Page 9 of Grave Flowers
Invocation
O Primeval Family,
We are born in hunger.
We live in hunger.
We will die in hunger.
Please, provide us sustenance so we may be satiated—
until we hunger again.
Results
After the invocation was said, the gaps opened in the starvelings’ stems. They revealed strange, almost-muscular systems and a chamber, most akin to a stomach. They began grabbing things with their claws and stuffing them inside the gaps. The gaps stretched, and the stems constricted as they swallowed item after item, not stopping to chew. I assume it was a way for the items to go directly to the root system through the stem.
Complications
They began to consume everything within reach. Chairs, paintings, prisoners, guards—they even slurped up chains. By Family fortune, the invocation did not last long, and their strength left and the gaps closed. We worked long and hard to cut the stalks open. Unfortunately, the prisoners and guards that had been consumed were dead. We were able to retrieve a chair in its whole condition. Though it will need a good cleaning.
Applications
I would love to see them tear through Acus like this! What a sight that would be. Yet, like the beauties, they don’t respond to direction. I ordered them, “Eat only the prisoners” yet despite my repeated commands, they ate indiscriminately. They would’ve eaten me too if I hadn’t been observing from the high tower overlooking the courtyard. I had a sense they might be frightful, so I’d made sure to be far out of reach. But Primeval pestilence. That was one of my favorite chairs, and now it’s covered in a disgusting goo.
Chapter
THREE
Istood outside the courtroom.
Father was inside with the envoy from Acus, and everyone else crammed into the hall, having abandoned the ballroom. At any other time, the council would hear the news alongside Father, but he hadn’t allowed it tonight. Nervous energy spread.
“It’s war!” one of the cooks whispered. “Forget a vassal state—they want to annex us and rename us Acus. Well, we’ll fight them to the death! Where is my cleaver?”
“War?” A noble spun around. Unable to determine who had spoken, he haughtily looked down his pointed nose. “Feebleminded fools! They are here on wedding news. Cake selection, perhaps. I do hope it’s something tart, like lemon.”
“At night? That can’t be it. I’ve just ordered my new gowns. Now I’ll never get to wear them!” Another noble, a woman this time. She fussed at her heftly ropes of necklaces. “But I suppose if we must fight, I might shorten them.”
“Hush! I can hear what they are saying …” The cook pressed his earto the door. “Something-something ‘Acus,’ something-something ‘Acus’ again, something-something—”
It was useless. The murmur of voices reached us, but the words were muffled by the thick doors. Time crept slowly. I thought I might break or shatter or melt away.
Without warning, the doors flung open. We jumped back, eyes wide and heads swiveling. Everyone pretended to have important business in the hall. The servants began brushing the walls with their aprons and cuffs, since none of them held dusters. The nobles and the council acted like they were deep in conversation. I simply stood where I was, rooted to the spot. No one needed to worry. We might as well have been invisible to the Acusan emissary and guards. They marched by without casting us a glance, their boots heavy and the guards’ chainmail clinking. It was an impressive display of force—aside from the fact they had watering eyes and snuffling noses due to the assault of the grave flowers’ pollen.
Once they disappeared out of the hall, everyone surged toward the courtroom.
Everyone except me.
I knew where Father would be, and it wasn’t there.
I moved quickly. My heart pounded hard, and I was glad for it. It blocked out my thoughts and let me move on instinct. If I thought too long and hard, especially now, I’d surely lose my will, retreat, and wait for the news to find me.
I slipped into a parlor and crossed to its far side. A plaster vase hung on the wall. A keen eye would notice that while everything else in the room was dusty, this alone was not. Two plaster lost souls, entangled as the real ones often were, extended from the vase. I grabbed them and pulled them apart.
A portion of the wall yawned back. I took a sharp breath and stepped inside the opening. A candle with matches waited on a small table. I lit it and pulled the door closed behind me. For a moment, all I couldsee was the candle’s flame. It bobbed, like a throat swallowing over and over. Slowly, my eyes acclimated, and the darkness nearest the candle mellowed into a watery, translucent version of itself. I stepped forward. I knew our secret passageways well, but I hadn’t been in them for a long time, not since Inessa and I were children.
The passageway moved me along until I reached a staircase. It spiraled like an apple peel dangling from one end. It took me up and around until it ended at a door that had a sea-salt–encrusted window. I remained behind the door, peering through the window to Father’s true courtroom. He had many hidden spots, but this was his favorite, tucked up high in the palace. He used to come here with Mother often, and when needed, Inessa and I would be brought along as he plotted, paced, and pondered. It was a strange fortress in the palace, neither indoors nor out. The thick stone ceiling had caved in long ago, so you were eye level to the palace’s spires and sloping roofs. Pipes poked through the ruptured ceiling and bled streams of rusty water onto the ground, like severed arteries. Waterveins didn’t flourish in the garden, but they did here, leaching their nutrients from the palace stones and the brackish water.
