Page 61 of Grave Flowers
Queen Gertrude was dead… . What did that mean for me? Prince Lambert would still want the throne; of that I was certain. He could, I realized, simply continue his plot. Once Aeric was dead, he was the next legitimate claimant to the throne as the king’s brother. Everything he’d set in place still worked, so long as I assassinated Aeric.
And so long as Aeric didn’t kill or arrest me first.
I left my chambers and found the palace transformed. Every portrait of the queen had been taken down so her figure could be rimmed in the same yellow light as the king’s, indicating her passing. Black mourning tulle, embroidered with pierced beaded red hearts and diamond-shaped gold tears, hung in the halls. It swathed the mirrors and windows and threw delicate patterns onto the floor as the sunlight streamed through it.
Unease filled the palace. Servants whispered, and the guards walked with quiet steps. No one lingered anywhere. Everyone was easily startled.
It was the sort of behavior you had when someone was ill and you said you didn’t want to disturb them, but in reality, you were terrified of catching their disease. No one could deny the pattern. In a short span of time, the king had died, the promised princess bride had died, and now the queen had died too. All the while, uncannily, weddings interwove with the deaths, with Queen Gertrude marrying Prince Lambert and Aeric’s betrothal to Inessa and then, after she died, me. Everything was inverted in Acus, as though the kingdom were a ship turned on its hull.
A service for the queen was held at the cathedral. It wasn’t a formal funeral, but death rites were given in preparation for the funeral and burial that would occur after the wedding. I thought Aeric and I would stand together, but he wasn’t there when I arrived. I kept glancing at the doors, thinking he would appear.
Queen Gertrude lay in a casket with a domed glass lid. The casket was engraved with more pierced hearts, tears, and a Pingeran painting of the Mother, who was said to rock us to sleep as we died. Rouge and powder caked her face to disguise her terrified expression, but it was still there, hardened like wax upon her. I wished they’d put her in an opaque casket.
People who passed her casket shuddered and whispered the Acusan blessing: “Light everlasting.”
When my turn came, I tried to hurry past but found myself pausing. I’d never liked Queen Gertrude. She disdained my Fely heritage and didn’t bother to be kind to me. But she’d also striven boldly and avenged the ones she loved. In a way, I was doing the same for Inessa. Staring at her, I noticed her pendant wasn’t a religious token depicting the Family, as I’d assumed. It was a house crest. Swirls wrapped around anM, for Montario. Many years had passed between their executions and the present day, but she’d never forgotten who she was.
“May you swim in salt,” I murmured.
I returned to my spot. Aeric still wasn’t there. By the time the service ended, it was night. I’d hardly eaten anything the whole day, but I wastoo exhausted to seek food. I crawled into my bed. Hours passed, each endless. Sleep refused me. A faint shout reached my ears. Alarm spiked through me, reminding me of hearing something amiss last night and the horrific sight of Queen Gertrude dead in her chambers. Perhaps I was imagining it or had actually slept and was having a nightmare. Then another shout—no, actually, it was a song—came, drifting over the balcony from the garden.
I left my bed and went to investigate, pushing out onto my balcony.
I stifled a cry.
The song, a bawdy tavern tune, came from Aeric.
He stood shirtless and holding a bottle of wine, balanced atop the fountain edge next to the starvelings Inessa had planted. The moon, fainting away in a pinkening sky due to the early hour, formed a circle behind him, telescoping his idiocy. He’d woken the starvelings. Angrily, hungrily, they lashed at him. He was a mere foot from them, and the slightest misstep would send him plunging into their grasp. I ran back into my chamber, threw on slippers and a dressing gown over my nightdress to summon help. If my reckless betrothed died by the starvelings’ claws rather than my hand, everything would be ruined. Prince Lambert would likely pin Aeric’s death on me if he fell into the starvelings and was devoured. Not only would it neatly tie off the loose end, but Prince Lambert would no longer have to pay us. And if I miraculously escaped Prince Lambert’s clutches, I’d end up in Father’s instead, a prospect just as terrifying, if not more.
At the door, I paused, my mind split between the urgency of the situation and a new idea. I’d long needed access to Inessa’s rooms. It would be audacious to gain it by assisting Aeric back to his and using the discreet hall connecting the king’s and queen’s chambers—but it might just work, especially as his faculties were compromised. I wavered, uncertain if it was a good plan or merely one made from desperation as time ticked us toward the wedding, which was only two days away.
Another tuneless line from the tavern song reached me, goading me to action. I had to ensure no one else heard him and offered aid beforeI did. I raced down the stairs and out to the garden through the ground floor’s doors. I slowed my approach. If I startled him, he’d most certainly slip off the fountain edge and fall into the starvelings.
They’d break and bury him, just as they had Luthien.
“Aeric!” I called in the low, calm voice one reserves for spooked animals. “Get down. It’s breezy, and you don’t have a shirt.”
“Nonsense,” Aeric slurred. He gestured dramatically, his arm missing the reach of a starveling’s stems by mere inches. I cringed. “It’s a … a … beautiful dawn.” Squinting, he focused on me. “Most beautiful and … frightening.”
“Whatever are you doing?”
“Admiring the flowers. Your flowers. Asking them if I may learn their secrets.”
I bristled. Was he revealing the fact that he sought to use the grave flowers against me? I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. My nightdress billowed around me, the early-morning coolness settling against my bare legs.
“They don’t like strangers,” I said tersely. “What secrets of theirs do you desire?”
“How to win your love, of course.”
My breath caught, unprepared for him to say such a thing. I glanced down and then back again as Aeric took another wavering step forward. “Please get off. It’s much too dangerous.”
“Ah!” His blurry gaze lit. “You—you—”
“I what?”
“You love me!” He let out a harsh wine-thickened laugh. “No, no, that’s not right.”
Thankfully, he wasn’t shouting anymore. I might guide him to his rooms if I could somehow get him down from the lethal ledge. I surveyed the garden, checking for patrolling guards. It was empty. Relief came over me, and not simply relief that I might do my task. It surprised me. If I interrogated it truthfully, I’d think I was glad no oneelse would see him in such a vulnerable state. Despite everything, I felt strangely protective.
