Page 41 of The Maiden and Her Monster

Dawn tumbled in like spilled oil, drenching the sky in the pastel colors of blooming peonies.

The yellows and pinks swirled together, casting light onto the cobblestone streets as Malka and Chaia walked to Valón Castle, and the New Royal Palace within its complex.

Amnon had stayed behind, instructed to keep watch for anything suspicious.

This would be the farthest Nimrah and Malka would venture from each other. She had done her best to mentally prepare for their separation—to anticipate the unmooring. Yet as they ventured apart, it hit her just as fiercely. A wave of nausea that had her keeling over.

“Are you alright?” Chaia asked, resting her hand on Malka’s back.

Malka nodded, but her eyes were screwed shut. “An unfortunate side effect of the rooting spell,” she explained. “Distract me?”

They began to walk again once Malka collected herself.

“Do you remember those long walks we would go on when we were kids, where we’d stay out so late our parents would yell a storm of worries at us when we finally returned?” Chaia asked lightly, though she still held a cautious eye on Malka.

The memory warmed her. “If I did not convince you to return, I swear you would’ve had us stay out all night long.”

Chaia smiled, readjusting her work bag on her shoulder. “I felt so free. Like I could do anything in the world.”

“You were always like that to me. Like you would shout a command to the universe, and it would bend to your will.”

“With Kefesh, it feels like that is true sometimes. Though, I’m hardly naive enough to believe I am free anymore. Not while the Ozmini Church rules Ordobav, and the Yahad have so little protection.”

Malka blew at an unruly curl that had escaped the confines of her kerchief. “What was the Maharal like as a teacher?”

“When the Maharal offered to teach me the Yahadi magic, I think he believed it would help to ground me after I made the decision to stay. I felt adrift for a while. Kefesh… it reminded me of the fire within myself, even when the Ozmini Church tried to extinguish it. It brought me closer to the Yahadi faith and cemented my desire to defend it.”

“Do you… use it often?” She felt awkward asking. As if they were discussing a sewing needle and not forbidden magic.

Chaia smiled. “For me, it isn’t about casting. It’s about holding the ancient knowledge inside myself. A weapon that no Ozmin can steal.”

“And you don’t fear it? Even though we’ve heard stories of its unpredictability?”

Chaia chuckled. “What in life is predictable, Malka? We don’t know the outcome of anything we do or say. I could hardly have known that stealing away to Valón would result in everyone thinking me dead, and Kefesh wasn’t involved in that at all.”

“Do you regret it?” Malka asked, though unsure if she wanted the answer.

Chaia squeezed her hand. “I regret that it left you thinking I was dead. I regret leaving you. But I don’t regret wanting to help the Yahad in any way I could. I don’t regret that coming here led me to Vilém.”

It was true that Chaia’s decision to leave had unintended consequences, like the warnings told of Kefesh. But as Malka had experienced, with those risks also came the possibility for something great—like healing Amnon, or the delicate black perphona plant she had created from nothing.

They veered into a giant square. It wasn’t yet crowded, and Malka had an unobstructed view of a protruding tower, the ochre-tinted limestone stark against the morning light.

The center of the tower held two clock rings pressing inside of each other like a rippling pool of water.

It was stunningly intricate with golden circles marking the time.

Symbols were etched into the clock. Malka squinted, but still could not make them out.

“What is that, on the tower?” Malka asked.

“That’s the Orlon clock,” Chaia answered.

“It’s one of the most advanced astronomical clocks in the Rha?kan Empire, though it no longer works.

The hands move too rapidly. It’s under construction right now.

Prince Ev ? en mandated its restoration as part of an initiative to revive the golden age of his grandfather’s rule.

Every day they’re felling what’s left of usable trees in Mavetéh and digging up ore to forge into the most intricate metal for it. ”

When Malka arrived in Valón, she had believed the Yahadi Quarter to be its most beautiful part, with the shul Bachta’s glimmering stained glass and colorful winding streets, but the Orlon clock stunned her.

The colors of the clock shifted when the sun hit and reflected onto the painted buildings, making them iridescent.

“Don’t be too impressed, Malka,” Chaia warned. “Do you see the figures flanking the clock?”

Malka made them out—four men carved into stone ledges, two on each side. “I see them.”

“Each figure represents what the Ordobav Kingdom despises. The first figure holds a mirror—they call him vanity. The skeletal man holding an hourglass is named death. Across from it, the dark-skinned man playing the mandolin, represents lust. And next to him, the man with an aquiline nose holding a bag of Ordon coin, is greed. Look first at lust. What rings familiar?”

The stereotypes were easy to see—as much as the Ozmins hated the Yahad, they also hated the Fanavi people, who came from a powerful empire along the southern trade route.

They called them idolaters, interested in thievery and polygamy.

It was drawn from hateful stories the same way the Yahad were accused of hoarding money, of using gold as a way to control politicking because they were forced into moneylending roles.

It was dangerous to have beliefs different from the Ozmins.

The Church would do all it could to shame those beliefs into destitution.

“The figures are Fanavi and Yahadi men,” Malka said.

“And there you see, what Ordobav hates: vanity, death, the Fanavi, and the Yahad.”

What Malka had first seen as beautiful, she now recognized as horror. Its shimmering colors, which glistened in the sun, gilded the hate beneath.

It was not always like this, Malka wanted to believe. But the truth was, she did not know. She had never been to Valón. She had lived solely through stories, which were always painted differently by each storyteller who carried them to Eskravé.

“Things will get better,” Malka said, unsure who she was trying to convince, Chaia or herself. “Once I return to Eskravé with the Rayga, and the curse is lifted.”

“Are you sure that will happen, Malka? That killing Nimrah will lift all of our ails?”

From here, Malka could not see any glimpse of Mavetéh, yet its memory was vivid. It was true, Nimrah was not the Rayga she expected to find. A golem, disgraced.

I’m a command, not the commander, she had said. Even if she did not control the monsters who took their girls, Nimrah was still responsible for their creation.

“She evoked Mavetéh’s cursed creatures,” Malka said. “I have to believe her death will destroy them, too.”

The promise of Eskravé’s return to normalcy was the only way Malka knew to move forward.

She held Imma’s fate in her palms as she held Kefesh’s power.

She couldn’t fathom an alternative where Nimrah’s death did not free them.

She had killed. Watched Amnon on the brink of death.

Woodland monsters now clawed terror into her dreams each night.

She had survived what no other Yahadi woman had. That had to mean something.

“If the Maharal has taught me anything, it’s that things are rarely as they seem. Magic and its mysteries are not always something we can understand. We are meant to feel close to it, and be comforted by it, but not always to hold the knowledge of it in our hands.”

Malka thought of Abayda the Mystic and the forbidden knowledge that destroyed him.

The castle gates stood resolute, stones pummeled together and connected by vaulted iron, melded into spires that resembled plumes of golden smoke. Each side of the open iron gate held the Valski Insignia, two fighting lions with sharp canines. Malka stared at them as they passed through.

They entered into the castle complex, affixed with several looming cathedrals, the courthouses, great halls, and impending military towers which hid the expansive green of the royal gardens.

She had thought Trader’s Day busy, but preparations for the Lé ? rey celebration had set the entire castle grounds abuzz.

“We’re approaching the palace,” Chaia said, drawing her attention. “I’ll talk, but don’t be afraid to speak if you are asked a question. Skittish behavior will alarm them.”

Up close, the New Royal Palace brushed the low-hanging storm clouds, illuminating the pale-yellow stone walls. Bright red broach spires jutted, coming to a point so sharp Malka imagined them piercing the clouds like a dagger would cut skin, rain falling in streams like trickling blood.

Chaia led them to the servant’s entrance on the side of the building—an undecorated set of solid swing doors. A knight stood guard.

He eyed Chaia. “You usually arrive alone.”

“This is my cousin, Hanna. She is one of the new scullery maids Cook Irenka hired to help prepare for the Lé ? rey celebration.”

Malka attempted a blank face but worry wavered her bottom lip.

The day prior, Chaia had eavesdropped on the cook as she had given the names of the new scullery maids to the Seneschal.

Vilém and Nimrah had gone to bribe the real Hanna, who agreed to miss work in exchange for the hefty sum of Ordon coins Vilém offered her instead.

Though, Malka had a feeling even if the woman had not been tempted by the money, Nimrah’s tall, threatening presence had made it impossible to refuse.

The guard clicked his tongue and unrolled his scroll. After a moment of examination, he sighed, rolling up the scroll again and shoving it into the crook of his arm. “See to it she gets an apron and a proper bonnet.”

“Of course. Thank you,” Chaia said.