CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 44

QUEEN MALINA

Time seems to move differentlyat the edge of the world in Seventh Kingdom.

The days have bled together, and somehow, Cauval Castle has been the respite I didn’t know I needed, a balm to soothe the wrongs that have nicked into my soul and tried to bleed out my purpose.

I thought this place was in ruins, but Fassa and Friano have shown me the truth. They were called here, just as I was, to preserve the castle and wait for a rightful queen to take its throne.

They were waiting for me.

Even though the twins are the only ones here other than Pruinn and myself, they’ve somehow made everything seem so full. The gray and white marble walls gleam, the floor tiles are as blue as glaciers, and a soft light always seems to cling to the lanterns and leave off a lush glow.

There must be excellent castle staff, too, though I’ve never seen a single one. Yet the dining table is always laid out with hot and perfectly spiced food for each mealtime, my bed is made each time I return to my room, and my bath is filled whenever I want to soak and wash.

There’s always music playing as well, a song I can hear even when I sleep in the feather bed at the top of the turret. Soft and lyrical, as if it’s carried in by the mist that clings to the windows. The air smells nice too—permeating from the frosted flowers that drip with crystalline petals, their bouquets set in vases all around the castle.

I get out of bed with a stretch, poising my hands over my head, curling my toes beneath my feet before I walk into the bathroom to clean up, and then I enter the closet. Everything is just my size, each gown the perfect combination of the white Colier color along with the glacier blue of Seventh Kingdom. I choose a dress with a long flowing train that sounds like the faintest chimes when I walk, the hollow beaded crystals at the hem dragging along the tiles and adding to the soft hum in the air.

Coiling my white hair up into two full braids that make a crown on my head, I pin it in place in front of the mirror, and then, hands dropping, I study myself. My cheeks and nose are no longer chapped from the frozen wind of our travels, my lips no longer peeling. My ghostly pale skin is so smooth I nearly look ethereal, and whatever soaps I’ve been using have made my hair seem lusher and shinier.

Yet for a split second, as I look into my own icy blue eyes, I see a flash of darker blue, and instead of my own face, I see a smattering of freckles dusted like cinnamon, hair as red as blood, a grin pulling at lips.

Jeo.

I hold my breath, but I don’t need to brace myself for any emotion. Instead of feeling much of anything about him or how he died, I feel a sense of contentment. He died in sacrifice so that I could be here.

Now, even when I think of Highbell, I know that it was good that my people betrayed me, because it led me on this path. Tyndall’s treachery doesn’t matter to me anymore. The frigid fear, the hate, the bitterness, it’s simply...gone. Melted away within these remedying walls.

That’s how I know being here is right. For the first time in a long, long time, I am at ease.

When I’m ready, I glide down the stairs and enter the breakfast room. The three men are already there, the food steaming in wait for me, just as it has been each morning.

“Good morning, Your Majesty.” The twins speak and move in unison so often that I’ve grown used to it.

“Good morning.”

They sit back down once I take my place at the head of the blue-painted table, a pillared centerpiece of crystal bulbs holding soft candlelight that prisms inside of it. I hum as I eat, soothed by the pretty music, enjoying the sunshine that streams in through the blue-tinted windows.

I should’ve come here long ago.

“My queen, how are you feeling today?” Friano asks, mole dimpling into his left cheek.

“I’m feeling very well. My stay here has been just what I needed.”

“No less than you deserve.”

Fassa nods and tugs at the shiny gray sleeve of his shirt. His brother wears the same thing, and both of their hair hangs like black drapes that frame their faces. “It’s true,” Fassa says. “We are so lucky that the fates have divined you to come. We wanted nothing more than to give comfort to you after such a treacherous journey.”

“And after all your betrayals,” Friano adds with a tsk. “From your husband and your own people, no less.”

“But no matter,” Fassa picks up. “Here is where you are, and here is where you belong.”

“Exactly,” Pruinn agrees, and his magnetic eyes draw me in, the smile on his face letting me know I should’ve trusted him all along. “You are going to attain your heart’s desire, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, and we think you’re ready,” Fassa and Friano say in unison.

I straighten up eagerly, feeling my heartbeat quicken. Since the first day I arrived, the twins haven’t spoken more about my role in Seventh Kingdom. They told me that all I needed to focus on for the time being was recovering after all my hardships. To be catered to like the queen I am.

“I am ready,” I say with confidence.

The twins grin. “Come, let us walk.”

They take me into an atrium.

For a moment, all I can do is stare around the space as a flood of memories come back to me. “This...this reminds me of the atrium back in Highbell. Back before it was all gold-touched.”

I’m not choked up with emotion—I feel far too content for that—but walking in this space brings me both awe and pleasure. These are the plants that I can thank for the bouquets set all throughout the castle. The room’s walls are painted a soft blue, before doming into a ceiling of glass that makes the blossoms sparkle, the silvery stems on which they grow matching the mist that clings to the windows.

As my eyes skim around, I notice that a cloud of mist has seeped inside the atrium as well. It swirls near one of the window panes, congested in a dense, large collection as if there’s a crack in the grass, letting it stream inside. My skin prickles ever so slightly just before I turn away.

“We thought you might like it, Your Majesty.”

With a nod, I walk down the aisle, the low heel of my shoe clicking across the blue-tiled floor as I gently skim a fingertip over the budding petals beside me. The soft floral scent seems to sink into my lungs and brush through my pores.

“It’s beautiful,” I say as I turn away from the flowers to face the twins, while Pruinn stands just off to the side, his gray eyes roving over the rows of plants as if he wants to clip a few blooms and stuff them in the merchant’s bag that’s always slung across his shoulder.

“Come, sit,” Fassa offers, and the twins part to reveal a dainty bench of gray stone set right in a semi-circle of blooms.

My heart turns automatically, nose pulling in the smell in this close proximity. I could bathe in this fragrance—have my bed brought up right here to slumber in its sweet perfume. It’s just so calming. I take a seat, while the twins also sit down on an identical bench that I somehow missed.

“Your Majesty,” Friano says, pulling my attention back to him. Both twins are leaning forward slightly, their elbows balanced on their knees and hands clasped in front of them, brown eyes boring into me as their sleek hair brushes against their shoulders. “Seventh Kingdom went from power to ruin. Much like you.”

“But together, we can fix bothof those things,” Fassa says, dark eyes glinting. “We can restore this kingdom and you to your rightful places. We can help make you the most powerful queen in Orea.”

Eagerness travels up my spine. From my peripheral, I see Pruinn grin.

Because that—that is my heart’s greatest desire. I’ve been an unwanted heir, an unwanted wife, an unwanted queen. Yet if I was powerful, nothing like that would ever happen to me again. I’d make sure of it.

“Yes,” I breathe. “That is what I want.”

Friano smiles. “Then we will achieve it,” he says simply.

“How?”

They exchange a look, and my yearning sharpens. “My brother and I have very unique magic, my queen. They work only in tandem. I can instill something new.”

“And I can restore something old,” Friano finishes.

My brows lift. “Restore...like this castle?”

“Quite.”

“But our magic always has a price,” he explains. “Not only do they have to perform at the same time, it also requires a sacrifice.”

“Yes,” Fassa goes on. “We won’t lie, this magic will be the largest we have ever performed, but we believe in this purpose—believe that this is why the gods have given us our power.”

His brother cuts in. “So, in order to restore a kingdom and bestow a gift to a queen, we need two things. The first is we must wait for the new moon, when the gods bless new beginnings and our powers are at their peak.”

“And second, that the blood of a pure Orean royal is willingly offered to restore this Orean kingdom,” Fassa finishes.

“Me.”

They both nod. “You.”

I swallow hard. “Exactly how much blood...?”

“Never fear, Majesty,” Friano says affably. “Just a few drops will do. And by doing so, by offering this to us, I believe my brother’s magic will instill magic into you, giving you exactly what you need to rule.”

My gaze bounces between them as I take this all in. The scent of the flowers is nearly intoxicating as my breathing quickens.

I’m suddenly reminded of a memory. My seventeenth birthday, when my father called me to his office and told me just how ashamed he was of me. Just how disappointed.

Most Oreans who inherited magic showed some sign of it by the time they were fifteen. I’d been waiting for two extra years, and there wasn’t a single morning I didn’t wake up and pray for something—anything—to come out. I just needed the tiniest scrap of magic, and my father wouldn’t hate me so much, my people wouldn’t gossip about me, the servants wouldn’t pity me.

I waited and waited and waited. Yet nothing ever came. I still remember that look on my father’s face, the sneering hate. Without magic, I was useless to him, to Highbell. A wasted heir who couldn’t hold the throne on her own. A disappointment in the Colier line.

All my life, that’s been my worth—my own lacking.

So this…this fantastical sliver of a chance that they’re telling me has my breath quickening, my gaze sharpening. The heart in my chest tenses at the possibility.

Having power is all I’ve ever wanted.

“My magic works in mysterious ways, my queen,” Fassa goes on. “I believe the gods will see all those who have wronged you, all of your betrayals and hardships, and they will allow my magic to bestow something glorious in you. Something...powerful.”

“Magic,” I breathe. “You think you can give me magic of my own.”

“Is that not your heart’s desire, Majesty?” Pruinn cuts in quietly where he’s leaning against a gray pillar. “My magic is never wrong. It led you here for this reason.”

My mind whirls as much as the mist that covers the atrium’s glass roof. A small laugh escapes me. “It sounds too good to be true.”

“You deserve it,” he says with a soft smile.

“Exactly,” Fassa cuts in. “The gods knew that you were the queen this land needs—that the Colier line is pure and right. The moment you arrived, we could feel that you were perfect. You are the queen that will raise Seventh Kingdom to glory. You. No one else.”

Me.

My blood seems to sing, rightness flooding into my veins.

“What do you need me to do?”

The twins grin, and both of them stand to walk over to me in synchronized steps. They each hold out a hand for me to take. “All you need to do is say you agree.”

I’ve never been more ready to do anything in my life.

I take their hands, letting them lift me to my feet. “I agree.”

Behind them, Pruinn murmurs, “And so the bargain is struck.”

I feel as if I’m gliding on clouds when I walk out of the atrium. The others stay behind as I leave, and I head down the hallway with the lovely fragrance of the blossoms still in my nose. I’m absentminded as I walk, yet just as I pass by a window, I jerk to a stop and turn around.

The mist.

It’s leaked in here too, churning with both the light from the window and the shadows of the corridor. It’s so thick I can’t see through it, and that prickling feeling on the back of my neck returns.

It’s silly that I start to back up, but I find my feet doing it anyway, even though I try to tell myself it’s only mist.

I twist my ankle when I take another blind step backwards, and just as I suck in a breath at the pain, the mist tosses and seethes in front of me, making my eyes go wide as the light around it bends.

Then, I’m frozen in place as a hooded man steps out of the shadowed, swirling air.

“You.”

A deluge of fear dumps all over me, like a downpour of rain, though it doesn’t quite flood away my repose.

I know who he is, even though I only saw him once for those brief seconds. I’ve memorized that shadowed face hidden beneath his cloak.

“You killed Jeo. You tried to kill me.”

The man lifts his gloved hand, pulling back his hood and revealing his face to me, and I suck in a breath. Just as he manipulated the light and shadow around him, his brown skin is marbled, pale patches around his nose, mouth, and chin, and another at his neck. His eyes are deep ebony, no differentiation between his iris and pupil.

“You followed me all this way to kill me?”

At the back of my head, I recognize I should feel a sharper stab of fear, yet I don’t. I can’t.

The man tips his head down, while the mist billows at his sides.

“Yes,” he says, and the sudden sound of his voice sends a shockwave down my spine. It sounds rough. Labored. As if he hasn’t spoken in a very long time. His expression too is flat, no pulling of his cheeks, no creases in his lips. Perhaps he always looks stony and blank. “That is what I was bid to do.”

My back stiffens. “And you think you’re going to do that now?”

I’m a second away from calling out to the others when he shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter now. I have been watching, Queen Malina, and I don’t like what I’ve been seeing.”

I feel my brows pull into a frown of offense. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you not feel it? The magic in the air?”

“If you’re not going to kill me, then you can turn right back around and leave this place,” I snap. “I should have you drawn and quartered for what you did to my saddle and guards.”

“You could try,” he says. “But you wouldn’t succeed.”

Anger curls down my back. “You’re ruining my day, and I was having a rather good one.”

“That’s just it,” he says, taking a step forward, and it’s far too close to be appropriate. So close, in fact, that I can feel the heat from his body as the misty shadows around him follow his movements, nearly stroking over my skin and making me shiver, making my pulse jump. “You’ve been having a good day every day since you’ve gotten here. You haven’t questioned anything at all.”

“What would I question?” I reply with scorn. “I’m a queen, this is a castle. They’re treating me as they should, especially after the ordeals I suffered.”

The man makes a noise that I think is supposed to be a laugh, though it sounds like gravel being scraped against glass. “I thought you were supposed to be at least a little bit intelligent with all of that cold bitch cunning.”

“How dare—”

“Look around you,” he says, cutting me off. “See. Observe. You can’t trust the people here.”

I scoff. “Coming from the assassin who’s here to kill me.”

His dark eyes go flat. “Maybe I should finish you right here and now, since you’re so unwilling to listen.”

I open my mouth as if I’m going to reply, but instead, I shout out as loudly as I can for help.

The man doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as twitch. The assassin simply watches me with dark eyes that I think might be made entirely of shadow. My heart slams against my chest when I hear footsteps running my way, but I can’t look away from him.

“Wake up, and don’t smell the flowers, Cold Queen, before it’s too late. You have to find a way to break whatever bargain you’ve made, because at this point, I don’t think your death is going to cut it.”

He pulls up his hood and disappears in a swirl of fathomless smoke, and by the time the three men reach me, there’s nothing here but gray-tinged light coming in from the window.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” the twins ask, faces synchronized with concern.

I have no idea why I lie.

“Nothing,” I answer, shaking my head, putting on an unadorned smile. I already feel so much better with them here. “I twisted my ankle and thought I would need help to walk back to my turret, but I’m alright.”

They look at me with worry. “Are you sure, my queen?”

“Yes. Could you have luncheon brought up to my rooms later? I think I’ll stay up for the rest of the day.”

They both bow at the waist, cutting a bend into their crisp shirts. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

I nod in thanks and start to turn, but not before I see Pruinn watching me with a frown. I turn and walk away, limping slightly as I go, warily eyeing the mist outside each window.

Yet by the time I get back to my rooms, when I’m basking in the bath soon after, the shock of seeing the assassin has faded. As I breathe in the perfumed steam, I sigh in contentment, all my worries bubbling away with the suds of the soap.

He was trying to scare me, trying to deter me from gaining power, because I’ll bet he can’t kill me while I’m in this castle. Fassa and Friano are too powerful. I’ll bet the assassin simply hoped to lure me away so he can finish the job. Trick me so that I don’t end up more powerful than Tyndall.

He said he’s been watching? Fine. Come the new moon, he can watch me rise up to glory and be rewarded with power.

Then he truly won’t like what he sees.