Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  “That’s jougi,” Nell said quietly. “An ancient form of movement and meditation, very calming for the nerves.”

  “That”—Pilar pointed at the man fighting wildly to stay upright—“does not look calming.”

  “Is it a kind of athleticism?” Mia asked.

  “More of a practice, really. They rotate through different teachers. I liked a couple, some are rotten. I stopped going when I was younger, caused quite the stir, believe me. Oh, and look, there’s the Rose Garden! I’d almost forgotten.”

  She hurried past the Manjala, prodding them farther down the hall. Pilar eyed her warily. What wasn’t Nell telling them?

  “It’s actually a greenhouse. A house of glass inside a house of glass! Over a thousand varietals of roses, every shade in every color you could ever imagine.

  Mia wandered through the rosebushes, oblivious to Nell’s evasive parries. “Moon Shadow,” she said, reading from the name placards. “Lilac Dawn. Kiss of Fire. Vermilion Queen.”

  With a sigh, Pilar followed. “Since when did roses have names?”

  “Look at this one.” Mia ran a finger down a black bloom with dark red veins. “I’ve never heard of a Black Rose.”

  “Sounds like a bad fantasy novel.”

  “It’s a very rare variety,” Nell said, coming up behind them. “Celeste cultivates them. Before she was the Keeper, she used to be the House gardener.”

  Nell cradled a Black Rose, careful not to tear it off the stem.

  “They’re wildly expensive. No one takes them out of the House, though if you did, they’d fetch a nice price. Watch this.”

  She closed her eyes.

  A breeze rippled through the greenhouse. All around them, the bushes swayed. Blooms trembled on their stems. Thorns gleamed a little brighter.

  The roses were changing. At the heart of each bud, a black stain appeared. It spilled slowly outward, oozing onto the petals like drops of ink. The color spread. One by one, the roses darkened, blackness blotting out the pink and peach and yellow. Red veins wormed over the dark petals. Pulsing. Bleeding.

  When Nell opened her eyes, all the roses had become Black Roses. She smiled.

  “As the Shadowess says: sometimes it takes only one to turn the tide.”

  She uncupped her hands. The flowers were already fading back to normal. Pink and peach and yellow, with no sign they’d ever been anything else.

  “That was magical.” Mia stooped to sniff one of the roses. “You touched them and they came to life.”

  Pilar’s stomach twisted.

  Had Nell altered the roses themselves? Or was it Mia’s and Pilar’s perceptions she had shifted? The whole thing happened so fast. Thanks to Lord Dove—and for that matter, Queen Freyja—Pilar knew your own eyes could deceive you.

  But, she reminded herself, that could also be a good thing. In all the times Pilar had relived her past, only when she’d seen her own story through Mia’s eyes had she believed it wasn’t her fault.

  After they’d set sail for Pembuk, Pilar had struggled to hold on to that conviction. But soon the usual feelings crept back. Anger. Shame. She heard Morígna’s voice, and her mother’s. Two women who’d said they loved her but who had blamed her in the end.

  The worst part? They weren’t wrong. Awful things happened to girls who opened themselves up to other people. Girls desperate to be loved.

  Pilar snuck a glance at her half sister. Whatever was happening between them—or not happening—hurt. In their Reflections, Mia’s presence had made Pilar feel stronger. But the more Rose tried to fix her, the more broken she felt.

  “Did you see what Nell did?” Mia ran her fingers across the peachy roses. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen magic that beautiful.”

  “Just because it’s beautiful,” Pilar said, “doesn’t mean it’s good.”

  Mia rolled her eyes.

  “Could you try not being combative, Pilar? Just this once?”

  Before Pilar could answer, Nell beckoned. “Come on, you two. There’s a lot more to see than just roses.”

  Eagerly, Mia trotted along beside her. Pilar started to follow, then caught a twitch of movement over her shoulder. She turned.

  The original Black Rose, the one Nell had touched, was wilting. The bloom sagged. The petals shuddered, curling toward the flower’s heart, and fell, one by one, onto the dirt below.

  Pilar was happy to leave the Rose Garden behind. It was beautiful, just like everything else in the House of Shadows, or Manuba Vivuli—whatever you wanted to call it. But in her experience, the ugliest things often lurked under the most beautiful. Especially where magic was concerned.

  Watching the flower die had filled her with a strange, uneasy feeling. And on that feeling’s heels: anger. She’d been right in what she said to Mia. But of course Mia hadn’t seen the dead flower, because she’d been too busy chasing after Nell. Pilar could imagine the kind of look she’d get if she dragged Mia back to the Rose Garden to prove her point.

  She heard the Swallow before she saw it. Clank of silverware. Roar of voices. They walked into an enormous, echoey hall with high ceilings and colorful tile floors. Children, women, and men crowded around circular tables, eating, drinking, and joking between chews.

  A chair screeched over the tile.

  “Nell? Nell!”

  A boy was charging toward them. Pilar knew instinctively who he was.

  Nell let out a sharp cry. She opened her arms as her brother tumbled into them.

  They both burst into tears. Spun round and round. Hugging. Breaking apart. Hugging again. They were laughing, crying, talking on top of one another. Same fast clip, same high volume. How could they even understand what the other was saying? But somehow they managed.

  “Pilar! Mia! Meet my baby brother.”

  He was still clinging to her neck. Looking at them shyly.

  “This is Stone.” Nell ran a hand over her wet cheeks. Laughed. “And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Who gives their daughter an impossible name like Nelladinellakin and their son a good hearty name like Stone? You can tell who’s the family favorite.”

  There was no doubt Stone was Nell’s baby brother. He had the same dark brown skin, though his wiry black hair grew up and out—the same way, Pilar guessed, Nell’s hair would grow if she took out her braids. Their round faces were practically identical. Stone would be handsome in a few years, Pilar decided. For now: adorable.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said.

  “Look at him,” Nell gushed. “He was eleven when I saw him last—now he’s all grown up!”

  Stone flashed a good-natured grin. “Don’t worry, Sis: I still have my baby fat.”

  “It’s part of your charm! But don’t get too attached, it’ll all melt off by your sixteenth birthday, mark my words. These are my friends, Mia Rose and Pilar d’Aqila, they’re sisters, well, half sisters, really, do you see the resemblance? I’m not sure I do! Pilar is a fighter, like you.”

  “Used to be,” Pilar corrected. “I haven’t sparred in a long time.”

  Stone looked at her with newfound respect. “Maybe you’ll spar with me?”

  It caught her off guard. Before she could respond, Stone turned back to Nell.

  “Does Mumma know you’re here? She’ll be so happy to see you, she thought—”

  “Nelladine.”

  The voice was quiet. Much quieter than Stone’s and Nell’s. But somehow Pilar heard it. Maybe because all the other sounds—clanking, talking, smacking—ceased.

  An older woman stood in the doorway of the Swallow. White linen robe pale against deep brown skin. Curly white hair streaked with pink. Brown eyes behind wire glasses.

  Whatever Pilar had expected the Shadowess to look like, it wasn’t this. But she knew from the way the woman carried herself that this was the one they’d come to see.

  “Mumma,” said Nell, in a voice Pilar had never heard her use.

  Nelladine turned to face them. Gulped some air.

  Pilar sai
d it for her.

  “She’s your mother.”

  Chapter 10

  The Leading Man

  THE MOMENT QUIN SET foot in Kaer Killian, the memories cut through his mind like a carving knife.

  The castle was a terrifying place. As a boy he’d kept a close eye on the servants—all female, to his father’s taste. Quin watched the girls slip silently through the corridors, their hands always gloved. Even then, he recognized their silence as a form of self-preservation: the women were desperate to not attract attention. They yearned to be invisible.

  As Quin would learn, invisibility was a gift.

  At six years old he had wandered into the Hall of Hands by mistake. He’d befriended one of the more boisterous cooks, who, unlike the other servants, seemed to have no fear of his father. In later years he would come to understand this was not a friendship, but a kindness: the cook had taken pity on him. She never tired of chasing Quin down the castle corridors for animated games of get-the-Gwyrach or hide-’n’-hunt.

  But one day he took a wrong turn. He skittered into the dark Hall and froze, eyes wide, transfixed by the hundreds of dangling Gwyrach hands—until he felt an awful wrench in his shoulder. The cook was yanking him out by the arm. She pulled him back into the corridor, swearing profusely, her forehead sweaty and her palms, too.

  “Don’t you ever go back there! Do you understand me? Never!”

  She’d slapped him across the face.

  At the time Quin was mortified—and righteously indignant at being manhandled by a servant. Only much later did he realize that the cook had been trying to distract him from the horrors he had just witnessed with a smaller, more immediate horror.

  He could still recall the look in her eyes as she dragged him back to the kitchens: fear. What he mistook for fear of punishment—she had, after all, just struck the heir apparent—was in fact fear of what it would do to him, now that he had seen the Hall of Hands.

  She was a good soul, that cook. Quin had always liked her. But even his smarting face could not erase the memory of those hanging, severed hands.

  A few years later, King Ronan had concocted some imaginary grievance against the cook. He made a big scene in the Grand Gallery, accusing her of casting a Gwyrach spell on his supper. Quin pleaded with him to spare her life, but it only made his father angrier.

  “Is that why you spend all your time in the kitchens?” the king spat. “Swooning over that old crone?”

  It was useless, arguing with his father. Ronan always won.

  The cook had shielded Quin, but he could not do the same for her.

  The very hand that had tried to protect him from the Hall now hung inside it.

  “How long since you’ve seen the Grand Gallery?”

  Tobin’s voice drew Quin out of his macabre thoughts. He blinked, waiting for the castle corridors to arrange themselves in his mind.

  They had made it quite deep into the Kaer, the other Embers a ways behind. They weren’t far from Quin’s drawing room in the north wing, where he’d performed many a lonely play on the small wooden stage—and practiced his first kisses on a marble bust. The bust was just face and neck with the barest hint of shoulders; Quin never knew if he was kissing a marble girl or a marble boy. He would have been happy either way, and with that realization came the first prickling of shame incumbent on the son of a bigoted, hateful king.

  “Remember the piano?” Tobin asked.

  Of course he remembered the piano. Toby had smuggled in an exquisite plumwood piano from Luumia and installed it in Quin’s drawing room as a tremendous birthday surprise. Of course, once King Ronan discovered the instrument, he beat it to a woody pulp. The king would not stand for his son pursuing such a feminine hobby.

  But he did not destroy the black upright in the library. He had no objection to others practicing piano; he had, after all, brought Tobin’s family to court to play the patriotic war songs he held most dear.

  And so commenced Quin’s clandestine music lessons in the library.

  “I remember the clavichord,” he said, smoothly shifting the conversation.

  Tobin laughed. How Quin had missed the sound of that laugh.

  “We filched a whole bottle of rai rouj, didn’t we?” said Toby. “Snuck into the buttery and claimed it as our own.”

  “As the heir apparent, it was quite literally my own.”

  They’d sat on the edge of the stage that night, passing the rai rouj back and forth between them, until Toby was drunk enough to attempt the clavichord. I never thought a musical genius could play an instrument badly, Quin had slurred. Tonight you have proved me wrong.

  “As I recall,” Tobin said, “it was the heir apparent who couldn’t hold his liquor.”

  “Oh, I remember. I got dreadfully sick and retched all night.” He flushed. “You took care of me.”

  Toby smiled. “You would have done the same for me.”

  Quin could feel himself softening. Was he really so foolish? Whatever sentiment still existed between him and Tobin—if it existed at all—should not be trusted. At best, the Embers were unwelcome guests in the castle. At worst, usurpers.

  They were fast approaching the Grand Gallery. The seed of doubt in Quin’s chest grew. Was he walking directly into his own execution? At least he knew the Kaer better than anyone. Should his life be in danger, he could disappear down any number of secret passageways.

  He was so tired of disappearing.

  “Did you want me to find you, Toby?” Quin said quietly. “Were the symbols for me?”

  Tobin stared at him, face inscrutable. When he spoke again, his voice had an edge.

  “I won’t lie. After your father exiled me, I spent months hoping you would come after me. Years.”

  “You knew my father. You know what he was capable of.”

  “I desperately wanted to believe you would discover some deep well of courage inside yourself and face what your father had done.”

  Quin stopped cold. “I know what my father did. I was there.”

  “Cowering behind a tomb. Yes. I remember.”

  The words struck Quin like an arrow. No one regretted his cowardice more than he did.

  “I don’t just mean what your father did to me,” Tobin said. “If you had come looking for me in the village, you would have discovered there was a movement of people, small but growing, who opposed your father’s rule. We oppose all systems of governance that exploit and abuse power. After Zaga and Angelyne took the throne, we opposed their rule, too. Magic relies on a monumental imbalance of power, so you might say we oppose magic most of all.”

  “I never took you for a revolutionary, Toby.”

  “I never took you for a king.”

  The heat crackled in Quin’s hands. In that moment, he couldn’t believe he had ever loved the boy by his side. He pressed his hand over his heart, the unsent letter to the Twisted Sisters in his jacket pocket. A weak boy. A scorned son. A used, manipulated lover. Whether prince or king, I have always been the pawn. I have never been the leading man.

  Quin shoved his hands into his pockets, calming himself. He needed more information, and a better sense of what the Embers were planning. He picked up his pace, this time taking the lead, until they stood outside the Grand Gallery.

  “Prepare yourself,” Tobin said, and reached for the black stone doors.

  Chapter 11

  Poisoned

  MIA STARED AT NELLADINE in astonishment. The Shadowess was her mother. The House of Shadows was her home.

  “Just what we need,” Pilar muttered. “More surprise parents crawling out of the woodwork.”

  Mia didn’t reply. She stood motionless, riveted by the scene playing out before them. The Shadowess moved slowly toward her daughter, almost dreamlike, coming to a standstill a few feet away. Mia sensed the impulses warring inside her: the urge to clasp Nell to her heart, tempered by the desire to give her space.

  “It’s so good to see you, Nelladine.”

  Her voice was low and m
ellifluous. She spoke with a strong Pembuka accent that in Nell only emerged in certain words.

  “Mumma,” Nelladine said, her voice breaking.

  She stepped forward, bundling the Shadowess into a hug so tremendous it swept the woman’s feet off the floor. Being a good bit taller, Nell stooped to rest her cheek on her mother’s shoulder, her thin braids cascading down both their backs.

  “I thought you were lost to us,” the Shadowess whispered. “That you had gone to Prisma and I would never see you again.”

  Her face was obscured by Nell’s hair, but Mia could tell she was crying.

  “Kaara akutha. Welcome home, my girl.”

  Nell was never afraid to paint her emotions on a broad canvas. She laughed easily and cried easily, too. So Mia was not at all surprised to see tears streaming down her friend’s cheeks. But this reunion felt different from the reunion with Stone. Mother and daughter clung to one another, quietly, almost reverently, as if each were holding the most precious thing.

  Mia was deeply affected. She felt happy for Nelladine. Then something oozed through her, green and bilious.

  Envy.

  It didn’t take long to deduce the source. This was the reception Mia had longed for from her own mother. A tender embrace. A warm welcome. What Mia would have given to have her mother wrap her arms around her and tell her she was home.

  “Looks like Nell didn’t bring us here to save the four kingdoms,” said Pilar. “She was homesick.”

  “It could be both,” Mia retorted, though she’d been wondering the same thing. The only person who can help, Nell had told them.

  Help whom, exactly?

  Mia studied the other people in the Swallow. The whole audience was rapt. A few of them had tears in their eyes. One woman cried openly, her hand pressed over her heart.

  When Nell finally pulled back from her mother’s embrace and began to make introductions, the Shadowess greeted them warmly. Her gaze was intelligent, enlivened by a sparkling curiosity.