Page 4 of Grave Flowers
If it wouldn’t cause an uproar, Father would have had her smashed to smithereens. He hated having a statue of the Daughter and how Radix’s divine gifting was grave flowers, a long-ago mythology that followed us no matter how much time elapsed between us and the old stories. He would’ve much preferred the gift of our enemy to the north, Crus. Metalwork. According to the myths, they were supposed to use their forages for chalices, sensors, and sacred emblems, but they primarily used them for stocking their armories. That was the thing about the divine gifts: most could be used so well as weapons.
Though no other giftings were quite so … alive. Our grave flowers prowled about with minds of their own. Supposedly, combined withthe right invocations from the holy writ handed down long ago, the grave flowers could be very powerful. But the invocations had been lost, and even if they hadn’t been, the generally accepted wisdom was that using them would cause your own destruction and put you in a grave. Hence the grim name.
Leaving the irrigation system running, I made my way over to a bench. My gardening supplies sat by it in a basket. I loved gardening and sinking my hands deep into the soil until it coated them like regrown skin. But I didn’t pick up the basket today. Instead, I took a wedding invitation out of my pocket.
It had come into my possession only this morning, and it was odiously beautiful.
One of the beauties drew close. I tried to hide the invitation, but it was too late. Immediately, the beauties turned inward to each other, shaking with envy.
“Oh, come on, now,” I cajoled. “It isn’t that pretty.” I glanced at it again. “Fine, I confess, it’s very pretty.”
The formal invitation had been sent to Father, but he’d handed it off to me. It was particularly elaborate since it had been made for us, the royal family. Embroidery formed a tapestry across the letter’s surface, noting the wedding details. Acus’s gifting was vestures, and it was said their pens were sewing needles and their ink was thread.
Looking at the invitation, you’d never know that their monarch, King Claudius, had died only a month ago in his garden and had been buried for no more than a week before his widowed queen married his brother, Prince Lambert. Radix loved gossip more than anything and had been feasting off the morsel. Then the betrothal and vassal plans were announced.
The fun and frivolous gossip had ceased.
“Acus isn’t as perfect as it seems—only you are,” I cooed to the beauties. They persisted in ignoring me. “But don’t worry. I would never leave you. Ever.”
Acusan wedding invitations often had portraits painted onto them, enhanced with their embroidery thread. But Radixans, steeped as we were in lore and superstitions, were forbidden from having portraits painted, so there were only names.
The writing across the top announced our soon-to-be overlord:His Royal Highness, Reigning Sovereign Aeric Capelian, Ruler Prevailing of Acus.
Next to it, Inessa’s name twisted across the invitation. I still couldn’t fathom it. How could Father give up our freedom? To make matters worse, he’d been tucked away within the palace’s secret passageways, inaccessible to any who might question him. And, perhaps, any who might resort to more drastic measures to force a change of heart, such as stabbing it through.
I turned the invitation facedown. The beauties nodded approvingly. I wished to forget it all. To simply lose myself in the garden until I became a statue overgrown with vines. But while the Sinet way was to take what you wanted, I wasn’t Sinet enough to do so. I would never have more than lost longings.
Toward the front of the garden, I heard footsteps come from behind the bushes. Immediately, I stood. My ladies-in-waiting knew I liked solitude in the garden and would always announce themselves if they needed to disturb me. Either all four of them were suddenly neglecting their duties … or someone had secretly slipped inside.
On the middle finger of my left hand was a ring bearing our family’s royal crest: serpentines wrapped around dragonslips, our tiny fire-spitting grave flower, amid the wordsus alone.The band was forged into a silver stem with miniature leaves sprouting from it. I flicked open the crest. A needle, as thin as it was sharp, shone like a single strand of spiderweb silk. A chamber filled with moonrain, a poison that dripped from the moonmirrors, lurked beneath the needle.
It was strong enough to instantly kill two people.
But, as I’d been instructed ever since Father had gifted me the ring on my thirteenth birthday, the generous amount was to be used onmyself in the event I failed to stop the attacker with the first dose or if I found myself in a situation where I shouldn’t be taken alive. He’d given Inessa one as well.
Quickly, I retreated behind one of the large mirrors. It might simply be a gardener who had gotten past my girls, or it might be someone with much more serious intentions than weeding. Whoever it was, I would see them before they saw me.
I listened, trying to track the intruder’s movements through the garden. Footsteps crunched across the loose sea stones and crushed snail shells filling the pathways, but it was hard to distinguish the direction over the rattling irrigation system.
“Madalina?” A familiar voice cut across the garden. “Are you here?”
The last person I expected to hear was my sister. I stepped around the mirror. “Inessa?”
“There you are.” Inessa—who was very much supposed to be in Acus, preparing to walk down the aisle to her prince—stood across from me. “Hands in the dirt again?”
I fought the urge to sigh in relief. Sinets never showed weakness, especially not with each other. The grave flowers gave her a wide berth, leaning away. They remembered her. Once, I’d come to the garden to find that she’d goaded the serpentines and the lost souls into a fight. I’d cried for her to stop, and she’d said,Don’t you see? I set the grave flowers against each other and watch. Father sets us against each other and watches. The Primeval Family sets him against the other monarchs and watches. It’s walls of eyes, and behind each one, more eyes.I never knew what was more unnerving: when Inessa told me the strange things she was thinking, or when she didn’t and only gazed at me with a vacant expression.
Discreetly, I slipped the crest over its stinger and walked to her.
“The grave flowers were disturbed, so I was calming them,” I said. “Why are you here?”
“I forgot something.”
“Whatever did you forget?” I couldn’t hide my confusion. “Isn’t Acus over a week’s travel away? No one said you were coming. The coronation and wedding are in less than a month.”
I hadn’t seen her since she’d left for the betrothal service, and I stared at my double. Sometimes it was uncanny to have another moving about the world with my face. But then, it wasn’t my face any more than it was her face. It was our face, each the selfsame of the other. And it had its benefits. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw only blueish gullies beneath my eyes, an unruly cowlick, and skin that flushed ruddy at a single sip of wine. But when I looked at Inessa, I saw a chin curving into the bottom half of a heart, eyes so dark that they must have stolen the color from our grayish soil, and a silky mane of black hair, a gift from our Fely mother.
In myself, I saw our flaws. In her, I saw our beauty. Through the two images, I figured we were somewhere in between. Those trying to flatter our family often said we were the sun Radix had never had, but I didn’t agree. Not only because it didn’t make sense—we weren’t blond and didn’t have sunny dispositions—but because it was so ludicrous, given who we were.
