Within the Rigamort, Nerezeth’s most beautiful mystic ice cavern, there was a passage guarded by the most majestic of the night realm’s creatures: the brumal stags—enchanted to be loyal to each successive king and protect the land’s hidden border.
For centuries, the tunnel they guarded had been used by hoarfrost goblins who sold things on the black market, royally appointed sun-smugglers, and the occasional Night Ravager who had a secret mission, as it led directly up into the Ashen Ravine. That haunted wasteland provided the ideal camouflage for those stealing the sun or who wished to stay hidden from prying Eldorian eyes. However, none could enter Nerezeth from this same passageway, unless they belonged to the night. Brumal stags could sense their own kind, and anyone of the day realm, creature or man alike, foolish enough to attempt entry, fell prey to deadly antlers.
It was this very tunnel Prince Vesper planned to take for his trip into Eldoria. He knew, from notes he’d exchanged with his betrothed via jackdaws, that the princess and her family had been locked inside a dungeon in Eldoria since the peace treaty—all due to their fear of a murderous witch. Not only did the imprisonment affect Lady Lyra, but every cottage, wall, and tower within her land was swallowed by barbed vines that had been meant to protect them from the same vengeful conjurer. He’d promised long ago to keep her safe and intended to see it done. It was the least he could do, for without her song and her touch, his curse would harden him to a statue of gold and burst his stony bones into a thousand pinholes of light. But with her, together, they would reunite the sun and the moon and heal both lands.
Within the hour, he and his entourage would begin the journey to the day realm. Since there was only night here, his people took to their beds after that hazy glimpse of dawn in the sky, much like the Eldorians’ cessation courses began at the blink of twilight. However, the prince had commanded everyone in his entourage to retire early, so they would be rested enough to leave once the sky flashed pink.
Too unsettled to take his own advice, Vesper stopped at the castle’s infirmary. Wet coughs and labored breaths preempted the smells of sickness, panacea tea, and incense as he stepped into what was once the great obsidian ballroom. Cots lined the black walls and littered the open floor. Small pathways opened between them, allowing a mazelike passage. This place housed only the castle’s affected occupants. Other temporary infirmaries had been assembled inside cottages throughout the province, for both nobles and commoners. Illness harbored no prejudice; it affected the young and old and rich and poor alike. Mortality and its frailties were the most humbling equalizers.
Humbling even for royalty, for here in this room, Vesper wasn’t the king-in-waiting, or even the dark prince. Here he was the carrier of hope. A hope that was waning. Only one thing would save his sick people: pure daylight. Not only eating plants grown with it, but to stand beneath sunrays and absorb them, even if in small doses through windows or open doorways. With his sunlit blood, he could give them some of what they needed, but not enough.
Hardly even a head raised as he passed through the walkways, as most of the occupants were so ill, they struggled for breath and coughed without waking.
A small hand reached out from under a blanket and gripped Vesper’s thumb, stalling him. Though the moonlit complexion was stark against the prince’s deep coloring, like a layer of ice upon a hemlock, the child’s touch was as hot as fire.
Vesper’s heart pricked as he knelt beside the cot. “Good diurnal, Nyx.” He affectionately mussed the silvery bush of hair upon the seven-year-old’s head, noting the smear of gold peeking out from the boy’s nightshirt upon his chest. “How do you fare today?”
“I’d be better, were Elsa to shut her teeth about the princess.”
On the cot across from Nyx came his younger sister’s voice, hoarse from coughing yet lilting with innocence. “I haven’t been opening my teeth ’bout it. You’re more chatty than me!”
“Liar! I only care about the witch.” Nyx’s eyes, dull and purple, blinked up in the dimness. “You’re to lop off her head as a gift for your bride, aren’t you, Majesty?”
Vesper bit back a grin, seeing his younger self in the lad’s bloodthirst and boldness. “Not the head, no. I don’t have the proper wrapping for horns. And a princess’s gift must be immaculately presented. Don’t you think it so, Elsa?”
A giggle erupted from the tiny girl’s bluish lips. “Yes, Majesty! Especially for a princess of moonlight and music!”
“So, you’re not to kill the witch at all?” Disappointment peppered Nyx’s response. “Isn’t that why you’re going into the haunted forest. Isn’t it?”
Their mother, the head cook, who had been busy preparing menus for the upcoming feasts, had apparently heard the rumors of Vesper traversing the Ashen Ravine and passed it on to her children. She was a firm believer that gossip provided better sustenance than food itself.
“I intend to capture the witch, yes,” Vesper answered. “It will be for the princess to decide her fate. But I’m also going that way to check on the royal gatekeepers. Now, shouldn’t you two be resting, so you can be well enough to attend the wedding?”
“I don’t wish to rest! I want to help. I’m aged enough to be a page, you know!” Nyx turned his head into his pillow to muffle a hacking cough.
Wincing, Vesper patted the boy’s rattling chest. “Of course you are, and when you’re better, we’ll see what we can do about that. First, you have to be hale and hearty enough to train. Even a knight needs to sleep.”
“Tell us the tale of the brumal stags and the little prince, please . . .” Elsa’s tiny lips scrunched into a pout impossible to resist. “We’ll fall asleep then, Majesty. Promise.”
“Fair enough,” Vesper conceded. “But you must both lay down upon your pillows and close your eyes. It’s far better to envision their beauty on a blank slate.”
Elsa grinned. Both children shut their stubby white lashes, and took rattling breaths as Vesper sat upon the cold floor between their cots. He propped his elbows on his knees.
“The prince was but a child when he first saw them.” He began the tale he’d told the castle’s children many times before . . . the tale that hinged upon his personal memory. “He took the journey to the Rigamort with his kingly father for the ritual of binding that every young prince before him had experienced. He was nervous about the interaction, for most Nerezethites never see the creatures. Only those who use the Rigamort, who keep secrets locked tight within themselves.”
“Was he scairt to smoke the pipe?” mumbled Nyx, halfway to sleeping already.
“Perhaps a little. But more, he was afraid the stags wouldn’t recognize his royal station . . . wouldn’t accept him, as this prince was different than all those before him.”
“He couldn’t see in the dark,” Elsa interrupted. “And his hair was black as soot and his skin shimmered like a copper bell.” Her own skin blushed, showcasing the blue veins beneath, and she squeezed her eyes tight to keep them closed.
Nyx’s own sleepy eyes snapped open. “Elsa, stop hornin’ in! And plus, swooning is for milksops.”
She harrumphed at that.
Vesper smiled, waiting for Nyx’s eyelids to flutter down. “The prince and his father descended deep within the cavern, past the frozen blue waterfalls and beyond the sparkling stalactites—and there in the depths were the gatekeepers. At first glance they looked frail: white, sleek, and deer-sized with moonlit-fringed fetlocks and long tufted tails resembling a lion’s. But the silver-glowing scales that curved from their spines to their chests were as impenetrable as iron shields. And their claws rivaled any panther’s, just as their razor-pronged antlers could shred a man to pieces—”
“With one duck of the head,” Elsa added, beating her brother to his favorite detail.
Nyx’s answering grumble evolved to a yawn.
Vesper paused reverently for the end of the telling. “Without any fear, the king took the prince’s hand and stepped forward. He knelt beside his strange son, showing the stags his acceptance so they would accept him, too. And they did, nuzzling his little head with muzzles as soft as eiderdown. The king lit up the ceremonial pipe, and both he and the prince inhaled the incense—filled with enchantments, smoke, and starlight—and breathed a shared breath into each of the stag’s nostrils.”
Elsa yawned, as if triggered by her brother. “It bound them to you. In their minds.” She rolled to her side and drew her blankets over her ears, her breaths growing even and slow.
“Yes. Exactly that.” Vesper was glad the children slumbered, for he would never share the rest. It made him feel powerless, that from the moment he drank the sunlight, he’d lost his mental ties with the stags, just as he’d lost it with his people. Ever since, he had visited the gatekeepers in person, but an abundance of night tides had prevented the journey over the last several months. When the royal sorceress, Madame Dyadia, reached out to them with her spiritual portents, she reported the creatures had grown less responsive. The sorceress assumed it a natural evolution—since sun-smuggling and assassinating had become a thing of the past and those under royal employ no longer sought usage of the tunnel, the enchanted beings had little to report. But Vesper was concerned enough to take the backward route into Eldoria, so he might confirm the brumal stags’ welfare with his own eyes.
Pulling the covers up to Nyx’s chin, the prince reached across to squeeze Elsa’s blanketed ankle and stood.
A physician spotted him and motioned him to a small table filled with medicinal herbs and waxy cones that could be melted down to ease breathing.
“Do you need a supply?” Vesper asked, eyeing the two remaining vials of golden liquid they’d drained from an incision a week earlier. “I’ll be gone for several days.”
The physician shook his pale head. “We want you strong and able-bodied for the journey, Majesty. We’ll make do until your return.”
Only recently they had discovered that Vesper’s sunlit blood had healing qualities. It could be painted directly onto the ribs and chest of the sick. Though it initially caused a burning sensation, it helped clear the lungs.
When he’d first devoured the arboretum’s daylit concoction, he had been unbearable for any of his people to touch. However, within a week they discovered that once the sunlight’s poison entered his veins, it became less potent—to anyone but him. By pressing droplets of the drained golden mixture to vellum, others could handle it in small increments and lose sensitivity to his fiery skin. It was a matter of desensitizing with exposure. This anomaly had prompted Vesper to send letters written in his golden blood to Princess Lyra. He hoped to acclimate her to the sunlight so she wouldn’t suffer when he touched her, so she wouldn’t have to fear him when the time came for them to be together as husband and wife. By now, Lady Lyra should have absorbed enough that they would be able to share a dance in Eldoria’s ballroom before leaving for Nerezeth, hand in hand.
Vesper left the infirmary and strode along corridors of obsidian stone, the ceilings and corners strung with glowing white spiders that lit the darkness like stars. The squeaks of fuzzy mice, so black they blended with the stones, followed behind as he arrived at the winding stairs leading down to the dungeon’s cells.
Only a few were occupied with prisoners, none more dangerous than thieves or drunken vagabonds. Following the glass-encased torches along the walls—each lit strictly for him and fueled by tinder-bat dung—he entered an empty chamber at the end where he could no longer hear guards talking or prisoners snoring.
He dragged out the princess’s latest note from his pocket, then laid down upon a bed of nails to read it. Every cell in the dungeon had beds like this one. Each had hinged lids, also lined with iron spikes. An indention was made for the face, the pointed tips filed down to protect the eyes. Thus, the lid could be pulled into place atop a supine body—to torment the flesh on both sides.
Lying there, with the points pressed against his nape, spine, shoulders, torso and limbs, he considered closing the lid. In Eldoria, the nailbed would be a torture device. Yet, in his kingdom it provided training for young men and women alike who wished to serve in the royal infantry, not for self-flagellation, but to toughen their skin. Wearing metal armor outside the castle walls proved more detrimental than helpful, due to sleet storms that immediately froze to ice. Within minutes, the weight of a suit of chain mail could double or triple and harden beyond all movement, rendering its wearer as good as paralyzed. Instead, they crafted their armor out of rainbow-scaled fish skins insulated with leather, naturally water-resistant, lightweight and flexible—attributes that unfortunately also made them permeable by the creatures of their terrain. Thus, their skin had to serve as a third layer of protection.
After years of training, Vesper understood the pressure points and how to position one’s body to reap the least damage. The iron stabs kept him grounded . . . reminded him of his youth when his kingly father accompanied him to the wilds, where he learned to battle both cadaver brambles and rime scorpions. Day after day, Vesper endured searing stings and punctures—for longer stretches each time—until at last he could withstand the pain and had built up an immunity to both kinds of venom, much like his blood desensitizing people to the sunlight’s burn.
The prince now had scars enough that it no longer hurt to be pricked by thorns or nails. In fact, he had more scars than most, after uncountable incisions to drain the resurgence of toxic sun in his veins—each sewn shut with magical thread that left him healed, but flawed. Surprisingly, he could hardly feel the fiery infestation internally; there was minimal pain other than his dismal dance with the blade.
His hand clenched the knife sheathed at his waist. Even his face had suffered a cleansing gash, leaving a scar along his left cheek that could be partially masked beneath a beard. But pain and vanity were the least of his worries. Of late, the golden tinge in his blood grew thicker, more difficult to leech away. One day, it would stop flowing, and his heart would cease beating.
Other than the welfare of his people, this was his greatest concern. And that was why the princess was his only hope. His kingdom’s only hope.
“You should be sleeping.” The statement was followed by a wave of pearly crickets swishing across the floor.
Vesper tilted his head. His queenly mother’s silhouette stood in the doorway, draped in shadows cast by the torch. Her pets settled into the corners to chirp merrily. The queen held a small bundle in her arms. In the dimness, her eyes glinted amber—a contrast to the icy silver of her crown and hair.
“As our cricket subjects are zealously proclaiming, Lady Mother, this is a time for celebrating, not sleeping.” He rolled to his side and winced as a nail pierced his skin, just beneath his lowest rib. So, there were still a few tender places left on him. He rather liked the proof of humanity, knowing he wasn’t yet a man of metal and stone.
His grimace gentled as he refolded Lyra’s unread letter and pressed his boots on the floor to stand. “What do you have there? Is it the midnight shadows and spiders? I thought Cyprian was to gather those.” Vesper and his troop were taking an abundance of both, to intimidate the bees and shrink the thistles so they could break through Eldoria’s honeysuckle-imprisoned stronghold and claim his bride.
“Your first knight has no part in this. These are personal gifts for the princess from myself and her late father . . .” Her explanation fell short as her eyes narrowed. She laid the bundle atop a small stone table. “You’re bleeding.”
Her familiar scent of snow and crisp cranberry wine drifted around him as she raked a fingertip across a swirl of glittery gold mixed with bright red seeping into his white tunic along his rib cage. She gasped when she grazed his abdomen—as ungiving as a plate of armor—where the ripples of his muscles had been captured in a metallic sheet of gold that was slowly petrifying toward his chest.
It wasn’t the first of such a patch. He had a golden left forearm, and a golden right shin. He couldn’t bend his wrist, but considered himself fortunate it hadn’t affected his sword arm . . . and though he walked with a slight limp, he could still sit a horse better than any man or woman in his kingdom. This newest golden infestation, causing no obvious mobility issues, had been easier to hide.
He tried to delay the horror creeping across his lady mother’s face. “We should take any open wounds as a good omen, yes? The day I stop bleeding—”
“Dare not say it.” Queen Nova’s voice trembled. “This one . . . it’s so close to your heart.” Her silver hair hung free, the long strands serving as a curtain to the orange, flickering light. Within that slant of purple shade, her expression resembled a bruise.
Vesper lifted her chin. “I wonder, what are you to do with your time, once you no longer have to fuss over me? When my blood runs pure red, and I’m strong and whole once more? Have you a hobby in mind? Perhaps calligraphy. As crowned king, I’ll have leverage to arrange a spot for you on the chancery.” He winked and wiped the gold-tinged blood from her hand onto the back of Lyra’s letter. It left a smear of pinkish, flaxen glitter against the cream-colored parchment.
Queen Nova managed a reluctant smile. “I’d rather be a chronicler. Recording history would be more stimulating than scripting charters and writs upon sheepskin hour after hour. Though I hope never again to see another vial of golden ink.” She pressed the princess’s letter to his chest and patted his cheek. “You need a shave, if you and your first knight are still masquerading as Ravagers on this journey.” Having said that, she withdrew to the table where she began to open the bundle.
Vesper tucked the note into his pocket and absently rubbed a knuckle over the dark whiskers hiding his scarred cheek. Cyprian would have an easier time preparing. The only places hair grew on other Nerezethites were their heads, eyebrows, and lashes, leaving Vesper as the singular man in his kingdom who could grow a beard.
It was Cyprian who had proposed they wear disguises for their trek through the ravine. The two of them, swathed in fitted black eel-skin uniforms and skintight hoods that covered their hair, would present an imposing sight. An assassin’s party would inspire fear in the hearts of the depraved populace there, instead of tempting thievery or hostility. The others in the group, including Vesper’s sister, Selena, would be dressed as foot soldiers.
Vesper crossed to the queen while assuring his stiff leg didn’t crush any crickets. “How did you know where to find me?
“I asked Cyprian of your whereabouts. He told me you were to meet here with Madame Dyadia.” She glanced about the room for the sorceress.
The prince took over where his mother had left off, working free the purple wool knotted around the gifts. “Our sorceress sent Thana on an errand. I’m awaiting the bird’s report before we leave.”
“A report about the witch?” His queenly mother’s lip curled on the final word.
Vesper pushed aside some hair that had slipped from the rest of the shoulder-length strands bound with a tie at his nape. He looked down to meet her gaze—a soft heather in the torchlight.
“Yes. I still plan to find her.” He resisted the urge to use the imperialistic tone reserved for political and militaristic councils, loathe to pull rank with her.
For three years, he’d been serving as king. Although he would not officially wear the crown or title—or even sit the throne—until his coronation, what he said was law, and everyone respected that. Even those who still thought him unusual, who looked upon him as foredoomed. Yet this dear lady who’d birthed him couldn’t see past the toddler she once held in her lap when he’d scuffed a knee or couldn’t sleep.
“Time is not a luxury for you, my son.” She stalled his attempt to reveal the items inside the woolen wrapping—her hands glaring bright against his own. The crickets’ chirping escalated to a bothersome pitch. “Taking the ravine’s passage . . . it could add weeks to your trip.”
“Quite the opposite. By taking the Rigamort into the Ashen Ravine, we’ll save at least three days. The ravine’s magical effect on distances will result in a two-day journey from there to Eldoria, as opposed to five were we to go north and take the iron stairway.” Though the stairs were shallow and wide enough for horses to maneuver with ease, they had to be dismounted and led. It was a long climb, and the journey around Mt. Astra to reach Eldoria’s palace was equally long.
“What if you’re caught in a night tide in the badlands?”
“Madame Dyadia’s spiritual wards have predicted clear, starry skies,” Vesper interrupted. “The horses have been shod with steel spikes, so managing the ice and tundra will prove no issue. We should arrive at the Rigamort within eight hours after we leave the castle.”
“And the dangers?”
He huffed. “I’ve battled snow leopards, cadaver brambles, and bone spiders since I was seven. Thirteen years is enough to consider myself well-seasoned.”
She shook her head. “You know I speak of the ravine. There are things in that haunted forest you’ve no experience facing. Quagmires that move, flesh-eating shrouds . . . the murderers, degenerates and thieves.”
“Thieves.” He quirked a brow. “Precisely the reason it’s the perfect route. And I’m taking two of our best sun-smugglers, who know the ravine’s secrets within and without. Now, may I please have a look?” He gave her a tender smile, then nudged her hands aside to reveal the royal gifts. His thumb tracked the elegant lines of a glossy, pearlized hairbrush. His breath caught in appreciation of the craftsmanship.
“The bristles are constructed of the princess’s very own braid,” his queenly mother explained. “Madame Dyadia’s artisans used the sample that King Kiran brought those five years ago, and strengthened the strands with enchantments and fire and wax.”
“Beautiful,” Vesper murmured as he ran his palm across the brittle, silvery fibers. He remembered that braid, how soft it was to the touch. Many a time, he’d imagined how it would feel to caress his bride’s true hair on their wedding night, to follow the long, sleek strands down her naked body where they flared at her waist and framed her spectral flesh.
“And this.” The queen held up a crescent-moon hairpin with three starry, purple jewels in the middle. “We fashioned it in honor of our sigil. These gems are forged of the princess’s own tears, spellbound to stay crystalized until she releases them herself.”
Vesper took the metal pin and turned it in his hand. So delicate and perfect. Just as he imagined her to be.
He grew somber, thinking upon the princess’s latest note. He almost dreaded reading it. Her exchanges about the happenings in her kingdom had always been filled with an underlying sadness. Regret, even. Though her words came across as rehearsed and guarded, she didn’t feel worthy of the crown; that was obvious even without her saying it. He’d battled the same insecurities. According to the prophecy, these differences would make them strong when united. Just as Eldoria would embrace him for his likenesses to them, here in his homeland, Lady Lyra would be revered for those things her people once marked as odd and disquieting.
He was eager to experience that alongside her—for neither of them to ever feel inadequate again.
“What do you think?” His mother broke through his musings.
He laid the pin next to the hairbrush atop the wool. “They’re resplendent. I’ll give them to her when I give her the panacea ring.” Vesper had never forgotten how King Kiran had kept one alive, and how Eldoria’s princess had sacrificed it for his people. After that rose had birthed a bountiful harvest, he took a deep lavender blossom and requested Madame Dyadia use her craft to shrink and preserve it, thus retaining its unique scent. The bloom now sat secured atop a band woven of tarnished copper—a wedding ring to resemble the barren beauty of his world in contrast to the lushness of her own.
“So, now that you have these gifts,” the queen pressed, “will you abandon the witch hunt?”
“These gifts won’t give Lady Lyra what she’s been missing all these years. The harrower witch must be captured for sending her family into captivity in the dungeon, for killing her father and cousin. There is penance to be made, and a spell of madness to be lifted off the castle.”
“Penance. Feels more like vengeance.” Queen Nova folded up the items once more, her silvery eyebrows furrowed.
“Noble vengeance.” Vesper mirrored her expression, a more imposing gesture with his thick, dark brows.
“I’ve seen the snares you’re taking. Incendiary and body-gripping devices do not imply nobility.”
“This harrower witch is immortal. Madame Dyadia assured me she can’t be wounded or killed.” Vesper frowned. “You must know I would never consider using fireballs or pit snares on a typical old woman. But it takes harsher means to entrap someone who’s invincible.”
“It is this invincibility that concerns me. You . . . are the furthest thing from it.”
“She’s one, against me and nine of my most trusted confidantes. She must be contained. How else will my betrothed and her regent aunt feel safe enough to leave their kingdom in her council’s care and ride with us back to Nerezeth for our joint coronation and marriage, unless their persecutor be captured and dealt with? I am honor bound to give the princess back her power. She’s been too long without it.”
“You are honor bound to be her helpmate. Take the iron gate’s safe passage to Eldoria. You may be a few days later, but you’re guaranteed to arrive in one piece. Send your troop to capture the witch—after you’re cured, after you’re wed.”
Vesper’s chin clenched. He could sense his mother’s frustration at not being able to connect to him mentally. He shared it.
Queen Nova shook her head. “I saw the cloak you’re taking for the princess. Your sister is attending the journey to serve as chaperone, yet you’ve given her no such exaggerated wardrobe.”
Vesper had commissioned a hooded lacewing cloak sewn of silk and nightsky, lined with fish scales, and embellished with molted nightingale feathers, fur, and spider’s lace to wrap his princess within on their journey back. Though the moon would be a comfort to her, she hadn’t had a lifetime of puncture wounds in preparation for the harsh terrain. He knew from letters how fearful she was of thorns and nettles and bees. He only hoped her trepidation wouldn’t hinder her acceptance of the royal pets in his castle.
“Selena is accustomed to this land,” Vesper countered. “But Lady Lyra . . . you’ve heard the stories. She can’t even wave an arm out a window without her flesh searing in the light. I can only imagine what brambles will do.”
“The prophecy says that as your shadow-bride, she will be capable of embracing this world and you as you are. I believe those words. Perhaps she simply needs a chance to show her resilience. No better place than Nerezeth to test her mettle. ‘Ours is a land for the daring, and only the brutal of heart can survive.’ Those were your words. You wished to wrap her in brambles yourself before you lost—” She bit her explanation short.
“Before I lost what, Lady Mother?” He growled when she averted her gaze. “For five years you have tiptoed around the subject of that night, of how I’ve felt incomplete since the moment I awoke in my chamber after swallowing the sunlight. You and Dyadia were standing over my bed, here in this castle, yet I felt as if I’d been floating elsewhere for hours. Then there was the sense that some piece of me was missing. Something monumental. It was true, for I could no longer connect to you, my sister, or any of our people mentally . . . no longer have silent conversations between us. You assured me that what I was missing was the princess—that she can put me back to rights. There must be more. I tumble every night into sweat-drenched dreams, with the taste of steam on my tongue and the scent of kindling in my nose; I awaken out of sorts, out of breath, as if I’ve been running and running, somewhere both dark and light. Yet when my eyes open, here I am, tangled within my bedsheets. What don’t I remember? What are you keeping from me?”
The queen rubbed her temple until her knuckles bulged pale under the moonlit flesh that bound them. “Nothing. Once your princess quells the sun’s blaze within you, your nightmares will end.” Her long gown swished as she turned back to the table. “Lady Lyra is as capable as you. Have faith in it. She is your equal already—today. She needs you standing on the steps of her castle, not the witch.”
“It would be ill thought, to leave the witch at large.” Madame Dyadia’s voice rippled like a purr in the stony cell, silencing the crickets. “The wedding itself is in harm’s way, as long as she’s free.”
Vesper scanned their surroundings. The sorceress had slipped in without notice. Squinting, he at last saw her form, leaned against the wall beside the spiked bed, her flesh blending into the gray stone. Madame Dyadia had the ability to move without walking, to float like a night mist, and being descended from primordial chimeras—chameleon-catlike creatures—could match her surroundings at will. Her signature ivory robes trimmed in ebony lace were also ensorcelled to reflect her environs.
“What do you mean?” Queen Nova faced the sorceress after knotting the woolen binds around the princess’s gifts.
“Thana has Cronatia in her sights, as you commanded, Majesty.” The sorceress bowed to Vesper, acknowledging his rule. Synchronized with the movement, her flesh resumed its natural coloring: a mix of black and white stripes that along with her feline features and two-toned upswept hair had always reminded Vesper of a white tiger. “I spied through the bird’s eye, a box lined with drasilisk flesh within the witch’s keep. Written upon the lid were the words: ‘princess - revolution.’”
Vesper cursed, pounding the table with his left hand. His golden forearm scraped the edge and loosened a chunk of stone, sending it to the floor. He glared at it, jaw twitching. “She’s raising a rebellion against my bride. As if she hasn’t already done enough.”
“It would seem the witch has havoc yet to wreak. So very like Cronatia, to interfere no matter the consequences.” Madame Dyadia’s brow furrowed. In the midst of her striped forehead sat a pink, empty socket that usually housed a third eye unless she plucked and conjured it alongside a handful of white feathers into a scrying crow. The sorceress could even place her mind within the gruesome creature and use it as her mouthpiece.
“I understand it’s a difficult and painful process, but couldn’t you converse with the witch yourself, through the bird?” The queen offered up the suggestion in synch with Vesper’s thoughts. “It would give us a better idea of how to broach her.”
“I haven’t will enough to attempt a dialogue, knowing she wouldn’t answer truthfully. She’s a consummate liar.” Dyadia frowned and the raw, meaty divot on her forehead puckered and swelled, as if breathing. “Cronatia’s explanations are owed to Eldoria’s royalty, not me; those are the wrongs she must answer for now. Thus, she must be taken to the palace.”
Vesper crushed the broken rock beneath his boot’s heel with a gritty pop and wondered again at Dyadia’s strained familiarity with the witch. He’d questioned her about it more than once, but the sorceress skirted answers, insisting things that happened centuries ago belonged in the past, for they couldn’t change the future. He disagreed. Learning from yesterday’s mistakes is what made for a better tomorrow.
“I spied also a note,” Dyadia continued. “Wrinkled within the witch’s grasp. Too difficult to cipher. The contents might prove telling. Thana’s sightings suggest Eldoria’s princess is yet in danger. The bird’s precognitions have never proven false.”
Queen Nova shifted her feet and the sorceress turned to her, pressing her thin black lips to a line as their gazes locked.
Sensing a silent conversation taking place, Vesper stepped between them, breaking the connection. “You will address me directly and not speak behind my mind while in my presence. Both of you.”
His lady mother bowed her head humbly and Dyadia knelt before him, gaze turned to the floor. “Majesty, I was telling our queen that you must take the ravine despite her reservations. If for no other reason than the brumal stags.”
“Why? What have you learned?” Vesper asked.
The sorceress looked up then, torchlight gilding her complexion and slitted pupils to disturbing proportions—a wildcat set afire. “During Thana’s flight in the Rigamort, I spied through the bird’s eye: antlers piled upon the ground in bloody silver-blue stacks. Some within the herd appearing sick and weak. We must determine what has happened, on the chance it could infect our world with ills no princess can cure.”