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“But your mother is willing to dismiss the penalties if the King of Tal breaks it, and I’ll be king after my father believes us married and he places the crown on my head.”
“And your father? What will he do when he realizes he’s been tricked?”
The familiar hate swirled in me. I knew what I wanted, what I needed, to happen. “I’ll be head of our House. He won’t be able to do anything.”
“What if we go to the crypt but don’t say any vows at all?”
“If there’s even a chance my grandmother is right… strange things are happening in Tal. When the next ruler is crowned, we’ll be released. We only require a suitable heir, and it doesn’t have to be a child.”
She tapped the armrest, seemingly studying the sketched maps which lined my walls. “What’s the effect of the vow?”
I hesitated, then decided it was the truth or nothing. Helia had trusted me, I needed to trust her.
“I’m not sure. My father never left the city or our vassal towns for more than a three-day since he was crowned. While twisted, he desires to protect Tal. Once my mother described it as a compulsion or a curse, she could not knowingly break. She wanted to hurt my father, but as it would hurt Tal, she could not. I don’t know if its effect comes from the vow itself or the royal sigil.”
The silence stretched between us.
What I proposed not only went against the marriage contract. Crowning someone based on a lie? That was treason. It would tieme to the role and city I longed to escape, to the fate I no longer believed in.
Once, I had not questioned that I was born to rule. Running in the Tower, then training with blades and books, there had never been any other possibilities. During my exile, I swore never to take the crown. Then my father offered me a route to vengeance, and I had still been playing by his rules. Even abdicating was part of the Talian tradition. Courting a Lowtown thief...
“And you could marry as well,” Helia said, already reading my face too well for comfort.
“No.” I had relaxed my guard, revealed too much. Dreams were made to be crushed.
I rubbed my tired eyes. Perhaps I could see Tempest, create a bond and joint life, but even in my imagination was marriage impossible.
I was ready to block out the sun and sleep despite the reports waiting on my desk. Taking the crown, marriage or no, even more of my time would go to Tal.
Helia gave me a last look. “Remember, every tradition was once new. Fight for her. They told me, Tal’s supposed to be the city of love as well as death.”
Leaving, she ran into two servants about to knock, their arms filled with scrolls and tomes.
After apologies, bowing, and hasty gathering, I was finally alone with everything they had been able to find so quickly on tunnels in my city. Ignoring the call of my bed and the riders’ reports filled with problems I did not know how to solve, I carefully removed my sketches, remnants from my old life, from the walls and pinned up the complex city drawings of sewers, covered roads, and more underground routes than I had ever imagined I walked above.
Examining the aged parchments written in the old script, I was glad for years spent studying cartography as I mentally overlayed the lost buildings with the present Tal.
In my notebook, full of scribbles and thoughts, I drew the old together with the new, connecting former temples and buildings no longer standing, sure that this was what Tempest had meant.
Finally, I was making progress. We would find the food. And after that, with Helia’s cooperation, the world held possibilities each scratch of my stylus seemed to make more real. A life instead of only death. Love and hope.
A happy breeze swirled around me, as if the world itself approved.
Chapter eleven
Vanya
Waiting on 3rd Street in twilight brought me back. I had come here alone to stalk out the von Mekeln manor when preparing for the theft. Had ignored the dilapidated manor I now focused on until magic led me to realize Lumi and Helia were imprisoned in the basement—not that my sister had really needed my help.
That day had been filled with grief and truths, but I still remembered what I had seen underground.
I tensed at approaching footsteps this time, an irrational part of me fearing my sister would find me and notice the kiss that still clung to my lips. I could not have been more surprised if he had stabbed me. I needed the meeting tomorrow night to go well and could no longer put off telling him. After how he left me at the hospital, I was sure Dimitri would at least listen. He was dangerous, trained to fight and distrust, but he had acted like my protector. In his arms, I only felt safe.
The day’s heat pressed down like the Goddess’s own hand, reminding me the Day of the Dead rushed closer. If we could not stop Ealhswip before then, she would wait for Dimitri and Helia in the crypt, and neither one would survive to see the first day offall. Tonight, I would show Dimitri what I knew and tomorrow, Lumi would share the letter and reveal the rest. Together, we would succeed.
I had memorized the faces of those coming and going to the von Lemerch manor, knowing information would be more valuable than gold. With my few remaining coins, I had bought beautiful invitations for Popova, Morovara, and von Paran, the head of the Merchant Guild—the main powers in Tal outside the palace. The crisp paper waited only for Lumi and Dimitri to provide the words. With their planning and me, reading each invitees emotions as I delivered them, convincing them collaboration was needed, there was a chance. Even an undead queen could not stand against all of Tal.
First, Dimitri.
