Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

  “Don’t do that,” Perennia said like a governess scolding a child smearing paint on the walls. She confiscated the garment. “Just order some plain new ones.”

  “That’s the problem! Always more things!” I shouted. “Ambrosine betrayed the kingdom to bloat our family’s wealth. I have to show all of Volarre that we are not like her.”

  “It’s not about our wealth, Glisette, or finery, or beauty,” Perennia replied. She draped the unfortunate gown over the back of a chair. I saw myself reflected in her face: ivory skin, long golden hair, sea-glass eyes, high cheekbones. But she possessed a softness that the other three of us Lorenthi children did not. “They’re here to force you to give up your elicrin stone. They want you to become mortal. They no longer want all-powerful rulers. And who could blame them?”

  “But I fought for them! I bled so they could live!”

  As the words thrust out of me, violent memories returned, memories so horrifying that even my dreams didn’t dare touch them. I winced against the recollection of people trampling one another to escape from Darmeska when I used my elicrin power to freeze and break the gates open; the bodies of the city’s elders on display, feasts for carrion; the way the Moth King controlled the minds of Darmeskans from his tower, forcing them to terrorize their own people; the stinging cold of an arrow that should have killed me; and death’s icy claws trying to drag me away.

  Perennia caught my hands in hers. The mellow glow from her rose elicrin stone preceded the familiar peace and relief that snuck in when her Solacer power stole whatever dark emotions thrashed inside me.

  “You made great sacrifices,” she whispered. “But Ambrosine and Uncle Mathis hurt our people. Their mistakes shouldn’t be your burdens to bear, but they are because you are a Lorenthi too, and you wear the crown. Going out there in plain garb isn’t going to make a difference.”

  For the first time, I wondered whether the Realm Alliance had made a mistake showing lenience to Ambrosine and Uncle Mathis. Both had been put on magical probation and consigned to manual labor, mostly sorting and loading foodstuff for the assistance programs. While Mathis sullenly followed orders, Ambrosine refused to work. She was determined to be a thorn in my side until, ostensibly, I let her return to her old way of life.

  But as I’d been riffling bleary-eyed through Uncle Mathis’s documents days before my coronation, a solution presented itself. The king of Perispos had written to Uncle Mathis before the season of crises had begun, expressing an interest in marrying either Ambrosine or me. He had been widowed seven years earlier. Apparently, Uncle Mathis thought I would be suited to the task and had asked King Myron what bride price he was prepared to offer in exchange for my hand.

  Upon reading the correspondences, I’d felt sour that I’d ever been treated like property, and then smug that I’d stripped Uncle Mathis of his power to do so. And then I’d grinned with relief and penned a missive to the king immediately. The Realm Alliance had approved, my sister had readily accepted the proposal, and I’d rejoiced to be rid of her. But Mathis, too embarrassed to continue his work, had fled soon afterward. We could have made a tracking map to hunt him down, but he wasn’t worth the trouble. The restrictive enchantment we had placed on his elicrin stone wouldn’t rob him of his immortality, but it would prevent him from using his magic to harm anyone. Besides, tracking maps were an archaic sort of magic, and they had limits; they would not work for anyone harboring malicious intent toward the person they sought, and if I got my hands on Mathis again, I might wring his neck.

  Mathis and Ambrosine had stoked a fire of righteous fury in the hearts of our people, yet I was the only one left to burn.

  Devorian broke through the gaggle of maids in the doorway and crossed the room to rip the drapes closed. Valory’s unfortunate spell on him had at last worn off, but sometimes his eyes seemed to sparkle golden amber rather than blue green.

  “You aren’t going to dignify this, are you?” he asked.

  “No,” Perennia answered before I could, releasing my hand.

  “Good.” My brother raked a hand through his flaxen, shoulder-length waves. “It will blow over.”

  “So I’m to hide out until my people don’t want my head on a pike?” I demanded.

  “They don’t want your head on a pike; they want your elicrin stone in a pit. All of ours.” Devorian strode to my tea tray only to frown at the dearth of spirituous or fermented options. “It will take time, but when their situations improve under your rule, their ire will cool.”

  I sighed and sank into a chair, striking a woebegone pose before I checked myself and sat up straight. “Perhaps once I sign the decree restricting the border tolls, they’ll—”

  “You can’t do that,” Devorian interrupted, spreading margarine over a triangle of toast.

  “What? Why not?”

  “It’s how the crown recoups investments. What if we must repair or rebuild a bridge and the cost of materials and labor has increased? No, no.” He wagged his finger and took a bite. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  A growl rumbled in my throat. Though Devorian had abdicated his throne to me, the antiquated laws of Volarre still technically required a male principal ruler. That meant I was only the “provisional ruler” until I could revise the statute to the satisfaction of my father’s senior advisors. Hubert supported me, but the other two were cantankerous old bats.

  For this, I often found myself resenting Devorian, even when he was only trying to help.

  I nearly asked why I would listen to the imbecile who had resurrected the Moth King, but bit back my retort as Devorian’s wife entered the room.

  “Are we in danger?” Larabelle asked. Her brown hair, which tended to adhere tightly to her scalp, needed fluffing, and her alabaster cheeks practically begged for rouge. She was lovely, but always quaintly styled, the daughter of a middle-class merchant. I would have intervened, but she disliked fuss on her account. Besides, Devorian might claw me to ribbons if I so much as changed a hair on her head, so fiercely did he love the pretty little mouse.

  My brother’s superior expression yielded to a smile so sickeningly sweet that he almost looked like a theatrical mockery of a doting lover. “No, my darling, we aren’t in danger,” he cooed.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked, turning to me. “I heard—”

  “Not at all.” I waved to dismiss her concern and massaged my forehead. I had imagined ruling would be easy with Valory as queen of Calgoran and Kadri Lillis as queen of Yorth. The rest of the Realm Alliance members were friends, as well: Mercer Fye, Tilmorn Fye, Melkior Ermetarius, and Kadri’s husband, Fabian Veloxen. With so many powerful, good people working toward a common cause, recovering and rebuilding should have been straightforward.

  But all that power somehow amounted to weakness; we were so painstakingly careful not to overplay our hand.

  I rose from the chair and parted the sea of attendants standing by, shooing them away. “You are all dismissed.”

  “You aren’t going to the crowd, are you?” Perennia asked, but I didn’t answer as I marched down the corridor, one of my heeled slippers catching on the sapphire carpet. I sped to a run and descended the curving staircase.

  At last I shoved open the door to the gardens and pinned my hand to my ribs, taking in sharp breaths. The distant pandemonium was only a whisper from my quiet refuge of meandering paths and sculpted hedges.

  But this wasn’t the refuge I sought.

  A materialization barrier protected the palace so that elicromancers could not pass through the walls using magic. Beyond the imposing garden fence hidden by stately hedges, I could slip away, fling myself through the expanse toward true solitude.

  My heels clacked along the path until I stopped to kick off my slippers, sending one flying into a bed of peonies. I’d recently made the habit of tucking a pair of worn-in leather boots behind a potted lavender plant. I shoved them on, swung open the gate, and closed my eyes.

  I spoke the materializing spell and whirl
ed through oblivion.

  TWO

  KADRI LILLIS

  BEYRIAN, YORTH

  THE letter seemed to sear my skin like a blazing coal.

  I’d folded the crisp parchment into a tight square and tucked it into my skirt waist as though hiding it away might somehow make its truths untrue.

  Tears gathered in my eyes as I drew my bowstring taut. The practice target was a blur of red and white, yet when I let the arrow slip, it struck the very center. My fraught mood made my form a little clumsy, however, and I felt the lingering sting of the bowstring slapping my unguarded forearm again. A faint, plum-purple bruise formed beneath my brown skin. I pressed it with the pad of my thumb as my brother’s words slammed back against my chest.

  I reached over my shoulder for another arrow, sliding the silky fletching through my fingers, hoping it would bring calm.

  “Are you all right?” Falima asked.

  I let fly and palmed away an escaping tear. “Yes.”

  “Did the letter from Rayed upset you?” my maid pressed. She slid her peach-colored summer scarf off her head, set aside her book of poems, and rose from the bench near the practice range. “What did it say?” she asked in our native Erdemese.

  I turned but couldn’t seem to meet her gaze, instead studying the limb tip of my beautifully crafted bow. “King Agmur didn’t summon Rayed back to Erdem for just a short visit. He wants him to remain there permanently.”

  She frowned. “Did Rayed do something wrong?”

  “No. Erdem is dissolving the position and closing the embassy here. There will be no ambassador to Nissera. My brother’s not coming back.”

  “I suppose it’s no surprise,” Falima sighed. “Nearly every week there’s a ship full of our people leaving for home.”

  “And I can’t blame them. The horrors that befell this realm would drive even the bravest people to safer shores.”

  Falima didn’t reply, but a crease of concern charted across her forehead. She had held me when I’d awakened from the fevered nightmares that forced me to relive the worst horrors from the journey to Darmeska with Valory, Glisette, and Mercer.

  Falima could comfort me, but she couldn’t understand what I had seen and felt: the blight disease decaying patches of my flesh, the sight of corpses murdered by the Moth King’s servants rotting on public display, the fear that I might soon be one of them. Here in the palace, she had been shielded from the atrocities of the Moth King’s short yet dreadful reign, from the plague raging outside the gates of these very palace grounds.

  “Do you think your brother will find other employment?” she asked, always preferring to keep the conversation somewhat superficial. Her friendship was largely one of silence and secrets—rarely frank or frivolous confessions.

  “He’s already accepted a position in the trade ministry,” I replied. “King Agmur is sending him on some mundane mission, which Rayed described to me in exhaustive detail, of course.”

  Falima chuckled, for she knew Rayed well, but I couldn’t manage to smile in response. The reason I had become queen of Yorth—my purpose, my mission, despite the fact that I could not feel romantic love for my spouse and king—was to help my people. Many had journeyed from Erdem to Yorth expecting that magic would rid them of disease, hunger, and fear of harm. But they soon realized that life in Nissera was far from perfect, and that magic, like any other resource, was more easily accessed by the wealthy than the poor, despite the best efforts of the Realm Alliance.

  And then the Moth King’s evils had devastated the realm. Yorth was no longer safe. The life my people had sought slipped so far out of reach that they no longer had reason to stay.

  And outside countries had lost faith in elicromancers’ ability to keep their own kind in check.

  And King Agmur wasn’t only shuttering the Erdemese embassy and severing our diplomatic relations. He was challenging the legitimacy of our new Realm Alliance.

  This was the bit of Rayed’s letter that I couldn’t bring myself to explain to Falima, the words that burned:

  I know as well as you that many elicromancers are good, but King Agmur rightfully questions their ability to rid the barrel of bad apples before the rot spreads. He wants to scale back trade with Nissera until the realm proves politically stable.

  Further diminishing the appearance of stability are Glisette’s and Valory’s dubious claims to their thrones. Glisette is only the “provisional ruler” of Volarre until her father’s advisors consent to changing the laws. Valory seized her position in Calgoran through violence. As far as His Eminence is concerned, Fabian is the only sovereign in Nissera with a legitimate claim to his throne.

  Sister, I know this is not news you wanted to hear. But King Agmur is only trying to protect our people’s interests. He will not recognize the authority of the Realm Alliance until these issues are resolved and the disturbances settle down.

  In light of this news, have you reconsidered His Eminence’s invitation?

  Of course Rayed would remind me of that. King Agmur’s invitation had been so insulting that I had not even mentioned it to Fabian for fear of the repercussions.

  Somehow, King Agmur knew that my marriage was “not in every way legitimate,” meaning unconsummated. Rayed fiercely denied disclosing this to him. The king said that if I desired, I could annul my marriage to Fabian and return to Erdem to work for him as a top advisor. He said he would give me my own estate, which I would not have to share with my brother or any other man. He claimed my passion for helping the Erdemese people would be put to good use in my new role.

  I had scrawled a scathing refusal within seconds, knowing Rayed would rephrase the message before passing it along to his sovereign. Yet the request had lingered in the back of my mind, itching with possibility and making me feel restless. What if I could better help Erdem’s least-fortunate citizens by advising King Agmur? By leaving Nissera to its elicromancers and advocating for the voiceless within my home country?

  Footsteps crunched along the garden path. I turned to find the redheaded kitchen maid, Trista, curtsying to me. “The tasting for tomorrow’s dinner is ready for you on the veranda, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and gathered my archery gear for Falima to carry inside.

  Loosening my black hair from its braid, I walked the path that followed the back façade of the palace, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. I gazed beyond the pale beach with its mosaic of rock formations to the ships bobbing in the aquamarine bay and wondered what it would be like to leave this home I had known since childhood.

  But it was unimaginable. Nissera was my home, the other Realm Alliance leaders my friends, Fabian my husband.

  And Rynna…

  My spirit blazed as I thought of her yet again, the fay woman from Wenryn. In the midst of our terrifying journey, the others and I had found rest, healing, and protection at her people’s forest dwelling. She was enthralling and sublime, ageless and ancient, witty and impish and charmingly imperious. Before her, I had never known anything so intense, so meaningful, though I’d cared for a handful of girls. There was the young envoy that used to escort Erdemese immigrants to our embassy when I resided there with my father and brother; Rayed used to tease me for how nervous I acted during our brief interactions. And then there was the niece of the palace pastry chef, who taught me to frost cakes before she left for work in another noble household. And finally, there was the daughter of the Perispi ambassador who had kissed me while we sunbathed on the beach. But upon turning sixteen, she had planned to serve as an altar attendant in one of the religious edifices back in Perispos, a role that demanded lifelong celibacy.

  With Rynna, everything felt different, but she was still out of my reach. She belonged to the fay dwelling, a place I could only visit, a place I could never call home. When we met, I drank the nectar from the trees in Wenryn to purge my body of the blight disease. Rynna warned me I would feel a desperate longing for the fay land. Now homesickness was not only a wistful pi
ning for distant shores and bygone days, but something far more profound; it was a soul-deep yearning for what could have been and would never be—a need to grasp everything wholesome and beautiful in this world yoked with an acute awareness that it was not mine to grasp.

  I shoved aside my melancholy thoughts as I reached the tasting table on the veranda. The cook delivered steaming samples of the menu I’d requested for the Realm Alliance gathering tomorrow. We would watch the sun setting over the sea as we dined—Fabian’s idea. The menu would be Erdemese, full of aromatic spices and earthy flavors—my idea.

  Nothing brought me more joy than hosting my friends. Business took precedence, but after our agenda, we would eat and laugh and speak candidly of our dreams for the realm’s future.

  Our guests didn’t usually tarry long. Even six months after the fall of the Moth King, there remained so much work to do. The elicromancers would materialize back to their homes after dessert. But that only made those moments with Valory, Glisette, and Mercer more precious.

  I lifted the lid to the turmeric cauliflower soup, but my appetite balked at the thought of telling the others about Rayed’s disconcerting letter. I believed in the work of the Realm Alliance. I believed we could make the benefits of magic accessible to the many instead of only the few, that we could restore balance. But a damaged relationship with Erdem, prominent ally, would present a challenge unlike any we had faced so far.

  A hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed one of the savory lentil cardamom pastries. I smiled up at Fabian. “Sometimes I think your true elicrin gift is sensing the exact moment a plate of food touches a table anywhere in the palace,” I teased.

  “It’s more of a skill I’ve developed,” he managed to say through a mouthful, pulling out the empty chair across from me. The sunlight shimmered like brushed gold over his black hair and reflected in his bright green elicrin stone.