Bloodleaf Read online

  He was an Achlevan.

   2

  Mother peered behind Kellan. “You weren’t followed?”

  “No.”

  “The guards on the grounds?”

  “Dismissed. We have perhaps an hour before the new guards come to replace them.”

  “The room guards?”

  “Taken care of.”

  Mother introduced the elegant stranger. “Aurelia, this is Lord Simon Silvis. Brother-in-law to Domhnall, king of Achleva, and uncle to Valentin, prince of Achleva. Welcome, Lord Simon, our honored guest.” She kissed him on each cheek.

  Startled into shyness, I averted my eyes, suddenly fascinated with the tiny glass grapes and silken leaves at the foot of a nearby candelabra.

  “Hello, Aurelia,” he began, “so glad to meet you again.”

  “Again?”

  “You were a baby the last time. Still quite small. I barely even got a look at you, though, as your mother wouldn’t let you out of her arms, not for anything.”

  “Things have changed since then, I’m afraid. Now she can’t wait to see me off and away.”

  “And who can blame me?” Mother scowled. “I’ve asked Simon to be your escort into Achleva. He knows the best route for travel. He will take you across the wall and—​finally—​to Valentin’s side.”

  At the mention of my future husband’s name, I lowered my eyes. About Valentin I knew precious little outside of the handful of stilted, stuffy letters we were forced to exchange when we were still children.

  Simon said, “You’re nervous about it, aren’t you? The marriage.”

  The questions came out of my mouth in a torrent. “Is he really sick? Bedridden and half-blind? Did his mother lose her mind trying to care for him?” I tried to reel the words back in. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m being insensitive.”

  If the bluntness of my questions ruffled him, it didn’t show. “I know the prince very well,” he said carefully. “I’ve known him his whole life. I hold him in high regard, the same as if he were my own son. Valentin has not had an easy life, to be sure. But he’s an honorable, determined person. His infirmities are hardly noticeable when compared with the scope of his character. He will make a good husband for you, and someday a good king.”

  “Then he is not ill? Not mad like his mother?”

  A shadow crossed his expression. “My sister had a difficult life and she left us too soon, but she wasn’t mad. Let me assure you, her son is a worthy soul. And these anxieties you have . . . don’t be surprised to find that he shares them. It may be that you have more in common than you think.”

  My doubts were not assuaged. “Yes, of course. I can only imagine what they say in Achleva about me.”

  “They hardly know anything about you except your name and that you will be their queen.”

  “They don’t think that I’m a witch?”

  “A witch?” His face blanched. “Your Renaltan superstition . . . claiming to worship the Empyrea and yet damning anyone with gifts that could only ever have been given by that Divine Spirit.”

  “‘The arcane, polluted power of witches, who use animalistic rituals and blood sacrifice to commune with the dead, is in direct conflict with the Divine Light of the Empyrea,’” I recited.

  Simon gazed at me for a long moment. “That came straight from a page of your Founder’s Book of Commands, didn’t it?”

  “It’s the truth.” Even as I said it, I hoped I was wrong. I’d sullied my hands with enough blood and magic that if it were true, I was already certain to be damned.

  He took a seat beside me and leaned forward in earnestness. “No. No, the truth is that there is power in our world and it has many forms and many faces but no designation of good or evil outside of the intent of the person wielding it. Look at me. Do I look evil to you? Because I am a practitioner of blood magic.”

  My eyes darted to his palm, where it was easy to see the scars crisscrossing it.

  “Enough of this,” Mother said. “We haven’t time for lessons or arguments right now. Thank you for coming, Simon. I know you must be confused by this furtive meeting when you deserve a royal welcome, but I saw a rare window of opportunity and hoped we could use it to make good on the offer you extended us all those years ago. Do you know of what I speak?”

  “I remember the offer.” Simon was grave. “And it still stands. But things have changed quite a lot in seventeen years, Majesty. I was younger and stronger. As were you. And your husband was still alive. We need three willing participants. Myself and two more.”

  “I would be one, and Onal has agreed to be the other.”

  “Agreed to what?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother wants me to work a spell on your behalf,” Simon said, “One that, while not guaranteeing your safety, would ensure you a better chance of long-term survival.”

  “We have an hour,” Mother said. “Is that enough time?”

  “It should be.”

  “You can’t be serious. Spellcasting? Even just talking about it is dangerous,” I said. “If word got out, it could get you—​all of you—​killed. The Tribunal—​”

  “Doesn’t know.” Onal lifted her chin to peer at me from beneath her spectacles. “Nobody knows about this except the people in this room. Of all of us, you should be the last to take issue with the use of a little witchcraft.”

  I chewed my lips. Everything I’d ever done, I’d done alone. The consequences if I were caught would be mine and only mine. “It isn’t worth it,” I said. “Not for one person.” Not for me.

  “I need a piece of cloth,” Simon said. “Something that is tied to Aurelia. Do you have a kerchief, my lady? A scarf ?”

  “Can you use this?” Mother went to her desk and pulled out a square of silk, bordered on one side with a silver, embroidered vine. It was fabric from the cuff of my wedding dress. With a guilty pang, I realized she must have taken it apart after the hundredth time I’d told her I hated it.

  “That will do.” He spread the fabric out in front of him and slowly began tracing a pattern across it with his finger.

  My curiosity got the best of me, and I sat down next to him at the table. “What kind of a spell is this?”

  “It’s a binding spell,” he said, continuing the pattern. “A spell to connect our three lives—​Queen Genevieve’s, Onal’s, and mine—​to yours.” His golden eyes were solemn. “After it is complete, our lives will shield yours.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It means,” Mother said, “that you cannot die until we also have died.”

  Kellan was taking short, impatient strides across the room. He probably hated this; he had no love for superstition. Kellan didn’t believe I was a witch. He didn’t believe in witches at all. He was solid and practical, possessing a deep trust in the things he could see and touch but naught else. So it surprised me greatly when he burst out, “Can there not be a fourth? If this spell puts lives before the princess’s, would it not be even better protection to add one more?”

  “Only three,” Simon said. “Three is a sacred number; the only way to strengthen it would be to add multiples of three. Six, or even better, nine. Are there more out there we’d be willing to trust with this secret? Who’d tie their lives to Aurelia’s?”

  “No,” Kellan said, looking at me. “There’s nobody else.” It was true, but it hurt to hear him say it. He considered me for a moment before continuing, “But I am strong, and I know Aurelia. It is my job to protect her. Couldn’t I take your place in the spell?”

  “I follow a very strict set of rules when I practice magic. I must be a part of the spell; drawing blood from others is permissible only with willing participants and when the executor of the spell shares the bloodletting. Were it not for that, I would let you take my place.” He was thoughtful. “But as you said, you are young and strong.”

  “Onal already has many years behind her—​”

  “Are you calling me old, Lieutenant?” Onal
asked shrewdly, drumming her long, brown fingers against her weathered cheek. “I may not have as many years ahead of me, young man, but I don’t live a dangerous life. I may live a hundred years; you may die in combat tomorrow.”

  “Kellan,” I added reluctantly, “you don’t even believe in these things. In spells and witchcraft.”

  “He doesn’t have to believe,” Simon said. “The magic exists whether he believes in it or not.”

  “I don’t believe,” Kellan said, “but I want to do it. For you.”

  “So sentimental,” Onal snapped. “Fine. You can have my place. Not as if I wanted to die for Aurelia anyway.”

  “Die for me?” It was such a ridiculous notion, I almost laughed. “No, no . . . Simon didn’t say that. He just said you’d die before me. So as long as you are all alive, so will I be, too . . .” I trailed off, marking their solemn expressions with growing dismay.

  Simon said gently, “If we do this spell and you are at any time injured to the point of death, one of us will die in your place and their drop of blood will fade from the cloth, until we are all gone.”

  My chest began to constrict. “I don’t want you—​any of you—​to die in my place. My life isn’t worth all three of yours. And why do we have to keep this treaty anyhow? It’s been two hundred years. Nobody cares anymore.”

  Mother spoke first. “Fulfillment of the treaty is the only way to get you to Achleva.”

  “Renalt is my home. My people—​”

  “Want to kill you,” Mother finished.

  “They wouldn’t,” I argued, a bitter taste on my tongue, “were it not for the Tribunal.”

  We’d had this discussion many times before, but never to any avail. To my mother, the Tribunal simply was; implying that it could be dismantled was like calling for the sky to be pulled down from the heavens, or begging for the dispersion of all the water in the oceans. It could not be done.

  “Achleva needs you, too, Princess,” Simon said. “There are many forces at work against the monarchy. Domhnall may be petulant and prideful, but we have to keep him on the throne until the prince can inherit. For now, we at least have a tentative balance. But I’m afraid that if Renalt reneged on the treaty now, there would be little to keep the steward lords from making plays for the crown at the expense of people’s lives.”

  “You’ll be safe in Achleva,” Mother said. “We just have to get you there.”

  Simon beckoned. “Give me your hand.”

  I reluctantly removed my gloves and placed my upturned palm in his. He paused, taking in the sprinkling of thin, white scars that crisscrossed it, before drawing a new line with his knife. As the blood began to well up from the cut, he put the bowl beneath my hand to catch it.

  “Now repeat what I tell you, word for word. ‘My blood, freely given.’ Say it.”

  “I thought blood magic doesn’t require incantations.” I swallowed. “I mean . . . that’s what I’ve heard.” Stupid.

  He gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrow raised. “Is that so?”

  I shrugged. “A rumor, I guess.” To cover, I added, “My blood, freely given.”

  “Good.” He held a bandage against my palm, to stanch the flow. “We’ll fix it up better once we’re done. This will have to do for now.”

  He placed the knife in my hands and folded my fingers over it. Then he reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a velvet purse. He tugged at the drawstrings, and three clear, strangely cut stones tumbled into his palm. “These stones are called luneocite.” He held them out for me to see, but I already knew what they were. The Tribunal called them spirit stones. To be caught in possession of them was the same as a direct confession of witchcraft—​probably the quickest way to earn yourself a rope necklace for the next spectacle in the square.

  He placed the stones in a large triangle in the center of the room, and the air felt suddenly charged, like the atmosphere of a lightning storm. Simon placed a bowl in my other hand and then guided me into the center of the stones. As I stepped over them, they gave off a momentary flash of blue-white and then dimmed back down. Lights were darting in front of my eyes, and my ears were buzzing, the silver knife and bowl growing warm in my hands. “Luneocite is rare and precious, and can only be found in seams beneath the ley lines—​the paths the Empyrea traveled when she descended from heaven to journey across the earth. Luneocite is, in many ways, the crystalized remnants of her power. We use it like a prism, to enhance our spell, and as a boundary, to contain the magic within our designated parameters.”

  He stood at one of the luneocite points of the triangle, and my mother and Kellan took their places at the others. The buzz in my ears became a breathy hum—​almost like a distant whisper.

  “Go to each of us in turn. Draw some blood from our palms and drip it into the bowl, just the same as I did for you.” Speaking to Mother and Kellan, he said, “As she does this, you must say, word for word, ‘My blood, freely given.’”

  We all nodded in assent, and I took two steps toward my mother. She calmly opened her palm, not even wincing as I drew the knife across it. As her blood dripped into the bowl, mingling with mine, she said, “My blood, freely given.”

  The whispering whir in my ears grew louder as I moved to Simon. He held out his long fingers, and I made the cut. “My blood, freely given,” he said with determination.

  I faltered on my way to Kellan. There were lights zigzagging across my eyes, colliding and converging into vague shapes.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said.

  “We’re toeing the border between the material and spectral planes,” Simon said. “There might be some discomfort. Push through it.”

  I took the final steps to face Kellan. He held my gaze, and focusing on his face allowed me to ignore the feathery, hissing voices that no one seemed to notice but me. The sound carried with it a cold foreboding that made my hands shake. Aurelia. I heard my name in the hum. Aurelia . . .

  “Aurelia.” Kellan held out his palm, and my knife hovered above it. “It’s all right,” he said. “Do it.”

  “No,” I said, lowering the knife. As I did, the sounds faded. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “We need to finish this!” Mother cried. “We need to—​”

  “It’s too late,” Kellan said, leaving me to look out the window. “The guards are already returning. Our time is up.”

  “Get her out of here,” Onal barked, “so we can clean this up before someone comes and sees it. My neck is too delicate for a rope.”

  “Act as if nothing has happened,” Mother directed. “There’s a banquet tonight to welcome Simon to our kingdom; you will attend, Aurelia, but only after you’ve spent a good long while in the sanctorium considering your improprieties. We need people to see you in humble worship. We need to let them witness your devotion to the Empyrea. To see you being normal.”

  “So pretend,” Onal sniped, smiling.

  I couldn’t even muster a decent glare at her as Kellan led me away.

   3

  While the rest of the castle was preparing a feast for our royal visitor, I adjourned to the alcove where the royal family went to worship in elegant seclusion. Indeed, it seemed that while the Empyrea demanded humility and simplicity from her worshipers, her own tastes ran more toward the lavish and opulent. The sanctorium was draped in silk and satin, trimmed with gold, and lined on each side with tufted velvet chairs. Polished marble columns rose to a concave ceiling painted to look like the night sky, with smiling cherubs flitting merrily among the constellations as dark, devilish figures stalked them from below. The painting was supposed to represent our human impulses, the righteous ones above and the immoral ones below, but I always thought it misrepresented the truth of things: Sins were welcoming and charming, like the cherubs. And with their bared teeth and hungry eyes, the devils looked alarmingly like the fervid mobs that frequented Tribunal rallies.

  I was far more afraid of those who hated sinners than I ever was of sin.

  Afte
r letting the door close tight behind me, I turned the lock and lifted the brocade curtain to the inner sanctuary, where a hundred white candles glimmered from golden candlesticks. I lit one of my own and placed it beside the altar. I knelt, murmured a hasty apology for the desecration I was about to commit, and then shoved the marble altar stone aside. With the interior of the altar exposed to the air, I gathered the first layer of my skirts to access the pocket tucked among my petticoats and removed the small spell book I had hidden there. It was meant to be used in a trade with Mabel Doyle, but I guessed I’d be keeping it now.

  I paused guiltily, hand on the cover. I should have realized something was wrong that morning when Mabel didn’t meet me for our usual monthly exchange of witchcraft lore. I’d waited for ages outside her bookshop before leaving in frustration, not knowing that I’d be watching her hang beneath the clock tower less than an hour later. We weren’t that well acquainted; because of the illicit nature of our dealings, we kept our interactions to a minimum. I never knew she had a family, or that she’d lost them. But looking at the books she’d traded with me in the last few months—​spirit possession, necromancy, communication with the dead—​I wondered how I’d missed it.

  “Clever,” said a voice from the shadows beside me. “Blasphemous and a bit impertinent, but clever.”

  “Blood of the Founder,” I swore as I jumped back from the altar, nearly toppling a candelabra. “How did you get in here? I locked that door. I swear I did.”

  Simon gave a soft chuckle and lifted his hand to show a droplet of blood on the tip of his finger. “One of the first spells I ever learned: how to go unnoticed, even when you’re standing right in front of someone. I draw the blood and then use a recitation to focus the magic. Ego invisibilia. I am unseen. I followed you pretty easily. So, just how long have you been using your time in confessional to study”—​he reached into the altar and grabbed the nearest volume—​“‘a blood mage’s foolproof method to ensure a successful soybean yield’?” He clicked his tongue. “I hope you didn’t waste any blood on this one. It is likely a fake. Blood magic doesn’t heal or grow things.”