A knock sounds on the door. One of Rasha’s guards unbolts it and a Bron soldier steps in.
“Sir Gowon has agreed to see Princess Rasha.” The man’s gaze falls on me. “And the Elemental.”
I watch Rasha from the corner of my eye as she and I and all five of her Cashlin guards follow the Bron soldier down a maze of hallways. Behind us trail wisps of muffled hissing from two of the Dark Army wraiths. I refuse to look back or acknowledge them, or the alarming sense that just like in my dream, I can almost decipher what they’re saying.
As if the words are trapped on the edge of my tongue, but for the life of me I can’t recall them.
It makes my skin itch. I glance up at the Bron soldiers leading us far from the Main Hall, then look around for any of the Faelen bodyguards. It’s a full moment before I realize they’re all still locked away with the delegates.
I look down at my hands. Did any of the murdered guards have families?
I don’t want to think about it.
The jittering cold now moves to my jaw, making my teeth chatter. I clench them and try to focus on the fact that Sir Gowon didn’t believe me about Eogan and the Elegy. Will he this time? And if not, how do we make him?
“Did Eogan give you any other clues on what the Elegy refers to?” Rasha says.
A flare of irritation surfaces. Is she jesting? Wasn’t she just listening to me recount in her room last night’s scene with Eogan? If he’d said more I would’ve told her. “Nothing else,” I say tightly, and keep my gaze on the hall in front of us until the guards stop at a door.
Three of Rasha’s men go in with the Bron soldiers to search the place, and suddenly the wraiths are hovering too close, suffocating the air with their sounds and scent of decay. I’m tempted to plug my nose and ears so maybe my veins will stop trying to echo them, but instead I force myself to turn around and study what I can see of them beneath their cloaks. To see what they really are and how they were brought into existence.
What I find is as sickening as what I saw the other night at the banquet. Physical conglomerations of humans and beasts somehow pieced together and brought alive. Human torsos and heads emaciated to skulls, blended with animal parts and bolcrane claws.
Did they bring the plague with them, or is the plague a form of magic that turns people into them? Either way, the monsters hissing in front of me with sunken-in faces are as bloodless and cold as Rasha’s maid lying somewhere in this Castle.
As soon as the guards are done, I stride past them into the room only to find we’ve arrived before Sir Gowon. The space is dim inside with hall lanterns illuminating it just enough to reveal it’s some sort of chapel. My gaze scans the simple floor rugs and a beautiful, intricate table facing what appears to be a landscape mural before I stop at the painting hanging over it. It’s an artist’s rendering of a man who looks very much like Eogan. Only older and more calloused.
His dead father, I assume.
I give a low scoff. Apparently arrogance runs in the family.
The Bron guards nearby say nothing, but their faces sour as I walk over to it. Even with that awful portrait, this room has more personality than anything else I’ve seen in this metal castle. It has a sense of history. I run my fingers across the intricate altar and imagine Eogan sneaking into here as a child.
On the wall beside it is a smaller portrait of a woman holding two identical children. The woman has a gentle face but the small boys aren’t smiling. The next moment I’m peeking back up to his father’s overbearing painting, then lift it to peer behind it to the landscape scene of a valley.
A Faelen valley.
Inhale. Exhale . . .
It’s a mural of the Valley of Origin Eogan and I visited.
The brushstrokes and coloring make it clear even to me that this painting is far older than anything else in the room. And not merely older—more delicate. There’s a distinct sense of reverence in the edges and lines that suggest this was more than a mural. It was regarded as a place of honor.
I frown. Is that how Eogan knew to go to the Valley when he was in Faelen? Did his ancient ancestors once worship the Creator there too?
I’m just reaching out to finger a dust-covered edge of it, when a Bron guard says, “Sir Gowon for you,” and the old man is standing outside the door, his bushy brows furrowed in suspicion.
“I trust this is important, Your Majesty, seeing as it’s a highly inconvenient time.”
Rasha smiles at him. “I assure you it’s of the utmost consequence.”
“In that case, I caution the both of you not to test my patience. You have ten minutes.”
He glances my direction before stepping into the room. Rasha nods to her guards who, albeit reluctantly, leave with the Bron men and close the door until there’s merely one sliver of light.
Sir Gowon walks over to twist a knob on a lantern set into the wall, and the room springs alive with golden beams. “Well?”