Bloodleaf

by Crystal Smith

  “No, Kellan. I don’t want—​”

  But even as I spoke he forced the knife in my hand down against his own palm. Through gritted teeth he said, “My blood, freely given.”

  “Quickly now!” Mother commanded. “Take the bowl to the cloth.”

  Stunned into submission, I stepped into the very center of the triangle.

  “Three drops,” Simon said. “Repeat after me. ‘Sanguine nata, vita et morte.’ ”

  One drop fell from the iron bowl and spread on the white fabric. “Sanguine nata, vita et morte.”

  “Again.”

  Another drop. “Sanguine nata, vita et morte.”

  “Again!”

  The last drop. “Sanguine nata, vita et morte.”

  “Tertio modo ut ab uno vitae. Ligat sanguinem, sanguinem, facere,” said Simon. “Three lives now tied to one. Bound by blood, by blood undone.”

  The stones flared up once more, and then all went quiet.

  * * *

  We laid the remnants of the spell away quietly; no one dared to interrupt the silence until the door to the next room creaked open and Conrad’s small face peeked out from behind it. “Mama, I can’t sleep. There are too many lights.”

  Mother went to him, placing her hands soothingly on his cheeks. “What lights, my dear?”

  “The ones outside. They keep getting brighter.”

  She moved past him to the window. Beyond the glass, hundreds of glowing orbs were bobbing in the blackness, moving past the castle gate and across the grounds. Her hand moved to her mouth.

  “Tribunal.” Onal’s voice was cold. “They’re marching on the castle.”

  “They wouldn’t,” Mother said.

  “They are.”

  A heavy knock came from the other room. Toris’s voice was muffled through the thick wood. “Genevieve! My queen—​they’re coming.”

  Kellan threw the door open, and Toris rushed inside. Breathlessly, he said again, “They’re coming. Not just for Aurelia. They’re going to overtake the castle. Everything.”

  “A coup?” Kellan’s hand was on his sword.

  “It’s me they want,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “If I let them take me, they’ll leave everyone else alone.”

  “You know we can’t do that, Princess,” Simon said. He was right. If I gave myself up, the Tribunal would kill me. And when it didn’t take—​and someone else died in my stead—​they’d just kill me again and again until all four of us were dead.

  “Then I’ll leave. I’ll go now, today, to seek asylum in Achleva.”

  “That won’t stop them from trying to overthrow me,” Mother said.

  “You can come with me. We’ll be safe inside Achlev’s Wall. Renalt tried for three centuries to get past it without any success.”

  “I will not abandon Renalt to the Tribunal, Aurelia.”

  In my desperation to learn magic to undo the Tribunal, I’d brought them down on all of our heads. I struggled to reconcile with that fact. “But if you stay . . . and what about Conrad?”

  “He can go with us to Achleva,” Toris said. “I can ensure his well-being.”

  “With us?” I gave him an incredulous glare. “Surely you don’t think you are coming along.”

  He ignored me and addressed my mother directly. “Lisette is already waiting in her carriage. We will meet her in the carriage house in one hour. The Tribunal has blocked every exit from the grounds; only I can get us past them in safety. The clerics on guard know me. They trust me. And they won’t question my desire to distance my only daughter from the violence that is about to take place.” Toris placed his hand on his chest, over the vial of blood he wore around his neck. “You are well hated by your people, Princess. You should take advantage of what kindnesses you are offered. This is your only chance.”

  “My people hate me because you told them they could. That they should. You and your stars-forsaken Tribunal.”

  “I may be a member of the Tribunal,” Toris thundered, “but I am loyal to the crown. When my betrayal is discovered, I stand to lose everything. My fortune, my friends, my good name . . .”

  “How devastating for you,” I said flatly.

  “One hour,” Toris said, upper lip curling. “The carriage house. Don’t be seen.”

  “I’ll get them there,” Kellan said. “The prince and princess both.”

  Toris left with a slam of the door.

  My mother busied herself taking my wedding dress down from the dress form, folding it carefully, and tying it into a linen parcel. After a moment of watching her, I turned to Simon. “Is there a way for us to get across Achlev’s Wall without you?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “You must be invited into the city by someone of royal descent, of Achlev’s direct line. I brought with me three of those documents: one for you, one for a maid, and one for a guard. Anyone else will have to turn back or wait in the encampments outside the wall for the king to issue another invitation for them.”

  “That’s all we need,” I said. “One for me, one for Conrad, and one for Kellan. Simon, could you stay here, with my mother? As a blood mage, you’re the only person who can offer her any kind of defense. Please. You just tied your life to mine. There must to be something you can do to protect hers.”

  He frowned. “I might be able to seal us in these chambers, but I can’t guarantee how long it will last. If the seal fails at all, the Tribunal could still get in and then . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. We knew what would happen then.

  “Do what you have to do.”

  He brought out three envelopes from his jacket pocket, sealed with the three-pointed-knot symbol of Achleva’s flag.

  “These will get you across the wall,” he said, handing them to me. “May the Empyrea keep you.”

  “And you.”

  “We need to hurry,” Kellan said. “There’s no time to waste.”

  “Mama?” Conrad asked with glistening eyes.

  “Be brave, my prince,” she said to him. “You’re going away, just for a little while. But Aurelia will take care of you; don’t you worry.”

  He cast a disbelieving gaze at me, and I squared my shoulders to keep from flinching.

  Mother presented me with the parcel containing my wedding dress before taking me in a formal embrace and saying in her queen’s voice, “Travel safely, my daughter. I love you and will miss you terribly.” She touched her lips to my cheek, and I heard her whisper as she shoved something else into my hand, “Keep this with you always. It is a gift. We’ve protected you with our lives. I’m trusting you to protect Conrad’s with yours.”

  It was the silken square, now blemished with three circles of blood. A reminder of how much those closest to me were willing to give up to keep me safe.

  “Aurelia,” Kellan said urgently. I turned and looked at him. At Simon. And finally at my mother. If the Tribunal were to overthrow Mother, I was the only hope of returning our family to the Renaltan throne. I needed to keep Conrad safe. I needed to become queen of Achleva. And once I had the power required, I would return to Renalt and reclaim what was rightfully ours.

  Throat constricting, I said, “I will.”

  It wasn’t until I was down the dark passageway that I realized I’d forgotten to tell her that I loved her too.

  * * *

  The passageway led out to the Kings Hall, lined on either side with ceiling-high portraits of twenty generations of Renaltan royalty. Beneath their stoic gazes we dashed—​Kellan, Conrad, and I—​as distant, angry shouts seeped through the walls. We rounded the corner to my chambers to find the door ajar. Pressing a finger to his lips, Kellan drew his sword and pushed it open.

  It had been ransacked. Everything that I owned, everything I ever considered mine, was scattered across the floor. The tapestries were torn, the wardrobe overturned. My bed was upended and snapped down the center, jagged slats reaching into the air like the ribs of a long-wrecked ship. Scrawled across every wall were the words Malefica, malefica
, malefica. Witch, witch, witch.

  “Gather what you need as fast as you can,” Kellan said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “There’s nothing to gather,” I said. “Everything is gone.”

  There was a scraping sound as a large piece of my fractured desk was moved aside. Kellan brandished his sword and Conrad ducked behind him, but the face that peeked out was a familiar one.

  “My lady?” Emilie asked timidly. “Princess, is that you? Are you all right?”

  I helped her from her hiding place. “Are you?”

  “I hid when I heard the other servants coming. It’s a wonder they didn’t find me.” She shivered. “The things they were saying about you, my lady . . .”

  “They’ll be back,” Kellan said. “We must go now.”

  “Wait!” Emilie said, “They’ll find you for sure wearing that color. There must be one of your others in here somewhere . . .” But the closet door was hanging crookedly on its hinges, the dresses it still held were slashed and torn, and the rest were gone, likely looted. There was nothing still wearable inside it. She picked up a scrap and then immediately put it down. “Trade me clothes,” she said, determination on her face. “We’re about the same size. They’re looking for a princess in a bright green ball gown. They won’t look twice at a servant girl.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Kellan said. “Do it. Quickly.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “It’s too dangerous. Think of what your mother went through—​”

  “It’s because of my mother that I’m offering,” Emilie said, face aglow with fervor. “I was helpless to save her; I am helpless to avenge her. But I can do this for you.”

  Speechless, I put my hand on her shoulder. She said, “If anyone can make the Tribunal pay, it’s you. Maybe if I help you today, you can someday return and make it right for us all.”

  “Hurry!” Kellan said. “The crowd is moving.”

  I worked with clumsy fingers to extricate myself from the green dress, handing it to Emilie when I finally succeeded. “Find a safe place and lock yourself in. Tell them I did it,” I told her as I pulled her simple shift over my head. “Tell them I forced you to give me your dress. Say whatever you have to. Make them believe it.”

  “Yes, my lady,” she said as I helped her do up the laces on the stained gown. She smoothed out the fabric. “I’ve never worn anything so lovely.”

  “Someday I’ll pay you back with a better one.”

  “It’s a deal,” she said, and removed her yellow headscarf, situating it on my head and shoving my recalcitrant hair beneath it.

  “Emilie,” I said under my breath, “I won’t forget this. I won’t let you down.”

  Kellan, at the door with Conrad, waved me to follow him. Time was running short.

  “Wait!” I said before leaving. “In the pocket.”

  Emilie pulled out the broken bracelet and handed it to me. On impulse I found the dragon charm—​emerald, like her mother’s favorite stone—​and yanked it from the chain. Pressing it into her hand, I whispered, “Thank you.”

  She nodded, clutching the charm, a token of her mother and my promise to avenge her.

  We made our way back to the Kings Hall. Kellan went to scout out the way ahead, but not before situating Conrad and me behind the tapestry across from the portraits of famed King Reynald on one side and his trusted second-in-command, Lord Cael, on the other. The Founder of the Tribunal.

  I peered out from my hiding place, and the rigid man in the painting stared coldly back at me: cornflower eyes; square, chiseled chin; sandy hair slicked back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. There once were two brothers and a sister, the most promising mages of their orders, who gathered one day to cast a spell . . . The stories all began the same way. The middles matched up as well: everyone agreed that the sister, Aren, died during the fateful spell. The endings, however, varied wildly: Some say Aren killed herself. Some say Cael saw evil in her and knew he had to protect the world from it, performing the first witch execution on his own sister. The version written in the Founder’s Book of Commands and upheld by the Tribunal as immovable truth, however, says that she was murdered by her older brother, Achlev, and that Cael died nobly in her defense, using every last drop of his blood trying to save her. The book’s account had it that the Empyrea was so moved by his bravery and selflessness that she chose him to return to earth and become her emissary, spreading her joy and light to all. He woke from death, whole and pure and charged with a holy mandate: found an organization to purge the world of all magic.

  This is because of you, I thought, accusing Cael. You and your Tribunal and your cursed Book of Commands. There was speculation that his body was too pure to decay, and that it was hidden away somewhere in the mountains, encased in a glass coffin, as fresh and youthful as the day the Empyrea first called him to do her work.

  Wherever the Founder was, I hoped he was rotting.

  Conrad whimpered beside me, and I awkwardly placed my arm over his shoulders, trying not to notice the way he shrank beneath my touch. “It’ll be all right,” I whispered to him.

  “How do you know?” he retorted in a creaky voice.

  Kellan appeared and motioned to us. We followed him down a set of service stairs, pausing as a group of people searching for me went by below, laughing and describing what they’d do to me when they found me. We scrambled backwards, Kellan standing protectively over us until they’d passed. “We have to go that way,” he said. “Hurry!”

  We weren’t quite to the next set of stairs when we heard a man yell, “Halt! Wait!”

  We stopped. My heart beat a thundering, out-of-rhythm pattern. I looked up to see the shape of a billowing green dress disappear around the corner of the adjoining corridor. The searchers roared past us after her.

  “Emilie,” I whispered.

  “She’s given us a distraction. She’s given us time.”

  We took the stairs two and three at once and flew from the service entrance into the herb garden. I swept Conrad up and held him as we dashed across the open courtyard to the carriage house, where Lisette’s horses were already harnessed to the carriage and Toris was positioned in the driver’s seat.

  “You’re late,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Kellan helped Conrad into the seat next to Lisette, who fussed over him. “Look at you, love. So brave! Now, there. Don’t cry. I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you.”

  I slumped into the opposite corner, pulling my arms into myself.

  Kellan mounted Falada and reined her next to the carriage. “We’re ready.”

  The driveway to the castle gate was long, winding alongside the courtyard where a pyre had been erected. The simmering mob congregated at the foot of the stacked wood, torches waving erratically as they chanted, Burn the witch! Burn the witch!

  At the gate we were stopped by men in Tribunal coats. “No one is going in or out until we locate the witch.”

  I hunkered down in my seat and concentrated on the faded floral pattern of Emilie’s dress. Please don’t look in, I prayed.

  Toris’s voice was clipped and commanding. “I am Lord Toris de Lena, magistrate and bearer of the blood of the Founder. My daughter is inside this carriage, and I will be escorting her away from this violence. Do not make me wait any longer, I pray.” His tone went low and flat. “You will regret it.”

  There was a pause, and then the sound of the iron gate opening. I gulped and held my breath, turning from the window as we went through. Before I could release the breath in relief, the Harbinger was suddenly next to me in the carriage. She was there and then she was gone, like a puff of smoke.

  As the gate began to creak closed behind us, I heard the clerics call out to one another in excitement, “Look at that! They got her!”

  “Thank the Empyrea, the witch will burn tonight!”

  The carriage was picking up speed, but I flung open the door sash, emitting a strangled, animal sob when I realized what it was I saw.r />
  They were forcing a girl up onto the pyre. A girl in an emerald gown.

  “No! Stop!” I shrieked. “Stop! We have to go back!” But if Toris could hear me over the pounding hoofbeats, he wasn’t listening, and he didn’t slow down.

  I climbed frantically out onto the carriage step, ready to jump and run back, when Kellan and Falada came galloping up from behind. He wrested me from the carriage step and pulled me up onto the horse with him.

  “It’s too late now; you can’t go back. She made this sacrifice for you. It was a gift. A gift, Aurelia! You can’t waste her gift!”

  I wept into his cloak as we turned the corner, and the only thing I could see from beyond the city rooftops was a towering orange flame reaching toward the sky.

   8

  It was nearly a fortnight later when we reached the edge of the Ebonwilde. We were sodden, sore, and miserable after a parade of difficult days spent slogging through Renalt’s meandering back roads, sleeping in marshy gullies, and eating whatever Kellan could catch. Grouse and gnarled old field hares if we were lucky, rodents if we weren’t. The Tribunal must have figured out they’d burned the wrong girl; after a few close calls with their scouts, we gave up fires as well and were forced to scavenge to eat. Mostly pennycress and wild clover, as it was too early in the season for much else. We were carriageless now, too, after ours sank up to the sash in spring mud and could not be pulled free. Kellan had wanted to try longer, but I insisted otherwise; I could see that ours was not the first party to find calamity in that spot, and I did not fancy joining the sallow, bloated spirits hopelessly clawing at the mire. We were fortunate it was only the carriage we lost. Many others had not fared so well.

  I marked the passage of days with tired resignation more than fear; it was now the first day of the month of Quartus, four weeks from my wedding day.

  Morale was low for all but one. Toris seemed to get more and more cheerful the farther we traveled, often whistling an old Renaltan folk song to himself. When we first sighted the forest on the horizon, he even started absently singing the words.