The Emerald Storm (The Riyria Revelations #4)

When Modina had first come to the castle everyone avoided her the way one evades a dog known to bite, but all that had changed. After her speech, those few members of the castle staff she chanced upon looked at her with affectionate admiration and an unspoken understanding, as if acknowledging that they finally comprehended her behavior. Now seeing her in the new gown, admiration became adoration as the white purity gave her an angelic aura. She went from the mad empress to the saintly—although troubled—high priestess. They clearly believed her to be the Chosen One of Maribor.

Everyone attributed her recovery to Amilia’s healing powers. After all, she herself had proclaimed it to the kingdom that day on the balcony. Modina also believed Amilia had saved her, if saved was the right word. She did not feel saved.

Since Dahlgren, she drowned in overwhelming terrors she could not face. Amilia had pulled her to shore, but no one could call her existence living. There was a time when she would say life carried hope for a better tomorrow, but for her, hope was a dream blown away on a midsummer’s night. The horrors were all that remained, calling to her, threatening to pull her under again. It would be easy to give in, to close her eyes and sink to the bottom once more, but if pretending to live could help Amilia, then she would. Amilia had become a tiny point of light in a sea of darkness, the singular star Modina steered by and it did not matter where that light led.

Modina took to walking the corridors of the palace each day mostly out of boredom. She never went anywhere in particular and oftentimes after returning could not recall where she had been. She wanted to feel grass beneath her feet, but her newly found freedom did not extend past the palace walls. She was certain no guard would stop her, but Amilia would pay the price. So instead, Modina spent each afternoon wandering the sequestered halls and chambers like a ghost searching for something long forgotten. She heard that people with missing limbs felt an itching in a phantom leg or arm. Perhaps it was the same for her, as she struggled to scratch at her missing life.

The smell of food indicated she was near the kitchen. Modina did not recall the last time she had eaten, but she was not hungry. Ghosts did not get hungry, at least not for food. She had come to the bottom of the stairs. To the right, cupboards lined a narrow room holding plates, goblets, candles, and utensils. To the left, folded linens were stacked on shelves. Filled with laboring servants and steam, the place was hot and noisy.

Modina spotted the big elkhound sleeping in the corner of the kitchen and immediately recalled his name was Red. She had not been down this way in a long time, not since Saldur caught her feeding the dog. That was the first day since her father died that she could remember clearly, before that—nothing—nothing but…rotten eggs.

She smelled the rancid stench as she stood at the bottom of the steps. Modina glanced around with greater interest. That awful smell triggered a memory. There was a place, a small room. It was cold and dark, no windows, and it was damp. The floor was dirt, and she remembered that smell. She could almost taste it.

Modina approached a small wooden door. With a shaking hand, she pulled it open. Inside, was a small pantry filled with sacks of flour and grain. This was not the room, but the smell was stronger here.

There was another place—small like this—small, dark, and evil. The thought came at her with the force of a forgotten nightmare. Black, earth and cold, a splashing, and a ratcheting that echoed ominously, the wails of lost souls crying for mercy and finding none. She was one of them. She had cried aloud in the dark until she could cry no more, and always the smell of dirt penetrated her nostrils and the dampness soaked into her skin. A sudden realization jolted her.

I’m remembering my grave! I am dead. I am a ghost.

She looked at her hands—this was not life. The darkness, closed in all around her, growing deeper, swallowing her, smothering her.





***




“Are you all right, Your Eminence?”

“Ya think she’s sick again?”

“Don’t be daft. She’s just upset. You can see that well enough, can’t ya?”

“Poor thing, she’s so fragile.”

“Remember who you’re speaking of. That lass slew Rufus’ Bane!”

“You remember who you’re speaking of, that lass indeed! By Maribor’s beard, she’s the empress!”

“Out of my way,” Amilia growled, as she shooed the crowd like a yard full of chickens.

She was in no mood to be polite. Fear made her voice harsh and it lacked the familiar tone of a fellow kitchen worker—it was the voice of an angry noblewoman. The servants scattered. Modina sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She was weeping softly with her hands covering her face.

“What did you do to her?” Amilia snapped accusingly, while glaring at the lot of them.

“Nothing!” Leif defended.

Leif, the butcher and assistant cook, was a scrawny little man with thick dark hair covering his arms and chest but absent from his balding head. Amilia had never cared for him and the thought that he, or any of them, might have hurt Modina made her blood boil.

“No one was even near her. I swear!”

“That’s right,” Cora confirmed. The dairymaid was a sweet simple girl who churned the butter each morning and always added too much salt. “She just sat and started crying.”

Amilia knew better than to listen to Leif, but Cora was trustworthy. “All right,” she told them. “Leave her be. Back to work all of you.”

They were slow to respond until Amilia gave them a threatening glare.

“Are you all right? What’s wrong?” she asked kneeling beside Modina.

The empress looked up and threw her arms around Amilia’s neck as she continued to sob uncontrollably. Amilia held her, stroking her hair. She had no idea what was wrong, but needed to get the empress to her room. If word reached Saldur, or worse, if he wandered in—she tried not to think of it.

“It’s okay, it’s all right. I’ve got you. Try to calm down.”

“Am I alive?” Modina asked with pleading eyes.

For the briefest of moments, Amilia thought she might be joking, but there were two things wrong with that. First, there was the look in Modina’s eyes, and second the empress never joked.

“Of course, you are,” she reassured. “Now come. Let’s get you to bed.”

Amilia helped her up. Modina stood like a newborn fawn, weak and unsure. As they left, excited whispering rose. I’ll have to deal with that right away, she thought.

She guided Modina upstairs to where Gerald, the empress’s personal guard, gave them a concerned look as he opened the chamber door.

“Is she all right?” Gerald asked.

“She’s tired,” Amilia said, closing the door on him.

The empress sat on the edge of her bed staring at nothing, but this was not her familiar blank stare. Amilia could see her thinking hard about something.

“Were you sleepwalking? Did you have a nightmare?”