Page 63 of Grave Flowers
“You need rest.” I took his hand and tugged. He frowned and shook his head. I glanced from him to the palace. “Come, let’s get you to your bed. Let me help you.”
With a weary sigh, he staggered to his feet.
I pulled his arm over my shoulders and put my hand around his waist. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can,” he said with great indignation. He took a step in proof but defeated his point by tottering to the side.
I managed to steady him just in time.
Together, we made our way back to the palace. It was a restless place since Queen Getrude’s death, becoming a ghost of its own, full of eerie sounds and sights. More guards made the rounds, and their boots echoed from different halls. Candlelight shone around the closed doors of the throne room, and muffled voices escaped with the candlelight. Prince Lambert was likely holding meetings in secret, reassessing his allies and plotting his next steps.
A guard greeted us outside Aeric’s chambers. I tried to imperiously wave a hand for him to open the doors and let us by, hoping I might get inside without being questioned. Aeric, however, seemed to grow slower and more imbalanced by the moment.
“Do you need assistance, Prince Aeric?” the guard asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, save me,” Aeric drawled with a lazy, confused smile. “She’s mad at me.”
“Nonsense,” I quickly declared. I addressed the guard: “Stand aside and tell the servants we won’t require any attendance. The prince is distressed by Queen Gertrude’s death and seeks comfort.”
The guard’s face relaxed into understanding. He stepped aside. We made our way past a series of rooms to the final one, which was the bedchamber. My eyes swam through it, seeking a door and a door alone. There it was. The private thoroughfare between the king and the queen, manifested in a discreet entry paneled to look like the rest of the wall. My fixation made it loom large in my mind, and I had to refrain from rushing straight to it.
Once I was reassured as to where the door was, I observed the rest of the room. A bed sat against the wall. It had a headboard that imitated the Acusan throne—needles forming a nimbus around it, ropes of jewels threaded through them. Red blankets embroidered in gold trim rivered over the mattress. There was no canopy or cornice. The bed commanded the room in the way the throne did, its design intended to magnify the occupant within it and reflect them as an extension of their kingdom’s power.
Aeric headed to it with the familiarity of a horse to its stall, dragging me along and kicking off his shoes as he went. He cast himself onto it, and I let myself be pulled onto the bed next to him. He lay on his side, eyes fluttering shut, head turning against the pillow. I settled warily against the blankets, facing him while I waited for him to reach deep slumber before I tried the door. Sleep made him honest. No longer did he wear the flirtatious smile or hold himself with his usual nonchalance. His brow pinched, and he stirred restlessly on the pillow, seeking comfort he couldn’t seem to find. Never had he looked so vulnerable or burdened.
One hand rested on the bed near his face, palm up and open. I could see his scars at my leisure. It seemed voyeuristic and wrong, yet I drewnear. The skin was more damaged than I’d realized. Some of the scars were quite old, but others were more recent, with newly knitted pink skin. It was easy to see Aeric in the way I knew him: here, in the palace. But he’d only recently returned to it, having been summoned from the monasterium upon his father’s death. Just as I was adrift in a new home, he was too.
He mumbled something.
“What did you say?” I whispered, leaning close. There was no response. I lay back.
Of all places, I hadn’t expected to be here tonight. But Family fortune had turned to my favor, paving my way straight to the queen’s quarters. I tried to calm my racing heart. Paranoia made my nerves flash inside my skin, and I kept imagining Aeric awakening and reaching to strangle me, even as his breathing found the deep, measured pattern of profound sleep. Grimly, I reasoned that just as I had my timeline for his murder, he had one to either kill or arrest me as well, whichever one was his intention.
I turned to watch him again. Somehow, even as I feared him killing me, I had the desire to push his hair back from his forehead and hum a comforting tune to ease the strain on his face. I sighed in frustration. Aeric was the mercenary for his kingdom, just as I was for mine. Why was it so easy to forget?
Under it all, maybe I simply hoped that if I could see beyond someone else’s sins, someone could see beyond mine. Maybe I hoped I could be loved, despite who I was and everything that I’d done.
I sighed again, but this time it wasn’t in annoyance at myself. It was a crisp inhale and exhale, more of a breath than a sigh, one to goad me into action. It was time. Slowly, I sat up, watching Aeric closely. His head stirred restlessly on the pillow, but his body pressed heavily into the bed, boneless with exhaustion, grief, and too much wine.
On tiptoe, I hurried to the door. My hand closed around the knob. I turned it.
It was locked.
ENMITIES
Grave Flower Experiment Seven
Appearance
These grave flowers have two cups extending from one stern. If you and another person willingly drink from them at the same time, you learn a secret the other is keeping from you. I’ve done it before with my father and immediately had to kill him afterward because it told him of my plan to take the throne from him. You will most certainly leave enemies if you use this grave flower.
Behavior without invocation
They make a “shhhhhhh” sound when you come near, as though telling you to keep a secret, and should you stroll by with a companion, they offer their goblets. The more bonded you are to the person, the more desperate theenmities are to have you drink, as though pleased to reveal secrets between close friends.
Invocation
If you keep my secret,
