Or had he?
Griselda had slipped a precise mixture of wolfsbane, castor plant, and snakeroot into her husband’s hunting flask so many years ago. While he was out with his retinue, he became convinced he’d swallowed a hive of bees that broke loose inside his gut, stinging from the inside. Crazed and delirious, he threw himself into a wild stag, bathing its antlers in his blood and entrails. Only Griselda knew that he wasn’t crazed; he had been desperate to staunch the intestinal and mental agony she’d thrust upon him with the help of the grimoire.
Within the same book, there was another more elegant recipe with traces of baneberry; the effects made one drowsy and stopped their breath within a matter of hours once they slept. As frail and odd a creature as her niece was, no one would question the grief-stricken Lyra slipping away while she slumbered.
Griselda took the final dark flight of stairs as if floating on air. She arrived at the top where the stairwell opened to a quiet corridor. The drapes had been drawn on every window; blue globes covered the sconces on the walls, softening the candlelight. The cessation course had begun and everyone in the castle was abed.
Her niece’s reign of shadows and vermin would end this very day.
She paused to wipe her hands on her skirts upon hearing a scramble of footsteps. Sir Erwan and Sir Bartley appeared from around a corner, breathing heavily. Their expressions tightened upon seeing her.
“We heard there was a prisoner,” Erwan, said, straightening from a deep bow. Black hair swung across his wide, tawny forehead. He nudged the strands aside, revealing panic in his deep-set, sharply angled gray eyes.
“And that she had information on King Kiran’s final moments,” Bartley added, his auburn hair, pink flush, and freckled snub nose reminding Griselda of her late husband.
“The witch escaped and is no longer a concern.” She held out her hand so they might both kiss the queen’s ring on her finger.
Bartley pressed his mouth to the ruby, then drew back with his brow raised—as if there were more.
“What? Has she been recaptured?” Griselda asked, hoping against hope she hadn’t.
Both men shook their heads but exchanged worried glances, their ears blushing to match the crimson sun embroidered upon their white surcoats.
Griselda waved her hand to dismiss their worries. “Yes, she has Sir Nicolet’s final memory intact within her. But all she wanted was to return to her home in the ravine. As long as we leave her be, she’ll not set foot here again. She has nothing to gain by it. She can do no damage lest she imprints the memory upon someone living in Eldoria.”
“Your Grace.” Erwan chewed on his puffed-out lower lip. “She already did.”
Griselda almost lost her footing. Each knight grabbed a hand and dragged her to the wall to prevent her toppling into the dark stairwell behind.
“A page boy saw a stooped female figure in a hooded cloak corner the constable by the stables,” Bartley explained. “She touched either side of his face, as if to kiss him. When the figure left, the page boy swore he spotted horns simmering with white sparks beneath her hood. The constable’s face was aglow, as if he’d been struck by lightning. The boy followed him as he found a town crier. The news is traversing from home to home. Soon all of Eldoria will know.”
Griselda’s blood turned cold. “Will know of our conspirings?”
“No.” Erwan grasped her elbow gently in comfort. It was far too familiar a gesture to be showcased in public, regardless that the corridor was abandoned. Bristling, Griselda jerked free. His focus shifted to his polished boots. “They know of your niece’s role in the kingdom’s future, Your Grace. The crier is forecasting the prophecy. Nothing more, but it is enough.”
Bartley nodded. “The fear we’ve instilled by framing the Night Ravagers has been effective indeed, for the commoners were terrorized by thoughts of the battle moving into the village and castle gates. Now people are rising up, insisting the princess is the kingdom’s most precious commodity. Lyra is to be protected and revered as such until her coronation, when she comes of age to marry.”
Griselda tasted smoke on her tongue as the embers of her newest plan snuffed out. Her niece would be under constant supervision. For five years.
Should anything happen to her, accidental or no, Griselda would be held responsible as the kingdom’s regent. The prophecy specified Lyra by its very description. And as superstitious as this kingdom was, no one else could fulfill the requirements. Only a silver-haired princess with violet tears . . . with a song in her throat her only sound.
As was the way of such matters, within the week, Nerezeth would use their alternate path into the day realm through the ravine, sending a delegate to publicly address the court’s council and assure the pact would be upheld.
“We must call off the attack on Nerezeth,” Griselda said. “The soldiers who found Nicolet’s body today can attest that the witch was responsible for the murder of Kiran’s first knight, and logic will dictate she slayed the king as well. We’ll keep close watch on the ravine’s borders. Should the witch set one foul foot toward our kingdom, we’ll capture and hold her imprisoned in hiding, so she can wreak no more havoc.”
Griselda was surprised the prisoner had chosen not to share all that the memory had contained. She suspected the witch had some ulterior motive for harboring the details of her brother’s and Sir Nicolet’s deaths, but couldn’t dwell on it. There were enough things to fret about.
“Then what should we do, Your Grace?”
“We sleep,” she answered through gritted teeth, glancing down the empty hall. The stress of the climb from the dungeon and her confrontation with the witch had resulted in memories that weighed heavy on her bones. “On the morrow, I will think of a new plan.”
The knights escorted Griselda to the queen’s chamber three flights up. She secured the door, shutting out their worried faces. Other than fresh water in the pitcher, the room was just as she’d left it when the two soldiers sent for her earlier: heavy drapes drawn shut; wardrobe door hung askew; jewels, gowns, and goose feathers scattered across the marble floor; broken knickknacks and gimcracks; and most beautifully of all, the scarlet footprints of her daughters where they’d tromped across Lyra’s royal heritage.
Griselda took off her jewelry, scrubbed and rinsed the dungeon filth from her skin, changed into her nightclothes, and brushed her hair. Breathing in the scent of jasmine and lavender, she studied the room in the soft blue glow cast by the wall sconces. She’d barred the servants from cleaning while she was away. She had wished to look upon her spoils again.
However, the small red footprints looked more like harbingers of the king’s blood Griselda had spilled, the same blood that pulsed through Lyra’s veins . . . the one thing standing between Griselda and her greatest victory. Sighing, she pulled back the covers to attempt sleep, curious if the mattress had been stuffed with lamb’s wool as she’d commanded. She would have the chamberlain’s head if it hadn’t.
Then she saw them: tiny, eight-legged, creeping things set loose in her bed. Infestation.
A scream burned inside her. She stumbled backward, almost bumping into the wardrobe. The hanging door flung open from within, and moths swooped out. Griselda ducked left and right, wracked with revulsion.
There in the wardrobe, in the moths’ wake, stood Lyra, commanding it all. With one arm, the princess hugged the potted rose. With the other, she pointed to the chamber door, a demand for Griselda to leave.
She was claiming Queen Arael’s room and possessions as her own.
Griselda moaned and moved toward the entrance, dodging the flying and scrabbling bugs. She opened the door and tottered backward from the room. She stalled in the empty hallway, staring at the whirlwind of moths and shadows. Their gusts and wings formed a strange rustling whisper, unmistakable in its message: Not . . . my . . . mother.
Lyra’s hair rippled in the downdraft like a cascading silvery waterfall, and her plump, frosty lips pressed to a scowl. Her eyes flashed amber-bright in triumph as her obedient shadows rushed to slam the door in Griselda’s face.
Loose tendrils of Griselda’s own hair flapped about her temples and cheeks. She trembled, leaning against the door to trace the ruby knob, even as her frown lifted to a sneer.
The little princess had grown a spine. Griselda was almost impressed, but—even more—pitied the irony. For a spine served small purpose to a corpse.
6