Damsel, page 8
Kuarraia kir ni mivden.
Vis kir vis,
Sanae kir res.
“What does that mean?” Elodie asked.
The priestess closest to her smiled kindly but shrugged. “The meaning has been lost over the centuries, but the instructions to recite it are clear. So we honor the ritual with the chant, knowing that the symbolism remains intact.”
Elodie quirked her mouth. What if you were unknowingly summoning a demon? she thought wryly. But she kept the comment to herself, not wanting to seem disrespectful or take away from the solemnity of the priestesses’ ritual. Lady Bayford would have been proud of Elodie’s restraint.
The priestesses removed Elodie’s gown, her whalebone corset, and chemise, leaving her with only her tiara on her head. She wasn’t cold—the fire kept the underground chamber warm—but she was unnerved being in such a state of undress in front of so many.
Be openminded, she chastised herself. This ritual is important to Aurea, and therefore it is important to me.
Elodie stole a glance at the queen, but Her Majesty’s eyes were closed. Not dozing, because she sat upright with arms perfectly ninety degrees on the armrests. It was as if she were meditating, her chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths.
So Elodie followed suit, filling her lungs with the scents of lavender and sage, and a fog of calm slipped over her. Perhaps it was the flowers and herbs in the air. Perhaps it was acceptance of her new place in this new land. Regardless, she committed to finishing the ceremony with poise and grace.
Seeming to sense this, the priestesses stopped watching her as intensely. They gathered long stalks of rosemary from baskets along the edges of the chamber, and began to anoint Elodie’s entire body. In rhythm with their chants, they used the rosemary to brush on a golden oil that smelled of sunflowers and sunlight, summer days and abundant fall harvests.
Rykarraia khono renekri.
Kuarraia kir ni mivden.
Vis kir vis,
Sanae kir res.
When the golden oil had soaked into Elodie’s skin and the excess had been wiped away, the priestesses began to paint her arms, her legs, her neck, chest, belly, and back. Their movements were efficient, like a corps of dancers who had practiced together for years. One woman moved in with a blue-daubed stalk of rosemary. Another flitted out of the way at the exact second to make space. Then another swooped in with pink while the priestess who’d just brushed orange on Elodie’s thigh darted away.
The reverent touch of the rosemary brushes lulled Elodie into a sense of peace. She was part of something bigger than herself now, not just a royal wedding, but a grand history. How long had this wedding night tradition been going on? Henry had mentioned that his family had been the guardians of Aurea for eight hundred years.
It was entirely possible that Elodie was participating in a ceremony that was almost a millennium old. The sanctity of it took her breath away.
Soon she was covered from the tips of her ears to the soles of her feet in artistic daubs of paint. The lavender and sage mist swirled around her, infusing its scent with the paints and the oils and the trace of rosemary left behind by the brushes. Elodie felt transformed into a living work of art.
They plaited her hair in intricate braids and weaved it in and out of her tiara, as if ensuring that even if she jumped off the peak of Mount Khaevis, her tiara would still remain fastened on her head.
She was dressed again in her chemise and whalebone corset. And then, finally, they brought out a new gown. Unlike the weighty silk of Elodie’s wedding dress, this one was spun of a pale purple fabric so light it was ethereal. The gown was many layered, with a different gemstone stitched into each hem. One layer was edged in rubies, another in tigerlike topaz. A third was edged in yellow diamonds, then emeralds, then blue sapphires, and last, amethysts. And shimmering thread had been woven throughout the impossibly delicate fabric, giving it an iridescent glow when the candlelight hit it just so.
This moment seemed to encapsulate all that Aurea had been for Elodie in the last three days—too much, and yet, a saving grace. As she stepped into the dress, Elodie looked down at the opulence covering every inch of her skin and didn’t quite know how to feel about it. And yet she did what she did best—swallowed her personal feelings and stepped up to duty.
It was the one thing she could guarantee about her future in the Isle of Aurea.
ISABELLE
The head priestess approached the queen and bowed deeply. “She is prepared, Your Majesty.”
Queen Isabelle did not want to open her eyes. Not yet.
But this was part of the tradition. And the queen forced herself to sit through this ceremony every time, to bear witness. To sit in the awful magnitude of this ritual and accept responsibility. It was the least she could do to honor the life she was about to sacrifice. And it was a way to remind herself that she, too, had once been a princess, but she had been spared and allowed to become queen.
Forgive me, Elodie.
Isabelle took one last, deep inhale, and then she opened her eyes.
“You look like an angel,” she said to Elodie.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. Now what comes next?”
You do not want to know.
CORA
When the door of the cottage opened, the knight tossed the girl onto the stone floor without ceremony.
“Cora!” her father cried, rushing to scoop her into his arms. “Where have you been? I searched the wheat fields all night for you!”
“She breached the palace and threatened the princess during the royal wedding,” the knight said.
Her father paled. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“I didn’t threaten the princess,” Cora said, rubbing the back of her head, which ached dully where the hilt of the sword had hit her. “I tried to tell her the truth.”
The knight took off his riding gloves and crossed his arms. “This is why custom dictates that children do not learn about Aurea’s traditions until they are ten years old. How old is she, Mr. Ravella? Seven?”
“I’m nine,” Cora spat.
He shook his head knowingly. “Too young. They cannot understand the fragile balance of our lives here.”
“We tried to shield her,” her father said. “But the children talk in the fields, and—”
The knight waved his hand, not unkindly but dismissing the excuse nonetheless. “You must explain to her why our ways exist. You understand why it is worth it. She cannot storm through the castle gates again. Next time…”
“No, please.”
“I have a family of my own,” the knight said, “and I would do anything it took to keep us together. It would break my wife’s heart if one of our children were…Well, let us not dwell on such things. Speak with your daughter, make her understand. And keep a close eye on her.”
“I will, thank you. Thank you for bringing her home.”
The knight grunted, put his gloves back on, and left.
Cora’s father burst into tears and wrapped her in his arms again. “You silly, silly girl. How could you? What were you thinking?”
“It’s not right, Papa! What the princess—”
“Shh.” He squeezed Cora tighter. “Sometimes it’s better not to think too hard. You will understand when you are older. Life in Aurea is like a pond at sunrise, serene and reflecting golden light. You’ll break it if you throw rocks in the water.”
“But what if I like throwing rocks?”
“You don’t, my love, trust me. Aureans don’t even play at skipping stones.”
ELODIE
The corridor Elodie and the queen took didn’t ascend back up into the castle, but rather continued within the depths of the granite. If possible, it grew even dimmer in the gray passageways; the flickering sconces were spaced farther apart than before, casting long shadows as they walked. Elodie clenched and unclenched her fists at her sides, attempting to ignore her fear of tight spaces, which seemed to close in on her as the rock walls angled into the corridor. Memories of being trapped in the crevice of the Inophean plateau—sun burning, sweat robbing her of precious water, hours alone with buzzards circling—echoed through her head.
Stop it, she thought furiously. If this is to be my home, I must become inured to these underground paths. However, Elodie also hoped there would be no need for her to visit the priestesses beneath the castle again. At least not for a very long time, until the day Elodie was queen and presiding over her own child’s postwedding ceremony.
After what was likely only a few minutes yet seemed an eternity, Elodie and Queen Isabelle reached an iron door with a knight in full regalia standing beside it. Elodie barely stifled an undignified sigh of relief that they were at the end of the narrow stone corridors.
“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” he said, bowing. He opened the door as if it weighed nothing, letting in a puff of chilly night air. “Your carriage awaits.”
“Carriage?” Elodie asked, but she needn’t have, for as soon as she stepped outside, the golden coach stood before her. It was more luxurious than the one that had whisked her and her family from the harbor when she arrived. Not satisfied to be made merely of gold, this one was shaped like a dragon’s head, with the shield-shaped mosaic pattern covering the entire carriage.
Oh, dragon scales! Is that what all the tiles and the ceiling pattern were supposed to represent?
For a peaceful farming kingdom, Aureans sure like their dragons, Elodie thought. Perhaps the dragon—a powerful creature of legend—was their way of psychologically compensating for their quiet way of life? Maybe knights without wars to fight needed something to make them feel like warriors.
Speaking of which, a good two dozen knights sat on horseback behind the carriage. Every soldier and steed boasted the full crimson and gold regalia of Aurea, although that was not out of place, as they had just come from a royal wedding.
However, it was a bit odd that they were here in the back of the palace, not in the main courtyard.
“You are a vision,” Henry said, emerging from the coach. “The paint and the purple gown suit you.”
Her husband’s smile melted away Elodie’s nerves.
“I’m curious where this is all leading,” she said. “A solemn underground ceremony, yet another new gown, and now a golden carriage escorted by knights? Is this how our honeymoon begins?”
“Your curiosity will soon be sated,” Queen Isabelle said. “Henry, I shall see you both there.”
What does the queen have to do with our honeymoon? Elodie wondered as she curtsied deeply to her departing mother-in-law.
Henry took Elodie’s hand and helped her inside the carriage. The plush seats were made of crimson velvet, the walls paneled in gold silk embroidered with the royal coat of arms.
“Oh, my combs and necklace!” Elodie’s hands touched her throat.
“Do not worry,” Henry said. “They will be safe in the imperial vault.”
The coach began to move. Elodie pressed her face to the windows.
Suddenly, the cold darkness of the night swallowed them, and Elodie realized they were climbing up the switchbacks into Mount Khaevis.
ELODIE
Their carriage stopped halfway up Mount Khaevis. The coachman opened the door and helped Elodie out onto a rocky path. A frigid wind whipped through the jagged face of the mountain, immediately cutting through the gossamer layers of her gown and chilling her to the bone.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Go on,” Henry said. “I’m right behind you.”
“But where am I going?”
“Straight ahead. There’s a trail. Didn’t you say you wanted to come up to Mount Khaevis with me?”
There was something mocking in his tone, though, something very different from the Henry who had courted her over the past eight months. Elodie shivered, and not only because of the cold.
Still, it was possible she was wrong about his tone and wrong about the slippery sense of foreboding that slithered through her. Besides, Elodie was a blade forged from the harsh heat of Inophe, who had been willing to give everything for her people. What were a few steps in the dark when she’d already spent two decades fending off starvation and thirst? If Henry wanted her to follow a trail, she would. He was not only her husband, but also the partner she’d wished for her entire life. No longer would she have to bear the weight of Inophe’s future alone. They would provide for Inophe and lead Aurea, together.
With that assurance in mind, Elodie started down the rocky path, taking careful steps so as not to slide in the gravel. It was difficult to see in the moonlight, for clouds had moved in since the wedding ceremony, but she navigated the best she could. She was still freezing, though.
The narrow path rose upward from where the carriage had deposited them. But it was only a handful of minutes later when Elodie crested the ridge.
Below, a deep, narrow gorge opened up; it must be the valley she’d seen from the palace, the one that cut through the side of Mount Khaevis. Fog rose from it as if from a cauldron, its depths obscured from view.
But that wasn’t what Elodie was looking at anyway. For the other side of the gorge was lined with cloaked figures, each wearing a golden mask and holding a long, spearlike torch, the flames flickering wickedly in the wind.
She gasped and turned back to Henry.
The torches reflected in his eyes.
For a moment, she couldn’t speak, because she’d seen this before, in her dream. It had chilled her then, and it chilled her now, like frost crystallizing up her spine.
But then Elodie gathered her wits, remembering that premonitions did not exist, that dreams could not tell the future.
“What is this?” she asked.
Henry put his hands around her waist roughly, possessive and controlling in a way he hadn’t demonstrated before. “You are the princess of Aurea. This is your responsibility now, too.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” She peeled his hands off her and tossed them away, insulted that he’d think her oath to the kingdom so flimsy that she’d betray it on her first night as princess.
More cloaked figures came up behind Henry, their faces eerily anonymous behind their gold masks. The knights who had accompanied the carriage stood in a line behind them, penning everyone in.
Elodie swallowed hard.
“Walk forward,” Henry said.
“But it’s a gorge…”
“Th-there’s a bridge,” one of the cloaked figures said.
Elodie turned to him. She knew that voice. “Father?”
The man looked away, pulling his hood farther down his already masked face.
Now the torchlight made it possible to see a little bit into the bottomless bowl of fog that was the chasm before her. Winged, reptilian statues carved of purple-gray granite rose from below. They were identical to the dragons in the sea on the approach to Aurea.
From the other side of the narrow gorge, another familiar voice rang out.
“A land can only thrive if we offer it our blessings,” Queen Isabelle proclaimed. She wore a gold mask with sharp, twisting horns. “We have been chosen for this sacred duty. For generations, it has been our task—our burden—to protect our people. To keep fertile our isle. To meet the price.”
Beside Elodie, Henry shouted, “Khaevis desires and we must sacrifice.”
“Life for life!” the cloaked figures yelled. “Blood for fire!”
The circle of torches closed in behind Elodie, the knights following two steps after. They funneled her to the edge of the ridge, toward the pale stone bridge that traversed the gorge through the fog.
Panic raced through Elodie’s veins.
“Let her walk the path of communion,” the queen said, her voice echoing against the mountainside.
Oh. A wave of relief washed over Elodie. They only wanted her to cross the bridge. Another unfamiliar Aurean tradition, but one she could manage.
“May I have a torch?” she asked Henry.
“It is not the way of the ceremony,” one of the cloaked figures said gruffly.
She frowned. “But it will be nearly impossible to see in the middle section where the bridge dips below the fog. What if I fall?”
Henry reached over and squeezed her hand, his hold lingering for a few seconds. “My angel, your feet will never touch the ground.”
The wind whipped through her flimsy dress again.
“At least give me your cloak.”
“Don’t question the requirements, Princess. Do your duty, and it will all be over soon.”
She bit back an insult she’d learned from the sailors. This was not the time. Besides, Henry had a point. Elodie was a princess now, and she would do what they asked—not because they told her to, but because she understood duty and what it required of those who chose to lead. And she had chosen.
She took a tentative step off the ridge and down onto the bridge. The stone was slender and covered in frost, but she would proceed carefully.
“Left foot first, right foot after,” she began to whisper to herself. It was a poem her mother used to recite whenever Elodie was on the brink of trying something new.
Nothing to fear, no disaster.
Right foot, left foot,
Cross the ground,
And ere long
You’re safe and sound.
The stone bridge sloped downward into the gorge, traveling some distance in the thick fog before ascending to the ridge on the other side where the queen and her half of the masked, cloaked men stood with their long torches.
The lack of visibility in the center of the bridge was not as bad as Elodie had feared. Once she descended into the fog, the flickering torchlight cut through parts of it, and she was able to see not only the towering dragon statues, but also other elaborate etchings on the sides of the gorge.
