Stain

by A. G. Howard

  She laughed inwardly at the impossibility; once all of this was behind her, she’d have the castle’s physician see to the strange pains. Considering Lustacia had also been complaining of headaches—the one daughter who had inherited Griselda’s tender skin and physicality—most likely it was a nutritive dearth from lack of sunlight and fresh air.

  “Is the quota met, Your Grace?” Sir Erwan asked, observing from beside her while Sir Bartley stood guard outside the door.

  “Yes.”

  Erwan raised a dark eyebrow as something shuffled behind him.

  “I trust the exports have gone unnoticed?” Griselda asked the hoarfrost goblin that sidled out from behind the safety of the knight’s red breeches and white surcoat. The top of the creature’s head came to Griselda’s knees. It was fitting he called himself Slush, as he looked every bit as muddy and trampled as Griselda imagined mucky snow to be.

  “Thus to date, Magistrate,” he answered, his voice rustling and airy, like the shift of ash from Griselda’s wretched memories of the ravine.

  She winced, annoyed with the rhyming, childlike dialect. All of his kind spoke thusly, so she’d had to be tolerant. That would end today. “It’s Majesty. And you will reserve that title for the princess. She will be your queen.”

  Slush sneered, his spiked teeth slick and grimy. The hair atop his head was wiry and thick—the color of mud streaked with milk. Crystalized growths caught the light and shimmered from his chin like a beard of icicles. Similar jagged tapers, smaller in number and length, dripped from long, pointed ears that resembled those of a donkey.

  His gray, glassy eyes, protruding like oversized marbles in that small, rough face, turned toward said “princess” with an odd mix of idiocy and inquisitiveness. There, at Griselda’s daughters’ feet, hunkered Slush’s crew of four—slobber dribbling from their lips onto apparel made of tree bark. There had been six at one time, but two had been lost to a fiery death in the ravine several years back. All said, this smaller crew had served well enough.

  The girls, dressed in lace and velvet, sat upon cushioned stools. Wrathalyne and Avaricette talked around their sister—Lustacia, now so adept at being Lyra, maintained silence around anyone other than family—while stitching the final touches on her wedding trousseau. They attached pearls on the veil, gloves, and headdress, along with creamy lace across the low-cut neckline of the pink organza gown.

  Beside them, the birds cooed and tweeted in their cages, adding to the odd serenity of the scene. Even with her wretched niece dead and gone, Griselda had opted to keep the chickadees, mockingbirds, and swallows close at hand. One never knew when an infestation might occur.

  She supposed on some level, this was an infestation: a half circle of gruesome goblins with long, pointy noses that sagged almost to cover their mouths, surrounding three lovely girls. However, none of her daughters minded. Being down in the dungeon all these years without social interaction, they had come to think of the goblins rather as servants. A logical evolution, considering the five bandits had been delivering parcels from Nerezeth ever since Griselda first needed scorpions and cadaver brambles to torture her niece.

  If anything, her daughters were bored by their guests’ presence. On the other hand, the goblins were fascinated. Everything about humanness and stateliness intrigued them . . . they coveted such characteristics more than Eldoria’s white gold. An insatiable greed that Griselda had latched upon and exploited from the very beginning.

  “And we’ll rule at her side, tall as men full of pride. Aye, yer Graciousness of all spaciousness?” Slush’s question grounded Griselda’s thoughts.

  She rubbed the infernal niggle along her scalp, frowning when she noticed two small bumps. Those were new. “That’s Your Grace,” she corrected the goblin, preoccupied with his insolence.

  “I am the Grace? But I haven’t the face . . .” He smooshed the end of his long nose with a thin, crooked finger, as if he could push it into his skull and make it smaller.

  “You are to call me Your Gra—Oh, never mind.” Stupid as he was, he had a keen sense for what got under her skin. But she would have the last laugh. “I promised you’d be the mirror image of men, didn’t I? A lady always keeps her word.”

  Having answered—a stark truth he would soon comprehend with horror—Griselda smoothed her hair into place. She’d consider the knots later, when there was time to look in a mirror. For now, she had no desire to see herself in her brown day dress. Working with magical ingredients in unstable conditions had proven messy in the past, and she’d ruined enough fineries to learn that plain could be better, in rare instances.

  She stalked across the chamber and hung the antlers from hooks beside the fireplace, situating them so the black glistening blood could drain into a porcelain bowl. It took two pairs to fill one jar. She had two such jars already lining the shelves, hidden behind bottles of peach wine, reserves of paraffin and liquid sunshine, and bags of dried meats and cheeses. Today her blood supply would at last be of use.

  Smirking, she dropped another set of antlers from four months earlier—seeped of all life essence—into a granite mortar and pestle the size of a large cooking pot. Grinding the prongs to sparkling powder so the wintering-frost magic could be released always took some labor. But Griselda enjoyed the process. Pulverizing them was therapeutic, knowing the harvest it would reap, though her hands were permanently bruised and stained a shimmery bluish-white.

  What were a lady’s finest satin gloves for, if not to hide her ambition?

  She made her way to the shelf and pushed aside everyday items, taking down the two jars of blood. The contents sloshed and coated the glass, leaving oily streaks that glittered like liquid obsidian diamonds in the lantern light—rich with the promise of alchemy and ambiguity. This was the last ingredient for the final step in Lustacia’s transformation.

  Sir Bartley had brought the news earlier—a missive sent from Queen Nova via jackdaw—announcing her son’s arrival within a few days. She’d also mentioned a spy had seen the harrower witch in the ravine, that she possessed a box marked “princess - revolution.” If the old hag set foot within their gates, Griselda would have her arrested again. The only thing that mattered today was that Prince Vesper was at last coming to claim his bride. Her daughter, not Kiran’s.

  A silver-haired songbird girl who commands the shadows.

  Griselda’s checklist was all but complete, short of one thing. And once done, not a body anywhere could deny Lustacia was the true princess of the prophecy.

  Placing the jars in a small basket, Griselda looked about the room. The table was scuffed from the time the girls had used it in a game of pitching quoits. The metal horseshoe they’d been tossing over a clay spike dented the wood irreparably. The mirrors magnifying the lanterns were blackened in spots from all the times the girls had polished them; the rugs were worn from waltzing during imaginary balls; and the spice-scented tapestries and fresh flowers were more powerful nostalgic triggers than anything else—harkening back to hours the girls spent in front of the fireplace, giggling about snippets of town gossip delivered by Erwan and Bartley.

  Somewhere deep within, Griselda understood she had robbed her daughters of their youth by isolating them, especially the eldest two. As much as she searched for regret, she felt only an empty yawning, devoid of any sentiment other than her desire to be free of this claustrophobic cell forever.

  Dropping the basket into an iron pot, Griselda motioned to Erwan. He rounded up the goblins and led them out the door, heading toward the secret tunnel. There, the hidden room awaited with dirt walls and mossy floors, where Lustacia’s royal destiny would be finalized.

  As Slush stepped across the threshold behind his four compatriots, his bulbous eyes turned to her.

  “Today was your final delivery,” Griselda answered, waving him on. “As such, your payment is due. Sir Erwan is taking you all to our most private quarters. I’ll be there shortly to make restitution.”

  That seemed to satisfy h
im, for his shoulders lifted, as if he already felt taller. The door pounded shut behind him.

  Lustacia stood, even before Griselda motioned her over. Wrathalyne and Avaricette followed her lead, stashing away the sewing. Their eyes held less trepidation than their sister’s, both obviously eager for a brush with the black arts. They were to be disappointed today.

  “Are we going to the special room, Mumsy? Where you hide the old family portraits and the prince’s letters and roses?” Wrathalyne asked the question, and Lustacia’s features collapsed in dread.

  Upon seeing her youngest daughter’s expression, Griselda frowned. Ignoring Wrathalyne’s query, she turned her attention to Lustacia as she placed the grimoire into the iron pot alongside the basket. The remaining ingredients waited in the dirt room upon some shelves. “Do not worry, my princess daughter. I’ve piled the keepsakes in the darkest corner alongside Queen Arael’s reconstructed mirror and covered everything with her moth-eaten gowns. We’ll have to fill your royal chamber with them, once you’ve married the prince. Lyra was fiercely nostalgic. However, with the alterations in your appearance, you favor the ghostly child in the portraits enough that none would question your heritage.”

  “Fine.” Lustacia’s answer came in a singsong voice, out of synch with her weary expression. “Let’s have done with the magic spell.”

  “Truly? No pleading for the goblins’ lives? No bleeding heart?” Griselda asked, pleased and surprised by her daughter’s boldness.

  “My prince is coming. He has my heart.” Lustacia’s gaze was heavy with remorse, as it often was, a failing brought on by her sensitive conscience. She withdrew Prince Vesper’s latest letter from a small box along with its partnered panacea rose—stripped of thorns and deep lavender petals just starting to curl with age. Every so often, the prince sent a rose with his monthly note in honor of the one she’d given up as a child, though in truth, it had been her cousin’s sacrifice.

  Lustacia cradled the two items as if they were babes. She always read each missive and answered as a princess should, alluding to her delicate constitution . . . her fear of the giant nettles and angry bees that held her castle hostage. Hinting at how much she looked forward to him rescuing her. Griselda had taught her daughters that if they wished to nourish a man’s interest, they must first fatten his ego. After responding, Lustacia always put the letters and the roses from her sight. She claimed the perfume and the ink’s bright shimmer made her ill. Griselda knew the truth, that they reminded her of Lyra. Annoying as it was, she had allowed her daughter this one weakness. Until now. A queen must have the fortitude to choose brutality over mercy and apathy over conscience when her crown was at stake.

  “You’ve worked hard for this.” Griselda took the rose and letter from Lustacia, dropping them in the basket to carry out with the other items. Throughout these last six months of their confinement, without fail, her youngest daughter had bathed in salve and used thick paste on her hair and lashes. Both concoctions were made of smuggled starlight, brumal antler powder, and egg whites, and had the effect of silvering anything they touched. Lustacia had even put droplets of the mixture, thinned with milk, into her eyes, despite the agonizing burn, resulting in a lilac hue. Even with her tendency toward bruising, she had proven herself thick-skinned enough to do what had to be done.

  Though Griselda despised that her youngest was forced to trade her rosy, freckled complexion, auburn hair, and blue eyes for a gloom-dweller’s countenance, it had been a necessary transformation. The one thing they hadn’t accomplished was lengthening her lashes. After trying without success, they decided instead to alter all the portraits of Lyra in her youth. Griselda sent Bartley for pigments, canvas, and brushes, having him claim Griselda’s daughters and the princess needed a hobby to pass the long hours, so they were to take up painting landscapes. It wasn’t difficult to mix and match colors enough to blend away Lyra’s unruly, long lashes, making Lustacia resemble the child in the portrait as much as her cousin. By the time the portraits would be hung upon the walls of the castle once more, people would assume they’d exaggerated the princess’s appearance in their memories, and all would be forgotten.

  “At last you will reap the spoils of your labor,” Griselda assured her daughter.

  “Yes,” Lustacia answered, wrapping a nightsky veil across her silver hair and moon-glow skin. “I’ve given up everything that made me myself. All for him to love me. All to be his queen. But I still have my own words, even if it’s her voice.” Shortly after being locked within the posh dungeon, Lustacia had ceased practicing the hand signals Prime Minister Albous had taught the real Lyra. Instead, she used the passage of time to shape Lyra’s stolen voice into speech by blending it with her own without losing the trilling birdsong quality. “I’m ready to stop hiding the ability to speak. My prince will be the first to know. Perhaps then he can be proud of something I’ve done on my own as myself.”

  “We wish to watch you change the monsters to men.” Avaricette horned in on the conversation, sensing they were to leave without her and her middle sister.

  “Mums, please!” Wrathalyne joined in. “Metamorphing sounds so fascinating.”

  “That’s metamorphosing, Wrath,” Avaricette corrected with a roll of her eyes.

  “You will both stay,” Griselda insisted, gathering up the heavy pot and joining her princess daughter at the door. She knocked thrice, signaling to Sir Bartley that they were ready. “The goblins must drink the potion directly from Lustacia’s hands for the bond to be complete. We don’t need you there arguing and disrupting the process. Make yourselves useful. Feed the birds. We will return shortly, with your sister’s most loyal subjects in tow.”

  13

  The Butcher, the Baker, and Other Lawbreakers

  In the center of the Ashen Ravine, the black market opened every day, four hours after the cessation course ended. It remained open during the diurnal course for six hours thereafter, allowing five more of leisure before time to rest again. Most denizens chose to use the latter for looting, liquoring up, or fornicating.

  Set amidst the monochromatic haze of shifting gray ash, black twisted trunks, and impenetrable gray-leafed canopies, the market offered a welcome splash of color and vitality.

  Each day at opening, glass lanterns the size of apples—permanently affixed to the thorny branches—were filled with lightning bugs from the night realm, supplied by Dregs, the hoarfrost goblin. Nigel, a retired thief, was in charge of climbing each tree to fill the lanterns, being as nimble as a mountain goat (with the beard and face of one, to match). Once lit, the glowing yellow globes dotted the trees like giant dewdrops, brightening the narrow expanse below where a dozen makeshift booths of timber, branches, and rock lined either side of the winding onyx walkway.

  The older, rickety stalls shook with the shouts of owners trying to outdo one another with promises of quality and quantity. Everything from typical food and spices to wares both mystic and intangible were peddled. Illiterate shop owners had colorful banners with embroidered images to represent their wares; others, who could write and read, painted words on signs. Some shop fronts were decorated to extremes: multicolored ribbons or feathers fringing the edges to flutter invitingly when someone walked by, or sea glass and pebbles pressed into mortar forming intricate mosaics. Then there were those that were no more than wood planks slapped together—rotten spots patched up with tar. These had yet to be updated. Five years earlier, all the booths looked that way: gray, shabby, and moldering.

  It was Stain who had started the beautification campaign, quite by accident, when she debuted at the shop with her guardians one month after her rescue, once they deigned it safe for her to be seen in disguise.

  She recalled that first interaction often, how wonderful it had felt to finally belong to something . . . a community, however strange it might seem to those on the outside.

  “Ye hang the memories on the pegs, facing out, so may-let patrons be intrigued enough to stop,” Crony had told her when the
y’d first arrived at her booth. Stain’s job was to fill the lower pegs, as she was too short to reach the higher. Luce took care of those.

  She’d hung only a few of the sparkling glass tokens before noticing people shuffled by without stopping. They veered to the shops selling enchanted potions and ensorcelled weapons—completely overlooking how magical memories could be. Having lost her own, Stain had wanted to make patrons stop. To make them understand.

  She couldn’t shout and tell them what they were missing like other shopkeepers did. And Crony and Luce seemed too busy stocking the shelves to notice.

  She’d had some flowers in her pocket that day, having plucked them from the garden before they came. She liked keeping bouquets hidden on her person for their gentle, pretty fragrance. She might look grimy and unkempt, but there was no reason she should smell the part. The flowers were also a reminder that the burning in her fingertips yielded beautiful results, making the recurrent pain more bearable.

  Taking out five wilting blossoms, she crawled up on the booth’s counter beneath their sign: NOSTALGIA RETOLD: BENEFICIAL MEMORIES FOR THE CURSED & BROKEN. She glued the fragile flowers in place between the slabs of wood with squishy mud.

  Luce and Crony stopped stocking to watch, and soon, others paused, too—for a moment. Then they turned again and went shopping elsewhere.

  “It be a good try, wee one,” Crony encouraged her, patting her fuzzy head. The witch’s murky eyes held a soft twinkle. It was the light of affection, but Stain wanted more. Although the old witch’s smile had the power to wilt plants and inspire fear, Stain had grown rather fond of it.

  “A very good idea indeed,” Luce agreed. He offered a sly glance to Crony, one Stain had seen pass between them when they were teaching her things about the world outside their ravine. “Perhaps you simply need to think bigger. Say this stall were a kingdom. Would a wise monarch bestow attention and wealth upon only the palace?” He pointed to the sign. “Or would they spread it all around every corner in the vicinage, so it could be seen even from a distance, to catch the eyes of other kingdoms, possibly lure away their own populace with the desire to be part of something so powerful, beautiful, and unified?”