Pieces of Jade

by Lani Woodland

  The captain climbed into the room with Lafe close behind him.

  I approached Pearl with my arms open, ready to embrace her but she arched back.

  She grabbed a candelabra and raised it above her head. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “What’s wrong with you Pearl? You look at me like you don’t know me.”

  “I don’t.”

  I’d forgotten about my disguise. I whispered, “You’ve forgotten the convict you helped escape from the dungeon?”

  “I didn’t he—” Her body stiffened, her eyes locking with mine. She mouthed a question. “Jade?”

  “Yes.” I brought my mouth to her ear. “These men don’t know who I am. They think I was your old nurse, Sheridan. I can’t explain now. We have to go.”

  She looked at the others and put down her makeshift weapon. “Okay . . . Sheridan.”

  The fast clomp of footsteps resonated from down the hall.

  “Get the girl and let’s go,” the captain said gruffly.

  “Sherry, this way!” William called, gesturing toward a second door in the room. I grabbed Pearl’s hand and we followed behind Clayton and William, Lafe taking up the rear.

  William led us through the castle to a different set of stairs. We went down more levels than we’d gone up and when the stairs would go down no further, William veered to the left. I could tell from the chill in the damp tunnels that we were underground.

  We followed him through a series of twisting, turning passageways until we emerged from the hallway into a large, sparsely furnished room. It had three possible exits, not counting the way we had come. For the first time, William hesitated.

  “Where is it, William?” the captain asked. “Which door?”

  “I still think we shouldn’t do this. Besides, it’s a secret entrance. I can’t—”

  A burning rose from my toes, building, growing stronger until it bubbled out of my mouth in a rush of words I didn’t comprehend, the magic speaking through me.

  The room shook. Wind whipped through my hair and plastered my skirts to my legs, yet all around me the rest of the room remained perfectly still, with not even a breeze.

  The words continued to tumble from my mouth, and I grew more and more sure of them, chanting deliberately now. It was far more advanced than anything I’d ever been taught, but somehow I knew it. Knew the meaning the words conveyed. And now, in an ancient tongue, I announced myself as the Emmía, commanding the room to reveal the entrance to me.

  A large portrait on the far wall shimmered and the room gave up its last secret. The canvas and the wall behind it vanished, leaving an opening to a darkened staircase.

  Chapter 23

  A pair of guards surprised us at the next corner. Clayton and Lafe pressed the attack while William turned to me. “Take Pearl and go back the way we came. The staircase on the left should be safe—it’ll lead us to an exit below the castle. They’ll have every other exit guarded, so it’s the only way.”

  “What about you?”

  William flashed a smile. “Don’t worry—we’ll catch up.”

  I met his gaze, fear knotting in my stomach—I didn’t want to leave him, but one look at my sister told me she needed my protection more than William needed my help.

  He winked at me before advancing into the scuffle.

  I took hold of Pearl and wheeled around, practically dragging Pearl as I followed William’s direction down to a different hall that led to a steep descending stairway.

  When we were far enough we couldn’t hear the sounds of swords, I slowed. Pearl breathed heavily behind me, not used to the exertion. Finally she asked, “What’s going on, Jade?”

  “We’re rescuing you.” I paused at the next corridor, sword ready, but the hall was empty.

  “Yes, I know that,” she said. “But don’t you want to stay at the castle?”

  “Here?” I asked, horrified. “No.”

  “But what about Orea? People will starve without you.”

  “We have a plan,” I said. But if I stayed here—if anyone here knew who I was—I’d be dead by morning.

  “What about James?”

  I missed a step and jarred my ankle. “What about him?”

  “You don’t understand,” Pearl said, grabbing my arm and making me stop to look at her. “They’re willing to forgive you. Even the king. James still loves you, Jade. That day he took you outside the barrier, he was planning on running away with you.”

  I almost dropped my sword. “What?”

  She gripped my elbow, steadying me. “He tried to run away with you, but the pirates attacked. After he sent you to the dungeons he realized he was wrong. He tried to stop your execution. He went to the dungeon to release you, but you’d already fled.”

  I scoffed and grabbed her hand, pulling her again. “And he’s expecting me to simply forgive him?”

  “Probably. When he explained, he said that you’d understand that he did it to save you from an awful future. He came to me a few hours after they’d found me, begging me to bring you home if I could. The thing is, I believe him.”

  “Sherry!”

  I turned to see William and the others running toward us, ending the conversation. Which was good, because this topic was something I couldn’t deal with. Not when we were fighting for our lives.

  We followed the staircase down, stopping on a platform that held only an oil lamp and a plain wooden door.

  “Here,” William said softly.

  “This is it?” Clayton asked.

  William nodded. “But the door is bewitched.”

  “How do you open it?” I asked, staring at the door.

  When no one answered I turned to look at William. Both he and Clayton stood silent, looking at me expectantly.

  “Oh, right. With magic.” I studied the door, summoning the power inside me, though I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Finally, I said, “Um . . . reveal your secrets?”

  The wood shimmered and words began sprouting up in its grain—strange words I’d never seen before, but my tongue somehow seemed to understand. I began whispering them softly. The door didn’t swing open, as I’d expected, but a large portion of the wood disappeared, revealing more steps descending into darkness.

  A cold draft wafted from the passage, carrying with it . . . something I couldn’t name but that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. Clayton grabbed my wrist and dragged me through, like he thought I would change my mind at seeing what came next.

  “You’re welcome for opening the door,” I said, shaking off his hand once we were through.

  “Now close it,” Clayton ordered.

  I scowled at him, but raised my hand and touched the wood above the opening. “Seal yourself once again.”

  The missing portion of door reappeared with a whoosh, shutting out the light. Panting, I braced my back against the wall. We remained silent for a few seconds, breathing heavily, until Pearl cleared her throat. “Not to complain after your rescue, but it's really dark in here.”

  “Maybe I can fix that.” I cast a spell and the torches lining the walls roared to life, revealing the stairway below us.

  Pearl turned to me wide-eyed. “You did that?”

  I smiled shyly. “I have a lot to tell you.”

  She nodded, her eyes still full of wonder. “I’d say so.”

  “The whole castle will be on alert now.” I pushed off the wall. “How are we going to get out?”

  William reached out and grabbed my hand tight. “There's another door down there.”

  “Is this it, William?” Clayton asked.

  William cast a worried glance my way. “Yes, but maybe—”

  “She needs to see it.” Clayton looked fierce,

  “See what?” I asked.

  William’s eyebrows drew together. “The room Clay mentioned, beneath the dungeons. It’s at the bottom of theses stairs.” He turned me to face him, grasping my shoulders. “You don’t have to see it. We can find another way out.”

&n
bsp; “That wasn’t the deal,” Clayton argued.

  “I don’t care,” William said in a strangled voice that sounded nothing like himself.

  I looked into William’s eyes, realizing he was terrified. “I’m not afraid.”

  “You should be.” He cast Clayton a pleading look. “I can’t do this to her.”

  “It’s too late to question it now, William,” Clay said. “They’re on our heels.”

  He cursed. “I know. I’m sorry for this, Sheridan. Please believe that.” William took a shuddering breath before grabbing my hand and leading me down the stairs, the others close behind.

  No one spoke as we descended, and as I trailed a hand down the cold stone wall my muscles tightened in apprehension. Whatever was down here terrified William to the core—it was his reason for leaving everything behind. And I wasn’t sure if I was ready to face it.

  Distracted, my foot caught on something, and William caught me before I fell. His hold on me tightened as our eyes met. He nodded abruptly, giving a feeble smile before letting me go.

  At the bottom of the staircase we reached a marble arch carved with the royal symbols of both of my ancestral races, the Myleans and the Oreans. We stepped through, leaving Lafe to stand guard. I shivered as the air changed, suddenly charged with energy and magic. I looked down at my arms, half expecting to see sparks of light traveling through my veins.

  I’d felt this once before, on the Isle of Grey. What was it that this room held that could have any connection to that place?

  What I saw, however, was so horrifying that only William’s strong hand covering my mouth kept my scream from bouncing off the stone walls. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling my back to his chest, supporting me when my legs gave out. But even in the harbor of his arms I couldn’t keep the images away.

  We’d entered a death chamber.

  The floors were stained with trails of rust-colored liquid that, despite its faded appearance, could only be blood. Several desiccated corpses hung from the walls like grotesque artwork, below each one a row of shelves held hundreds of dark, liquid-filled jars.

  Pearl turned in a circle, her eyes wide and her face pale. “Why did you bring us here? What is this?”

  “This is Sheridan’s proof,” Clayton said fiercely.

  I broke free of William’s embrace, fully entering the room. William followed close behind, like a protective shadow. I walked past the shelves and scanned the faded labels. The dark red liquid inside sloshed as I picked up a jar and peered at the label in the dim torchlight. “Sophia.” I picked up one of the jars from another section and examined the label. “Vanessa.” I moved from one row to the next. “Sara. Leah. Elizabeth. Why are these names on the jars?”

  I turned to William, my expression begging him to tell me that what I was seeing wasn't true, but he only nodded and continued to watch me. His face was grim, jaw tight as he clasped his arms behind his back.

  I faced the shelves again, my hands shaking as I counted the sections. Seven. There were seven different sections, all named. Each name was one of my ancestors, those like me who’d been born with violet eyes. Each an Emmía.

  Dawn . . . Elizabeth . . . Leah . . . Sara . . . Vanessa . . . Sophia . . . and . . .

  My eyes stopped on the last section, scarcely able to believe it.

  Jade.

  I could barely breathe as my fingers reached out and traced the letters my eyes refused to believe. There, lining the shelves, a series of vials stood already filled with blood. Hundreds of them.

  I cast my eyes up to the skeletal remains, each with its own name-placard. The skeletons grew more and more incomplete, missing ribs, toes, fingers, even arms and legs. The least intact was the skeleton on the end, Dawn. All that remained was a skull, which had been artistically painted and mounted on the top shelf. My gaze darted from the skeletons to the names, trying to find any excuse but the most horrifying to explain the human remains.

  I covered my mouth with my hand and shook my head. “This isn’t possible! The Emmías are given a public burial. The entire kingdom witnesses the body being lowered into the ground.”

  “The kingdom witnesses a burial, Sheridan, but it isn't the Emmía,” William said roughly, each movement showing the cascade of emotions he must be holding back. “They’re brought here.”

  “But that’s . . . inhuman,” I said. “We even bury enemies killed in battle. The soul can’t receive peace if it’s kept from being properly buried. No one could be so cruel.”

  William sagged. “It’s worse than that. The Emmía isn’t dead when the head Guardian brings her here.” He pointed to a cell in the opposite corner with a dirty straw mattress. “She is kept alive for years, decades even. Once the people of the kingdom believe she is dead, they can start to process her.”

  “Process?” I repeated, unable to comprehend the meaning of the word. William cleared his throat and pointed in the other direction, and my mind reeled as I took in the horrifying details.

  A shallow collecting pit had been carved into the floor. A wooden rack stood next to it, propped up against the wall, stained and ancient looking. The outline of a human figure could be seen on its wooden slats. My stomach lurched at the thought.

  Something heavy rested on my shoulder and I realized William had placed his hand there, trying to comfort me. “When they brought me here and told me the part they wanted me to play in handling the Emmía, they lost my allegiance.”

  “What did they want you to do?”

  “I was to guard you here, making sure you never escaped. To keep you too weak to flee or fight.”

  The loneliness that I’d seen in his eyes while tending his back shone back at me now. And now I knew the source of that pain came back to this room—his suffering had started here.

  “Tell me,” I said. “I need to know exactly what happens with the body.”

  William stiffened, and then sighed. “Once they finally kill the Emmía, they use those racks to hold the body while her remaining fluids are drained into the stone basin and collected in those jars.” He nodded at the shelf. “And then they place her there.” William gestured to a bloodstained expanse of rock. “The limestone draws the moisture from the bodies and preserves them from decay.”

  I looked back over at the rack. In my mind’s eye, I imagined a woman’s body shrinking and shriveling like an aging apple until it resembled the ghastly remains pinned to the wall.

  “But why?” I asked, knowing no answer would ever be enough.

  Clayton picked up one of the jars in Dawn’s section. Like most on the shelves there, it was empty. “The first Emmía’s blood made the crops grow, and it was assumed her daughter’s would as well. When it didn’t, they kept Dawn alive as long as they could. Just to survive, they used every bit of her, even finding they could grind her bones to dust and spread the powder on the soil. They didn’t think there would be another, and you saw how they’d left the island. When another girl with violet eyes was born—another Emmía—they had hope restored. But they did the same to her, stockpiling against an unknown future, and still they barely had enough.”

  I leaned into William, not ashamed of the tears leaking from my eyes. “But it saved the kingdom. That’s understandable. They gave their bodies—” A lump formed in my throat. “—to save their people.” Would I allow them to use my bones to prevent the demise of a whole civilization? I winced, considering my spirit forever wandering in the afterlife, forever banned from my final rest.

  Clayton set down the empty jar and moved to a shelf further down. The jars there were mostly full. “At first it was, yes. A desperate act to keep a famine at bay. But eventually they got better at it, and figured out newer, more . . . creative ways to milk more out of her.” He shuddered as he neared the draining racks. “Then it was no longer about survival, but about greed. Now they control the market, making the Emmía’s blood seem scarce, to keep the prices high, but always ready to sell at a high price. There’s a tidy profit in Emmía bones.”
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  Pearl clutched her stomach. “I’m going to be ill.”

  Clayton pointed to Princess Dawn’s skull. “Everything they’ve taught you is a lie—about the Emmía, about the medallions, about their morals. Everything. It started with the first Emmía and hasn’t stopped.” Clay didn’t sound triumphant in the slightest. “And the people believe what they're being told. If they ever see through the lie, they’re condemned to death for treason.”

  It was too much. I sagged against William, who held me steady

  I’d known that my blood would be of service to the kingdom. That didn’t bother me. I performed the ritual out of love for my people, and bled willingly for them, but there was only one explanation for the vials on the shelf under my name: the Guardians had taken far more than they needed. I really was nothing more to them than a vessel containing the kingdom’s most precious commodity. And it wasn't just my blood they wanted. They would take every part of me, right down to my desiccated bones.

  I twisted my head and stared up at the slack-jawed, gaping expressions of the skeletons above me, so like the expression of the Mylean king on the Isle of Grey. These women were my ancestors. Their blood ran through my veins. The Oreans never stopped abusing us and using us to increase their power. Their tyranny against the Myleans still persisted after a thousand years: intentional slaughter without even a burial. No peace in life—and none in death.

  “They have enough blood here to nourish the soil in the entire kingdom for centuries.” Pearl spun in a circle, her outstretched arms gesturing toward the shelves. “It would feed everyone in Orea and the Wastelands.”

  “It could.” William’s voice choked and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. “But they hoard it, and charge outrageous prices to purchase it. If a family can’t afford it, they pick and choose which family members are worth saving and which are left to starve. They saw some potential they could exploit in Clay and me. Our parents weren’t so lucky. The Manacle let them die.”

  I spun around and placed my palm on his cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

  His hazel eyes gave me a steady stare. “We were lucky. Because we were chosen, I was able to protect y—Jade from the fate of the other Emmía’s.”