Kingdoms of the Cursed, page 11
“That makes you dangerous to the chancellor,” she said. “What if he decides to get rid of you? He’s done way worse.”
“Right now he doesn’t dare,” she said. “Your father likes me. But if he suspects I betrayed him . . .” she shrugged.
“Likes you?” Aster said, her mind retracing the last part of the conversation. “Likes you how?”
She looked embarrassed.
“I’m as confused about that as anyone,” Ms. Fincher said. “Just—don’t worry about it for now. Look out for yourself. These steps will take you to an underground stream. You may have to swim, but I’m told on the left side it’s usually shallow enough to wade. You’ll know when to get out. You’ll be in a cave, and a friend will meet you there and help you to safety. Her name is Eve.”
Aster nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You stay safe, too.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Aster started down into the darkness.
She smelled the stream before she heard it and heard it before she saw it by the light of her mote. The tunnel she was in dropped down on the left side—where, as promised, the water only came up to about her knees. That was still a nuisance, because the dress Oak and his brothers had given her quickly became soaked and heavy, dragging at her feet. As she went along, the water became deeper. Finally, up ahead, she saw what looked like a shore or bank, and an empty space beyond.
She stepped a little more quickly; the water was freezing, and she was eager to be out of it.
Her next step encountered no bottom, and before she could do more than gasp, she plunged into the river face-first.
Aster lay wet on the stone river bank, luxuriating in and regretting memory.
Ever since her dad developed his problem, Aster had lived in fear of inheriting it—of not knowing who she was, where she came from, what was happening. She had read books on dementia, Alzheimer’s, and retrograde amnesia.
In the oubliette, those fears had been completely realized.
The horrible thing was, it hadn’t been so bad. She had experienced each moment of existence as if it was the first, sort of like when she had been very young, when a shiny green beetle or a water-skeeter could hold her attention for hours. Without memory, there could be no regret, no could-have-beens, and no anxiety about the future.
All that was back now since Ms. Fincher had rescued her. The stairs, the freezing water, and finally strong hands pulling her from the underground river.
She sat up in the dim light, searching for her rescuer and trying to get her bearings, but she had little to help her along, even after she called up another tiny light. She was in a cave with a ceiling so low she had to stoop. The river flowed on one side and beyond it was stone, but every other direction ended in space and darkness.
“Welcome, cousin,” a soft voice said.
Aster nearly jumped out of her skin, and for a moment she still didn’t know where the voice had come from. Then she saw her, sitting cross-legged a few feet away on a blanket, a little picnic basket in front of her.
Her hair and face might have been carved from a single piece of chalk. Her eyes were like two dark holes, and between and above them gleamed a silver star. Her gown was silvery and diaphanous, finer than any silk she had ever seen.
“Eve?” Aster asked.
“That is my name,” she said. “You know my blood. Gloam is my nephew, Dusk my niece. My brother was king here, but he died long before the curse. The queen—took another husband, not a very good one. He also was gone before the curse. And you and I, I suspect, are also kin. You reek of our family. But I do not know you. And that is curious.”
“Wait,” said Aster. “If you’re Dusk’s aunt, why aren’t you stone, or asleep, or whatever, like the other adults?”
“Dusk is a little older than me,” she said. “I am the youngest of my siblings.”
“And how do you know Delia Fincher?”
“When the curse arrived, I should have taken my brother’s place and become queen. But my niece, Nocturn, seized power and tried to imprison me. I escaped her and found this place to hide. Whether it was here before the curse or not, I do not know. As you may be aware, things have changed. Nocturn had only the vaguest notion I was here; when Kostye and the Chancellor drove her out, they had none at all. But there are many places from which I can observe them, and I have been watching them closely. And with them, Delia. In her I saw someone who could help us. I met with her, several times. And when I saw you, I knew it was time to act. You are the one we’ve been waiting for.”
“Who is we?”
“You will meet her soon,” Eve said.
“I would like to meet her now,” Aster said.
“Time is pressing,” Eve agreed. “But you must eat and drink. Replenish yourself. Then we will go to see her.”
On the little blanket, Eve fed her apples, grapes, raisins, figs, walnuts, and chestnuts. For drink, she had cold water scented with mint and rosemary. Aster realized how long it had been since she had eaten, and how good things could taste in the Kingdoms. Apples in the Reign of the Departed, for instance, were big, but they were also watery and grainy, sometimes sweet but with little else in the way of flavor. These apples were small, more yellow than red, and tasted like rose petals and lemon, but most of all like apple. The grapes were a little shrunken and wrinkled, on their way to becoming raisins or wine, sweet and musky, with thick, chewy skins. The walnuts tasted like a rain in the forest smelled.
When she had eaten, Eve suggested a nap, but Aster was ready to move on, and the other girl finally agreed that it was time.
“Which way?” Aster asked.
“It’s right over here,” Eve replied.
Aster turned to look that way, and she felt a sharp pain in her neck, like a wasp sting, but worse. She slapped her hand to the spot, and opened her mouth to shout, but her mouth kept opening, folding back over her head, swallowing her. Eve said something, but her words came from another place, far away, in a language she did not know.
Down another rabbit hole, she thought.
Aster dreamed of a harp the size of the sky, strummed softly by zephyrs, plucked by the swells of evening winds, hushed by the rain. She felt the lowest notes only in her bones, and the highest behind her eyes, more color than sound. When light came, it was at the far end of a tunnel, fraying at the outlines, refracted by what appeared to be tiny jewels scattered about.
As her eyesight adjusted she realized she was looking up through an immense field of webbing, and the lights were beads of water collected where the threads met. She was at the bottom of a deep pit, staring up through layers of spider web, but she gradually came to understand that she was hanging in the center of the web, and the web wasn’t round, but spherical, stretching out away from her in every direction. Here and there she saw darker blobs, like insects encased in silk. Except they weren’t shaped like insects; they looked more like human mummies. The nearest, only a few feet away, had something golden and gleaming poking through, like the top of a crown.
Aster.
The voice did not come through her ears; she felt it in the webs that held her captured and suspended. Inside the silk encasing the crowned figure, a faint, golden glow began, like sunlight. She made out the luminous shape of a woman.
I thought you would never come, the voice said. It seems so long. But you have come at last to end the curse.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The Day Queen, my subjects called me, she said. Elbendé, The Swan, my name at birth. Bright Sky, my husband named me, and Light of Love. My children called me Mother. You must listen—my time is short. Darkness enfolds me, and only fitfully and in dreams may I wake. The curse is of your father’s making. Even he cannot undo it. But you can.
“How?” Aster asked.
Your mother gave you something. Do you remember?
“My little silver sphere,” she said.
There are five of them, the Day Queen said. Find them.
“But I lost my orb,” she said. “I don’t know where it is.”
It was given to you. You have the power to seek it—you always have. You have seen where two others are.
“One is here,” she said. “My father has it. Another is in some place with pyramids. I think I left mine in the carriage, so Veronica has it. But what about the fourth and fifth?”
The light from within the cobwebs dimmed visibly.
“Wait,” Aster said. “That’s not enough. Where is the place with the pyramids? Once I have all the orbs, what do I do?”
Your heart will learn, the Day Queen said. When you find your heart. But first you must survive the cost of coming here . . .
Then the light was gone, and only shadow in its place.
The web, still for a moment, suddenly shook. Looking around wildly, Aster saw a darkness blotting out the little lights of the dewdrops, moving toward her.
FOUR
WINTER NIGHT
Veronica tried to pull her hand away when the boy took her wrist, but he was strong. Too strong.
“If I cut off a finger,” he wondered, “Will it grow back?”
“What’s your name, sugar?” Veronica asked him, trying to get him to look her in the eyes, rather than studying things to sever.
“That’s not important,” the boy said.
“That’s a funny name,” Veronica said. “I like it.”
His gaze flicked up, then, and she caught it and held it. Beneath her skin, she felt a deep, powerful stir.
The boy felt it, too. His pupils grew wider and darker, and he came even nearer.
“What are you about?” he asked.
“Don’t be afraid of me, honey-pot,” she said.
“I’m not . . .” He didn’t finish. He grabbed her behind the head and started kissing her. It was violent and awful and she knew it so well. But that was okay. Because as he kissed her, she began to feed. He struggled for half a second, then sighed and gave in.
They always gave in.
She’d forgotten how good it was. Like an ice-cold Coke on a hot summer day. Like pressing a splinter from an abscess and seeing the puss spurt out. Like crushing the life out of a tick.
It made her tingle all over. It made her feel big.
“Hey,” the girl said. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
She wasn’t finished with the boy, but she didn’t have time, not with the girl coming at her like that.
She pulled back.
“She’s trying to keep us apart,” Veronica told the boy. “She wants me for herself.”
The girl had grabbed him by the shoulder, which only helped make Veronica’s case. The boy growled like an animal and spun on his companion. He slammed his knife hand into her and she shrieked, falling to the floor and scrambling backward as he followed. They both vanished from view—her crawling, him walking with cold purpose.
A moment later, the boy was back, a dreadful grimace on his face. He kissed her again, and she finished him, taking all he had until his lips tasted of dust and marrow.
She didn’t feel at all bad about it.
But she was still chained. She couldn’t reach the boy’s knife, and even though she felt stronger—much stronger—it wasn’t enough to snap her bonds. She knew there were guards not far away, she didn’t have much time.
She felt suddenly very cold. Moisture beaded on her face like sweat—or more like the condensation on a glass of iced tea.
She spotted one of the guards at the door, his sword drawn. His skin had a distinct blue shade to it, and he looked surprised.
Then he toppled forward, landing on the boy with the knife.
Behind him stood the Brume, staring at Veronica with big eyes.
“You’ve been naughty,” the Brume said.
“So naughty,” Veronica agreed. “But then so have you. Where are Haydevil and Mistral?”
“Why don’t we find out?” the Brume said. She lifted her hand, and Veronica saw she held a ring of keys.
She heard shouting as the Brume unchained her. Echoing in the tunnels, it was hard to say how far away.
“Is there a way out?” Veronica asked.
“For us there is,” the girl replied.
Veronica followed the Brume through the twisting corridors, trending generally in a downward direction. She felt the water, tantalizingly near, but never quite close enough to touch.
From the sounds of things, her escape had been discovered. The Brume had probably frozen every guard on the way to her, as she had once frozen Billy and Errol. But from what she’d seen, Nocturn had plenty more soldiers to send.
Veronica was starting to worry the Brume was lost, when they finally entered a room that sloped down to a small pool of water.
“This comes out somewhere?” Veronica said.
“Somewhere,” the Brume confirmed.
“You first, then,” Veronica said.
“I like water,” the Brume said.
“Me too,” Veronica said. The hammering of boots on stone was quite close, now.
“But I can’t swim,” the girl said.
“Oh, for—” she grabbed the Brume by the wrist and pulled her into the water.
She kicked hard, pulling the girl down with her. Veronica felt the Brume struggle for breath, then her pulse began to slow, and the blood in her veins came nearly to a stop. Her hand became quite cold.
The water, too, quickly grew chilly. Veronica didn’t mind. Her eyesight was almost useless, but every other sense was so alive it didn’t matter.
The tunnel was tight at first, but then it widened and turned so they were no longer going straight down, but out, away from the Mountain of the Winds. The water was almost still, but not quite, as if she was in the veins of a sleeping titan, whose heart beat in time with years instead of seconds. To say the water had purpose was probably overstating things, but it was going somewhere, as all water did. Even glaciers moved, even the stagnant water of a salt lake rose into the air to find clouds.
The Brume tugged at her, suggesting she had a more pressing direction in mind. Veronica, beginning to lose herself in the vast underwater labyrinth, tried to concentrate on those cues, to keep herself in her own present, her own mission, rather than succumbing to the ancient resolve of the netherflood.
All too soon, her sense of time became more acute as, somewhere above, the sun rose and her lungs suddenly felt the need for air. She began to kick more frantically, trying to sense some place where air might be—just a pocket of it, enough for a single breath. She squeezed frantically at the Brume’s hand, trying to somehow signal her of the danger.
She swam blindly upward, hoping against hope that there was a surface she could not feel, but now the Brume tugged even harder at her hand, down.
In a panic, she tried to let go, but realized their hands were frozen together. Worse, she felt cold creeping up her arm, obliterating all feeling. Then it reached her lungs, and they froze, still aching for air.
Everything slowed and she didn’t feel much at all. Together, she and the Brume drifted down, very gently.
She remembered her last day as a normal, mortal girl, strands of sun falling through the leaves of the forest, dappling the waters below the falls. She remembered the man. She remembered dying.
She remembered kissing Errol beneath the stars.
She remembered being buried head-first in the earth, and many other things.
She remembered it all without fear or anger or passion of any sort, as if she was watching the movie of someone else’s life. She wanted nothing, needed nothing.
It was a good place to end.
But it did not end. After a long time, the darkness gave way to light—not bright like the sun, but tiny, diffuse sparks, like a Christmas tree seen through tears. Fuzzy.
Then the lights sharpened into pinpoints, and she realized her face was no longer in the water. The lights were stars accompanied by a tremendous full moon. White forms drifted in the water all around her, which she gradually came to comprehend were chunks of ice, bobbing in the water like she and the Brume were, still half frozen themselves.
As her awareness sharpened, she realized they were drifting down a river edged by dark, evergreen forest. When she thawed enough to move her limbs, she lethargically stroked toward the water’s edge. Eventually, they were on the bank.
To her delight, the forest floor was covered in a few inches of snow. She barely remembered snow—it didn’t fall often where she was from, and when it did there usually wasn’t much and it didn’t stay long. But once, when she was about six or seven, it had snowed for two days. Her dad had made snow ice cream by mixing it with milk and sugar. She’d thought it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Then her whole family had gone out front to make a snow man. The next day everything started to melt, but the snow man hung in there, long after the slush on the ground was gone, shrinking, becoming more and more pitiful, until she wished they’d never made him at all, so he wouldn’t have to suffer.
Make her sad.
Once or twice the stream she shared with the Creek Man had frozen over. She had bumped against the ice, and once found a man looking through it at her. Then he had cracked the ice with his fist, and the real fun began . . .
She clenched her fingers in the white powder, trying to make a snowball, to remember more about the ice cream and less about the man in the creek.
She knew what she’d done to the boy with the knife. She hadn’t had a choice. Errol would understand that.
But she had also enjoyed it, which he would probably not understand. She didn’t want to understand it either. Or think about it.
She realized this place felt all too familiar. Like the in-between, like they were almost out of the Kingdoms again.
She also felt like someone was watching her.
“Come on Brume,” she said. “We should get going.”
But the girl didn’t respond. Veronica wondered if she was dead, then she saw she was breathing. Most likely, she was just worn out.
