The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

“WHERE IS HE?”

Aon hadn't even heard herself scream the question. The rage that set her every limb aflame left her blind and unthinking. She wanted to tear the Carse apart. She wanted to turn every hideous dreadwillow tree from here to Emberfell into kindling. All this time she'd been coming here for answers, hoping they would lead to her father's release. No wonder Jeniah couldn't find Aon's father. He'd been hidden in the one place the princess could never look.

With a war cry, Aon swung the crutch back and forth like a scythe, missing Pirep and Tali by scant inches. The imps cried out and scrambled about, zigzagging as Aon swatted at them.

Aon could barely speak. She wrapped the purple ribbon so tightly around her hand, the purple ribbon tore. With a burst of anger, she struck the oozing earth with the crutch. “He's here! My father is here somewhere. Take me to him.”

Pirep hid behind Tali and held her hands over her eyes, as though that would prevent Aon from seeing her. Tali tried to burrow into the ground. “We do not know the He!” Pirep wailed. “We do not know the He!”

Tali, unable to hide herself in the mud, started crying. “We serve the Highness. We guide the Highness. Pity Tali and Pirep. Pity us!”

Aon looked around wildly. If her father was here, then it was likely the Crimson Hoods were as well. And she refused to believe the imps hadn't seen any of them.

Over the sniveling of the imps, the slow, wordless waltz continued.

“Whoever that is singing,” Aon said, “take me to them. Take me to them right now.”

Pirep and Tali huddled close and whispered back and forth. Then Pirep stepped forward cautiously. “The Highness has much to see and learn in the Carse. Later. Tali and Pirep will take the Highness later.”

Aon picked up the crutch and held it over her head as if ready to strike. Pirep ducked and whined. “Now! Now! Tali and Pirep will take the Highness now.”

Muttering, the imps waddled down the left path. Aon followed closely behind, keeping them at bay with her father's crutch. The farther they traveled, the louder the singing got. The waltz no longer seemed to come from everywhere; they were clearly headed straight for the source.

Please be with my father
, Aon thought. That singing had always brought her comfort in the Carse, and she knew, deep down, that if her father was with the singer, he would be safe.

She suddenly remembered to check the hourglass. Glancing at her waist, she found the bottom bulb had shattered. Probably when she'd been swinging the crutch. She had no idea how long she'd been in the Carse.

Aon held up her hands. Gray skin. Black warts. And her fingers were starting to look like talons.

It didn't matter anymore. She was too close. She couldn't turn back now.

The trail grew more and more narrow. At last, it stopped in front of a wall of briar and thistle that rose up out of the swamp, twisting around itself like wooden lightning. The barbs were as big as Aon. Monstrous vines reached up and up, threatening to choke the blackened sky itself. The wall stretched as far as she could see in either direction; there was no going around it.

“As the Highness wishes,” Pirep said, bowing awkwardly. She and Tali stepped aside to allow Aon to approach.

The girl studied the briar. The points on the thorns glistened like glass. She assumed they were poisonous.

“What I want is behind this wall, yes?” Aon picked up a fallen dreadwillow branch and poked at the briar. The thorns sliced the stick into splinters.

“Everything the Highness wants is there,” Tali confirmed.

“Is there a way through?” Aon could hear the singing louder than ever. It was definitely coming from the other side of the briar wall. But she could see no opening, and the thorns would easily impale her if she got too close. “Tell me how—”

But when she looked down to her guides, their mischievous, helpful faces were gone. The imps had inflated to nearly twice their size. They reminded Aon of a cat that had arched its back in preparation for a fight.

“She is not the Highness.” Pirep, who had always been the more polite of the pair, had changed her tone sharply. Her bulbous eyes glared murderously at Aon. Aon stumbled. The bravery she'd felt swinging the crutch around drained away as both imps advanced slowly, dangerously.

“She is not the Highness,” Tali agreed, baring razor-sharp teeth.

Aon quickly pulled out the royal crest. “You have seen this,” she said, trying to sound regal. It didn't work. “You know who I am.”

“The heart of the Carse always opens for the Highness,” Tali said. “It has always opened for every Highness.
You
are not the Highness.”

Aon felt her stomach drop.

“What do you mean it has always opened for every Highness?” she asked, trying to buy time. “No monarch has ever been inside the Carse.”

But the imps wouldn't be distracted. With a growl, Pirep lurched forward, snapping with her jaw and biting off the end of the crutch.

“Told you it was for eating,” Tali said.

Aon withdrew slowly as the hungry imps bore down. Behind her, she could sense the wicked thorns of the briar wall. She had nowhere to run.

This is the heart of the Carse
, she thought. That was what Tali had called it. Not just the center. The
heart
. This was where the Carse kept the misery and woe it collected. And that was what was going to save her now. She knew what it wanted. The Carse wanted the greatest sadness Aon knew. It
needed
her to share the one sorrow she had sworn to never, ever share.

She thought back to that first encounter with Pirep and Tali. She'd told them the story of Jeniah's losing her mother. The only way out now was to tell her own story.

“Once,” Aon said, “there was a broken girl who had a secret.”

The imps froze. Their eyes gleamed. The creatures, like the Carse, craved sadness. They were about to get a feast.

“For most of her life, she hadn't known she was broken. When she found out, she suddenly had a secret. But the fact that she was broken was
not
the secret. The girl's secret was her mother.

“Everyone knew the girl's mother. She was the happy woman whose glassblowing skills were second to none in all the land. She was the generous woman who cared for the sick and never took a single coin in payment. In many ways, the girl's mother was the heart of their community.

“The girl loved her mother deeply. The mother called her daughter ‘rose blossom.' When she taught the girl to blow glass, she would say, ‘The hourglass must be perfectly formed, rose blossom.' And even when the girl got it wrong, her mother would give her a hug and say, ‘Your next hourglass will be perfect.'

“The girl and her mother lived with the girl's father, a kind, gentle man who was blinded by his own happiness. At least, that was how the mother described him. But she loved her husband despite this. She maybe even loved him because of this. Because happy was something the mother, it seemed, could never really be.

“One day, when the girl was very young, she found her mother in a corner of the kitchen. The mother sat with her back to the wall, tears rolling down her face. The little girl had never seen anyone cry before. The sight lit an infant flame inside her. She couldn't help it; she started crying, too. Mother and daughter held each other and cried.

“ ‘You must never tell anyone,' the mother said when they'd finished. ‘This is just for us to share. If we keep this to ourselves, I'll tell you things no one else knows. I'll share with you my greatest secret.'

“And each night, as she tucked the girl into bed, the mother would teach her daughter secret words. ‘There is a language,' she told the girl, ‘that was lost a long time ago. There are words that people use, but their meaning has faded. These are words you need to know. My mother taught me, and now I will teach you.'

“That was how the girl came to understand ‘sadness.' And ‘grief.' And ‘dread,' a word used often by everyone but understood by none. Alone in the girl's room, mother and daughter spoke their own private language, forgotten words of sorrow that brought them happiness to share.

“And when the girl was older, the mother fulfilled the promise to share her greatest secret. At the edge of the town where they lived sat a dark copse. A wood so murky it seemed to feed on darkness and woe. The mother took her daughter to see the woods.

“ ‘When I feel sad, and I don't want anyone else to see, I go in there,' the mother said, pointing to the woods. ‘You are too young to go in, but when the time is right, I will take you there with me, rose blossom.'

“The young girl agreed to keep the secret. Each night, she dreamt about the day her mother would finally take her into the woods where she could feel less broken.

“This went on for years. The girl watched her mother return renewed from the darkened copse. This, the mother said, gave her the strength to be happy. It was a strength she dearly needed, in a land where joy was all around. Each time she returned, the mother promised to take the girl inside once she was old enough.

“Late one evening, the mother roused the girl from a deep sleep. The girl, her mind hazy and heavy with dreams, knew immediately her mother had been to the dark copse that night. Usually, her mother returned calmer and with the strength to hide her sadness.

“But not this time. Something was different. The mother held the girl close and ran her fingers through her daughter's hair. The girl was still tired and almost fell asleep as her mother rocked her gently. Her mother's words washed over her like a distant song.

“ ‘Rose blossom,' the mother said, ‘I must go away. Far, far from the Carse, from the Monarchy . . . and from you. I
cannot
stay. In many ways, I hope someday you will understand why. In other ways, I pray you never do. There are things I've seen that have changed everything. I know now who I really am and who I can never be.'

“The girl didn't understand. It sounded like a riddle. As she drifted off to sleep in her mother's arms, she told herself to ask her mother about the answer in the morning.

“But when the little girl woke, her mother was truly gone.

“The girl never saw her mother again. She never found out where her mother had gone. Or why. She knew only that her mother had seen something so terrifying, so horrific, so
unspeakable
, that her only choice was to leave the land that brought everyone so much happiness and never return.

“Not a single person noticed the mother had gone. The girl was helpless as everyone around her—the people of her town, her own father—quietly erased the mother from their lives in the name of being happy. It stung the girl to see how little it took for them to forget this woman they all claimed to love. But the girl would never forget.

“She felt more broken than ever. She asked herself over and over: Why couldn't her mother have taken the girl with her where she went? Why couldn't they have left and been broken together?”

Aon's throat felt raw. Her eyes burned. She suddenly felt very, very tired. More than anything, she didn't want to say another word.

Pirep and Tali lay still, monstrous grins on their faces. They reminded Aon of her father, resting with contentment after a large, satisfying meal. They wouldn't be attacking any time soon. Safe, she sank to the ground and waited for the Carse to respond.

Nearby, a twig snapped. Then another. Then a thousand more snaps crackled, echoing off the trees and filling the air. The great, tangled vines of briar began to move. They coiled and recoiled like a nest of serpents. Aon stepped back as a hole formed in the wall, the briar parting just enough for her to enter. Fingers wrapped around the royal crest in her pocket, she ducked down and passed through.

Behind her, Aon could hear the vines racing back into place. The hole was gone. She was cut off and on her own in the heart of Dreadwillow Carse.

Chapter Nineteen

JENIAH HAD BEEN ONLY SIX WHEN HER FATHER,
THE KING,
died—in a hunting accident on the southern ridge. The days and weeks that followed had overflowed with firsts. It was the first time she'd realized she felt different from the servants who'd cared for her all her life. She hadn't understood why they, too, weren't grieving for her father. It was the first time she'd seen her mother—a woman of such confidence and elegance—shaken to her core. And it was the first time Jeniah had wished with all her heart for magic. Or for anything that could relieve her mother's grief.

In those days, whenever Jeniah found her mother crying, Queen Sula would immediately wipe her eyes and take the girl to the Grand Hall of Aunx Tower. A lavish room with gilded doorways and great crystal chandeliers, the hall had hosted many a ball in the past. On the walls hung the portraits of every monarch who had ever ruled the land. Her mother had once said that everything Jeniah would ever need to know about their family could be seen in the eyes of those who had come before.

First, mother and daughter would walk through the Grand Hall, and Jeniah would recite the names of the forty monarchs, in order of succession. When this was finished, the queen would reward her daughter by taking her out onto the balcony and reading a story by moonlight.

One night, just a month after her father's death, Jeniah sat on her mother's lap and listened to a story about a sorceress who could commune with rivers, whisper chants that turned into stars, and tame the wiliest dragon by painting its soul with blue she'd plucked from the sky. The stories, which Jeniah even then suspected were meant to make her forget her painful loss, only made her miss her father more. And it had taken the whole month for Jeniah to work up the courage to ask her mother a question.

It took courage because there was an answer that would make Jeniah happy and an answer that would not. “Is magic real?” she asked her mother.

The queen paused. Her gaze became distant, as if she were choosing exactly the right words from a collection etched invisibly on the starry horizon. Then she said, “Love as if it is; live as if it is not.”

At the time, Jeniah didn't know what that meant. She only liked the idea that love itself was some kind of magic. That was certainly how she'd felt when her father had been near or when she was on the balcony with her mother, reading stories.

It wasn't until now, as Jeniah followed the dirt road to Emberfell with the village boy leading the way, that she finally understood what her mother had been trying to tell her.

You can't wait around for magic to happen
, she thought. Magic wasn't going to recover Aon. Nor was any person, because no one with the power to help knew where she was. Except Jeniah—the person who'd sent Aon into the Carse.

How did Jeniah think she could be queen? Every decision she'd made—sending Aon into the Carse, getting rid of the rubywings—had ended in disaster. And now, by doing the one and only thing she'd ever been forbidden to do, she was about to prove how unfit she was to wear the crown.

As Jeniah followed the long-necked boy toward the Carse, she heard him singing to himself. He seemed unconcerned about his friend's disappearance. Jeniah pulled her cloak tight to her shoulders and sped up until her gait matched the boy's.

“I'm sorry, what was your name again?” Jeniah asked.

The boy huffed with each step. “Laius, Your Majesty.”

Jeniah could still hear Skonas, insisting that she could only be called
Your Highness
until she was a real queen. She didn't correct Laius. She wanted someone to call her that just once. After tonight, she might never hear it again.

“Right here, Your Majesty,” Laius said, pointing to the gaping maw that led into Dreadwillow Carse. He looked back at Nine Towers. “Are you sure we don't need those guards who offered to come with you?”

It had taken a direct royal order before the guards had agreed not to follow. “No, I'm not sure,” Jeniah said, more to herself than to Laius. But she couldn't let anyone find out what she'd done.

Jeniah noticed that Laius kept a safe distance. It was as Aon had described. He wasn't afraid, but he wasn't about to
allow
himself to get close enough to be afraid. It alarmed her that the boy didn't seem at all troubled by Aon's disappearance. He'd sought the princess because he'd been told to, not because he was afraid of what had happened to his friend.

Jeniah couldn't imagine feeling anything but distraught if her mother had vanished. How horrible it would be to disappear and have no one grieve for you. What good was the never-ending bliss of her subjects if it meant they could never truly mourn what they lost? Was real love possible without the fear of loss? Suddenly, the peace and prosperity Jeniah had worried about defending didn't seem so valuable.

The princess held out her lantern and peered into the darkness. She had the strangest feeling the darkness was peering back.

“Are you going in there?” Laius asked, setting the hourglass on the ground. “Are you going to find Aon?”

Jeniah didn't know what to do.

“What would you do if you were me, Laius?” she asked. “What if you had been told that everything you know and love would be destroyed if you set even a foot in that swamp? Would you still do it? To save Aon?”

A flicker of confusion crossed the boy's face. “Are you saying . . . Are you saying you want me to go in there?”

“No,” Jeniah replied. “I can't send you. I can't send anybody else.”

“You're the Queen Ascendant. You could send the constable.”

“I wish it were that easy. If I tell anyone that I sent a girl into the Carse alone . . . well, they wouldn't think very highly of me. And they'd want to know why I did it. No one can know about this.”

“Why
did
you send Aon in there?”

Jeniah laughed softly. “I thought I was being clever. I was trying to do something the easy way.” She thought about the rubywings. She'd told the farmer to do what was easiest. They'd killed four to save hundreds. Those numbers should have given the princess comfort. And yet they didn't.

“Could you do it, Laius? Could you risk the safety of the Monarchy to save one person, even if you yourself put that person in danger?”

Jeniah searched the boy's face for some sign that he understood what was at stake. But whatever small doubt he'd had earlier was long gone. Now, the boy was grinning happily, just like he was supposed to.

“I would do whatever the monarch told me to do,” he said.

Jeniah smiled, and the boy would never understand exactly how sad that smile was.

She closed her eyes.
Only believe what you've seen and heard
, she told herself.
That's what Skonas taught you. You've neither seen nor heard any evidence that the warning is real.

But you've
heard
the warning
, she answered herself.
Therefore, it must be believed.

It could be wrong. It's
just
a warning. There's no magic. You can't destroy the Monarchy by stepping over that border. You've neither seen nor heard
a good reason
for staying out of the Carse.

Before she lost her nerve, Jeniah pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders and walked toward the Carse.

“Wait!”

Jeniah gasped, startled. “What?”

Laius picked up the hourglass. “Aon always had me turn the hourglass, one turn for every hour she spent in there. I think it was important. Should I turn the glass for you?”

Jeniah shook her head. “Go home, Laius. You've served me well. Go home and sleep. If I haven't returned with Aon by the morning, you can tell the constable.” Without waiting for the boy to respond, she stepped into the Carse and disappeared from sight.

Nothing happened. The earth didn't open and swallow her. Fire didn't rain down and incinerate the land.
It was a lie
, Jeniah thought.
The Monarchy didn't fall.
Feeling more confident, she continued onward.

The landscape seemed to bleed shadows. Jeniah could barely see an arm's length ahead. She stepped softly and listened, hoping to get some idea of where to go. But the swamp was dead silent. She hadn't expected that. She'd thought she'd hear insects chirping or the rustling of branches on a breeze. At the very least, she thought she'd hear the burbling of the mire that Aon had described in her letter. But she could barely make out her own staggered breathing as she hiked across the treacherous terrain.

“Aon?” she called, partly to find her friend, partly just to hear
something
.

Silence ate her voice.

“It's Jeniah!” She shouted louder. This time, she could hear her name echo faintly in the distance, bouncing off trees and rocks.

A gust of wind blew out her lantern. Jeniah knelt and raced to relight the wick. When she did, the lantern's soft glow reflected off tendrils of thick mist that rose up from the ground all around.

The mist swirled at Jeniah's feet. It billowed into a blanket that pulsed with a faint gray light. Just past the mist, she could barely see the outline of someone walking across the bog toward her. The whirling fog slowed and slowed as the other person emerged into the light from the princess's lantern.

“Hello, Jeniah,” Aon said with a smile.