Page 10 of Grave Flowers
Father was there, lit by sconced torches. I’d expected to find him in movement; he always paced. It made every place he was in, from throne rooms to ballrooms, seem like enclosures he wished to escape. I was shocked to find him standing still. The only movement he made was to pass his hand over his face, which was as weathered as an old potato. Seeing him so motionless stole my breath. He was very upset. It was the only explanation.
Abruptly, I turned away from the window and pressed my back against the door. I feared Father even when he was calm. What was I thinking? I couldn’t face Father after he’d learned devastating news. I wasn’t meant to be anything more than what I was: the weakest Sinet, the one who would always slip away to the garden when she could, seeking a freedom she’d never have.
I would go back to my chambers and figure out another way to help Inessa. Father would never know I’d been here.
Suddenly, the door, which I was leaning against, burst open. I tumbled to the ground. Father materialized over me. He clutched an object. It spit blinding mist at me.
“Father! Stop!” I lifted my hands. “It’s me.”
“Primeval pestilence, Madalina.” Father gaped at me. The contraption disappeared. Father’s clothing had as many secret pockets and harnesses as Inessa’s and my dresses. Only a bit of lingering mist indicated that the object existed. He pulled me to my feet. “I almost killed you.”
“What was that?”
“This?” The object reappeared from the depths of Father’s clothing, and he held it out for me to see. “It’s a weapon I bought from an Acusan peddler who got it from the Oscura.”
I peered at Father’s black market acquisition. Bright Crusan silver had been welded into a sphere with a silvery spout.
“Well …” I tried to collect myself, my heart skipping about like jarring music notes. “It’s very effective. It threw me off my guard.”
“No, it isn’t effective at all. The mist was supposed to kill.” He spoke flatly. “One of the servants has been following me too closely lately, and I thought it was him. What are you doing here?”
“I saw the envoy,” I said, feeling like I was venturing out onto a shaky limb, unsure if it would bear my weight or snap and send me tumbling to my death. “I was wondering why they came and figured you’d be here.”
“You? You desired to inquire about their presence?” Father stared down at me. I’d spent so much of my life avoiding his eyes that I still wasn’t certain what color they were. My imagination had long turned them into something they were not, seeing them as bloodred when his fury raged and black with no whites when deadly calm precluded an attack, whether with a weapon or words. I forced myself to meet his stare. Tonight, they seemed as clear as water lifted with your hands from a basin, nothing to see in them except your own reflection. “You’ve never been interested in the affairs of our court.”
My fear mounted. I couldn’t tell if it turned me hot or cold, only that it had the same intense sensation of both.
“I was worried they might bring ill news of Inessa, given the hour,” I said. “I’ve missed her.”
Father continued to stare at me. He crossed his arms, seemed dissatisfied with the posture, and planted them on his hips instead. Then he reached over my shoulder to shove the door shut. I jumped aside as he did.
Without any preamble, he said, “Inessa is dead.”
There was no need to act. My breath left my lips in a pitiful exhale. The confirmation was a barb, hooking around the life and sister I’d once had, tearing both away along with my own flesh. I realized the feeling went beyond metaphor. We’d shared skin at birth, webbed together. Who knew how precise the knife had been when it separated us? Perhaps I’d taken some of her flesh, and she, some of mine, and a tiny part of me had died with her.
“What happened?”
“She had a reaction to a flower berry native to Acus, one commonly eaten there. Apparently, no one has been affected by them before, but she was.” Father abruptly turned away, muscles bunching in his shoulders and neck. He’d lost not only a daughter but also the strongest piece in his political games. It was hard to know which upset him more. “Aid was given to her, but she was gone within thirty minutes. An accident, they say.”
I wiped my face, but there were no tears, only sea salt dragged down my cheeks by the wind. Inessa wouldn’t have wanted me to weep. She detested it more than anything. When I cried after our beloved cat, Orios, died, she’d slapped me. Then she’d thrown Orios’s blanket, bed, and toys off the highest parapet, where they’d disappeared into the sea below.
“Primeval pestilence,” Father said again, this time to himself. He often invoked the Primeval Family and accused them of taunting him. To his mind, they placed beautiful things just beyond his fingertips and nudged them away when he tried to grasp them, making him aking and a fool at once. Considering the ineptitude and indignity of his snail-infested halls and rage-inclined court, I thought he might be right. Inessa’s death, though, didn’t feel like a taunt; it felt like a punishment.
I tried to keep myself from shivering. I was here. I needed to act.
“Do you think it was an accident?” I asked, hoping to veer him to the correct conclusion so he might investigate it as a murder.
“My spy sent no warning,” Father said. He fiddled with the button on his robe and then tore it off entirely with a grunt of anger. Button in hand, he blinked at it, surprised to find it there. Impatiently, he stuffed it into one of his hidden pockets. “It took forever to get him in place. He might be compromised. I send him letters hidden in sundries. I’ll conceal moonrain in the next delivery and send a replacement spy … if I ever find another.” Few wished to engage in Radixan subterfuge at a foreign court, so spies were hard to come by. “Inessa’s death might have been a murder. But it also could be just as they say: an accident. The food there is different, and we have no prior exposure to it. An allergic reaction is not beyond belief.”
“If it was an assassination, do you have suspects in mind?” I pressed. “Maybe someone at the Acusan court who stands to lose much over the wedding? Or perhaps one of our own traveled there and killed her so we wouldn’t become a vassal?”
A single muscle flexed beneath Father’s eyebrow. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Abruptly, he turned and paced. His steps were light, and he moved fast, making it from one end of the space to the other in only a few seconds.
“How odd that you come to me,” he said, not addressing my question. “You are the princess of soil, the one who’d rather be digging in the garden than striving for the throne. The only intrigues you manage are the ones you must, in the ballroom.”
My face burned with the sting of his disapproval, even as my shoulder ached. It was Father who had thought I was naturally graceful as a child and might become useful overseeing courtiers at parties. Itwas he who hired a dance master, Rigby, and gave him full authority to train me as he saw fit. Train me Rigby had, running me through dances like a fine horse through its paces—and other times, like a workhorse meant to be driven to death.
“Now you are Radix’s only heir. Everything comes to one question: Do you have the will to rise and carry our kingdom into the future?”
