness chased away his smile, transforming him.
He was handsome—I was already aware—but with this strangely poignant look, he was even more so.
Staring at him, I felt as though I saw him truly, even though I didn’t know enough about him to understand what the expression might mean.
“We are betrothed,”
he said.
“I would never kiss anyone else.”
The fervor in his voice startled me just as much as the expression.
The soft spot he’d struck when asking about my home was pricked again, eliciting emotions that were much too dangerous.
What was this loyalty he spoke of? I needed to push him away, immediately, before some weak part of me desired the unabashed faithfulness he offered.
But I also needed him to remain unsuspicious. The realization was as frightening as the emotions. Heated dizziness settled over me. It had to be just the wine. I took another drink as though it would steady me, when, at this point, it had turned heavy on my tongue and light in my head. Aeric poured me more. I had to divert his attention. Quickly.
“What do you think of Inessa?”
I blurted.
“I mean—what did you think of her?”
By the Family, I’d spoken in the present tense.
Aeric seemed to realize it as well.
His face changed for a heartbeat.
But I saw it, nonetheless.
An intuitive look, a look like a slicing dagger, a falling sword, a flying arrow. It was so intense that I almost couldn’t imagine him smiling ever again.
I stared down at the chalice.
How many times had Aeric refilled it? While he hadn’t drunk a drop? Panic rushed through my blood with the force of the wine.
Had he been trying to draw my guard down? To learn why I was really here? But how could he know? I set the chalice down and stood.
As if in confirmation, everything spun. Aeric remained where he was. In fact, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, as though feeling pangs of wine ill.
“I’ve had enough,”
I said.
“I’m going back to the palace.”
“Let me escort you,”
he said, lowering his chin and opening his eyes.
One side of his mouth tugged up in his ever-present grin, but I didn’t find it charming any longer.
“No, thank you.”
I fled.
I left the chalices and my betrothed and his wine bottle and hurried through the cold center of the cathedral.
Smoke, left over from the service, swirled in the air, as though the cathedral’s spirit lingered beneath its dome.
Most of the candles were out, but they dripped, red wax splotching gray stone. A few of the censers gently swayed from their gold chains. The cathedral’s movements made me feel as though it were alive, watching, judging, heightening my dizziness.
I touched my cheek.
It was warm.
Whether because of Aeric’s scheming or not, I had drunk enough to loosen my wits and had referred to Inessa in the present tense.
I could only imagine how pink my face was from the wine.
Blinking furiously, I tried to banish the dizziness to the edges of my vision.
There was a chance Aeric had wished to make me drink purely because he liked drinking as well.
Drunks loved company.
But there was another chance that he’d been trying to draw information from me. Was there something specific he was looking for? If he knew my true reason for being here—to assassinate him—he’d merely need to have me arrested, tried, and summarily executed … so what was he after? He’d distracted me from asking more about the play and had directed the conversation to my sisterhood with Inessa. Then, when I’d referred to her in the present tense, he’d reacted strongly. Wouldn’t most assume I’d simply had a slip of the tongue? People in grief sometimes referred to the deceased in the present tense, their hearts not ready to accept that their loved one no longer lived.
I found myself walking quickly again, my pace in tempo with my terrified thoughts.
It was impossible for Aeric to know Inessa was a ghost, but I feared I’d shown too much.
He’d guessed I was hiding something.
I had to be much more careful around him, and I would never drink so carelessly again. Acusan wine was shockingly stronger than our Radixan ones, and I hadn’t been prepared for it … and, more sobering, I hadn’t been prepared for Aeric. I’d assumed he was the stupid drunken boy everyone else saw, one who liked parties and carousing and being handsome and adored.
But I had a sense I had been very wrong.
MOONMIRRORS
Grave Flower Experiment Three
Note: We have moved the experiments to the dungeon after the havoc wreaked on the solarium.
It’ll be all right, though! I’ll increase taxes in order to pay for its repairs.
I’d been meaning to replace the porcelain stars with jeweled ones anyways.
Appearance
Round centers with no petals.
The centers are craggy and pitted, similar to the celestial body they emulate.
They are silvery, white, and sometimes even orange, depending on the moon.
Somehow, they have an inner light, much like a firefly, which allows them to create their own glow. With these glows, they reflect shadows onto their surfaces.
Behavior without invocation
Obsessed! For whatever reason, these moonmirrors are absolutely obsessed with the moon, hence their name.
They are nocturnal (naturally) and keen and cry to the moon every night.
Some call their racket a song and say it’s beautiful, but it gives me a headache.
I don’t like anything to disturb my sleep. Whatever cycle the moon is in, they copy, whether it’s a full moon, half-moon, crescent, or gibbous.
Invocation
Primeval Mother
who put the Moon in the sky,
we promise not to knock it down,
or eat it,
or hide it under our pillow.
But, O Mother, someday, may we?
Results
I was a little nervous about this experiment.
Knock the moon down? Put it under our pillows? What if we said the invocation and the moonmirrors somehow managed to pull the whole sky down? Then where would we be, with no sky? Still, discovery demands bravery, and I am very brave! We attempted to say the invocation during the day, but the moonmirrors slept and did not respond.
So we came back that night I was tired and grouchy but tried to put on a good face.
My wife said I should dress as a king, but I wanted my comfortable sleep robe. She’s always harassing me—though she did have a good idea the other day. Hire a Fely to help. They are said to have ancient wisdom about the grave flowers. But I must say, I don’t wish to be beholden to them in any way.
Anyways, we said the invocation at night.
The moonmirrors were reflecting the moon as they always do.
But, suddenly, they went black.
Their buds gathered to form one large black circle. The black circle ballooned larger and larger, inflating with some sort of air. The stems stretched like strings, and soon the circle was above our heads.
Complications
Strange silvery liquid dripped from the moonmirors.
The large black circle blocked out the light from the moon, and darkness fell, one much darker than any night I’ve ever experienced.
Clouds obscured the stars, and with the moon blocked, we could hardly see.
We stumbled about, and I ran into the wall. It made my nose bleed, and I got blood on my sleep robe.
Applications
Finally, some success! After all my efforts, I feel like this is long overdue.
The strange liquid pooled in their leaves, and we gathered it and gave it to a prisoner.
Instant death—and what’s even better, with basically no side effects aside from a silvery hue forming different-shaped crescents on the fingernails, which most wouldn’t notice, as it is truly faint.
We are calling it moonrain, and we will bottle and store it. My wife pointed out we need to keep it as secret as possible, so I gave moonrain to everyone else involved in the experiment. I thought maybe I should give it to her too—she has already given me a son—but since he is only five years of age and I would like more sons in case this one is a dud, I decided to let her live.