Page 87 of Grave Flowers
“Very well. I’ll wait for you outside.”
I went to the door Alifair had entered. Cool shadows cloaked me. My vision was bleached from the sunlight. I blinked furiously, straining to clear my sight. Afterimages of neonic light hung between me and the room, but, slowly, they dwindled. All I heard was Alifair humming. The jarring tune echoed off the plaster walls and filled my ears.
I gasped.
Grave flowers in small porcelain pots were strung through with large threaded needles. Their nectar dripped along the threads into long basins that funneled into jars. The young grave flowers struggled and writhed, and the more they did, the more nectar they released. Alifair stood in the middle, pausing as he threaded a needle. Whimpering filled the cell.
“No, no,” Alifair said. The ends of his beard bobbed as he fervently spoke. “I did not wish for you to see this. Come, let us speak in the garden.”
I allowed him to lead me back to the main garden. The disturbing image followed me. Helplessly, I wished to demand the grave flowers beleft alone, but it was not within my power. I took a weak breath, shook off my unsettlement, and faced Alifair. He regarded me solemnly but resolutely, no part of him open for critique.
“I’m returning to the palace, but I have a request,” I said. “May I have the ancestral book? Please, I need to see what Inessa was reading and figure out why.”
“It cannot leave here,” Alifair said. He loomed before me, solemness gone, only the resolution remaining. “My whole life has been dedicated to guarding it, as have the lives of those who came before me. I will transcribe portions for you as I did for your sister and then send the copies to you.”
“I worry there isn’t enough time,” I said. “It’s most important.”
Alifair’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze became flinty. He cocked his head one way and then the other, as though sniffing for blood. His whole mission was protecting the book, and he’d already been tricked into giving excerpts to the wrong sister. He wouldn’t let me take it. I was Fely, yes, but I was also a Sinet monarch asking to take the only copy. I was one of the very people he protected the book from.
“I already regret something I sent your sister.” He spoke as though compelled.
“What was it?”
“A locket with a portrait of the Radixan king who wrote the book.”
“A portrait?” I’d never heard of a Sinet with a portrait, especially a monarch.
“Indeed. I sent it to her because I did not wish to have the means to … hurt him any longer.” Alifair’s steely gaze melted into distant softness. He twisted the ends of his beard again, curling them but then tugging, hard. He winced but didn’t stop.
“The king from long ago? How might one hurt a king who has been dead for so many generations?”
“I reckon you do not know the reason behind the Radixan resistance to portraits.”
“No,” I said. “I assumed it was simply superstition masquerading as tradition. Or that the Radixan royals weren’t attractive enough to warrant it.”
“Time stole the reason.” His breath was heavy between words, and I somehow heard it as the minor tune as well, as though all of him were tuned to the sad melody. “It was forgotten by the royals but remembered by us Felys. If someone dies an improper death and ends up in Bide, you can bury their portrait with the immortalities to bring them back. Not simply as a shade or specter, but their soul in the way it was when they were alive. However, to have your soul here after your corpse has long decayed is tortuous. It’s like seeing a creature that has been flayed off their skin and is desperately searching for it. The soul begs to be killed again so they might be sent back to Bide.”
“You’ve done it,” I said slowly. “You’ve brought the king back.”
“More than once.” Over and over, he kept pulling at his beard. I almost wished to tell him to stop. “I try to accept it, but this life rubs against me, and I think about home. My suffering is lonely, and a story known only by me—and him. He’s the reason I must safeguard the book, so I brought him back by burying his portrait with the immortalities. At first it was to hurt him. But sometimes it was out of loneliness. Weakness. The inability to remain in my own thoughts.” His eyes grew misty. “So, when your sister asked for the book, I said no but decided to send her the locket because I don’t trust myself with it.” He glanced at the enmity I’d wounded. It was already wilted and lying limply on the dirt. Every now and then, it shook as though weeping. “But go forth, I’ll work on transcribing portions of the book for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “If I may, I’ll return. Not just for the book but because you’re my uncle. I’d like to know more about you and Mother and your—our—family.”
At that, he nodded and bowed. I headed out but paused at the kitchen door and looked back. Alifair knelt next to the hurt enmities. The ones we’d slashed to protect ourselves. He removed a folding bladefrom his pocket. He cradled the blossoms and gently whispered to them. He hummed the tune. They stopped writhing, soothed, loved. He hacked both off in one swoop. Suddenly, I smelled citrus, and I remembered Father holding the face of the man he’d strangled on the banquet table. I felt as though my hands were sticky with nectar, but they weren’t. Shame formed a thick river inside me.
I turned away. I didn’t want to see any more.
Alifair’s melody stayed in my ears.
Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
Back in my chambers at the Acusan palace, I sat on my bed. I’d learned much. Too much. I thought about Aeric’s play.A King Betrayed.Was that his true play? No one seemed to know of it. Fear clouded my thoughts, especially as I reflected on the three costumes, each embroidered with a name across the chest like a brand.
The prince’s costume for Prince Lambert.
The queen’s costume for Queen Gertrude—and he’d taken it down because she’d died.
