Chapter 24: A Crown of Shadow
Our quiet march to the throne room was a mile of tension and fear. No guards stood watch in the halls. No torches lit our path. Jasmin held tight to my right hand, freeing both our sword arms just in case.
My breath hitched at every sound, be it tumbling pebble or squeaking prawn mouse. With each jump and jerk, Jasmin pulled me closer, not the slightest quake in her movements.
When at last we found our way into a grand hall, my eyes jerked about at paintings on every wall. Forty generations of Liatris queens. Forty generations of plague. Except one was a little girl, barely six years old with sad amber eyes. Long dark brown hair braided into a perfect set for a royal presentation ceremony. Both the hair and her eyes belied her connection to the family around her.
Each other portrait hung in the hall could be cleanly traced from the one before it. Unlike the generations of Thornleaf women, there were clear differences, but never so stark as Jasmin's difference to the Liatris royalty. They had cornsilk hair and morning eyes. Or brilliant orange curls and eyes of stone.
None of them had the straight brown hair that had to be tied into submission to match the line. None of them had Jasmin's brilliant amber eyes, seeing far more than a child should.
I instinctively wandered to her portrait, pulling the subject along with me. How different they looked, the child and the woman she became.
A plaque at the bottom pronounced clearly.
Princess Jasmin Natalia Eliana Liatris
Born in the thirtieth year of Queen Belladonna Liatris.
Died in the thirty-seventh year of Queen Belladonna Liatris.Lost before her time.
"And yet, she invited you here," I said calmly, forcing my rage out of my voice. "For what?"
Jasmin didn't laugh or even snort. She just said in her own melancholic way, "We both know the answer to that."
She didn't give me any longer to consider the injustice of it. Instead, Jasmin pulled me toward a towering door, gilded woodwork faded with time and smudged with poor care. Twelve people could enter the door at once if it were open wide. Almost fifty if they stood atop one another.
Doors that large should take a team of soldiers or a pair of well-trained mammoth beasts to even budge, let alone open, but Jasmin's will was gentle as a soft hand pushed them open with ease.
The solitude of the palace stood as a stark contrast to the host gathered within the throne room. The grand hall that served as antechamber was dwarfed by the immensity of the space, a sanctuary of befouled souls and destroyed families. Raised platforms lined the walls, all filled with soldiers carrying ranged weapons. Rows upon rows of queen's guard stood at the ready along a central aisle leading to the throne.
No one moved or even seemed to breathe as Jasmin and I began our procession toward the queen's dais. Not until we were halfway to the throne, when they collapsed the aisle behind us, forcing our path forward.
Every inch, every corner, every minor detail was a show of opulence. Gold, silver, scarlet, obsidian, and ivory inlays formed complex patterns that spiralled inward toward a central feature that wasn't there. It was empty. Not taken, but intentionally left bare.
Great steel columns were spaced evenly throughout the room, searing hot in the unseasonal weather.
Centrally focused, seated higher than was necessary, was the queen. Or what remained of her. She was little more than shadow given form, desperate hunger devouring the body she had sacrificed in the name of the Fiend's tyranny.
The throne itself was twisted, gold slowly bending beneath the weight of its burden and the heat of missed winters. Patches of rich velvet peaked out between bits of Lavender's slowly decaying living corpse.
"Mother," Jasmin's breath was a funeral dirge, and I was its only witness.
"Fiend," I whispered, reminding her of the stakes.
She gripped my hand more tightly, as her right hand moved to cover the silverthorn flower at her hip, stripped of its thorns, but just as deadly in Jasmin's comfortable grip. I still held Afina's box in my left hand. We were here desperate for peace, but unwilling to trust that it was possible.
As we cleared the final row of queen's guard, the remaining space behind us closed mechanically, their formation's adjustment smooth and practised.
I stepped forward and lowered myself to a knee.
"Your majesty," I did all I could to withhold the respect within the words. "I have arrived as consort to the Princess Jasmin Liatris, per your summons." If not for the gravity of the moment, I was certain Jasmin would be snickering behind me.
The Fiend moved to standing and slithered across her dais to look down upon me. "My invitation," the voice was the grinding of an empty mill, shadow spilling from her lips, "was for the Princess herself. The consort was optional."
"Be that as it may, your majesty," I hoped my flat tone communicated my feelings clearly, "the Princess requested I come in advance and present myself to establish fitness as her bride." Jasmin didn't hold back the snickering then, but she played it into a light cough before clearing her throat.
She moved, smoke over water, to a stair, descending to a level much closer to the main floor. A hideous smell invaded my senses. Sulfur, death, pain, undying hunger, sadness, and a desperate longing for flesh.
"And what, pray," from a closer distance the grinding was a rockslide, desperate to crush any who opposed it, "has my daughter sent as penance for her disrespect, having her whore invade my sanctum?"
I felt the subtle heat of Jasmin's cold-flame streaking the floor behind me, and I desperately hoped the Fiend didn't notice. "This fine woman behind me. A warrior, a weapon, a pawn. Whatever you desire of her, she will become." That hadn't been the plan, but it was clear the Fiend didn't recognise Jasmin as she was. She didn't recognise Salora standing so close. "And," I continued, moving the box into an offering position, "a memento of her. I know not what it means, your majesty, but she told me you would."
We had placed Jasmin's old silverthorn flower alongside Afina's ancient one. As I opened the box, the Fiend recoiled, retreating to the throne at the highest point of her dais.
Her gaze settled upon me as I rose and took Afina's flower, discarding the box at my feet. Something like recognition flooded her features.
"Afina?" The hiss made her seem like a fell beast. "You were meant to die. To fade away like the others. To fall with your mistress and be forgotten." She regained a semblance of composure and reclaimed her seat upon the throne. "Ten thousand moons ago," she spat, "and yet, here you stand."
I moved back to shield Jasmin, not at her side. It wasn't time. "No. Not Afina the Thorn. Roisin. The Thornleaf." My whispered words were a roar. She heard every word. She knew what they meant. "Queen Lavender Lillian Lisan Liatris of Lafleur. Thirty-ninth queen of House Liatris. I stand and accuse you of high treason and attempted murder of the royal daughter. How do you plea?"
Unfazed, four flowers surfaced from within her shadowy tendrils. Voidstem, bloodleaf, snowpetal, goldroot. The sacred blooms she'd taken from each goddess save one. Salora's silverthorn rested in my hand.
"Ignorant child," she rasped. "If you think any guard or soldier, any peasant or lord, will pay you mind, you are a greater fool than the woman who sent you here to die. Your charges are absurd, and you stand on borrowed legs."
She wouldn't listen. I couldn't be surprised. Jasmin and I had known the course this would take long before we set foot in the Fiend's trap. The silverthorn's weight shifted in my hand, thorned vines creeping up my arm. They'd found their home, and my body remembered the sabre it held.
"Here we go, then, Fiend. Once more."