Page 50 of Grave Flowers
“Perhaps that’s the Sinet curse,” I said dully. “To be good at the things we hate.”
“I don’t hate killing, and I’m good at it,” Inessa protested, tone still cheery despite our macabre topic.
It was true. She didn’t hate killing, and she was good at it. I didn’t know the extent of her killings, just as I didn’t know the extent of Father’s killings. I knew one for certain, and I wasn’t knowledgeable of the particulars because I’d only seen the aftermath. Inessa had entered her chambers with brisk steps. I’d been there, as usual, waiting to be the appointed audience for her exhausting daily practice in the mirror.
Dropping a bloody knife on the bed, she said, “Throw that into the starvelings’ flower bed.”
“Is that blood?” I cried. “Inessa, what happened?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Lord Serreto was trying to do something, and I made it so he did nothing.”
“Does Father know? Are you all right?”
“When I tell Father the secrets Lord Serreto spewed along with his intestines, he will approve. And I’m fine. It was … invigorating.” I moved to pick up the knife. “Not now! After.”
She faced the mirror and began her practice as though there was no knife on the bed with a man’s blood on its blade. Her first expression was a gleeful smile. I watched, nodding approvingly, as she liked. It was followed by a deeply sad expression and then, finally, a blank look. I wassupposed to keep nodding, but I found myself staring and wondering which of the three expressions was real … or if none of them were.
I’d joined her now. I’d killed someone too.
“I think I’ll always hate it,” I said.
“As long as you’re good at it, it doesn’t matter how you feel. You’ll be offing people and looking beautiful as you do,” Inessa said in a gracious tone.
I couldn’t help but smile. My strange, cutthroat twin didn’t know how to comfort people, and it was humorous to watch her try. “I’m not sure my appearance is a concern when I’m … murdering assassins.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Well, it is for me.”
“You do always like to be beautiful,” I agreed.
“I don’t look beautiful anymore.” Woe filled her tone. “I’m just dreadful now.”
“Not at all. The afterlife becomes you. You are lovely in a ghastly way. And besides, from what I’ve observed, most things are beautiful because of their flaws, not despite them.”
“What a dull and human thing to say.” Inessa rolled onto her back. She lifted her hand to the underside of the canopy, swaying her wrist back and forth as though through a breeze. “It’s because you’ve never seen anything truly perfect. Not once. Let me tell you something; right after I died, I was going somewhere quickly. I was moving through a vast emptiness toward something I can’t quite describe—only to say it was the opposite of empty, of nothing. I know nothingness well. It’s … inside me, you see, and always has been. As though I was born with a hollow heart or maybe no heart at all. The emptiness wasn’t too frightening, but where I was headed—that was terrifying, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, though I tried to kick and twist away. Finally, at the end, I begged. And you know me, I never beg, but this wasn’t … a person I was begging. It wasthem.The Primeval Family. Then I ran into a screen, and it made fall straight into Bide. I was so relieved, I could’ve cried. That was, of course, until the horrors of it set in. The tedium. The silence. The cold. The hunger.”
I listened, riveted. Inessa continued.
“But right before I dropped into Bide, I saw a single strand of light, as thin and tiny as a thread. Everything was so quiet. It’s strange to think of light as perfect or not perfect. But it was. Truly perfect. The only perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I see,” I whispered. Only I didn’t. I wasn’t certain what she spoke of, and perhaps I couldn’t ever, not on this side of the afterlife.
“Anyways, now I’m either there in Bide or here with you. Nowhere else. But enough of that. We need to figure out my murderer.” She glided onto the next topic with carefree ease. “It can’t be that complicated. There are only so many possibilities. There’s Queen Gertrude and Prince Lambert, but they are our fellow conspirators. They wouldn’t betroth us to Aeric to kill us, and they need Aeric dead, and we are the best way of doing it.”
“Maybe there’s another spy from one of the other kingdoms,” I suggested. “Someone we haven’t considered yet. I’ve also thought it might be an Acusan noble who loathes the idea of a Radixan queen.” I sighed. “I wish you could come and go at will and appear to others, not just me. With your ways, you’d learn everything about everyone in just a day or so.”
“Me too,” Inessa said, so quickly that I withered. She still thought I was ineffectual, as she always had. “I would make quick work of everything. Instead, we are joined, once again, just like we were as babies. In fact, I think that’s how it works. Our connection as twins is my bridge between here and Bide.”
“What sends you here?” I asked, wanting to know more about Bide yet fearing everything I learned.
“Bide is nothingness,” Inessa said. “But then, every now and then, the crushing whiteness ebbs and flows in waves. The waves grow and grow and then suddenly, I’m here. With you. It comes with me, though. The hunger … the loneliness.”
“It sounds terrible,” I said with a shudder.
“It isn’t so bad.” Pity was not something Inessa would abide. “Hmm. The more I ponder, the more I wonder …” She turned to face me squarely. “Perhaps it’s Aeric?”
“Aeric?” Suddenly, I understood what she meant by nothingness. For one moment, I felt nothingness. I heard her say his name, yet my mind couldn’t accept it.
“Think about it,” Inessa said. “He was raised to be a noble king, yet he’s been sopping drunk at every turn. It makes me wonder if it’s an act.”
