Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

  “Revenge?” Mathis asked, looping his arms around her waist and yanking her close. “Whatever for?”

  She did not adopt his playful, mischievous tone. “Your brother.”

  I bit my knuckles to hold back a gasp.

  “His brothers killed my brother, and the king killed them for it.” Mathis recounted this dismissively, as though it were old, boring news. “We’re more or less even, don’t you think? Please, spend the night in my room. The thought of you juicing an informant made me wildly jealous, and now I must have you.”

  Lucrez sighed. “After he goes to bed. It shouldn’t be long now. He’s had the strong spirits.”

  Mathis lifted her hand and kissed her palm as if to devour her flesh. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He left. I sat back on the floor to process their conversation. I had not been wrong to make the connection: the Uprising had murdered Clovis and Mauriette Lorenthi.

  Footsteps padded closer. My heart beat against the base of my throat, but the sound of skirts swishing and keys chiming told me it was only Lucrez. She had been the keeper of the keys today, unlocking my door only to allow an unfamiliar maid to collect my laundry and used dishes. I hadn’t seen the Nisseran maid since before noon, when she lit my fire.

  Lucrez paused outside. Then she inserted her key into the opening. Perhaps she thought she’d forgotten to lock it.

  But she turned it the wrong way. The click was succinct and unmistakable. She was intentionally unlocking it.

  When she swished away, I returned to peer through the keyhole. She went to her bedchamber across the corridor and walked directly to her nightstand. Very deliberately, she set her keys in the top drawer. She closed it and returned to shut her door, but the scrambled sequence made her intentions clear: she wanted me to see where she kept her keys.

  My mind turned like the tumbles of the locks that held me captive. Was this an invitation to steal the keys? She had called me an idiot for trying to run and said I wouldn’t earn my freedom that way. If I couldn’t escape with the guards and dogs prowling outside, what was the point of offering this to me?

  My elicrin stone.

  The cellar.

  The thought burned me up with excitement and hope, but fear consumed both. If Orturio caught me, the consequences would be dire. But I needed my elicrin stone to break free without getting torn apart by the dogs or freezing to death in the snow. I needed it to find Glisette and Princess Navara before the Uprising did.

  I didn’t believe an anti-elicromancer rebel who belonged to the same ruthless organization that murdered Glisette’s parents would spare Glisette if given the opportunity to kill her. And if Orturio knew that she had generated the storm, he would be even less inclined toward mercy. Under normal circumstances, Glisette could squash Lord Orturio like a beetle, but these didn’t seem like normal circumstances.

  I needed leverage. I needed strength. I needed my elicrin stone.

  But neither of the ordinary keys on Lucrez’s ribbon matched the distinct key Orturio had used to unlock the cellar door. The key I needed was enormous with unique swirl filigree.

  Think. Think. What does she expect you to do?

  One of her keys probably fit the exterior locks, permitting her to run errands like the one Orturio had given her tonight. If the other fit both her door and mine, it might be a master key for the interior locks. Except the one protecting Orturio’s underground trove of “liquid gold.”

  Orturio probably had the only key to the cellar. With the master key, I could sneak into Orturio’s chamber and steal it while he slept. The very notion made it hard to swallow.

  Panting, grumbling breaths heralded the men’s drunken journeys to their bedchambers. I quieted my own until I heard the last door slam.

  A few moments later, Lucrez left her chamber in a red nightdress. She didn’t lock it behind her.

  The only sound I could hear was blood rushing through my ears. Three times, I flinched to act and changed my mind. Then, finally, I stood, wincing at the pain in my bruised, swollen ankle. If I didn’t go now, I might never get another chance.

  Muffling the sound of the door latches with my sleeve, I limped directly to Lucrez’s nightstand and opened the drawer. Amid bottles of perfume and cosmetics, there they were: the keys tied to the red ribbon. I felt a rush of triumph, but I wasn’t even a quarter of the way to finding my elicrin stone and escaping.

  Light footsteps pattered through the hall, and I heard someone blowing out the lanterns. I hobbled back to my chamber and quietly shut the door. Clutching the keys to my chest, I sank onto my bed.

  I waited until everything fell still, and waited longer.

  Eventually, I mustered the courage to venture back across the corridor to make sure one of the keys worked in both my door and Lucrez’s. It did—the interior master key.

  Limping gingerly on the cold stone floor, I knelt to peer through keyholes into firelit rooms. If it weren’t for the chill, I doubted the fires would be blazing so brightly, aiding my search. I only had to look into two rooms before I recognized the bulky outline and wavy hair of Lord Orturio, asleep and heavily snoring. He had not even dressed for bed, instead shedding only his boots and outer layers.

  I extracted the master key and held my breath as it slid comfortably into the lock. Though I’d expected it, the muffled click almost made me leap out of my skin. I opened the door and slipped inside.

  The master’s bedchamber was decorated in deep purple and dark wood. Opaque curtains were draped around the bed and tied to the posts, giving me a bit of secrecy.

  I tiptoed to his nightstand and carefully slid the drawer open. There were pieces of parchment and an Agrimas prayer book, but no keys. Clenching my teeth, I closed the drawer and looked around.

  The silk-trimmed gray jerkin he’d worn this morning lay over a purple armchair at the far side of the bed. I tread lightly over the rugs and paused behind the bunched curtains of the canopy bed, feeling safe and hidden. Finally, I convinced myself to reach for the jerkin. I took a step out from my refuge and patted the right pocket. I felt the lumpy, hard shape of his key ring.

  Instead of extracting so many clanging bits of metal, I swiped the entire garment, but the other pocket gaped open. Two coins tumbled out and hit the rug with a muted clang.

  Orturio’s snore cut off. I jumped back behind the curtain with the garment.

  I heard the covers swish as Orturio stirred. The bed frame groaned with his shifting weight. I thought for sure I would see his thick legs toss over the edge. But a few beats later, the snoring resumed.

  After I snuck out and closed the door, I clenched the outline of the large cellar key through the fabric. One step closer to freedom.

  Tucking Lucrez’s keys in the empty pocket, I folded the jerkin over my arm and tiptoed downstairs to the dining room. It was empty, but embers blazed in the hearth grate. A bronze oil lamp sat on the mantel. I breathed the fire back to life just enough to light the lamp’s braided wick.

  My stocking-clad feet were numb by the time I limped to the studded door leading to the cellar. The largest key on the ring fit gloriously into place.

  The lamplight barely penetrated the cavernous dark of the stairway leading underground.

  I locked the door behind and me and doddered down. When I reached the dirt floor, I removed my socks and left the jerkin behind. Bare feet would be easier to wash without anyone noticing.

  Finally, I faced the darkness. A jolt of fear worked its way between my shoulders. I took a step, raising the lamp to search by its pitiful glow.

  What exactly was I looking for? A hidden door? A hollow barrel?

  Mathis’s appearance had distracted me from absorbing details yesterday, but I at least recalled the layout of the cellar. It was long and narrow, with two or three rows of vats and barrels on either side of the main aisle. On one end lengthwise, there was the table and the marble shrine. On the opposite wall, I remembered seeing a door large enough to accommodate the transfer of large equipme
nt.

  This door I found easily. It was barred from the inside with a heavy plank.

  I peered through the crack around the doorframe—how I tired of looking at the world through openings in walls and doors, wagons and ship cabins—and found an outer cellar flooded with moonlight. It contained a large mechanical winepress and a sorting table lined with buckets. But more importantly, it opened up to the outside on the far end, where two hound dogs sprawled on the ground, their ribs rising and falling in sleep.

  One of them lifted its head and stared in my direction.

  Breathless, motionless, I waited. It would but take a single loud bay to stir the household.

  The dog dropped its head, deciding there was no threat after all. I shuffled back from the door, tucking the knowledge of this potential escape route away.

  I crossed to the shrine at the other end of the cellar. I thought of my own hiding place for my elicrin stone back in Beyrian: inside my velvet-lined jewelry case, where my most valuable possessions resided alongside letters from people I loved, including an old one from my father that had browned and crinkled from the oil on my fingers. People tended to hoard their most sacred things in one place.

  Sacred.

  The glow of the lamp shuddered over the shrine with sculptures of the Holies, surrounded by carved foliage and woodland creatures. Placing the lamp on the table behind me, I ran my fingers over the minute artistic details of each deity.

  Which virtue did Orturio admire most? Loyalty, to his country and his faith. I tried to pull on Hestreclea and her dog like a lever, hoping she would reveal some kind of hidden compartment. When it didn’t work, I felt silly for trying.

  But there was something so purposeful about this shrine and its location in the house. Orturio spoke of the wine he created here like a besotted lover extolling his lady’s virtues.

  I traced my fingers over each statue, tugging and pushing and pressing. I very nearly laughed at myself. One chance to steal the key from the dozing giant to find my elicrin stone, and here I was prodding statues, squandering this dear opportunity.

  But when I pushed the Holy of Courage’s shield, I heard a little clink. Elated, I wedged my fingernail into a minuscule crack around the shield boss.

  It popped open like a lid. My mouth fell agape.

  A tiny keyhole stared at me.

  Elated, I clumsily searched on the ring for the smallest key and shoved it in. With a resounding clunk, the lock turned, and I dragged open the entire marble panel, which was surprisingly lightweight. It was a veneer for this secret wooden door.

  Even before I reached back for the lamp, I noticed glimmers of reflected light, as well as a faint, strange odor, nearly masked by overbearing amounts of rosemary and sage. When I slung the lamp around and lifted it high, I nearly gasped at all the treasures hidden in this secret cellar.

  There were gold statuettes, chests brimming with coins, and countless scrolls with jewel-encrusted rollers. This vault preserved a heritage whose keepers feared it might vanish to dust without their efforts.

  There were also enormous varying gems that could only be elicrin stones, still set in silver and gold medallions, once worn by elicromancers who had relinquished them or been murdered.

  If the Uprising was collecting masterless elicrin stones, clearly they understood the limits of Valory’s power: she could only give elicrin magic to mortals if there were elicrin stones to fill with gifts. The Water had dried up—there would be no new elicrin stones. If the Uprising bought and stole as many as possible and hid them, they could keep Valory’s power in check.

  It was a clever strategy, one Valory and the others would need to hear about as soon as I escaped with my elicrin stone, reunited with Glisette, and returned home.

  I lifted the lamp and limped into the room to look at the collection, deeply dismayed that mine didn’t seem to be among them. The others would be of no use to me.

  A viscid liquid squelching between my toes distracted me from my search. I lowered the lamp and saw what looked like congealed, dark blood that had seeped out from a barrel.

  The lamp nearly slipped from my fingers. I placed it on a shelf. Surely this was some wine-related substance—perhaps grapes pressed with their red skins still on. But the faint musky odor I’d noticed upon opening the door, which I detected again, begged to differ.

  I grabbed a wooden mallet sitting on the barrelhead and tapped lightly underneath the rim until I could pry it off.

  When I glimpsed the contents, my stomach lurched, and I tasted the medicinal tincture spilling back up my throat.

  It was the Nisseran maid—her corpse. Contorted and mangled to fit inside a wine barrel.

  My insides turned watery with horror, and I realized how very real the threat of death had been since our wagon rolled down the drive to this estate. Here I was, sneaking, stealing keys out from under Orturio’s nose as carelessly as if playing a game of hide-and-seek.

  Had Orturio learned that the maid had tried to help me? That I had attempted escape because of what she had confided to me? Would I be the next to face punishment?

  I felt the urge to undo everything, to lock this door and wipe the blood from my feet, return the keys—land of light, how stupid had I been?—and flee back to my bed and comply, comply, comply to save my life.

  A door on the upper level opened and closed. My heart felt like it might punch through my chest.

  I reset the lid on the barrel as securely as I could, picked up the lamp, and stepped outside the secret room. My hand shook as I reached to close the door, and I accidentally flung the keys onto the ground. They landed in blood. I cursed and scooped them up.

  I used my stockings to wipe blood from the keys first, then my bare feet. I whimpered in anticipation as I staggered up the stairs, slowed down by my injury. With every step, I expected to see a light shine through the crack under the door, a large shadow moving.

  Hoping the sound had been the mere stirring of a restless sleeper, I waited a few minutes before opening the cellar door. I limped to the dining room to replace the lamp on the mantel and traveled upstairs in the pitch dark, pausing outside Orturio’s chamber. Fear froze my hand on the latch, but the urge to be back in the safety of my private chamber was too compelling; I opened the door and hurried to replace the jerkin with the key ring safely in the pocket.

  At last I returned to Lucrez’s empty chamber to replace her keys. Afterward I perched on the edge of my bed, panting, my ears as keen as a fox’s.

  Wiping away a hot tear, I threw my bloody stockings into the fire.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  KADRI

  THE maid screamed in my feverish nightmares. My ankle throbbed, and the pain fused with the shadows and fire of my tormented dreams.

  I awoke coated with sweat. My ankle hurt even worse than it had in sleep. Slivers of dawn light pushed through thin cracks in the shutters.

  And someone was shouting.

  “I didn’t lie!”

  It was Lucrez.

  “You told me that the huntsman and his family had already fled when you arrived,” Orturio said.

  By his dangerous, unsteady tone, I guessed that the spirits from last night hadn’t quite worn off. “You said you broke in when no one answered and found the cottage empty. But I sent Viteus to catch anything you might have missed. Do you know what the neighbor said when Viteus questioned him this morning? He said that someone let you in and you stayed for several minutes.”

  “It’s not true!” Lucrez cried. “The neighbor knew he had to give Viteus something, or he’d kill him. So he made it up. Who wouldn’t?”

  “She didn’t go to get information from the huntsman,” Viteus spat. “She went to warn him we wanted it. She’s a traitor.”

  His declaration was followed by a hiss of pain and a clatter. He was hurting her.

  “Lucrez,” Orturio said, and his tone chilled me. “If you have betrayed me, I will let that boy of yours starve in the streets.”

  “No!” she shou
ted, pleading. “No, I never would. I know what is at stake. You are so generous with me and Sami. Viteus is too violent to make a good interrogator. People lie and tell him whatever will stop him from hurting them.”

  “That’s not all the neighbor told me, Orturio,” Viteus said, clearly relishing this.

  I heard a passionate tremor in his voice. Was it resentment? Envy? Did he long to bring Lucrez into his bed, and she denied him? Was he envious of their master’s favor?

  “He said he saw the huntsman bring two other young women into his home. One was blonde. She had a scar.”

  My pulse thrashed like drums of war. Glisette. Glisette had been in the huntsman’s village—the huntsman who had earned Ambrosine’s trust.

  The desire to escape nearly choked off my breath. These people did not deserve influence over their princess. The Uprising was twisted, violent, uncompromising.

  Stifling a moan of pain, I managed to climb out of bed and watch through the keyhole. Lucrez’s door was only partly ajar, but I could see her on the floor in the scarlet nightgown she had donned to meet Mathis, blood dribbling from the ink-dark line of her hair.

  “I’ve taken such good care of you,” Orturio growled. “Kept you from starving. Sent your boy off to learn and have a future. Do you realize your betrayal could cost the princess her life? She, who the Holies have ordained to lead my people back to the faith?”

  “Severo Segona told me the queen threatened to kill his family if he did not murder the princess,” Lucrez said.

  A name. Lucrez had mentioned the village, and now I had a name. Was it the huntsman’s?

  “That’s why they fled, not because I warned him about the Uprising,” she continued. “He saved the princess. He’s keeping her safe. Isn’t that enough reason to spare him?”

  “This is not your first act of duplicity, is it?” Orturio asked, ignoring her. “It’s not the first time I’ve sensed you sneaking about. But last night, you were careless. You let the huntsman’s neighbor see you, and I found blood dried on my keys. Did you take them while I slept?”