Page 75 of Grave Flowers
My twin, finding the taste of the bug to her liking, applied her lips to the mirror and licked. She paused and straightened, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Anyways, I think the biggest complication is Prince Lambert. He wishes to wed you?”
“Indeed,” I said. My palms itched, as though I clung to the stone arrow on the heart bench again, Prince Lambert towering over me. “What do you think will happen, Inessa? I can’t marry Prince Lambert. Father will never agree to it—nor should he. Radix must remain free.”
It was enough to earn Inessa’s full attention. She straightened, abandoning the bug and facing me. “I know you fear Father—with good reason—but perhaps he might help. Only, wait to involve him until after you’ve done your duty and killed Prince Aeric and freed me from Bide. He’ll know you followed orders, and then, before Prince Lambert announces his engagement to you, perhaps he might arrange to poison him with moonrain. We can both return home with every thread binding us to Acus severed. Until then, be the dutiful bride.”
I ran my hands over the silk. It wasn’t truly a wedding gown. Not for me. It was a disguise, a costume, a bit of trickery to get me from here to there. So much of my life was thus, and I’d accepted it, but the guise itched. Wore thin. It needed so much continual patching that I wondered what it might be to remove it altogether.
Inessa moved to my side and gently adjusted my veil.
“Look at us,” she said wistfully, bending to fluff my train. “I think this counts as playing dress-up.” My heart warmed, even amid my unhappiness. We used to love traipsing around in Mother’s gowns. We’d twist crowns from thrushes and make scepters out of sticks. “Mother would be proud.”
At that, the warmth in my heart turned hot, an ember of circling grief. For other girls and other families, their mothers stood beside them as they readied to be brides. They told them how pretty they looked and how proud they were, and they marveled at how it was only yesterday that they’d held them as a baby.
It wasn’t the case for us.
Gently, Inessa’s arm wound around my shoulders. I leaned my head against her, and she held me.
“Inessa?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you forgive me for Mother’s death?”
I waited, needing to hear the answer but fearing it at the same time. Inessa’s arms tightened. Finally, she said, “Forgiveness is something I don’t understand. Mother said something about it, once. She said it’s like dropping the blade you hold against another’s ribs. Maybe they deserve to be stabbed, but holding the blade tires your own arm. I know not of it, but I do know one thing—you. Madalina, you never deserved any of it. I don’t forgive you because you did nothing wrong. If you sense a blade at your ribs, it’s your own.”
We stood that way for what seemed a long while, and then, somewhere between the seconds, she left. Quickly, I gathered up the skirt and staggered to the bathtub. I pushed back the veil and waited.
Pain spread through my scar, along with a horrible tickling sensation. Bitter waves of nausea coursed through me. With a whimper, I held my hand over the tub, knowing something was coming and striving to protect the wedding dress. A wriggling furry substance tore through my scar. It fell into the basin. Horrified, I stared down. Blood sprinkled the drain along with the convulsing leg of the bug Inessa had squashed and eaten. Weakly, I turned the knobs and rinsed the bug and blood away. Then I staggered back to my spot in front of the mirror.
“You may return,” I called, loudly enough for the servants and sewists outside my door to hear. The door opened, and they streamed around me.
I straightened and stared into the mirror, trying to forget the horrifying feeling of a bug leg writhing within my scar.
A Record
Experiments be damned! This Fely prisoner stole my wife and hasn’t helped at all with the grave flowers. He knows how to make me immortal. I know he does. I went to him and gripped the front of his shirt and screamed, “Tell me how to make myself immortal!” He squinted due to the loud sound of my voice but remained silent. “You made me kill my wife.”
“You mean Nerisa?” he asked quietly. “You never say her name. Do you even know my name?”
“I don’t care about names!”
“Well, I’ll tell you mine anyways. It’s Leander. You should remember it.”
“Why on earth would I need to remember the name of a worthless Fely? Oh, you are smirking now, but you’ll regret it.” By now, I’d quite lost my temper. It’s nice to write about it. It allows me to revisit the moment and appreciate how commanding I was. I’m sure the Fely prisoner was terrified. Being a king comes naturally to me. More reason why I should be king forever “If you don’t tell me how to become immortal, I shall round up every Fely on the coast and have them slaughtered.”
At that, his insouciant expression disappeared. He shuddered and his eyes were wide. I realized he was quite young. Probably only twenty or so. Why my wife would ever find him more appealing than me is a mystery.
“There is a Fely invocation that only we use. It’s called a roundabout. When you are dying, it might let you slip through the cracks. But it isn’t a prayer Radixans use because it isn’t to the Primeval Family. It’s to the other spirits who attend them. They are wily but may be beseeched. You say it when you die while crushing immortalities. It might forestall your death. It might give you more time, though you don’t know how much. Or it might send you straight to Bide.”
“Was that so hard?” I demanded. “Now I don’t need to pay your village a visit.”
“Not at all,” the Fely prisoner quickly said. He fished inside the neckline of his tunic. Several gold chains glimmered with different pendants hanging from them. He closed his fingers around one, and I think he was praying. I allowed him his primitive ways for the moment because I am a most gracious and open-minded king
x
The Fely prisoner has been tending the grave flowers. He speaks to them as gently as though they were babies. Before I engaged in the experiment, I started to see possible issues with these roundabouts.
