Bloodleaf Page 4

  “You’re not wearing black,” he observed. “I didn’t know you owned dresses of other colors.”

  “I don’t always wear black.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I think I saw you in gray once.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should smile or glower at him, but I didn’t have to choose. He took his place behind my chair, back to being a guard now that we were in full view of the waiting guests. Formality was something he could take on and off like a mask: one moment he was the heart-strong boy who’d laughingly taught me to ride when I was fourteen and friendless; the next he was the stern and practical knight, in whom I could entrust my safety but never my secrets. I loved the first one—​in a discreet and delicate way, known only to myself—​but I was thankful for the second. Seeing him so distant, so rigidly severe, made it feel like maybe I wouldn’t be losing as much.

  “All rise for Queen Genevieve and Prince Conrad.” A ripple went across the room as everyone scrambled from their chairs to pay respect to the entering queen and crown prince. Conrad had his arm linked with Mother’s, leading her with a dignified tip of his chin, though he was only half her height. He’d never enjoyed the spotlight, preferring books to banquets and arithmetic problems to people, but his posture was proper and steady—​he’d been practicing, I could tell. He was even smiling a little. Now only months away from his seventh birthday, he looked like a small copy of our father with his golden hair and blue, blue eyes. At least, he did until he saw me and his smile wavered and disappeared. He gave me a polite nod.

  We used to have a game in which I’d tie a colored ribbon someplace he would see it—​on a door handle, or the branch of a tree, or a staircase spindle—​which meant that somewhere nearby I’d hidden a prize or a treat. The color of the ribbon told him where to look: yellow for up, blue for down, red for north, green for south, purple for east, orange for west. Black meant it was within ten paces and hidden from view, white meant it was within twenty paces and in plain sight. When he found his prize, he’d hide one for me using the same rules. It was an excuse for me to spoil him, really. I showered him with candies and riddle books and little toys I had to sneak out to the market­place to purchase. When his hands were busy, he found it easier to focus during lessons and lengthy state functions, so I got him puzzle boxes, tiny gyro spinners, a ring that concealed a small compass, and—​my favorite—​a walnut-size figurine made of metal and magnets, with parts that could be twisted and rearranged into the shape of a half dozen different animals.

  It was our own secret pastime, and I reveled in it. While it lasted.

  But it was inevitable that Conrad would eventually cross paths with the whispers about me. It was clear that somewhere in the last months he had heard the rumors, understood them, and begun to believe them. He didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that distrust soured into something worse. I could hardly bear it, and so I coped the only way I knew how: I avoided him.

  After my mother and brother were seated, the rest of us followed, and soon servants were scurrying around us, filling goblets and lighting candles. The seat to my left was unoccupied; it was my father’s chair, and would remain empty until Conrad ascended the throne. The seat to my right was where the toothless, doddering marchioness of Hallet usually sat, too senile to speak to me (or complain about me). But the marchioness was not in attendance; her seat was instead occupied by a man in an austere black Tribunal coat.

  “You look lovely, Princess,” Toris said. “That color suits you.”

  “Thank you, Toris,” I said through a tight smile.

  He absently straightened the place setting, his rings—​of which there were five on each hand, one for each finger—​glinting. Mother said he’d been an academic once, a man with an unquenchable curiosity for history, who’d traveled far and wide collecting myths and artifacts, who had won her cousin Camilla’s love with his humor and wit. Losing his wife changed him, Mother said. But I remembered Camilla well; she was sweet and kind and lovely as a summer’s day. The Toris of my memory was exactly as detestable as the one currently straightening the silverware into precise and even parallels. If ever there had been a different version of this man, it was gone before I was old enough to recall it, long before Camilla died.

  When the seafood fork was exactly one inch from the soup spoon, he said offhandedly, “I saw you this morning, dear Princess, somewhere you shouldn’t have been.” He leaned forward on his arms and turned a stare on me. “You’re getting rather reckless, don’t you think? You’d do well to be more careful.”

  “I already heard this lecture from my mother.”

  “You should listen to her. A great woman, your mother.”

  I felt my lip curl. In the eight months between Camilla’s and my father’s deaths and my brother’s birth, Toris insinuated himself into my mother’s circle. Weren’t they both grieving spouses? But everyone knew there was more to it than that; because Renalt’s crown could only be passed to a male inheritor, our position would have become instantly precarious if the baby was a girl. To remain in power, Mother would be forced to marry, and marry quickly. Toris was the logical choice. Everyone said so.

  I was thankful every day that Conrad turned out to be a boy. With a son to inherit, there was no need for Mother to marry; indeed, doing so might weaken Conrad’s royal claim. Conrad’s birth saved me from a lifetime with Toris as stepfather. Or king. I didn’t know which one would have been worse.

  Toris was looking at me with his most concerned, paternal expression. “Because of my position inside the Tribunal, I have been able, at your mother’s behest, to steer them away from you on more than one occasion. Now that these last two cases, Mabel Doyle and the other—​Harriet, I think it was?—​have been resolved, I’ve little doubt I’ll have to concert my efforts on your behalf once more.”

  “Hilda,” I murmured. “Her name was Hilda.”

  “Why would you remember her name?” He looked down his narrow nose at me. “That is exactly the kind of thing that makes people wary of you. Your sympathies are suspect. Be warned, it’s only a matter of time before I run out of Hildas to distract them with.” A smile crept across his face. He’d convicted a woman who was almost certainly innocent, and he wanted me to be thankful that he’d done it, and would do it again. I gripped the stem of my goblet so tight, my fingernails bit into my skin. Hilda would haunt her daughter-in-law, but I shared the blame in her death.

  “Lisette arrived today and should be along shortly,” Toris said, cheerily changing the subject. Quietly, so Kellan couldn’t hear, he said, “She has been so very anxious to see Lieutenant Greythorne again. She has a particular fondness for him, I’m told.”

  It was a special talent he had, to send a needle straight into my heart through the tiniest flaw in my armor. It wasn’t that Lisette cared for Kellan that way—​I sincerely doubted she did—​but that Toris knew I did. I took a breath. Well, I now knew a few of the chinks in his armor, too.

  “I thought that maybe, now that you’re letting Achlevan ships into your port, she might set her sights on a nice, burly Achlevan sailor. You’d make a fine grandfather to a whole brood of sturdy Achlevan pups.”

  “Aren’t you a wonder?” he asked, eyes narrowing into half-moons while the smile remained frozen on his face. “Not afraid of anything, are you?”

  I’m afraid of marrying the sickly prince of Achleva. I’m afraid of never seeing my mother or brother again. I’m afraid of the Tribunal. I’m afraid that Kellan protects me only out of duty. I’m afraid of the ghosts that lie around every corner. I’m afraid that someday soon I’ll be joining them in the hereafter. I took another drink. “Not anything.”

  He brushed his suit coat and leaned back. “You should be. The wolves howl, Aurelia, and there may come a time when I will no longer be able to hold them back.”

  An oily little smile played on his lips, making it clear that he was looking forward to it.

   5

  I
stared at him, but his malicious smile had already been smoothed away. Toris stood and straightened his coat. “Looks like my daughter has just arrived. Good evening, Princess.”

  Lisette de Lena was at the top of the staircase, decked in a crimson gown that set off the rosy glow of her cheeks. Her hair gleamed gold in the lamplight. When we were children, people used to remark how alike we looked, though I always knew such comments were more for my benefit than for hers. If a painting of Lisette was left out in the elements for a few weeks, it might fade into something that looked a bit like me.

  We were best friends, once.

  She paused at my brother’s chair to furtively slip him a piece of chocolate, rewarding his eager smile with a stealthy wink before moving in my direction.

  “Your Highness.” She addressed me coolly as she approached. “And Lieutenant Greythorne,” she added, holding out a gloved hand, “always a pleasure.”

  Kellan gave a quick bow. “My lady.” I gave a slight tip of my head. It was all the politeness I could muster.

  A twitch of her lip was the only slip in her composure. “Well, good to see you both,” she said sweetly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go say hello to Duke Northam. His poor, dear wife, Agnes, just lost her father, and I need to find out if she received the flowers I sent.”

  I’d already stopped listening. Simon had entered and was being seated in a place of honor on the other side of my mother, beside my brother.

  Had I made a mistake, letting Toris know I was aware of his dealings with Achleva? The wolves howl, Aurelia, Toris had said. And there may come a time when I will no longer be able to hold them back.

  Who were the wolves? The Tribunal? The townsfolk who thought I was a witch? The ones who hated me simply because they didn’t want our country to be united with Achleva? Enemies were all around me, living and dead. I didn’t want to die—​I still had too much to do. An idea began to form in the back of my mind, a sort of contingency plan should things take a turn for the worse.

  “Excuse me, Princess, your glass—​”

  A young man in servant’s livery was standing over me with a jug of wine. I jumped at the sound of his voice, knocking my goblet right out of his hands. Red liquid splashed across my bodice and into my lap.

  “So sorry, my lady,” the young man mumbled, trying to dab at the spreading stain with his cloth.

  “No, no, don’t worry,” I said, shoving his cloth back into his hands as I rose. “I’ll just . . . I’ll just . . .”

  People were staring at me now. Kellan, my mother, Conrad. And from the other side of the hall, Toris.

  “Princess,” Kellan said, taking a step closer. “Do you need assistance?”

  Mother had risen, and she rushed over, taking me by the arm. “If this is acting normal, it needs improvement,” she said in a harsh whisper.

  “This was the work of a clumsy serving boy,” I said coldly and quietly, “not some plot I hatched to get out of dinner.”

  “Go change your clothes and come right back,” Mother ordered. “You’re making quite a spectacle of yourself.”

  Kellan came up behind me. “Would you like me to escort you—​”

  “No,” I snapped. Then, with my chin up, I marched across the banquet hall and out the other side in my red-stained green satin. Even the gentleman-ghost of the stairs dared not cross me, for he retreated into the shadows as I passed.

  Alone in the hall, I made a rash decision. If I wanted to take my well-being into my own hands, this might be the only chance I’d get. So instead of turning toward my room, I went the other way and followed the darkened corridor until I came to the large oaken door of Onal’s stillroom. I took a pin from my hair and jammed it into the lock until it clicked and the door gave way easily.

  It had been years since I’d been inside this room, concocting healings and potions under Onal’s watchful eye so that my father and I could deliver them to the poorest corners of the city. “We do not rule,” he’d say. “We serve. Renaltans do not swear fealty to us; we swear it to them.” It wasn’t just words, either; that’s how he treated them, and they loved him for it. Somehow he’d get the sickest, the hungriest, the most destitute among them to laugh at his jokes, to tell us their stories, to let us sit at their tables. He was teaching me to love them, but he was trying to show them they could love me, too. The kingdom was supposed to pass from father to son, but as far as he knew, I might be his only child, and it would fall to me and my Achlevan husband to rule both kingdoms together.

  Asking Renalt to accept an Achlevan king . . . to live under a joint Renalt-Achlevan banner . . . Father knew that such a feat could be accomplished only if I had earned the people’s respect and loyalty.

  I thought, for a long time, that I had.

  Nothing in Onal’s stillroom had changed since then, really. The chamber was lined on every side with shelves of many-colored bottles and jars, all herbal tonics and remedies distilled by Onal’s own hand. The little rhymes I’d created to help me remember the names and uses of each herb were running through my head. Cocklebur is the cure for winter colds and shivers. Bluebell stops the swell of headaches, fits and fevers . . .

  I lit one of the worktable lamps and tried to shake the irritating snippets of rhyme away. They were a punishment then, and they were a punishment now. That was the requirement: I was allowed in Onal’s special rooms with all their mysterious bric-a-brac if I learned the name and use of each herb in her store. And there were hundreds. I never made it through all of my lessons, though; Father’s death changed everything. I tried to carry on as he did, but I was young and heart-sore; I didn’t last long without him. After the hundredth time a door was slammed in my face with the accusation of witch behind it, I gave up altogether.

  Despite the passage of time, most of the items on the shelves were recognizable. Feverfew could be used as a tincture for bruises or an infusion for the treatment of swollen joints in the elderly. Witch hazel for bowel complaints. Primrose for muscular rheumatism. White willow bark: useful as a tonic for the convalescent, to help them gain strength. Water soldier, for healing wounds. Each one was familiar, unmoved from its place on the shelves, bottles and vials all arranged in straight, single rows.

  The worktable was crowded with glass alembics and copper retorts, bottles and beakers and flasks of all sizes, looming in the dark as if in a cursed cathedral. I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart as I ran my hands underneath the table. Aha! There it was. The key.

  Onal always accused me of being absent-minded, head in the clouds. I’m sure she never realized how closely I’d watched her during those days spent in her tutelage. When she didn’t think I was paying attention, she’d take this little key to the back wall of the room, move aside the bottles and jars on the third shelf from the top, and then fit the key into the tiny slot in the wall behind them. I repeated each step, and as I turned the key, the panel gave way. Behind it was a small metal box.

  I removed the box from the wall, brought it to the table, and lifted the hasp. Inside was a carefully carved wooden block with three thimble-size cutouts. The first two were empty, but the third held a miniature glass capsule and, inside the capsule, a treasure. It wasn’t hard to make out, even through the distortion of its glass-and-water encasement. A petal of pure white, shaped like an arrow or a spindly heart, no bigger than my thumbnail. A petal from a bloodleaf flower.

  Most in our land knew of bloodleaf—​the vile poison that only grows on old battlefields or other soil upon which blood has been spilt—​but no one ever spoke of the bloom. I’d seen mentions of it in only a few of my altar books. A magical flower. A miracle cure. Said to be able to heal nearly any wound, stave off any fever—​but bloodleaf bloomed only when blood was shed a second time and spread across those thirsty, loathsome leaves. Which meant that for every one life saved by bloodleaf flower, two have already been lost.

  The number of murders in our country, one of the books said, was cut in half when possession of the blood
leaf flower became illegal and retribution for being caught with it was swift and severe, usually involving the separation of one’s head from one’s neck.

  But that book was printed long ago, and no one ever spoke of the bloodleaf flower anymore. Still, I understood why Onal kept this locked away behind a hidden panel in the farthest corner of her stillroom floor.

  There used to be two capsules, I remembered, touching the second empty space before gingerly removing the last one and holding it up in the dim light. That second one disappeared the night they brought my father’s body home in a casket. Onal must have used it to try to save him, but she should have known better. All the accounts agreed: bloodleaf flower cannot bring someone back from the dead.

  It’s wrong to steal, I thought as I traced the shape of the petal through the glass. But it was wrong for Onal to have this in her possession, and she didn’t have people desiring to examine the underside of her skin. Without Simon’s blood ritual, this would have to be my safety. And at least this way no one had to die in my stead.

  I pocketed the capsule and returned the empty box to its spot behind the third shelf. I had just moved the bottles back into place when I felt a gust of cold air. I turned to see the window above the table bang against its frame. Had it been open when I came in?

  Shivering, I picked up the lamp from the desk and went to pull the window shut, snapping the latch down to keep it secure. The breeze was gone but the cold remained. And something else—​the faint smell of wild roses.

  Prickling apprehension gathered at the base of my neck and crawled across my back and down my spine. I tried to swallow but my mouth had gone dry. Fear collected in my throat like sand. My gaze slid down to the table in front of me, where a string of colored gems dimly gleamed from their fantastical settings: emeralds burning in the belly of a twisting dragon, topaz winking from the feral eyes of a gryphon, sapphires studding a mermaid’s tail, garnets and rubies glinting along the feathers of a carnelian-eyed firebird’s wings, diamonds encrusting the flanks of an opal-winged horse, the Empyrea.