The Ash Queen, page 24
Although, with the right king in the throne, one that would help keep him strong, he could do so much more.
A sigh sounded behind him, and he turned back to the child, who was smiling.
“You understand that I am right,” he said, the certainty returning.
“The throne has no power,” she wheezed.
“It does,” he insisted. “I have felt it.”
“It is only a seat.”
“Do you think the crown only a hat?”
“It is a symbol,” she replied. “But it does not make the person wearing it King.”
“You don’t think I am strong enough,” he said. But he was. He could capture this child; he could do the same with others.
He leaned forward when she didn’t answer to ensure she was still alive, but it was getting harder to tell. He wanted what she had, but he knew he could not take it. It might not be worth letting her live. But if there was a way, he could not let her die.
Another creaking sound made him flinch and turn back to the shelves. Elixir shimmered, but it appeared safe enough, other than the jar that had smashed into the stone floor. The spilled elixir had run away, only the slightest shimmer in the candlelight showing where it had been. The remains of the jar again appeared too thin to hold such contents. Large, thick red blobs covered the stones between where it had fallen and where he sat. He could not feel the glass still in his hands as he pulled a long, thin shard from his palm.
He had no idea what the next step was for him, but he understood it involved Fortitude.
Ymma suddenly stood taller. She looked as though she might burst into tears, her focus on Heath. Nelda thought the only reason he was standing was that his brother’s arms were around him, and they appeared to be holding each other up.
Ymma broke away from West. He reached after her, but she shrugged him off, covering the distance across the chapel. The world seemed to silence around them as she reached for Heath, and he pulled her into a strange embrace between himself and Frayne.
West groaned something as Nelda took a step forward.
“Where?” Frayne whispered loudly.
“She doesn’t know, but Pip is calling.”
The girl nodded, her arms around Heath.
“Can you lead us there?” Frayne asked.
Heath turned towards the door, the maid under his arm holding him up, and Nelda wondered if this was a good idea. She was desperate to reach Pip as well, but they could not separate again.
Before she could voice her concerns, they were moving toward the door. “Nuris?” she asked.
“I would follow the girl anywhere if it led to Pip.”
“That isn’t my question,” she said, trying to get between the slow-moving brothers and the door. “Do we go together? Do we let them go alone?”
“We all go,” Dunstan said, a certainty in his voice she had not expected to hear. Did she not know the man as well as she’d thought?
“Father is right,” Frayne said, pausing to help Lia to her feet. “We travel together.”
“And what if we find something, or someone? Are you strong enough to take on the cardinal and whatever power he might have? Heath and Lia can hardly stand, let alone race through the castle.”
“She is family,” Frayne said, and Nelda knew that he would do anything for them, no matter what anyone else claimed or wanted from him. This group would come first. “Heath is stronger, and I’ll carry Lia if I have to, rather than leave her behind.”
“And the sisters?” Nelda asked.
“We will find them after we find Pip.”
He was too confident, she thought. Too sure of what was right. Her heart caught in her throat as Dunstan slipped his arm through hers and pulled her closer.
“Together,” Dunstan said.
Nelda nodded and hoped they were doing the right thing. There were too many unknowns. The cardinal was still somewhere in Sunsong. But was he with Pip, or was she somewhere else? Were they ready to take him on if they met with him—and could they? They had no idea what power he had. He claimed to have it all, but was that accurate?
Ymma tried to race through the castle, moving Heath with her. Nelda noted that the further they travelled, the stronger he became. Not leaning on the girl quite so much. Several times, he reached out and ran his hand over the stone walls of the castle as they made their way along hallways she could not remember. He breathed in deeply and looked down, and Nelda wondered if he would remove his boots as Grace had done for a better connection to the world around her.
Ymma stopped and put her hand to the wall. She pressed her forehead against the stone, then looked up at Heath and nodded.
“Are you certain?” Nuris asked.
“She is,” Heath answered for her without looking away from the wall.
He reached out then, but instead of him pressing his hand to the stone wall as Nelda expected, the stones moved out, slowly and silently forming a hole in the wall. Before anyone could stop her, Ymma raced through it, followed only a step later by Heath.
Frayne was carrying Lia, still worn and tired, and Nelda wondered how long it would take her to rebuild what she had spent keeping Heath alive. Frayne slipped her quickly into Captain West’s arms, drew his sword, and disappeared into the dark.
Nelda would have raced into the room immediately after Ymma and tried to stop Heath from climbing through the hole in the wall that he had created, but Dunstan held her back.
It was too quiet and too dark.
Heath called out, “Here!”
Nelda pulled from Dunstan, bringing a flame to life in her hand as she stepped into the space and then stopped. Before her was the strangest sight, and magic overwhelmed her. She had not sensed any of it until she was in the room. Perhaps it was the way it was contained, but the walls of shimmering glass jars of various shapes and sizes were as overwhelming as the feeling.
“What is this?” she stammered, trying to grasp how many witches they had drained to create such a liquid. She knew it came from their blood—she could feel herself and Grace amongst the thrum—but what they had done to it, she did not understand.
She turned slowly, taking in the sheer volume and then the lack of windows and doors. Had the cardinal created this room, or was it something he’d taken from the other monk?
Heath and Ymma were bent over the small frame of Pip. Heath scooped her up and then staggered a little. Nelda was not sure if she felt stronger or more drained in the odd space. She wanted to close it up so that the cardinal could never reach it again, yet she was sure he could. She stepped closer to the shelving, and glass crunched beneath her foot.
She looked down at the shimmering stones, the shards of glass, and dribbles of blood. She looked back at Pip, and the damage done to her small hand. Something flared inside her like anger, only much worse. She put her hand to the nearest glass jar, silently apologised to all those lost to create its contents, and then started to burn. The liquid called out to her, although whether in fear or relief she had no idea.
Nelda stepped back and ushered the others out. She reached back for Frayne, who stood in the middle of the odd space, staring in wonder at the walls around him. She tugged him too, just as the first jar exploded, and he put his arm up to cover his face as he turned away.
Heath started to put the wall back as she stood in the opening, her family behind her. The liquid burned an odd golden colour, a flame she had never seen before. And as it burned and the glass broke, the liquid evaporated in the flame rather than pouring out across the shelving that was now well alight, burning with the same odd flame.
Once she knew it was all gone and the thrum settled to nothing, she turned her back on the opening. Heath closed it up without asking. He did not need to. What the cardinal would do when he discovered the jars gone and the child rescued, Nelda couldn’t guess. But for now, they needed to reach out to the sisters and ensure they were safe.
“Do you need more water?” She turned as Frayne asked the question, but the girl he was holding up shook her head. Then he released her to lean against Heath, who gently kissed the top of her head.
“What will he do when he finds this?” Dunstan asked.
“I don’t think he will have the power to do anything, or if he does it won’t last long,” Nelda said. At least she hoped that was the case. They would find out soon enough.
Chapter 34
It was as though the world had shifted around Dunstan, although he could not say how or even why that was the case. An odd sensation seemed to hover around him as the flames burned away in the small room. Heath held his hand over what had been the opening, and it sealed the wonder away.
The cardinal had his own way of seeing the world, and Dunstan could not begin to imagine what had happened to the man for him to decide using magic was the way to go. That it was the only option he had to achieve what he had worked his life for, which had appeared to be removing magic from the kingdom and the witches with it. But since the man appeared to have developed this power, Dunstan had not seen very much of him. He wondered if the cardinal was out enjoying what he had wanted to remove.
He sighed, and Nelda looked up at him, taking his arm. “It was the right thing to do,” she said, although it appeared to have hurt her to do so.
“I know,” he murmured. “I am trying to understand the man behind it.”
“The cardinal or the other monk? For I think he might be something very different.”
“The cardinal,” Dunstan murmured, looking ahead at the odd group moving through the castle towards the throne room and the sisters that had gone before them. “I don’t think this is where we should be.”
Frayne stopped and turned back to him. His son’s sword was still in his hand, as though they could meet danger in the hallways of Sunsong. But they had before. And as Dunstan looked about now, it seemed oddly quiet. Again, he thought of the fire he had just witnessed and the odd feeling that had followed it.
“Where do you think we should go?” Frayne asked, drawing Dunstan’s attention back to the worried look on his son’s face. Had he been that lost in his thoughts?
He shook his head. The idea of them all in the throne room again worried him. He could not say why, but he’d had the same feeling the last time the shadows had closed in around them. He just knew in his bones that they would not be safe there.
“Dunstan?” Nelda prompted, and he realised the group had stopped. They were all waiting on his instruction, and he had no idea where they should be. He only knew they shouldn’t be in the throne room.
“I can’t explain,” he said.
“Let us find the sisters,” Nelda suggested, nudging him back into a slow walk. “They might have an idea. They might have seen something we may not.”
“I have seen far more than I ever imagined,” Dunstan muttered.
Nelda squeezed his arm, and although Frayne seemed to stand and stare at him too long before he started walking again, the whole group continued.
The throne room was quiet when they reached it. Dunstan rushed forward, worried that he had sent the sisters into danger, but he came across Chadwick, who held up a finger and then pointed towards the throne. The sisters were kneeling before it, all heads bowed, their knees directly on the hard flagstones. There did not appear to be a pattern to their formation; they had just knelt where they were.
Something like fear struck at his chest. The throne itself was still there, but the same odd feeling that had followed him from the room seemed suddenly intensified.
“What happened?” Frayne asked, and Chadwick gave him a look as though he had defied what he had asked of him.
The sisters remained unmoving aside from the younger one, Sister Grace, who stood slowly and moved toward them in a silent walk—although she appeared a little stiff.
“The cardinal,” she whispered, her voice low, and the king stepped in closer. “What has he done to the child?”
She stepped up to Heath, who was carrying Pip, and the girl beside him had her hand on Pip as well. Sister Grace led them to the table rather than the throne, which was where he assumed the girl, Lia, would want to go. The sister pulled a chair out for Lia, and as she sat down Heath laid the child against her.
“Are you strong enough for this?” the sister asked.
Lia nodded, resting her head against the child.
The maid stood close, wringing her hands. Heath stood behind them, his hand on Lia’s shoulder.
“We can’t stay here,” he said.
The sister looked back to the throne and the unmoving sisters.
“Was the cardinal here?” Nuris asked.
“Yes, although briefly. Once he was visible, he disappeared again,” Chadwick said.
Dunstan could clearly see Heath’s resemblance to the man now, and given the number of times he had seen Chadwick trailing behind the queen or standing by her door, he wondered that he had not recognised Heath earlier.
“How long ago?” he asked.
“It was not long after we arrived,” the sister said as the large soldier looked to her.
“Then he didn’t return to the room, or he left again.”
“But what does he want?” West asked. “Is she going to recover?” He looked at the child.
“She needs food and water,” Lia whispered. Dunstan wondered if she was giving too much of the little she had recovered.
The maid made for the door, and West was quick to grab her and hold her back.
“It isn’t safe,” Heath said as she tried to pull from West, and she stopped the struggle.
“We need to find the cardinal,” the general growled. Despite his smoother voice, it was a frightening sound.
“And we can’t stay here,” Dunstan said.
“The cathedral of the God,” Sister Grace said.
Silence followed as the group took in her suggestion. It was the monks’ place; it was the cardinal’s. Were they to take the battle to them—this half-dead group?
“We aren’t strong enough,” the king eventually said when no one else was willing to challenge the sister on her idea.
“That is why we need to go to the God.” She looked to Frayne, who nodded.
“You trust this?” he asked without hesitation. The sister didn’t scowl at him, nor had any of the others moved.
“The throne is safe,” the little one murmured, and Ymma started to cry.
“We need to ensure you are safe,” Sister Grace said, looking at the king but then back to Frayne. He wasn’t sure which one of them she meant. “The God and the Goddess would help us do that.”
“Should we go to the Goddess then?”
She shook her head. “There is a connection between these men and the God, but he will give you strength.”
The walk through Sunsong seemed long and just as unsettling as when they had found the secret room and the child. Pip would occasionally look up from the arms of Lia as Heath guided them. Frayne and the sister led the group. She appeared far too calm, and he carried his sword at the ready. Dunstan suspected that might be in case he had to defend the woman rather than in case of danger to the group, but he knew the boy would do anything for him and the odd family that followed.
The few soldiers who had travelled with them flanked the group, but it was not enough—not if they were to face what they had last time. Dunstan was certain that they were headed towards their deaths rather than their salvation. He wanted to take Nelda by the hand and run. Two of the men they were likely to face drew their strength from their faith in the God. Or was he wrong about that?
He was not sure whether the God would work on their side or not. Would he simply stand by as witness to the end of Dunstan’s reign and line in Sunsong? If that were to happen, he had no idea as to what the world that followed would be.
He glanced about through the streets that also appeared too empty now. Several stalls were set up in the square off the cathedral, but without the thriving activity that usually filled the space. Another sign that the world was not as it should be. He found his feet slowing, and he stopped.
“Dunstan?” Nelda asked. She appeared worried, as though he might not be well. He shook his head, but he was not sure what the question was that he was answering.
“Father,” Frayne said, his hand on Dunstan’s shoulder. He looked into the familiar eyes of the boy and wondered how he had not seen himself there before. He glanced at Nelda, who continued to look at him with her worried fire-coloured eyes. She had seen it—she must have. When they had met each other in the forest, she would have seen him in the boy—no, the man—who now stood before him. She had understood what and who he was, and that he had to be returned, no matter the danger to herself.
Dunstan turned suddenly and threw his arms around her, pulling her close and holding her tight. He had never fully appreciated the woman she had been all those years ago, and despite the feelings he had admitted to, he did not fully appreciate her still.
“Your Majesty,” the general murmured, and Dunstan looked up from Nelda’s dark hair to her brother’s dark look.
“I am scared,” he admitted.
“We all are,” the general growled, a sound just as frightening as before his voice had been healed. “We cannot stay here... like this.”
Dunstan assumed the man meant with the king with his arms around a witch in the middle of Sunsong. But the general stood to attention, his sword still sheathed, and gave no indication as to what he meant. Dunstan nodded slowly and released the woman in his arms, but he took her hand before she could move too far away from him. He nodded to the general, who looked to his sister instead. Frayne gave him an odd smile before he turned back to the front of the group, and they continued into the cathedral.
