His gaze shifted to the cabinet, and mine followed. With the glass open, I could see more details. The gray crept inward from the outer edges, advancing on the crimson like rot. Most of the petals on the outer ring were completely stone. The ones inside them were mid-transition, red at the center darkening to gray at the tips. The gray didn’t bleed inward cleanly, but feathered, the way ink spreads through wet paper, reaching into the last red petals.
The way the darker gray threaded like marble in Hadrien’s skin.
The only sound was the fire and the soft tick of the cooling stone walls and my pulse, which had grown deafening in my ears. I straightened slowly and turned to face Hadrien.
He hadn’t moved. He was still watching me, and his gray eyes appeared resigned, haunted.
I suspected he’d waited for this moment for a long time and had hoped it would never come.
“Hadrien,” I asked, just louder than a whisper. “Whatisthis?”
CHAPTER 19
HADRIEN
Lilia stared at the poppy and the color drained from her face.
“What is this?” she repeated, her voice even softer.
I paced across the library, each heavy footstep amplified in the silence, even as I stepped on the rug. She’d found my secret and it stared at us, open and unveiled. What I’d dreaded anyone discovering.
And yet…
Deep inside me, thoughts whispered and questioned. Maybe I’d wanted her to find it. Maybe the deeper, darker secret was that I didn’t want to bear this curse alone. I longed for someone to share my fears, and my fate.
She turned to me, wonder and confusion in her expressive eyes. Waiting for my answer.
I swallowed and straightened. “A reminder from Queen Mireille.” Just saying that name soured my tongue.
Lilia tipped her head and stared at me, with both confusion and dread on her face. “A reminder about what?”
I sank into one of the chairs, the weight of the past three years pressing down on me. “Never to disobey her.”
Lilia stepped across the carpet, her light steps all but silent, and sat across from me. “Will you tell me what happened?”
I propped my elbow on my knee and leaned forward, dropping my forehead to my palm as I tried to sort through where to begin. “Three years ago, I was a commander in her army, stationed at the northern border. The queen ordered us to push into other territories and seize them. To kill anyone who protested, for any reason, as a warning to show what happened to those who resisted.”
A soft sigh fell from Lilia’s lips, followed by a whispered, “Why?”
I grimaced. “War is always caused by selfish reasons.” I shook my head. “Exploiting others to claim more land, more riches, more power, more control.”
Lilia exhaled. “Yes, that sounds exactly like her.” Her voice soured and she turned her gaze to the distance, as if remembering her own encounters with the queen.
“I questioned her orders. No sane reason was given. My soldiers and I didn’t understand the need to push into other lands like mindless, destructive monsters.” I huffed. “I confronted her about it. That threw her into a rage, for anyone to question her wishes. We argued. I refused to follow her demands. She came to Valgarde with those closest to her, those like her who don’t just dabble in dark magic, they cloak themselves in it, so much so that it encompasses their entire being. They killed soldiers on the way. And others—” I swallowed, my tongue as dry as parchment.
When I didn’t finish, couldn’t, Lilia gazed at me with sympathetic eyes. “The statues,” she added gently.
I nodded. It was easier to do than agree.
“Are they…”
Lilia didn’t complete her sentence this time, and I summoned the courage to do so. “Gone. No life remains in their stone. Their eternal tombs placed there for me to watch over them every day, a reminder of what happens to those who defy her.”
“Oh, Hadrien.” Lilia raised her hands to her mouth and then lowered them. “What a vicious, vindictive, heartless woman! She took a poppy, a symbol of peace, of remembrance, and twisted it into something dark.”
I nodded, swallowing a thickness in my throat. After a few breaths, I revealed more about what had happened. The anguish I heard from my soldiers before they fell, the scent of death spreading through La Forêt de Veillepierre, and the dreadful silence that followed.
“That day, she’d sensed the old magic that runs deep through the grounds of Valgarde. I knew she’d return to try to claim it. I was able to strengthen the wards with my magic to keep her out, but as you know, they’ve been weakening. And so am I. Her curse has been slowly draining me.”
