Stain

by A. G. Howard

  Lustacia gasped and gagged, unable to look away from the warped reflection.

  “The discomfort you’ve been experiencing while wearing your hennin,” Griselda began, her thumb tracing the antlers as she herself struggled not to gag. “That is just the beginning.”

  Lustacia cupped her mouth to muffle a queasy cough. Clear streams raced down her cheeks. “How long?”

  “Days or weeks . . . it’s hard to be sure.”

  Lustacia’s legs went out from under her; she sobbed.

  “Get up,” Griselda growled, resisting an unexpected compulsion to stroke her daughter’s hair and comfort her as she did when she was a child. It would only feed Lustacia’s weakness, and a queen had to be strong. “The only one who knows of my condition is dead. The prince hasn’t said he won’t marry you. We are not defeated. After all you’ve endured for this moment, you would give up so easily? Do you love him or no?”

  “Yes. I—I do. But . . .”

  “A yes is enough. We’ve no time to waste. All we must do is see that the prince weds and beds you as scheduled. You saw his letters, how passionate he is about those stags who guard his boarders. He will behead us both should he ever learn of our crime. And once we’re dead, he’ll turn your sisters out into the wilds to die by brambles or rime scorpions. But if you’re his queen, carrying his child, you can keep us all safe. We’ll request a visit to the Rigamort during our stay here, before he returns with you to Eldoria for his introduction as your king. You’ll say we wish to learn everything about his realm. Then we can blame these . . . things . . . on some sort of magical contagion before he ever sees the evidence.”

  “You truly think he’ll go through with the nuptials? He wouldn’t even speak to me earlier.” Lustacia’s skin had grown so pale her veins could almost be seen. In that moment, she looked more like a gloom-dweller than ever before.

  “Neither kingdom will give him a choice. You are the only princess of Eldoria. I’ve assured there’s no one surviving to take that title, or your crown. No other can stand with the prince to unite our skies and kingdoms. Everyone wants this marriage. Queen Nova herself is trying to talk sense into him at this moment. He will marry you. He dishonored you in their shrine, which I’m to understand is the holiest place in this heaven-forsaken realm. We have that to bargain with.”

  “And the blood oath,” Lustacia mumbled, rubbing her head in search of the knots that would one day burgeon to prongs. She stayed on the floor, beaded pink organza swirling around her like a whorl of petals, and her beautiful features rearranged themselves to something akin to resolve. Though she looked like a dew-kissed rose, Griselda could see the inception of thorns.

  There was her queen.

  Griselda rewarded her by stroking her head. “Precisely. We can force his hand, involve our military if we must. But that would be a last resort. You have your wiles. Hide beneath the stairwell that leads to his turret . . . when everyone leaves his room, visit him alone. Remind him he must marry you to save his suffering people. He’s too honorable to ignore that fact. And even more, he’s a man, and all men can be seduced. You’ve had years of watching me shape that particular weakness to my advantage.” She coiled her hair around her antlers once more. “Master it for yourself, and we will live to see you reign over two kingdoms yet.”

  In his plush chamber—within the tower adjacent to his betrothed’s—Vesper slouched on the edge of his bed. He tapped the skin between his brows with the glowing whorls of a creeping myrtle he’d picked on his way to the castle. He had more company than he liked, and none were whom he wanted them to be.

  “My spiritual wards have predicted a night tide.” Madame Dyadia spoke from her place beside the dormer window looking out upon the courtyard far below. Her chameleon complexion and enchanted vestments, lit with the orange flicker of a lantern, blended into the gray stones framing the circular pane. Earlier, Vesper had questioned Thana’s whereabouts. Dyadia claimed her third eye was keeping watch over Eldoria—to be a lodestar of sorts—for when the moon made a showing there.

  As no one knew exactly how the magic was to work—if Nerezeth and Eldoria would physically stand side by side once more, or if they would simply share the sun and moon at different times in their respective realms—he agreed the portending crow was well positioned.

  “When?” Vesper asked of her weather prediction.

  “Soon. Upon the surface of the waters taken from the mystic cavern, I saw snowflakes returning. By the beginning of our cessation course, they’ll multiply on icy winds to smother the flowers and vines. The thorns will be reborn and our living rainbow will withdraw back into the cold, dead ground. It is better we perform the ceremonies now as planned . . . ride the faith and hope the princess has invoked in our people. Perhaps, upon your vows, this consolidated wonder between our two kingdoms will unite us and merge the skies at last.”

  “Something’s wrong with the prophecy,” Vesper said for the twentieth time. He inhaled the myrtle’s mint-and-honey notes, then laid it upon the tray balanced on his pillow alongside the remains of the meal Queen Nova had insisted he eat. The fish pie and creamed figs may as well have been tasteless, but he’d managed to swallow enough to mollify her.

  “You’re making no sense.” His lady mother eased down beside him, the jeweled crickets abandoning her skirts as the fabric crushed against the edges of his mattress. They hopped beneath the safety of his bed. “How can you refute that it was the princess’s song that saved you?”

  “Her song woke me,” he corrected. “But it didn’t save me.”

  “There are eyewitnesses. Your own sister saw it. And how can you have second thoughts of your bond with Lady Lyra, after the way you kissed her in the shrine?”

  “She has romantic feelings for you, brother,” Selena said, standing beside the desk where Cyprian sat. Her hand rested at the back of the knight’s neck beneath the plaited lengths of his silvery hair. “All your worry has been for naught.”

  Cyprian watched Vesper studiously and added, “Selena is right. There was sincere affection in the princess’s trembling hands, in her tears.”

  “Tears the color of water, not ink. They look nothing like the jewels upon her hairpin,” Vesper insisted.

  “Her enchanted hairpin,” Cyprian added. “Some might argue the tears were altered when they became jewels—that the color’s no longer a true comparison. Either way, we don’t have the pin in our keep. It’s in that thieving boy’s hand—”

  “He’s not a boy. He’s a girl . . . my girl.” Vesper gritted his teeth upon watching everyone’s reaction—his loved ones’ faces fraught with concern or cynicism, most likely both. Queen Nova anxiously plucked at the satiny black quilt upon his bed while keeping watch on Dyadia’s distorted movements at the window.

  Selena cleared her throat. “Well, I for one am grateful to see your obstinance returned, Vesper. It’s good to have you hale and hearty enough to set our queenly mother’s teeth on edge once more. At last I’m the favorite again.”

  Cyprian lifted his gaze to Selena’s and a corner of his mouth quirked up.

  The habit of smoothing things over with a dose of wit was something Vesper and his sibling had always shared, and he found himself wanting to smile, though it was more from seeing his sister and best friend so comfortable in their new romance than anything else.

  He stretched out his long legs beneath the traveling trousers he’d donned in place of his ceremonial garb, relishing the pure red blood that coursed through him. His sister was right about his health. He felt surprisingly robust for someone who’d been flirting with death for years. His body no longer had the limitations of petrified musculature or metallic flesh. The sun’s flame no longer lapped within, threatening to overtake. His limp was gone, he looked and felt like himself again—the dark prince with his lord father’s bone structure, features, and stamina.

  Physically, he lacked for nothing. Emotionally, he lacked patience. He was at a loss for how to explain his reservations when the o
nly savior anyone had seen was the princess preparing for a wedding in her guest chambers at this very moment.

  How could he marry a stranger when all he could think of was the little foundling who was the truest friend and partner he’d ever known?

  Yet that damned prophecy said he must . . .

  “Your kiss sealed the betrothal, my son. You have to realize this.”

  Vesper growled. “As I told Regent Griselda when she intercepted us upon my entrance to the castle, I kissed her niece to prove to myself it wasn’t she who broke my curse. And just as I told the regent then, I’m telling you now: I won’t apologize for seeking answers before I sign my life and my kingdom away.”

  His lady mother’s hand gripped his. “We have an oath already signed—in my own blood and the princess’s father’s. You are not only condemning our people to die by this illness inflicted by artificial light, but you are condemning us to a war we cannot win.”

  Cyprian stood. “Majesty, please heed our queen. You’ve seen for yourself the military escort Eldoria brought. With so many of our own fallen to illness, they outnumber us fifty to one. The last thing we should be doing is challenging their sour-tempered regent over a five-year contract.”

  Unless you have proof that the prophecy is flawed, such that could sway both kingdoms, Selena said privately within Vesper’s head so no one else would overhear. He turned a grateful glance her direction, and she tipped her head—her smile soft and encouraging. At least she was trying to understand . . . to see his side.

  Vesper retrieved the luminous flower from his pillow. “Lady Mother, do you remember when we last spoke of my shadow-bride? I made her a cape, worried she couldn’t embrace this world, thorns and all. I feared she would be too tender.” He flipped his mother’s hand in her lap to place the creeping myrtle upon her palm, then curled her fingers atop it. “You said if the prophecy is to be taken at its word, my betrothed should be capable of handling everything . . . the terrain, the creatures, the night tides, as well as me. That we should be evenly matched already, today.” Vesper squeezed her hand to a fist. “I’m telling you, I’ve found that match. And she’s not the princess.”

  Queen Nova broke loose and opened her fingers to reveal the crushed flower, its light faded from its petals. “Before her song’s intervention, you were a statue.” Her voice cracked. “Moments away from your heart turning to stone. This would’ve been your ending.” She let the flower’s remains fall to the floor in demonstration. “Drained of life and lost to us.” Her chin quivered. “Eldoria’s princess may seem tender skinned and mild mannered, but she cured you. I’m beholden to her now. Indebted to her always. I will make any compromise necessary to accept her as your bride. As should you.”

  “This doesn’t feel like making a compromise, it feels like making allowances. The two are very different things.” Vesper rose and strode to the dormer window next to Madame Dyadia, looming over the sorceress. “She’s out there. Somehow, she made it here into Nerezeth.”

  “If there is another who’s followed you from the day realm and seeks to infringe upon your foretold and sworn marriage,” Madame Dyadia broke in, “she will be accused of treason. She will suffer imprisonment or worse. All present witnessed Eldoria’s princess sing you alive. This other girl was nowhere to be seen.”

  Vesper rubbed the nape of his neck, wary of the logic. During their life together in the forest, each time Stain brought flowers to bloom, it drained her . . . hurt her. After all she’d done today, she might be half-dead. At the very least, defenseless. A wild rage thundered in his heart to think of someone harming her. He’d have to find her first.

  “Cyprian, round up our best trackers and saddle Lanthe. But be discreet.”

  The knight’s reflection stirred in the windowpane as he propped his hand at the baldric where a borrowed sword stood in place of his late father’s, the other one having been destroyed by Vesper while in the form of the Pegasus. A fact Cyprian had yet to learn. The first knight’s pale hair formed a white blur in the glass as he glanced from Selena to the queen.

  “Did you serve me out of pity, then?” Vesper baited without turning. “Now that I’m free of the golden plague, am I no longer your king? Must I add anointing a new first knight to this day’s list of encroaching ceremonies?”

  Cyprian knelt until his nose almost touched the obsidian floor. “I beg your forgiveness, Majesty. My loyalty and respect are yours to my last breath. I will see it done.”

  Vesper nodded and Cyprian left the room, closing the door behind him. The lantern’s popping flame accentuated the muffled breathing and suppressed criticisms from the three who still remained. Vesper intensified his study of the window, beyond the abandoned courtyard where the land surrendered to vines and flowers—a tender light source competing with the moonlit puddles. A handful of royal scouts had ventured out earlier, following the trail of creeping plants to the edge of the Grim. They hypothesized, by its trajectory, that it led to the Rigamort. It may have even managed to melt a tunnel through the avalanched snow plugging the entrance. Due to the unpredictable behavior and delicate state of the brumal stags, the scouts felt ill-equipped to investigate in depth without their king’s accompaniment. They returned with nothing more than that scant report.

  A flurry of white flakes careened against the black sky, blotting out the stars—Dyadia’s prediction of a blizzard proving true. Vesper cursed the timing. They would have to hurry before everything was swallowed up again. He scrubbed his whiskered face, grateful to feel the human features, the soft, giving flesh and bristled scruff, yet at the same time missing his wings and four legs . . . missing the ability to cover large areas in the blink of an eye.

  “We’ll ride to the Rigamort. Surely there will be a clue, if nothing else.” He spun on his heel to make for the door, but the queen stood behind him.

  Eyes lifted to meet his gaze, she hemmed him between her and the window. “We? You plan to gallivant about the badlands when you should be preparing for the ceremonies? Send your trackers out, fine. But your duty is here, comforting Lady Lyra and smoothing the regent’s ruffled feathers. It is time you learn your place as king.”

  His eyebrows lowered. “It is time you learn my place as king.” There was a hardened edge to the rebuke—a gruffness that brooked no argument. “I covet and respect your advice, but from this day forward, it will be delivered as such: advice. Whether in public or alone. You are not my commander, nor even my right hand. You’ll always be my lady mother, but you will address me as a man to be honored, not a boy to be coddled.”

  Her face paled, draining the bluish softness to white. The plaits of her silvery hair, woven into her glistening crown, reflected the firelight as she placed a hand on his chest. “The coronation and wedding ceremonies, they’re to take place within the hour. Please reconsider.”

  Her humble plea might have softened him at one time, but not now that he’d found himself again. “If I leave while the snow’s still melted, I can make the trip there and back in half the time. Five . . . six hours, at most. Many of the cadaver brambles have been exposed and found dead by our scouts, much like the thorns, so there’s another hurdle lifted.” He placed his hand over hers. “This must be done before the night tide.”

  “What will the people think?” pressed the queen. “Or the regent and the princess? How will it look, you leaving in search of another girl?”

  “No one is to be told why I’m making the trek. If questioned, you will answer only this: I am the reigning heir of Nerezeth who just awoke from a death sleep. If I wish to postpone the ceremonies for a few hours to gather my thoughts and assess how our altered terrain is affecting my people, none should—” He stopped and shook his head. “None will question me.”

  “Heed your words, Your Highness,” Dyadia pleaded, her black-and-white stripes becoming fully visible. Vesper focused on her third eye’s empty socket. “The quietus thrall may have left you hazy—inclined to delusions. If that is the case, you’re endangering this
hard-won peace upon nothing more than a dream.”

  “I did not dream her touch upon my skin, nor her voice in my head,” Vesper answered. “No more than I dreamed for these past five years that my prideful and implacable half ran and flew beside her in the Ashen Ravine.” He aimed an accusatory frown to the sorceress. “But you let me believe it was a dream. You withheld important details. Convinced me Eldoria’s princess was my missing piece. When all along, I had to complete myself. It took a girl saving me again and again, putting herself at risk each time, a girl who loved me unconditionally—to lead me to that truth. And now, I intend to find her and thank her properly.”

  Dyadia maintained an unreadable expression but exchanged glances with the queen.

  “What are you saying?” Queen Nova asked of her son, her fingers curling under his, wrinkling the open lapel of his shirt. “That you’re in love with a simple urchin?”

  Yes. Vesper kept the answer to himself. There was no question how he felt about Stain when they ran together in the ravine, and it was the only explanation for the emotions careening through his body and mind in this moment. But he didn’t have the luxury of romance or love . . . not with the prophecy hanging over him and two kingdoms.

  “Don’t ever call her an urchin,” he answered, struggling to keep his frustration and anxiety in check. “And she’s anything but simple.”

  “You have an obligation to fulfill,” the queen refuted. “Not to some girl who happened to befriend you in your temporary vessel when you were trapped in the Ashen Ravine. You are fated to marry Eldoria’s princess.”

  His lady mother’s acknowledgment of the magical split held no surprise for him. She was there in the cavern, watching his exiled half take form, which made it sting all the more that neither she nor the sorceress had ever told him.