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Although it was midday, the market seemed oddly subdued, the sun hidden behind a veneer of grey. The capital looked as bleak as the winter gardens and somehow even frostier.
“Something’s wrong,” remarked Hawthorn.
“Hmm, indeed. If they thought you were dead, there ought to be more celebration.”
Hawthorn didn’t laugh. Thewrongnesswas squirming inside him, like he swallowed a snake. He’d heard his mother talk before about feeling the land, like the earth and trees were an extension of her limbs. She could sense a storm rolling in, an earthquake before it happened, a disaster brewing in the distance—Hawthorn had never felt it.
Not until now.
He broke into a run, hurtling up the road towards the palace, abandoning Juliana, abandoningeverything,even as she screamed at him to stop. No one else paid the mud-streaked prince any heed until he hit the gates.
They were locked. When were theyeverlocked?
“Halt!” called a guard. “Who goes there?”
“Your prince!” he yelled. “Open up immediately!”
The guard on duty stammered. “Your Highness, we thought—“
“I don’t give a shit. Open the gates!”
Dutifully, they obeyed, Hawthorn slipping in the second there was a wide enough gap. He thought Juliana might be following him, but he wasn’t sure. He no longer cared.
The vines tumbled down the stone, flat and limp, sucked dry of any energy. They barely moved to greet him. There were no buds, no petals.
For some reason, his mind was stuck on the image of his mother, surrounded by roots as the sluaghs shrieked around her. He remembered the look in her eyes as he hurtled into the undergrowth, the one he couldn’t name.
Stillcouldn’t.
But what if that was the last look she was ever going to give him?
He tore through the halls, towards the great hall. The skies above stood stony and black, the room draped in grey, devoid of colour. Courtiers huddled around the throne, quiet and hushed, finery gone, replaced with robes of mourning.
“Your Highness!” gasped one, causing a murmur round the room.
Slowly, the people parted. A coffin stood behind them, glass and gold, covered with a black drape.
“Hawthorn…” His mother stepped forward from the crowd, dressed in a long black veil fringed with crow’s feathers. Her pale face was streaked with red. “We feared the worst.”
She made a move towards him, to embrace him, or block the view of the coffin, he wasn’t sure.
For one moment, he thought it was a joke, that he’d interrupted his own premature funeral, that this was all a mistake. No one was dead. Everyone was fine.
But then the drape fell away, and his father’s glassy face stared back.
He didn’t have the strength to cry. He didn’t have the strength for anything. He remembered tumbling, someone helping him into a seat.
Juliana arrived not long after. Markham rushed forward to embrace her, and then her legs gave out too.
She was hurried out of the room.
That was just as well, because shortly after, Hawthorn lost all sense of reason, and howled.
ItdidnotsurpriseJuliana that all of Lucinda’s attempts to seduce Hawthorn fell decidedly flat, although it was not for lack of trying. On her last night, she came to his chambers and knocked at his door.
Hawthorn leapt out of bed and skidded into Juliana’s room. “Quick,” he said, “giggle.”
“What?”
