“Of course,” the guard said, giving in as the tendrils of Hal’s magic seduced her. “Right this way.” She ushered us through the door and then waved a casual good-bye.
“The king’s commodes?” I whispered, stifling a giggle.
“Why not? Soldiers are so easy. They’re used to being ordered about,” he said, grinning. He led me through the hallways with the ease of someone familiar with the layout of the grounds, making me wonder how much time he’d spent there when he was younger. How close had he been to the king?
Our footsteps echoed on the stone floors, which were tiled with intricate mosaics made of different kinds of granite. A short flight of stairs at the end of the walkway led down into the cavernous main atrium.
“Not much has changed,” Hal said, smiling as my jaw dropped.
I looked around in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The ceiling towered over us, supported by dark-stained beams. The walls and floor were smooth, white polished marble laced with copper except for one notable exception—what looked like a huge pool of blood that spanned the center of the room, edges splattering out toward the walls. As we came closer, I saw that it was an illusion—just a different kind of stone. But strangely, it wasn’t inlaid. The rock was simply white and then red, with no discernible break.
Pages, nobles, and other members of the castle staff hurried about their business, paying no mind to the two of us. Calls rang out from various chambers around the edges of the room, and benches were lined with petitioners awaiting their turns to enter.
“How did they get the floor like that?” I asked Hal.
“You recall the first monarch?” he asked.
“The bear queen?” She had been the founder of Corovja, the first to raise her banner over Zumorda.
“The earth god took a particular liking to the bear queen, long before Zumorda was a unified kingdom. She led the queen to this very spot and gave her the power to wield earth magic to carve the rock out of the mountainside. When the bear queen did so, a perfect slab of white marble was revealed, and the bear queen declared it the future crown city of Zumorda. But before she and the earth god could so much as put walls up around the site that would one day be this castle, a challenger came for the crown—just as the first flakes of autumn snow began to fall. A snow leopard challenged the bear queen, one who not only believed this territory to belong to her but also wanted to keep the kingdom the way it was, with separate regions governed by different rulers.
“At first it seemed like the bear queen would lose. The snow leopard called on two champions to fight before her—one who manifested as a snowy owl, and the other a ram. The snowy owl pecked out the bear’s eyes, and the ram gored the bear almost through the heart. By the time the bear finally faced the snow leopard, dawn was rising. The bear was exhausted, her fur matted, her eyesight gone so that she had to rely on her other senses. But she had the favor of the gods, and that made all the difference.
“So as the sun rose, not only did the earth god lend her support, but the wind picked up and lent his hands. The fire god split the clouds with his sunlight. The water god gave the bear queen a pool in which to cleanse herself before the final ritual. The spirit god healed her wounds and gave her strength to go on, and the shadow god waited for the snow leopard with open arms. When the bear tore out the leopard’s throat and she bled onto the floor, the earth god sealed the leopard’s blood into the stone to remind all future challengers how the kingdom of Zumorda would be won forevermore—by the one with the greatest gods-given strength.”
I had heard the story of our kingdom’s origin, but not like this. Not with the evidence right in front of me. It was a stark reminder of the power of the gods, and how much they gave to a ruler. How could Ina and Nismae ever hope to stand against this without a god at their backs? It was madness. An uneasy feeling crawled through me as I wondered what they were doing with my blood. Would it be enough to make Ina equal to the king in battle?
Hal pointed to a splatter near the edge of where the red stone met the white. “Doesn’t that look like a bear print to you?”
I looked down, and sure enough, the marking looked just like the imprint of a bear paw tracking fresh blood onto the white floor.
“It does,” I said with terrible wonder. I had always known our kingdom was ruled by the strong and that the crown was taken by battle to the death, but seeing it here, having it be real, it hurt. In the deepest place in my heart, I wanted the world to be a place of kindness, not brutality. Maybe Ina was better suited for the crown than I had ever imagined.
“This site is almost sacred now,” Hal said. “It remains intact to remind us of the first battle—the first stone upon which our kingdom was built.”
“A kingdom built on blood,” I murmured. How apt.
CHAPTER 26
THE DEEPER WE WENT INTO THE CASTLE, THE QUIETER it became. Fewer servants hurried past us, and the patrolling guards changed from pikemen in heavy armor to those wearing a variety of smaller weapons and lighter armor for mobility. The maze of passages seemed as though it would continue forever, until Hal led me down a narrow hallway. An unmarked wooden door stood at the end, shrouded in shadows.
Hal knocked in a careful rhythm.
We waited, the silence stretching out. I fidgeted uneasily. Hal hadn’t told me much about the alchemist, only that the man owed Nismae a favor Hal intended to collect on. What if he refused to help us?
“Are you sure he’s here?” I asked a few moments later.
“I’m sure. Sometimes he gets too absorbed in what he’s doing to answer the door. Other times, he falls asleep over his work.” Hal tested the door, but it was locked. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to handle this like I used to.” He pulled out a thin tool with a curved end and inserted it into the lock. After a few practiced twists of his fingers, the door swung open on silent hinges.
I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder, but the hall was empty behind us.
“Come on.” Hal gestured for me to enter.
The sun slanted in through a wall of arching windows on the south side of the room. I squinted until my eyes adjusted. In front of the windows stood a series of workbenches covered in an astonishing array of plants, vials, and substances, many of which I recognized. My heart lifted. Something about the place gave me comfort—perhaps the familiarity of so much of what surrounded us. I knew what to do with these things.
“I’ll go see if he’s in his rest chamber,” Hal said, pointing to a different door than the one we’d come in through.
“I’ll wait here,” I said, curious to explore more of the workshop.
Shelves spanned from floor to ceiling on the wall opposite the windows. The contents seemed entirely random. Some books stood vertically and others were stacked haphazardly on their sides, all interspersed with empty vials in every size, baskets filled with dry herbs, and other relics I didn’t recognize.
I moved closer to the shelves, intrigued by something purple and sparkly. My breath caught when I saw what it was. A dried fire flower lay preserved in a glass tube, the petals in far more ragged condition than the ones I’d carried in my satchel before Nismae stole it. A pang of longing struck me. I missed my cave, my flowers, my herbs. I missed home, but it felt so distant now.
“He must be somewhere in here,” Hal said, reentering the workshop.