by Brian Farrey
I know that our pact is secret. I won’t tell anyone what I do for you in the Carse. But if you come to Emberfell, you can speak to anyone, and they’ll tell you the Crimson Hoods are real.
That night we met, I told you everything I knew about the Hoods. My new mother, Mrs. Grandwyn, knows much more of our history than I do. She could tell you all you need to know. Please, Your Highness, come talk to her.
Your servant,
Aon
Your Royal Highness,
It’s strange for this much time to pass between our letters. Usually, when I write, I can expect your response within a day (sometimes sooner). It has been three days now, and I have yet to hear from you. I have a list of people who are willing to tell you about the Crimson Hoods. All you need do is consent to visit. Again, I promise not to tell anyone about our business in the Carse. But if it means finding my father, I think it’s important you know everything about the Hoods. Please respond.
Your servant,
Aon
Dearest Aon,
I’m afraid it won’t be possible for me to come to Emberfell. My mother has taken a turn for the worse and grows weaker by the hour. I don’t feel I can leave Nine Towers.
She’s going to die soon, Aon. She’s going to die soon, and I still don’t know how to be queen. The monarch defends the peace and prosperity. If I don’t know how to do that, what will happen to that peace? I could destroy the Monarchy without ever setting foot in that wretched Carse.
I don’t know what to do.
Jeniah
Chapter Fifteen
NOT EVEN THE HALLS OF RAVUS TOWER, THE MOST FORTIFIED IN THE castle, could keep out the autumn chill. Jeniah would remember that nip in the air for the rest of her life. It was only a short walk from her own bedchambers to her mother’s, but the trip—taken with soft, hesitant steps—seemed to last forever. And the cold was her only companion.
Jeniah thought of Aon. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to talk to the girl from Emberfell—that strange, wonderful girl who might possibly be the only person able to understand what she was feeling. The servants in Nine Towers had always done their best to help Jeniah when she was sad. But people who understood only happiness could do only so much to ease Jeniah’s pain.
She paused outside the door to her mother’s bedchambers as she had every day since the Chief Healer had delivered the news of the queen’s worsening condition. The information had come with the gentle suggestion that the princess spend as much time with her mother as possible over the coming hours.
And then he’d said those words. Those terrible, awful words she’d always known he would say to her one day.
It won’t be long now.
Jeniah pushed open the door. The odor of rose water and mint salve nearly overpowered her. There was a time when just the hint of that salve made her smile; it smelled like her mother. Now, however, Jeniah linked the scents to her growing despair. She never wanted to smell them again.
She glided softly to her mother’s side. Queen Sula’s dark skin glistened with a feverish sweat. Her lips were chalky, and her puffy eyes stared blankly ahead. The princess almost ran from the room, unable to bear the sight. She is still your mother, she reminded herself. And she needs you. The queen wheezed and stirred, and then patted her bedside.
Jeniah sat on the mattress and took her mother’s hand. “They said you’d live a month.”
“They said I’d live a month at most,” the queen rasped. “They never discussed how short my time could be.”
“It’s not fair,” Jeniah said, and then she looked away, ashamed. She’d tried so hard never to utter those words. She felt childish and weak.
Queen Sula reached up and turned her daughter’s face so they could speak eye to eye. “It’s all right to think that. It’s all right to think anything you want right now. Be angry at me. Be angry at the sickness. Be angry at everything and everyone. There are no wrong feelings. Do what you need to do.”
Jeniah did feel angry at everything and everyone. But she didn’t want to waste what time they had left feeling that way. “It’s too much. I can’t even think about becoming queen while you’re confined to bed. I won’t leave your side.”
All at once, it occurred to her. She’d been selfish and silly trying to learn more about the Carse. She would send for Aon at once and stop her trips into the bog. She would do what her mother and every monarch before her had done and ignore that accursed place. The longer she thought about it, the more she realized: it was the only thing required of her to be a good queen. It was really that simple.
But it wasn’t.
The queen took her daughter’s hand, the opal rings they each wore touching as she did. “There will be days to mourn me. Days and nights and weeks and months and whatever time you feel you need. But you’re mourning me while I’m still here. Use this time. Talk to me.”
It was hard for Jeniah to banish her sadness. She was first a daughter whose mother was dying and second an heir to the throne. But she needed so many answers. Her mother was right. She had to grieve and rule. For now.
“The ancient warning says the Monarchy will fall if I enter Dreadwillow Carse. Does that mean that if I never go there, the Monarchy will never fall?”
“I’m afraid there’s more to ruling than giving the Carse a wide berth,” her mother said, a small smile passing across her pain-racked face. “As queen, you must still provide counsel and guidance for the good of all.”
Tears welled in Jeniah’s eyes. “Mother, they killed the rubywings. I never told them to do that, but that was what they chose because it was quick and easy. And I told them it was fine. It was my fault.”
“Painful as it is, sometimes we learn by failure. I lost count of the number of lessons I’ve learned that way, and—”
“But I hate that!” Jeniah burst out. “So many people will rely on me soon, and I don’t know how to lead them. Why aren’t you teaching me how to be queen?”
The queen reached out her shaking hand and laid it on Jeniah’s arm. “Why do you think that would help?”
“You’re a good queen. Everyone says so. You know everything.”
“Jeniah, I can’t tell you how to be queen. I can only tell you how I was queen. That’s very different.”
“But that’s what I want. To be just like you.”
“Are you unhappy with Skonas?”
Jeniah held back a fiery desire to tell her mother exactly what she thought of her tutor. He’s cruel, sneaky, untrustworthy, and arrogant, she thought. Instead, she only frowned. “I don’t always understand what he wants me to learn.”
“Good,” the queen said. “It’s nice to hear some things never change.”
“But he doesn’t tell me anything. I ask a question, he asks a question in return. I don’t think I’ll ever learn anything from him.”
“Skonas will show you where to look for answers,” the queen said, “but he won’t tell you what to see.”
“And that will help me be queen?” It didn’t seem possible.
Her mother nodded. “He taught me, you know. He’s been teaching monarchs for a very, very long time.”
Jeniah blinked. How could that be? Clearly, Skonas was much older than he appeared. “Who is this man? Where is he from?” And how, she thought, as a new idea formed, can he feel something other than happy? The only other person she knew who could do that, aside from royalty, was Aon.
“Think about what you already know of him,” the queen prompted.
“He said he wasn’t a royal subject,” Jeniah drawled slowly, trying to make sense of this. “He said I have no power over him.”
“There are almost no limits to the power of the Monarchy. But, yes, Skonas is beyond those limits. He is here out of kindness.”
“His kindness is hurting the Monarchy! He’s taking too long to teach me what I need to know. If I had to take the throne tomorrow, I couldn’t.” Jeniah trembled, the very thought of assuming her reign the next day paralyzing he
r. Queen Sula wrapped her thin arms around her daughter and pulled her close.
“I will tell you this much,” the queen said, stroking Jeniah’s long, sable hair. “I believe you already know everything you need to be queen. You just don’t realize it yet. That’s why Skonas is here. He’ll help you see what’s already there.”
“But I’m so afraid of doing the wrong thing. If you won’t tell me what to do, tell me what not to do. So many people count on me. I don’t want to make mistakes.”
“There is only one way to ensure you never make a mistake.”
“What’s that?”
“Do nothing.”
Jeniah thought about it. If she’d done nothing, the rubywings would still be alive. But then, the ravens would still be hunted by predators. “But what if doing nothing is a mistake?”
The queen closed her eyes, a light smile returning to her lips. Her words slid from between her teeth like a whispered dream. “Skonas is right. You are strangely clever.”
Before Jeniah could respond, the queen was asleep. The princess watched her mother’s chest rise and fall, just enough to keep her alive. Jeniah made wishes. She uttered prayers. Then she kissed her mother’s forehead and tiptoed out of the bedchambers.
It wasn’t until she’d closed the door behind her that it struck Jeniah: her mother hadn’t answered the question about why Skonas instead of the queen was teaching her. In fact, the queen had answered that question . . . with another question.
UNABLE TO SLEEP that night, Jeniah holed herself up in the library. The ancient tomes may not have had much to say about the Carse, but they held much knowledge about her family’s history.
King Isaar is why we have a Carse. That was what the creatures Aon had described in her letter had said. But what did it mean? Jeniah could picture King Isaar, the first monarch. His portrait was the largest in the Grand Hall. It was the first one you noticed when you entered.
When she was younger, Jeniah had feared old King Isaar. He had a long, careworn face with a goatee that ended in a sharp point. His eyebrows arched, challenging all who dared look. At times, Jeniah swore his harsh eyes followed her wherever she went into the room.
“Why does he always look so angry?” Jeniah had once asked her mother.
Queen Sula had laughed and said, “King Isaar loved this land more than anyone else. What you see as anger, others would see as fatherly concern.”
At the time, Jeniah’s father had still been alive. His fatherly concern never looked angry. Jeniah thought her mother was wrong about King Isaar. But as frightening as she found the old king, it made no sense to Jeniah that a monarch would create a place his descendants were forbidden to enter.
Jeniah thought about the castle ruins Aon had described. She’d never heard of her ancestors living anywhere but Nine Towers. And why was the Carse located on the old castle’s grounds? Surely the history books would offer an explanation.
But they didn’t. As before, when she’d gone looking for information on the Carse, Jeniah read every history book until her eyes watered. There was no mention of an old castle. Jeniah was starting to suspect that someone had gone to great lengths to rewrite her family’s history.
Jeniah flung the nearest book across the room. As hard as she tried, she could think of no way to see—
To see where the old castle had stood.
A royal dwelling would have been a landmark. The sort that appeared on maps.
Every one hundred years, the royal cartographer was charged with updating the official maps of the Monarchy. The history books may not have mentioned the Carse. But the maps definitely would.
Jeniah left the mounds of books behind and burrowed through the cartographer’s archives, collecting every map and laying them all out side by side on the floor. She started with the very first map, the one ordered by King Isaar when he created the Monarchy. She had to squint, but there it was: the Carse was nothing more than a pinprick to the right of center on the map, its name scrawled in such tiny print as to make it nearly invisible. And there was the royal family’s first castle.
The next map, drawn a hundred years later, was the first to show Nine Towers. It, too, depicted the Carse. But now it was a small circle, the size of her thumbnail. The old castle was gone.
Jeniah walked along the path of maps, showing one thousand years of history. Something cold and unyielding blossomed in her chest with each step. The maps told a story, a story that perhaps no one else had ever seen. Unless, of course, someone viewed all the maps at once as Jeniah was doing.
The Carse was growing.
Each map showed the black spot had doubled—sometimes tripled—in size during the hundred years since the last map was drawn. Jeniah quickly did the sums in her head. At the rate the Carse was growing, it would overtake Emberfell in the next hundred years. And Nine Towers in the century after that, if not sooner. If it continued to grow, it would eventually engulf the entire Monarchy.
Jeniah ran from the library. She had to write Aon immediately to tell her what she’d learned. But as she returned to Ravus Tower, she barreled into the Chief Healer coming from the queen’s bedchambers. Jeniah’s arms went limp when she saw the look in the healer’s eyes.
“The queen has fallen into a deep slumber,” the Chief Healer said, his hand gently squeezing the princess’s shoulder. Jeniah had been told this might happen, and she knew what it meant.
The chances of the queen’s ever awakening were very slim.
Chapter Sixteen
IT TOOK THREE DAYS FOR AON’S HANDS TO RETURN TO NORMAL.
Since returning from the Carse, she’d worn gloves everywhere to avoid explaining what had happened. She could only hope it wasn’t permanent. And, thankfully, over time, the warts fell off, and her skin returned to its pink, fleshy color. But the heaviness inside her remained.
In the time it took to recover, Aon realized she’d made a mistake. The Carse had ceased to have power over her once she’d shared her misery. But in doing so, she’d allowed the Carse inside her.
And it showed no signs of leaving.
When several days passed and she hadn’t heard back from the princess, Aon started writing another letter. She’d planned to explain to Jeniah that she was very sorry, but she couldn’t continue searching the Carse. She had no idea how long she could stay inside the Carse before she was fully an imp. Five hours? Four? Less? She couldn’t take the chance. And now that Aon knew the princess didn’t know where her father was, her time would be better spent searching for him herself.
Then Jeniah finally replied.
I could destroy the Monarchy without ever setting foot in that wretched Carse.
And with that, Aon remembered what was at stake: the entire Monarchy. As worried as she was about her father’s fate, he was one man compared to every living soul under the monarch’s care. If Jeniah did something to shatter the peace and prosperity of the Monarchy, Aon would share the blame. She was in a position to help the princess and prevent catastrophe. Finding her father had to wait. She had to return to the bog. If she didn’t, she was doing exactly what the Carse wanted.
As everyone in Emberfell slept, Aon packed a small hourglass to take with her into the Carse. Then she and Laius slipped away as they had before.
“Three turns tonight, Laius,” she instructed once they’d reached the entrance of the Carse.
The boy nodded dutifully. “Three.” More than ever, Aon wished Laius could feel something other than happy. She wanted to know that someone was as afraid for her as she was for herself.
I’ll stay as long as I can, Aon told herself. I’ll watch for signs. If I start to change, I’ll get out at once. At least, that was the plan.
She nodded to Laius. Aon took out her own hourglass and together, she and Laius turned them upside down. Aon prayed softly that this would be the last time they ever needed to do this.
THE IMPS WERE waiting for Aon at the hook-shaped rock. As always, they bowed low before leading Aon onward. Aon found herself c
oaxing them along, wanting to get farther in tonight than they’d ever taken her before. But the creatures’ small legs could go only so fast.
They traveled past the castle ruins, trudged through a stream of ankle-deep silt, and scaled a small crag of slick stone. All the while, Aon kept an eye on the small hourglass that hung from a chain on her waist. When the sands ran out, she gave it a turn. One hour down.
The imps began leapfrogging over each other, leading Aon on until they reached a mist-filled oasis. Before them, a still pond, shaped like an eye, interrupted the path.
“Welcome!” Pirep said before diving into the pool of muck and wallowing about. “Welcome to the garden.”
The Carse seemed like an odd place for a garden. But then, the garden itself was odd.
Topiaries, twisting and bent, rose up out of the mire on either side of the path. The low-hanging branches of the dreadwillow trees were covered with newly bloomed flowers. When Aon leaned over to smell the blossoms, their transparent petals shrunk away and curled up until the flowers looked like claws.
The imps draped sinewy weeds around their heads, like regal laurels, and escorted Aon farther.
Aon reached out and brushed her fingers against the nearest topiary. A slimy patina of moss and algae fell away, revealing a gnarled, gray-white branch. When Aon inspected it more closely, her mouth went dry.
The topiaries were made from bones.
Hundreds and hundreds of bones had been piled up and fused together into macabre sculptures.
“What is this place?” Aon whispered.
Tali nestled up to a topiary, her short arms reaching out as if to embrace it. “Told you. A garden.”
Aon shook her head. “But it must be more than that.”
“Now a garden,” Pirep said, gesturing ahead. “Then a battlefield.”
Aon moved to where the imp was pointing and spotted a small island in the middle of a pool of muck. In the center of the island stood a tall stone obelisk. She waded through the mire until she was close enough to see hundreds—no, thousands—of names etched up and down the side.