Everyone within the obsidian castle was in a tizzy—from servants and royal family members to the military personnel and guests who’d been honored enough to receive invitations to the wedding and coronation. Noblemen and commoners alike congregated in the great hall where a luncheon feast awaited, the tables laden with roasted wild boar, fish pies, pears in red wine, plums stewed in rosewater, sturgeon coated with powdered ginger, and jellies and creams flavored with dried fig and fennel seeds. They drank spiced mead and hot cider while discussing the fairy tale taking place before their very eyes.
Rumor had spread quickly from chamber to chamber and turret to turret, reaching as far as to the dungeon. A handful of groundsmen had witnessed the miracle within the arboretum. Before the prince even opened his eyes, they had already raced to the castle to give details: the Eldorian princess, while picking wildflowers for her sleeping prince, had been moved to sing—and her song healed Vesper in the shrine just a few feet away, for they heard his victorious cry. Not only had she cured him of his sun-poisoning, but her voice, so pure and captivating, had triggered an explosion of glowing flowers and vines to grow, a surge of life so powerful it paraded through the shrine then plowed down Nerverdark’s outer door to reach into the wintry terrain outside. Even now it could be seen: a luminous pathway of creeping myrtles, clematis, bellflowers, and wisteria. The multicolored petals and ivy led through the Grim and into the badlands, melting all the ice and drifts of snow within a two-league radius of its wake. Everywhere it touched, thorns had surrendered to blossoms that shimmered like dewdrops in the moonlight.
In the colonized province, villagers left their houses and tromped through ankle-deep puddles barefoot, for the first time in centuries able to walk outside without their furs and boots. They gathered lukewarm water by the bucketful for cooking and bathing. The sun still shied from their world, the skies were yet divided, and night still reigned. But the snow and ice were gone—at least for the moment.
Regent Griselda and her girls didn’t share in the celebration. Instead, they holed up within their dark and opulent turret chamber to commiserate over the disastrous turn Lustacia’s triumph had taken.
This was the last place Griselda wished to be. The glossy obsidian walls and floors reminded her too much of Nerezeth’s pitch-black sky, and the white lilies in the long-stemmed vases added to the illusion—like a sprinkling of fragrant stars. Many of the Eldorian attendees found the decor exotic and charming. She, however, shuddered, haunted by the vermin that scuttled freely along the corridors and halls of this castle. The pests hadn’t even courtesy enough to hide beneath furnishings or in corners.
When Lustacia and her girls first arrived in their chambers, a rash of milky-white mice scampered everywhere: upon the beds, beneath the blankets, covering the wardrobe, tables, and floors. Griselda, along with her three daughters, had clung to one another, convulsing in disgust, as Sir Bartley helped Queen Nova’s chambermaids remove every one, carrying them from the room on satin pillows. That was the way here. Creatures, which in her world would be crushed beneath a heel, pounded with a book, or snapped within a miniature guillotine, were treated as royal subjects.
Foolish. Griselda rolled the word along her tongue while sitting upon a gray-cushioned chair. She peeled the hennin from her head and the gloves from her hands. “Foolish namby-pamby.” She flung the aspersion at her youngest daughter.
Lustacia lay on one of the three canopied beds, sniffling and dabbing her face with the handkerchief Sir Bartley had offered while escorting them to their room. She hadn’t yet been able to return it, as Bartley had left on an errand for Griselda.
The regent wondered how long it might take him to search. She still couldn’t say what had inspired her premonition . . . that there was something in that empty shrine that needed to be found. Something that would give her the upper hand once more. It was almost as if her conscience had driven the suspicion, yet her absence of such a hindrance negated that theory. Perhaps, in all her dealings with potions and spell-chants, some magic had at last rubbed off on her.
Absently, she patted her head where her antlers hid beneath piles of plaited hair.
“How could you have been so careless?” She prodded her snuffling daughter to get her mind off the mutation. “Your magical birdsong voice woke the prince out of his trance. It somehow even brought life to this colorless icy expanse. Yet you manage to ruin it all by weeping in front of him. The worst thing you could’ve done! Until we can find an elixir or potion that will conjure tears of fire to leave scorched skin in their wake, you’ve no business ever weeping. Did you forget his royal family was given a vial of Lyra’s sooty tears by Kiran himself?”
Wrathalyne and Avaricette, seated on the bed beside their sister, smoothed her pale, shimmery hair. Their elaborate trappings tangled with Lustacia’s wedding gown—a prismatic pool of organza, lace, glittering beads, and velvety ruffles that whispered and rustled with each minute movement.
“Mums, you’re being heartless.” Wrathalyne twirled a silver lock around her fingertip, then dropped it alongside the other strands splayed upon Lustacia’s pillow. “She just got wilted! Have some compassiveness.”
Avaricette groaned, her shoulders slumping. “So close, Wrath. You almost managed an astute observation. It’s forgiveness. Or compassion. Choose one or the other. And wilted is what a flower does when it’s out in the sun too long. Jilted is what the prince did . . . kissed her senseless then left her flushed and titillated with nary a by-your-leave. Will you ever read your lexicon, you dullard?”
“Oh, shush your mouth!” Wrathalyne retorted. “Every time you open it, your rotten teeth turn the air green with stink. Are you sure an ogre didn’t crawl in there and die?’
“Would you both just stop your prattling!” Lustacia sat up and tossed the hanky in the air like a white flag of surrender. “None of you . . .” She placed a hand over her lips to contain a sob. “Can even imagine what I’m feeling.”
Griselda stood and straightened her ornate gown of red and gold. The bejeweled train dragged the dark floor, making tiny clacking sounds as she strode toward the cheval mirror in the adjoining antechamber. Leaving the door ajar, she watched her girls in the reflection—each so wrapped within their own obliquities they hadn’t yet noticed she’d left. She didn’t mind such indifference with the older two, expected it, in fact. She’d spent all that time in isolation teaching Lustacia the social graces, while leaving her other two daughters to their own childish, awkward ways. It was unlikely either would ever capture a man’s attention at this point. But that hardly mattered. Everything was riding on her youngest. It was time Lustacia took her role seriously, time she understood what was at stake.
Griselda began to unravel the black braids piled high upon her head, watching the girls behind her own reflection.
Wrathalyne leapt up, glaring at Lustacia. “Of course we can imagine your feelings, Princess Prim. We saw His Highness when he led that crowd in from the shrine. Those eyes, that skin . . . those lips . . . those muscles. You were mad to let him go. If I’d had that hard, royal body pressed to mine, I’d have clung on like a carbuncle to a longship!”
“A carbuncle?” Avaricette snarled. “It’s barnacle, you nit!” Standing on the bed, she pummeled her sister in the face with a pillow.
“How dare you!” Wrathalyne’s yelp was muffled by the padding crushed into her mouth. Growling, she plowed into her sister. They fell atop the mattress in a riotous melee of knobby elbows, spiky fingernails, and auburn curls.
“Ugh!” Lustacia rolled off the other side, tugging at her gown’s train to free it from their wrestling limbs. Lips pursed, she pulled the bag containing her half-light goblins out from under her bed and opened the flap. Five shadowy forms siphoned into midair and hovered around her. She gestured to her sisters, whose antics had wrinkled the satiny bedspread. “I should like my linens refreshed, if you would please.”
Spinning with glee, the formless silhouettes flapped the four corners of the bedspread, pulled each one up and around, then wrapped the struggling, whimpering girls within it before dragging it with a thud to the floor. Lustacia simpered at her sisters’ resulting grumbles.
“Lustacia,” Griselda called to her youngest, having tied a cream-colored scarf around her head. “We’re not done speaking.”
Her daughter’s moonlit complexion—flushed almost purple from crying—caught a flicker of orange light from the fireplace as she crossed the threshold to escape her sisters and their goblin tormentors.
“Shut the door,” Griselda said, tucking the ends of the scarf beneath her chin. “We need to be alone.”
Lustacia leaned against the closed door and sighed.
Griselda aimed a scolding finger her direction. “I’ve had enough of your self-pity. Get cleaned up, find that prince, and marry him.”