15

The Hymn
of the
Forest

I wake up the next morning to a terrible wine headache and thick billows of smoke in the distance.

I sip chocolate drink—blood tears be damned—to be rid of the taste of last night’s mistakes and watch the clouds of smoke smolder on the horizon: not inside Vetris this time but far east and west of the city. Those must be the forests burning.

How many witches are losing the last home they have right now?

Varia wakes up later than I do but not by much, and she watches the smoke with me in her silk bathrobe, the two of us silent for a long moment.

“Try not to worry so much about Nightsinger. I sent word,” she says as she turns from the window to get ready for the day. “She should be in Windonhigh now, if she wasn’t already.”

I swallow the relief, refusing to let her see it. She has me at a disadvantage enough already.

“You’d think they’d name the last witch enclave something, oh, I don’t know, more intimidating,” I say. “Witchier. A lot more ‘dark’ and ‘blood’ words involved.”

Varia says nothing to this, wordlessly letting her maids in to dress her, which inherently forbids any more heretical talk of witches. Fione comes in soon after, and we wait together, awkwardly sitting on the couches facing each other while the maids finish Varia’s hair. Her cane with the valkerax head on it gleams in the morning sun, and I marvel that such a seemingly small thing can transform into a fully fledged crossbow.

“Bonbon?” I offer her a chocolate from the plate of them. She stares at the ground, determined not to meet my eyes. What do I say to her? Don’t be scared? It’s all right? She should be scared. And nothing is all right.

“Did you make that thing yourself?” I jerk my head to the cane, and Fione finally nods.

“Yes. Using my uncle’s materials and blueprints.”

I whistle, impressed. “You ever consider being a polymath if the whole ‘archduchess’ thing doesn’t work out?”

“It…it sort of will always work out,” she says softly. “Because I was born into it.”

There’s a beat of awkward but somehow ridiculous silence, and to my surprise when I burst out laughing, so does she. We lock eyes over our laughter, hers much quieter but still there, and for a moment it’s like everything is back to normal. I savor it as long as it lasts.

“How could I forget?” I wheeze. “About how fairly nobility works?”

“Extremely fairly,” Fione rolls her eyes through her laugh. When we’ve calmed, I inhale hugely.

“I’m glad, you know,” I try. “That you got the chance to tell Varia how you feel.”

This gets her eyes to stutter up to me, and I smile. She starts to open her mouth to say something when Varia walks in, putting a hand on Fione’s shoulder and grinning at her.

“Are you ready to go?”

Fione looks between her and me and then nods up at Varia, taking her hand and rising. They leave, and I see Fione pause at the door.

“Something wrong, darling?” Varia asks her gently.

Fione shakes her head. “No.”

I stare at the place where she used to sit, the remnants of our laughter still ringing in my ears. It’s then I notice something sticking out of the cushions of the couch she was sitting on. Brown, leathery. I walk over and pluck it out. It’s a notebook of some sort. I open it up and parse through the wild scribbles, the diagrams of strange contraptions and a sketch of a sword I recognize—Varia’s white mercury sword.

This…this is Gavik’s diary. Fione actually brought it for me.

My unheart leaps as my fingers leap faster, flipping through the pages frantically. I calm down enough to realize being hasty isn’t going to get me anywhere, and while I finish my drink, I read the whole thing.

The writing style is, of course, insufferably full of itself. Most of it is boring day-to-day details of what it takes to keep the royal polymaths operating. Lists of materials like copper, silver, acid, and base, notes rife with equations and numbers on hundreds of experiments pursued in the name of making the Vetrisian army stronger against witches. Even more of it is inane notes scribbled about certain nobles: their weaknesses, their “uses,” things Gavik can employ to manipulate them. Dated two weeks ago, he talks about insinuating to the Priseless twins that I needed to be “taken care of.” It lines up perfectly with when the Priseless twins tried to tie me and scarify my face during my very first banquet. Malachite saved me that time.

Scoffing, I move on. Gavik’s hatred for witches and Old God worshippers permeates it all, calling them every bad name under the sun. One page utterly shocks me; it talks about how Y’shennria refused Gavik’s hand for marriage once, a long, long time ago. That’s why the old rancid arsehole hated her so much. I always thought his vitriol was excessive toward her—more than just a hatred for her religion. My own hatred for him burns even hotter now.

There are some pages I just can’t read at all—written in some sort of glyphic code. And there are other pages entirely covered in numbers that are too long to be equations. More code, maybe.

Finally, finally, I find what I’m looking for.

It’s a page tucked away at the very end of the journal, faded and water stained. It looks like it was torn out of another book, a book much older than this journal. The letters are unreadable, but I recognize a few of them. They look exactly like the beneather runes I saw in the pipe with the valkerax skeleton. Old Vetrisian runes, like the ones carved over the arches of each one of the four gates of Vetris. Mercifully, between every line, Gavik has scribbled translations:

An empire of untold greatness, a rich land built in mirth,

Made strong in the ashes, of the wyrms sealed at birth,

By the bones that reach sky, magic wrought clear

Glass made as a blade, to defy the deaths of those we hold dear,

Two trees grown, great roots between the stone crawl,

The happiness of the once-great empire they did maul,

A funeral for the hands held, our Vetrisian flags at half-mast,

The tree of bone and tree of glass, will sit together as family at last.

I gape, my mouth fishing for the words I can’t find. I read the sentences over and over. This is the “Hymn of the Forest” Yorl talked about. I can gather the bare gist of it; Old Vetris seals the valkerax with the Bone Tree. But then, glass? Glass made as a blade, to defy death?

My mind flashes to the splinter of glass in my heart bag. No. No—it can’t be that glass. But Varia said herself the splinters are what links me to her and gives me my immortality.

A tree of glass, like in my dream.

I have to find Gavik.

I don a simple brown cloak and race out of the palace. Varia’s carriage is gone, taking the princess and Fione to their breakfast, so I walk off the palace grounds myself. It’s probably for the better—I won’t be able to find Gavik in a carriage that can’t fit through tiny alleys. I comb the underbelly of Vetris, weaving through roads and side alleys, asking stall vendors and guards if they’ve seen a man in a gray robe. Nothing—they’ve seen him around, of course, but all the haunts they point me to are empty. The city is taut and wound around itself, King Sref’s declaration of war plastered on every pillar and empty space of wall. No matter where you turn, soldiers choke the streets, marching to the shouted orders of their superiors, their bright jade-green uniforms with silver trim gleaming in the sun.

I slump against the wall of a shop in Butcher’s Alley, clutching the diary close to my chest. Where would he be? I know he’s been ordered to pass out bread, but how hard can finding a hunched man with a big basket of bread be?

“You look lost.” A deep voice makes me look up. There, standing in front of me, is Lucien in his Whisper outfit, the leathers sleek against every angle of his body, his eyes weary and thick with dark circles though his cowl. His posture is a little worn but refusing to look anything less than strong. My unheart sings, begging me to run forward and ask him if he’s all right, inspect him to make sure he’s healed. That he’s real, alive, and not going anywhere. But I’m not his Spring Bride anymore. I gave that mantle to Tarroux yesterday.

I clench my fist, struggling to make my voice sound light.

“And you look terrible. Any particular reason why you’re out of bed and moving around against the wishes of your polymaths?”

“I made the mistake of telling him I saw you run out of the palace in a tizzy,” Malachite’s voice drawls as the pale beneather steps into the alley.

“Well, good morning to you, too.” I blink at Malachite.

“I’m fine,” Lucien insists to both of us.

“‘Fine’? You inhaled so much smoke, you were coughing up black!” Malachite argues.

“Could an injured person do this?” Lucien asks, promptly bracing his legs for what looks like a flip so quickly that he winces. He suddenly thinks better of it, and straightens. “All right. New plan—moving as little as possible.”

“Let’s go back to the palace,” Malachite growls. “You need to rest.”

“What I need is a friend, not a second mother.” Lucien chuckles. His obsidian eyes focus on me. “Who exactly are you looking for?”

“How do you know I’m looking for someone?” I sniff.

“You were asking vendors questions. The only time anyone does that is when they’re looking for someone.”

“For all you know, I could be looking for something,” I argue.

“Like what?” Lucien quirks a brow behind his cowl.

“A warm bowl of soup, maybe,” I offer.

“A sense of dignity,” Malachite counteroffers.

“A sense of humor,” I fire back at him. “Since you seem to have lost yours.”

“Lost? No,” Malachite scoffs. “You stole it from me right around the same time you tried to kill my best friend, sarvett.”

“Ooh.” I smile at his beneather word. “I like the sound of that one. What does it mean?”

“Conniving cave scorpion.” Malachite smiles back at me for once.

“Enough.” Lucien’s princely voice cuts between us. “As much as I enjoy watching you two fight over me like toddlers over a sweetround, I am supposed to be in bed. We have limited time before someone notices I’m gone.” He looks to me. “So. How can we help?”

“We?” Malachite squawks incredulously.

“By leaving me alone, and sleeping.” I turn on my heel. “Oh, and be sure to drink all the medicine the polymaths tell you to.”

“I will,” he agrees, catching up with my stride easily. “Just as soon as I’ve found who you’re looking for.”

“Because you’re nosy.” I sigh, trying not to notice just how close his body is to mine, his chest just behind my shoulder. I can almost feel his heat.

“Nosiness, caring.” He waves a hand. “It’s all the same thing.”

“It’s really not.”

“Now.” He ignores me imperiously. “Hurry up and tell me who you’re after. Your prince can find them. But your prince is also a very busy person.”

“If I do, will you leave me alone?”

“Verily,” he agrees.

“Gavik,” I say. “He’s in a gray robe—”

“Handing out bread, right,” Lucien finishes for me. “I know.”

I watch him walk to the mouth of the alleyway.

“Luc,” Malachite exhales. “We really don’t have time for this—”

Lucien lowers his cowl and raises his fingers to his mouth and makes a distinct, birdlike whistle comprised of three notes. There are nearly thirty seconds of quiet, Lucien and Malachite and I standing still in the alley. Suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere in the dense crowd, a child emerges, grimy and no older than Crav’s twelve years. He grimaces like Crav does, too, but when he sees Lucien, his face brightens. This isn’t the first urchin I’ve seen Lucien with—there was a little girl he gave trinkets to, trinkets he’d stolen from nobles. How many of them does he know? And do they all look this happy to see him?

The prince kneels at the boy’s eye level and hands him a few gold coins, murmuring a question. The child points toward West Gate and then disappears into the crowd again.

Lucien turns back to me, a smile outlined in the dark fabric of his mask. “Gavik’s near the old brewery around West Gate. Come. We can still catch him if we’re quick.”

“Again, with the ‘we’!” Malachite exhales. Lucien just starts off, and of course Malachite follows. I trail behind the beneather, catching up with Lucien as best I can.

“You never told me your information network was comprised entirely of urchins,” I say lightly.

“Not entirely but mostly,” the prince agrees. “They don’t try to lie for their coin as much as the adults do. And they tend to notice things adults overlook. Besides, the city is hard on them most of all. It’s all I can do right now to ease that.”

I scoff, but the sound has no teeth. My unheart feels somehow warm. Proud. I shake it off, and a sudden jostle in the thronging crowd shakes me, too. I stagger back, losing Lucien and Malachite quickly in the swarm of heads. They might be tall, but I can barely see over the sea of people.

“New God’s tit,” I swear. Someone else bumps into me, this time so hard that cobblestone rushes up to greet my face. I brace myself, but something catches my hand at the last minute, and I make a frantic clutch onto it for dear life. I blink up at the help, only to see black leather. Lucien’s hand, holding my elbow. He pulls me up, the smile under his mask so lopsided, it makes my unheart skip a beat.

“Don’t fall behind,” he says.

I’m so stunned that I can’t get words out, and the few words that start to come are cut off by the feeling of his gloved hand slipping into mine. He holds my hand, guiding me through the crowd as I stare at his back disbelievingly. The old affection for him starts to rear its head, my whole body punctured pleasantly by the fizzy, sugary sensation.

not again, the hunger demands. never again. he is tricking you with the promise of love, and you will fall for it again because you are weak.

It’s just a hand. Just one moment. One moment can’t hurt, can it?

you asked for moments two weeks ago, the hunger snarls. and he ruined you for it.

The hunger’s right. I rip my hand from his, and he thankfully doesn’t try to grab it again. Soon, we’re at the foot of West Gate, a much busier place than South Gate, but the area near the old brewery is relatively calmer. Lucien stops in front of it, the air ripe with the viscous, pungent smell of yeast.

“There!” Lucien points at a figure in gray in the distance. “That’s him.”

“Finally,” Malachite says. “Can we stop cavorting and go back to the palace now?”

“By all means.” I wave my hands. “Go on.”

“Not even a thank-you kiss?” Lucien smiles. The word “kiss,” coming from him, stabs right into my lungs. That’s not what he really wants, is it? Nothing can go back to the way it was between us. I know that now. I can’t change the past. All I can do is move forward—with him, with everyone. I pause, and then hold out the diary page to him.

“Here. This is my thanks.”

Lucien takes it, his dark eyes bewildered, but as he reads the lines, his gaze grows sharper until he looks back up at me. “This is the song—the one Muro sang that day in the throne room. Where did you find this?”

“Fione gave me Gavik’s diary. That was inside it. I thought you should know.”

He looks back down at it, and then hands it to me. “What does it mean?”

“I’m about to find out,” I say, raising my chin toward Gavik. There’s a quiet as Lucien looks between Gavik and me, and then he exhales. It quickly turns into a cough, the sound racking his body as he doubles over. Malachite shoots a worried look at me, and I reach into my cloak and pull out Lucien’s handkerchief. I unfold Y’shennria’s picture from it and hand it to him.

“I’m returning this to you in your hour of need.”

The prince’s dark eyes flash as he looks up. “That was meant as a parting gift for you.”

The feel of his hand in mine just moments ago, the pride in my chest welling up for him. The warmth that spreads through my body simply because I see him. No matter how badly I want to be ruthless, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t bring myself to rip us apart all the way. I’m hopeless.

weak. disgustingly weak and pathetic—

“Yes. Well.” I clear my throat. “I’m returning it.”

Lucien’s gaze softens. No. No, Zera. Stand strong. You will not love him again. You can’t. Your heart is more important than anything in the world—than even love.

“I’m returning it,” I correct myself, sniffing haughtily, “until you can find me a better parting gift. Something made of gold and with a few more gems on it, preferably.”

Malachite bristles. “You insolent little—”

Lucien suddenly laughs. The sound is amused, but not in that hollow way he reserves for nobles. It’s sincere, and light, and yanks at the very marrow of my resolve. Malachite looks as shocked as I am.

Lucien smiles at me, taking the kerchief from my hand with the slightest of bows. “Very well. I’ll keep an eye out.”

I fight the flush moving up my cheeks and round on my heel, striding toward Gavik with the page clutched in my hand.