I stepped into a broad kitchen. Plastered and whitewashed walls, three large ovens, a huge fireplace hung with a spit, three broad wooden tables, baskets and herbs hanging from the open rafters. A door to the right, and a door to the left. I went to the door on the left.
I tugged it open, and the earthy scent of dried herbs filled my head. I stopped, and gaped.
Rows and rows of shelves, all stacked with preserved goods. Jars and bottles, wrapped cheeses, paper-bound meats, hanging vegetables, barrels and boxes and bulging bags. All neatly organized by kind and size.
My stomach growled again. I reached out and snatched up the large cheese knife that lay on the shelf right next to me.
Fine. If Prince Krystian was stupid enough to feed me and help me get my strength back, that was his folly, not mine. I had no intention of starving myself when this lay right in front of me.
Chapter Ten
I flung the cheese knife back down at its board. The blade flashed through the air and stabbed the wood with a sharp thud. Brushing my mouth off with my hand, I climbed up off the floor, leaving the crumbs behind.
I had eaten my fill of sausage, three kinds of cheeses, bread with strawberry preserves, two carrots, and a light, white wine out of the bottle. I took the bottle of wine with me as I dusted more crumbs off my clothes and left the larder and the kitchen, feeling a great deal better than I had when I’d entered. I kicked the kitchen door shut behind me, and listened to the echo of that bang travel though the castle. A smirk crossed my mouth. Let the prince know that I felt strong again—and let him regret being so foolish.
As the repeating echoes through the deep, vast chambers gradually died, I paused and thought for a moment. There was nothing to be done until I heard a reply from Baba Yaga—I could make no escape, nor could I attack the prince. And I certainly could not try to lay another spell. My mouth tightened.
This was a huge castle—and I only knew my way around a portion of it. Which was not safe, nor wise. While I felt strong, I ought to walk up and down, and discover the shortest routes from here to there, in this level, at least.
Setting myself, I crossed the carpeted receiving room, turned right to head back up the staircase—
A sound.
A voice.
In the room through the great doors to the right.
The prince. It had to be.
And he was singing.
A quiet, low song—it flowed up and down in a lingering, melancholy tune. His tones resounded through the emptiness, filling the vast silence of the castle.
“He bore her up, he bore her down,
He bore her into an orchard brown.
Lullee, lullay, lullee, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away…”
I turned and stared at the closed doors, my teeth clenching. What was he doing, singing to himself? Was he trying to lay a spell of his own?
I crept back down the steps, ventured back to the kitchen door and pulled it quietly open, slipped back through, and set the wine bottle on a shelf. I then made my way to the door that would lead to the chamber he was in. Cautiously, I gripped the handle and pulled on it…
It swung open easily. I peered past it…
Into a grand dining hall lit by feeble torchlight and two narrow windows—one behind me, one ahead.
A high, arching ceiling; white walls supported by elegant pillars. Huge, colorful banners hung from brass rods that braced across the top of the room, each one bearing the coat of arms of some royal household. I recognized a few of them as belonging to some of the most ancient families in Edel.
“In that orchard there stood a hall
That was hanged with purple and pall
Lullee, lullay, lulee, lullay
The falcon hath borne my mate away…”
The voice pulled my attention down from the rafters, and I found an exceedingly-long table, covered with wilted flower arrangements, plates of bones and crusts and rinds, half-empty goblets, and extinguished candlesticks.
And at the chairs at the farthest end sat three men. Three men, turned to stone.
One man lay his head on the shoulder of his fellow. The others had simply let their heads fall back upon their chairs, their eyes closed. They were dressed in fine feasting clothes: furs and jewelry and patterned silks. Three of them wore beards, and two of them hats. Now all grey, lifeless, unmoving.
The only one who moved was Prince Krystian.
He stood, resting his right hand on the icy shoulder of the man at the head of the table. Krystian stared off, toward the wall. But as he sang, just to himself, the fingers of his right hand slowly traced the stone creases of the man’s mantle.
“And in that hall there was a bed
That was dressed with cloth so red
Lullee, lullay, lullee, lullay
The falcon hath borne my mate away…”
As I watched, Krystian’s hand drifted upward with mesmerizing gentleness, feeling the man’s collar, the edge of his beard, his cheekbone, the curve of his nose, his heavy brow…
“And on that bed there lieth a knight
His wounds do bleed both day and night
Lullee, lullay, lullee, lullay
The falcon hath borne my mate away…”
Krystian’s own dark brow furrowed as he stared into nothingness, as if he was trying to picture something—even as his fingertips rested on the stone man’s eyelid.
“By that bedside there kneeleth a maid
And she weepeth both night and day
Lullee, lullay, lullee, lullay
The falcon hath borne my mate away!”
As I watched him there in the dimness of the firelight, dressed in white, his face pale, he almost seemed to be a spirit, a ghost drifting between sepulchers.
He stepped behind the statue at the head of the table, and reached out his hand toward the next man. I studied this statue myself, frowning as I did.
He looked to be a young man, with a short beard and a handsome face. He wore a small circlet, and had curling hair that touched his collar. His head was tilted back, leaning against the chair.
Krystian blundered softly into the table first, until he found the unmovable wrist of this nobleman. Krystian stopped. His eyebrows drew together, his sightless eyes darting back and forth…
With both hands, now, he explored the sleeves, doublet, and collar of the young man. He stopped singing, suddenly and strangely intent upon his search…
He hand landed on something. A pendant attached to the front of the nobleman’s collar.
“Oh…” Krystian moaned.
I blinked.
Krystian gently reached up, and cradled the statue’s face in both hands…
Leaned down, rested his forehead on the crown of the noble’s head, and screwed his eyes shut.
As I watched, Krystian brought his left hand up and closed it into a fist, pushing it down against the statue’s head. He pressed his other hand to his own eyes, sniffing loudly…
And his shoulders shuddered.
He was weeping.
I drew back, something uneasy twisting through me.
Krystian abruptly stood up, letting out a gasp and canting his head, smiling painfully as his brow twisted. Tears streaked his face, shimmering in the candlelight. He put his hand to the noble’s shoulder, patting it shakily.
“What are we going to do, August?” he whispered. He chuckled brokenly. “This is worse than when we got lost and came across those giants in that cave, don’t you think?” His feeble smile faded away. He shook his head, and sniffed again. He looked around, still seeing nothing, firming his hand upon the man’s shoulder. “Just a little worse…” He sniffed one last time, then wiped his sleeve across his face. He drew in a bracing breath, straightened up, and slapped August’s shoulder again.
“You’re right, as usual,” he muttered. “Shut up about it, will you?”
Despite his harsh words, the prince let his hand drift down, his fingers gently encircling August’s wri
st. With an odd reluctance, Krystian pulled himself away from the statue, turned and felt his way around the table, toward the great doors of the hall. Without having to stretch his hand out in precaution, he pushed easily against the carven wood, and slipped through.
I stared after him for a long moment. Then, without quite knowing why, I followed him.
Krystian strode out through that grand receiving room, effortlessly maneuvering around the circles of chairs and standing lamps, passing the guttering flames of torches. I trailed silently after him, careful to keep my breathing low and my motions fluid. I ignored the scornful stares of the portraits hanging on the walls—but I could feel the weight of their wrathful gazes nonetheless.
Krystian reached the end of the lengthy room, where two white doors stood. The image of a mountain had been carved into these doors, and they wore bright brass handles. Krystian reached out and took one, and pushed through it. The door began to swing shut behind him.
I took three long steps forward, turned sideways—
And slipped in after him.
I instantly stopped.
Polished white stone formed the floor here, and iron-wrought furniture stood in circles and squares, accompanied by standing plants that bloomed and threw their long, leafy branches all the way to the floor. The air felt warm in here—almost hot—and it hung heavy with moisture. Lamps burned on stands and hung from the walls and ceiling, filling the space with warm, golden illumination. One large window stood off to my right, and through it poured the grey midday light. A rushing, rolling sound filled my hearing. And the next moment, I recognized what it was.
Directly ahead, out of the far wall, poured a waterfall.
Forty feet wide, sixty feet high. It tumbled over white marble sculptures of people, dragons, horses and wolves. Its crystal-clear, glittering water cascaded into a large, square pool beneath it. And all around the edges of this pool stood silver goblets, each encrusted with different colored jewels.
Prince Krystian wove his way through the furniture and standing plants, absently touching the backs of chairs as he passed. As I watched, he knelt down in front of the wall of this pool, and cupped his hands around one of the goblets.
In that moment, I felt it again.
That eerie, hazy light, within my mind. It rippled like a ribbon, like a banner caught full in the wind. It swirled around inside me, pressing against my eyes, so persistent that soon, I knew I would actually see it…
My heart bashed into my bones. I pushed my back into the shut door…
Krystian bowed his head. I stared at his back, my breathing picking up, that pain returning full-force, snarling through my middle and up into my chest…
He picked up the goblet, and dipped it into the water. He lifted it up, the droplets falling and riddle the turbulent surface. Then, he brought the cup to his mouth, and he drank it. He drank it all.
Panic flashed against my eyelids.
I turned, grabbed the door handle, heaved it open, and sprinted through. I didn’t care if he heard me.
Clamping a hand to my panging gut, I darted through the receiving room, leaped up the grand staircase into the tower, and made for the opposite door. I sucked in my breath through my teeth, my left leg suddenly hitching with pain. I dragged myself onward as fast as I could, swung down the corridor and pushed my way into the guard room.
Panting, sweat running down my temples, I shut the door behind me, and collapsed onto the bench before the hearth. Impatiently, I snapped my fingers at the fire. It took three tries before the flames leaped up again, and lit the room.
Shaking, I swiped the sweat from my face and covered my eyes.
“Mm…Mmm…” I muttered through my teeth, shaking my head. With another sharp rasp, I turned around to face the table, brought out the little wooden box, tapped it, and clenched my fists impatiently as it bloomed into my writing desk. It had hardly finished its transformation before I snatched the paper and pen out and began to write.
Babushka,
I am in dire need of your help. My pain grows more severe by the hour, and sometimes I feel as though I cannot breathe. I dare not try to escape, I cannot fly—and worse yet, Baba Yaga. The entire palace of Astrum is filled with rivers and waterfalls, and whenever I stand in the presence of this water, I feel as if a am being poisoned. And today, I have finally realized what is happening, what magic has been set against me. This is no ordinary spring water that flows through this household.
It is the Source.
And Prince Krystian is drinking it.
Chapter Eleven
After slipping up to the tower to let my message out the window, I stood in the guardroom again, biting the inside of my lip, staring into the fire, my eyes unfocused. The flames swam like sunlight against water, their heat washing over my feet and legs. Absently, I kept my left hand pressed to my middle, the skin around my eyes tightening as the pang inside me tensed. My right-hand fingers fiddled with a loose metal piece on my belt.
For hours, I heard nothing but the crackle of the embers, and the occasional pop as a pocket of air within one of the logs burst. Sparks languidly trailed up the flue, like flecks of red starlight that appeared one moment, then vanished the next.
No flapping paper vulture found me. No omen lit up the fire.
Nothing.
“Are you in here?”
My head came around. My eyes flashed.
Prince Krystian stood in the doorway, one hand touching the frame, his silvery eyes searching the guardroom.
“I’m here,” I answered, low and cold. “What do you want?”
He sighed, turned a little and leaned his shoulder against the frame.
“I have been thinking,” he started, reaching up and rubbing his eyes, as if they ached. “Trying to remember all the lessons my old masters taught me about Seal magic, protections, various rules and restrictions, things like that…” he gestured with that same hand, then resting the side of his head against the door, too. He sighed again, and raised his eyebrows. “We’re not getting out of here alive. Neither of us.”
I slowly, darkly, frowned at him, and folded my arms.
“That’s a change from what you said earlier,” I noted. “What made you realize this?” I canted my head. “Or could you simply not bear to find your friends turned to stone?”
“They’re not just my friends, they’re my cousins and my brother,” he snapped at me, with sudden fierceness. “And yes, I knew you were there the whole time.”
I said nothing—just narrowed my eyes. He huffed, turning away.
“My point is, I could leave and go for help—if I could see. But I can’t risk that if I can’t, not with the wolves in the woods,” he shook his head. “And you can’t leave because…” he waved in my general direction. “Well, you’ve tied yourself up in this. Obviously.”
I ground my teeth and closed my fists.
“No more merchants are coming to Astrum this season,” the prince went on. “The snows have probably already blocked the pass. The first civilized folk who will travel this way will be the Sophos Gatherers, in early spring, at the first snowmelt.” He crossed his arms, and turned halfway toward me. “We’re trapped here. You and I. And I don’t see a way out of this unless one of us kills ourselves.”
“I am not going to kill myself,” I gritted, my face heating up.
“Neither am I,” he answered frankly. “I wasn’t actually suggesting that.”
“What were you suggesting, then?” I demanded. “Or did you just come here to listen to yourself talk?”
Instead of barking back at me, an odd smile crossed his face—as if I’d unexpectedly amused him. I blinked, bewildered. He laughed softly.
“I came here because I remembered something else,” he said. “Something I think I read in the Book of Memory when I was a little boy, and I asked my father about it.” His eyebrows drew together thoughtfully. “I think I asked him because it seemed a little far-fetched to me. But I don’t remember getting a definite a
nswer from him. And then I got distracted before I could ask my mother, which I probably should have done in the first place, because she’s actually the one who would know about it.”
“What was it?” I asked impatiently.
His head came around.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just listening to myself talk.”
I rolled my eyes. He grinned, shifted his weight, and went on.
“It’s in the beginning of the Book of Memory, on the first or second page, maybe. And it’s in the great library, at the far end, on a pedestal. The great window at that end is actually a picture of the scribe who started the book.”
I looked at him keenly.
“What’s the Book of Memory?”
“Why don’t you just go look?” he suggested. “Perhaps I’m right, and there is something.” He shrugged, and a shadow crossed his face. “If there isn’t…it might be a long winter for me. And a short one for you.”
I swallowed, a chill running down through me. He stood there in the doorway for another moment, his eyebrows raised, then turned and left, swallowed by the shadows of the corridor.
“Idiot,” I spat, pacing back and forth, pushing my fingers into my stomach, trying to rub that sharp, throbbing pain away. “What, does he think I’m just going to follow his orders—like I’m some serving wench, ‘Oh, why don’t you just go look? I seem to remember something from somewhere about something I can’t remember, on some page of some book.’” I snorted and kicked at a piece of wood that had fallen loose of the fire. It spattered ash across the hearthstones. I stopped, and stared at the empty doorway.
He had remembered something.
Pain crawled up my throat, and my eyebrows drew together.
He’d remembered something. And that was more than I had done.
Because I had wracked my brains, all these dark hours, for anything my master had once told me, or something that I had read, that might make a way for me out of this death trap. Hours of sifting through shadows and specters from my past, squeezing my eyes shut and fighting to remember words and phrases…
Curse-Maker- the Tale of Gwiddon Crow Page 8