by Ryan Graudin
And I offer it back, keep kissing him. Hoping hard that he will not pull away.
He doesn’t this time. My insides spark and shine. The more our lips touch, the closer our bodies meld together, the less the cold matters.
Those fingers whisper along the edge of my cheek. Slope down to trace the lips he just kissed. “I couldn’t do any of this without you, you know. This world, my life . . . it’s winter right now.” Richard’s hands are steady and warm, but his words tremble. “You’re the only star I see.”
Herne’s right. I cannot live two lives.
I will choose Richard. As long as he’ll let me.
Eight
“Why aren’t you dressed yet?!” Anabelle is an unannounced flourish of blonde hair and perfection tearing through the bedroom doors.
I’m staring in the vanity mirror, frozen in front of my reflection with the remnants of last night’s dream.
This dream was different from all the others. Far more terrifying. It seeps through my bones like snake venom. Keeps me from reentering a world of daylight and dresses and coronation preparations.
“Emrys!” The princess pops up beside me. “Are you sleeping?”
The dream woke me at two in the morning. I sat up with its talons latched deep inside my chest. Unable to breathe.
I sat until rose-pink dawn crept in and flushed my face. I studied my reflection. The jade light in my eyes. The tiny creases and lines which are beginning to frame them. The bandage wound around my arm, and beneath it, five red blooms, scabs split apart while I was sleeping.
Anabelle is shaking my shoulder. “You look wretched! And you have to be in the coronation coach along with Richard in less than an hour! Where’s the dress Helene and I put together for you?”
I blink, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. Sleeplessness is stuffed like cotton in my ears.
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, this princess of ever-movement. She’s off into the walk-in wardrobe, rummaging through yards of silk and chiffon. Anabelle bursts out of the door almost as quick as she entered it, hands full of my coronation gown. A flowy, aqua-mint piece which falls over my body like cascades of water. Silk chiffon which spreads like the wings of a luna moth.
“Put this on.” She stuffs the dress into my arms. “I’ll try to do something with your hair.”
“Anabelle . . .” I speak for the first time. Breaking through my voice’s morning rust.
The princess grabs a silver brush from the vanity. “Do you think it should be up or down? I can’t remember what we decided.”
“Belle,” I try again.
But she keeps talking. “We should hurry. There’s no time for breakfast now! The carriage should be here at any moment!”
“ANABELLE!” I stand and the dress tumbles out of my lap, onto the floor. Anabelle stares at it, gripping the brush handle like a dagger.
“Whatever’s the matter?” She looks back up at me. Eyes spice brown and wide. Just like they were in the dream.
The dream. I still feel sick about it.
I still feel Guinevere hovering by my side, her curdled breath washing over me as she mutters the same words over and over. I still feel her nails digging deep into my arm, calling up blood and pain. I still feel the heat and ash of the flaming castle billowing up from the valley, carving into my face. I still see all of them standing down in the valley. Far beyond my reach.
They were all staring up at me. Richard and Anabelle. Helene and Ferrin. Lord Winfred and Herne the Hunter. Spirits and mortals alike. All staring as Camelot’s flames drew ever closer.
I couldn’t reach them. There was no way down. I could only stand and watch as the flames ate everything. Caught against Ferrin’s dress and wreathed through Herne’s horns. Licked light into Anabelle’s hair and fanned sparks across Richard’s eyes.
All of them sacrificed.
This is what Guinevere said. Over and over. The phrase crooned and looped through my ears until it was void of meaning. The fire burned until it was void as well. All that remained in the valley was ash and fingers of mist. Desolation.
“I don’t think we should do this,” I breathe out.
Anabelle’s eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
“The coronation.”
The princess’s arms fall slack to her side. “Emrys, you can’t be serious!”
“I just . . . I have a feeling that something really bad is going to happen.”
“Like what?”
All of them sacrificed. “I don’t know. I just have this feeling.”
“A feeling?” The princess stares at me like she’s studying a cracked vase. Figuring out the best way to fix it. “That’s all?”
I feel my heart sinking. “I had a dream.”
“You’re just anxious.” She leans over and retrieves the gown from the floor. “I have those kinds of dreams all of the time! Like the ones where you show up to class naked and there’s an exam you never studied for and all of your teeth start falling out of your mouth. Now turn around!”
I obey, standing mannequin still as the princess undresses and redresses me like her own personal paper doll.
“Besides,” Anabelle goes on as she zips the gown into place. “I don’t even know if I could stop this if I tried! The press is set up and all the foreign delegates are here and Richard’s already suited up. Security’s tighter than ever, of course. I’ve been over everything with a fine-tooth comb.”
She tries to tame the snarls of my hair with an actual comb. Turning an amber bird’s nest into liquid lava which pools over my shoulders. I could almost believe Anabelle is using magic, the way she creates beauty from sleepless mess. It takes only minutes for her to twist my hair into a stylish bun. To use powders and brushes and paint to wipe the night’s terror off my face.
I keep watching in the mirror as she pieces me together. Makes everything right. No—not right. Perfect.
Maybe I’m just going crazy. Maybe my mind is rotting just like Guinevere’s. Creating fears where there are none. Spoiling perfect moments.
“Brilliant!” Anabelle makes the final adjustments to my necklace.
“Do you think things are really going to be okay?”
“Yes.” She crosses her arms over her gown: slim, cream silk with an embellished lace backing. “Of course things are going to be okay, Emrys. Why wouldn’t they be?”
The empty cell. All of them sacrificed. REMEMBER, REMEMBER.
Gibberish. That’s all it is. The words of a madwoman trying to infect me.
I won’t let them.
“Let’s go to the carriage.” The princess hooks her arm through mine. “Richard is waiting.”
The morning air above Buckingham’s courtyard is fresh, capped off with a crisp autumn sky. As soon as I see Richard seated regal as a portrait in the Gold State Coach, all of my night terrors fade away. Today is Richard’s day—the start of a new age. The sun is shining and there’s no room for dark.
My chest feels light by the time I step into the gilded carriage, take my seat next to him on the plush velvet cushions.
“You look beautiful, Embers.” Richard smiles and slides his hand into mine, filling me with a long, blue calm.
“You look very kingly.” I take in the very traditional attire of his coronation outfit: a crimson coat speckled with medals, white trousers, and high boots as black as jet. The cape of ermine and scarlet which covers it all. “And handsome, of course.”
He leans in and kisses me—lips as soft as the fur lining on his cape—just as the carriage starts to jerk away. The world moves past our open windows. We canter through Buckingham’s black-and-gold gates, into London’s streets. A sea of mortals crowds the roped path, jostling one another for a peek into the carriage. Small flags slash the air—streaks of navy, scarlet, and white. Cheers swell through our open window, fill the carriage with the crowd’s overwhelming presence. The streets are almost more crowded than they were on the day of King Edward’s death.
Ri
chard takes all of this in. His fingers tighten in mine.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“There are so many people watching.” Richard gnaws his lip, looks back at me. “I don’t want to screw this up.”
“Anabelle’s had you rehearse this nearly twenty times!”
“It’s not the ceremony I’m worried about.” He says this so softly I have to strain to hear over the onlookers’ constant roar. “It’s everything that comes after.”
“Richard.” My thumb brushes against his. “Think of everything you’ve already been through. You’re a good leader. These people need you.”
“Yes, but this is new. . . .”
The Gold State Coach keeps going; rattle, creak, and hoofbeat down the length of the Mall. Coasting under the last lingering leaves of the plane trees. I look out the window and all I see are faces. Old and young. Eager and cheering. Hands outstretched as if they want to seize the carriage.
Richard’s people.
But are they?
I catch sight of a young man standing at the edge of the street—a static spot in the crowd—hands tucked into the front pockets of his black hoodie. His mouth is a grim line across his face as he watches us roll past. So emotionless.
Was he there that night? Holding a sign? Shouting for my demise?
My heart rattles in my throat. The crowd keeps stretching on. Smiles and paper crowns propped on children’s heads. But suddenly all I can see are the marchers: their stabbing signs and savage shouts.
“Emrys?”
I blink and the crowd becomes normal again. The boy in the hoodie is long past.
“Today is new. Think of it as a fresh start. You’ll be fine.” A smile pries across my face. I wonder if Richard can see how strained it is. “We’ll be fine.”
He leans down, and our foreheads touch. A pinpoint of skin drawing all my focus into him the way vision tunnels through a telescope. Making him larger than life. Today he smells like spices: the exotic kind which Queen Victoria used to have shipped in from faraway places like India and China.
His lips brush mine—velvet whispering against skin—just the barest of kisses. I want to dig my fingers into his ermine cape and make the kiss last longer. Hold him like this forever.
“You’re proving quite a distraction. I should be waving to the crowd,” he whispers when we break apart. “Belle’s going to murder me.”
“Probably not. Because then she’d have to plan a whole other coronation—”
And then I feel it. Like a stab or a lightning strike. Cutting me off midsentence.
Magic.
Not the soft, flowery freshness of the younglings’ spells. Or the rich powerful tint of mahogany, soil, and shadow which flavors Herne’s presence. Or even the acrid, metallic sting of the soul feeders’ magic.
It’s the tension of opposites. Sky and earth. Birth and death. The rust and the gleam . . . It’s only a hint. Just a taste, but it’s enough for me to remember. To know I’ve felt it before.
In the walls of an empty cell. On the Isle of Man.
My spine grows rigid against Richard’s hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I don’t know. . . .” My voice trails off.
There’s a stretch of shadow as the carriage pulls through the other side of the Admirality Arch. The horses’ hooves clop hollow against the pavement as they tug us past the vast expanse of Trafalgar Square. The crowd is pressed so tight I can’t see any of Trafalgar Square’s stones. Only its fountains are visible, twin jewels of spewing water.
But I don’t stare at them long. I’m scanning faces, honing in on dim echoes of auras. Nothing. The feeling has vanished: come and gone like a wave of nausea.
I don’t feel any magic. Any at all.
“Richard,” I try to keep my question casual. Just in case I’m wrong. In case the paranoia is ruining even this victorious moment. “Where are the Frithemaeg?”
“Anabelle said they should be all around the convoy!” Richard has to scream for me to hear him. The crowd has gotten louder. Much louder. But they aren’t just cheering anymore. There’s a new franticness to their energy.
The Gold State Coach jerks to a stop. My heels dig into the floor, but my stomach feels like it’s still plummeting. The royal procession is supposed to keep going. Forward. All the way to Westminster Abbey.
I look out the window. Outside is a mass of hair and wool coats and Union Jacks: moving, churning chaos. People are running in the street, up to the carriage and around it.
As hard as I try, I can’t see what’s making them run. There’s too much panic. Too many screams.
“Richard!” I clasp his arm, make sure he’s still here, next to me.
The pack and press of the crowd can’t dodge our carriage anymore. People are running against it. Shaking and jolting us from our seats. I even see a horse flash by—gray and dappled. The plume on its halter tells me it was one of the beasts pulling our coach. Now loosed.
The door to our carriage bursts open: an explosion of gilt and hands. My fingers punch into Richard’s arm the same way Guinevere’s clenched mine. The men come anyway.
These are no random spectators—the people who climb into the carriage. They’re clothed like night: black jackets and ski masks. They clamber into our compartment, fill it so only four of them feel like an army.
The whole world is shouts and kicks. Richard’s mouth is moving, but I can’t hear what he says. I can’t stop him from being torn away.
Or am I the one being torn? Arms hook around me, pulling with raw strength. I’m twisting, raking out with my nails at anything and everything. Elbows and knees dig against foreign fabric and joints. Someone behind me tries to pin my arms together. I lift my leg up, slam my stiletto straight into the attacker’s shin. His howl of pain joins the chorus of riot and noise as he lets go.
Richard is fighting too, but the odds are against him. His arms are tangled in the crimson of his cape. Masked men surround him like vultures, clawing and pecking as if he were already dead.
I throw myself at the nearest one. He shrugs me off with muscle and a grunt.
The man whose shin I mangled grabs me again. By the neck. He twists me down into the velvet seat, pins me with his weight. And I can’t move, despite the rage that’s blazing through me. These human muscles are weak, powerless.
Out of the corner of my eye I see one of the vulture-men pull a cloth from his pocket, press it into Richard’s face. The king’s arms and legs fall still. His head rolls back in a way which reminds me too much of death.
I scream his name and the masked weight over me shoves harder.
“Come on!” someone by the carriage door screams. “We’re running out of time!”
“What about the ginger?” bellows the man above me.
“Our orders were to leave her!” The same mask who pressed the cloth to Richard’s face is bending over me. All I can see is white terrycloth. All I can smell . . . it’s sweet: fruit on the verge of rot. It yanks my thoughts back, pulls me into myself.
Fall. Tumble. Plummet.
Black.
Nine
There are no dreams. No thoughts. My mind is empty, crammed full with black, black, black.
And then there’s a roar. Like a giant wave pulling fast into the shore. Or the hum of a distant motorway. The noise tugs at my heart. I’m not supposed to be here in this dark. I’m supposed to be doing something else . . . something important.
There’s a crack in my eyelids. This isn’t my bed. I open my eyes wider, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. My vision reels like a drunkard kicked out of a pub. At first it’s only colors. Wine-soaked burgundy, aching gold, mist and mint. Then shapes. The squares of upturned cushions. The point of my strappy heel.
And the noise . . . there’s so much of it. Everywhere. Horses keening, the clatter of hooves. Screams and snarls. Pure, utter panic. The sounds swirl around, beat through the windows and open door of the carriage.
The carriage
. . . crowds and masks and screams and . . . Richard. Fighting against so many men. Going limp. And me, trying my hardest to save him.
The memory hits me like ice water. I jolt up, ready for whatever fight I can manage, but I’m alone in the carriage.
Outside is chaos. People running, mouths open to join one long and never-ending scream. I try to scan their faces—searching for black masks and clothes—but this seems to be the only color anyone is wearing. And then—a flash of pure, soul-sucking black.
It takes a moment to process the presence of the Black Dog in the middle of Trafalgar Square, looming under the high shine of the sun. The very air around it looks dimmer, overcast. As if the creature is a black hole swallowing all traces of light.
The beast gnashes through the crowd. Its teeth snap air, shred coats. The edges of its canines are laced with red, but still it wants more. I can feel its hunger from here: the burn in its eyes. So much like . . .
Blæc.
This is the same Black Dog which spared my life that night just weeks before. Frithemaeg fly around the soul feeder, diving like frantic swallows, trying to lash it into submission with roping spells of light. Blæc ignores them, shaking off their magic like water.
“Lady Emrys!”
I turn to see Ferrin crouched in the doorway. Her eyes are impossibly wide as she takes in the gutted carriage.
“Where’s King Richard?”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I doubt she’d hear it anyway—Blæc has started howling. The air grows heavy with its magic: wet dog, hissing coals, and rain-flecked evenings. It soaks through my shock.
That’s when I see it. Placed on the only cushion which hasn’t been torn to shreds. It’s in the center—where Richard’s royal crest is embroidered into the velvet—just between the lion’s paws and the unicorn’s hooves.
A single, yellow flower.
It’s a perfect specimen, petals fresh and unbruised. As if it had just been plucked. The color of sunshine. Beautiful poison.