Treacherous Witch

"The Royal Palace of Jairah was particularly notable as a trove of magical treasure. Such trinkets lose their power outside of Maskamere, which was how the generals determined that destroying the silvertrees was the first essential step to successful conquest."

Clement Pyridge's History of Our Glorious Empire, Vol. II

The spell didn't work.

She was angry and bewildered. Her magic had never failed since those early days when she first came to Jairah. Maybe she hadn't worked on the dress for long enough. She'd rushed it in her haste to escape. Or maybe the alteration wasn't big enough—a single rose on a finished garment, maybe that wasn't enough for the spell to take. She didn't know and that infuriated her.

She tried again, tasking Priska to bring her more thread. She spent hours embroidering a pattern of roses around the hem of the skirt, willing the magic to flow through her fingertips and into the cloth. Even while she laboured, she didn't think it was working. She'd lost confidence.

It didn't help that she had no time to concentrate either—she could only snatch a few minutes here or there, in between the demands of court. There was breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and all the pampering and preparation before it. There were the social gatherings: picnics, horse riding, croquet, music, a tour of the gallery. Lady Melody seemed determined to fill every minute of her social calendar.

She drew the line at attending a chapel service, prompting Lord Thorne to spend an entire morning harassing her.

"Your soul, Lady Valerie! Has Lord Avon not spoken to you of the purification of the Divine?"

"Not a word," she said. "Perhaps you'd like to ask him?"

The gallery at least was interesting. They were shown around by the palace archivist, a Maskamery woman who had lived here for over forty years. She was a fount of knowledge about the Maskamery royal family and their history, as well as all the paintings and artists in the gallery. Valerie ignored the coos of the courtiers admiring the unique beauty of Maskamery art. Instead, she spoke to the archivist herself.

"Was there a painting here?"

In the largest gallery, the main hall, paintings hung from every wall. They had stopped at every one of them. But at the top of the marble staircase, the wall overlooking the hall was empty.

"Well-spotted," said the archivist. "Yes, here once hung the frame of the late Queen Shikra. The painting depicted her sitting in her favourite drawing room wearing the baubles of state and with her cat sleeping on her lap. It was removed at the order of Lord Turnbull, Lord Avon's predecessor."

"Oh, I remember," said Melody. "He ordered every image of the queen to be taken down and destroyed. He was quite paranoid about it. Jaxon, you attended him at the time, do you recall?"

The courtier nodded. "He was having bad dreams. He was convinced that the paintings were watching him. He believed the queen had cursed him from beyond the grave."

A few people sniggered, the courtiers hiding their smiles behind their fans.

"I wouldn't assume he was wrong," said Mona, surprising her. "I've seen Maskamery sorcery at work. A goblet, cursed to poison all traitors. Killed a man in under a minute."

"How do you know the drink wasn't poisoned?" Amilia asked.

"Because we all drank from the same goblet. The only one who died was the man suspected of being a spy."

"Well, I'm sure it was for the best that Lord Turnbull returned to Drakon, curse or no curse," said Melody. "He was in a dreadful state by the end."

"Shall we move on?" the archivist asked, and they did, but Valerie tucked that bit of information away for later.

At the end of their tour, she lingered, brushing off the calls of the ladies to join them in the garden for refreshments. The archivist noticed her loitering.

"Can I help, my lady?"

"I have one more question... Do you know much about the palace temple?"

"Of course. I can show you around if you like. It's the oldest temple in Maskamere—"

"What about the chamber?" she interrupted. "There's a chamber below the temple and a giant stone door, but it's blocked. It won't open."

The archivist blinked. "The Forbidden Chamber? I'm afraid that's off-limits to visitors."

Well, that sounded ominous. "Why is it forbidden?"

"Only the queen was allowed to enter the chamber. There's no definitive historical record of why it's forbidden..."

"Because it contains the royal family's treasure?"

"The treasury contains the royal family's treasure."

"Then what's in there?"

But the archivist wouldn't say. She dealt in facts, she claimed, not superstition. Whatever Valerie may have heard, best not to take it seriously.

Of course, she couldn't let that lie.

*

"The Devourer?" Anwen shook his head. "Well, now that is just a silly story."

"The matron believes it. And the head cook. The maids whisper about a forbidden magic—a curse."

She'd joined her fifth session with the scholar pottering about in the vegetable garden. The entire palace, she had learned, was full of rumour and speculation when it came to the royal family and their secrets. Many of them had lived in the palace all their lives and came from families with longstanding ties to the royals. Which made it all the more curious that so little was known about what lay beneath the temple.

The most popular story was the creature they called the Devourer—said to be a spectral reaper or a giant beast that tore up and devoured silvertrees and people alike. According to this tale, Maska had defeated the beast in the early days of her reign and confined it below the palace temple, never to see the light of day again. Others thought the temple contained not a creature but a curse, one that protected the palace but would also kill every person in Jairah if released.

Anwen peered at her from over his notebook. "The queen never said a word to me about any beast or any curse. I would trust her word over servant gossip."

That was true. Still... "Did she ever speak to you about the temple at all?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then it was obviously meant to be a secret. Aren't you worried that there might be something dangerous in there?"

Even if it wasn't as ludicrous as some of the stories she'd heard, myths often contained a kernel of truth. That was Anwen's own theory about the golden fruit, after all. The promise of an elixir of eternal youth was no doubt a more alluring story to the Drakonians than monsters or curses, but that didn't make it more likely to be true.

"A weapon, perhaps," said Anwen. "I doubt the queen would keep something dangerous to her own people locked up in the palace. But if you're concerned, perhaps talk it over with Lord Avon?"

She said nothing, returning to her notes. It didn't matter since the door would never be opened. She ought to focus on her spell.

But her magic continued to fail, to the point that she started to wonder if there was any truth to this curse business. And her sessions with Master Anwen grew less and less edifying. She soon discovered that his "book" was in fact thirty years' worth of loose papers, notes and transcripts arranged in some manner that was comprehensible to him but surely made no sense to anyone else. He claimed to have cross-checked every reference to magical seals, locks, barriers, etc, in his collection. They pored through them together in the summer house he used as a study, trying to make sense of the often vague and confusing scribbles and, in Valerie's case, the spidery handwriting.

On their tenth session, she was especially grumpy. Her third attempt at the invisibility spell had failed. After two weeks of living at or being imprisoned in the royal palace, whatever she felt like calling it, she had achieved nothing other than adding a set of unnecessary flowers to a dress.

She tossed a notebook onto Anwen's desk and sighed, rubbing her eyes. "Anwen, this doesn't help me. All I've learned is that you can seal just about anything and they all have different conditions for breaking them. It's like every lock has a different key. You can't force it and hope it'll work. You need the right key, and we don't know what that is."

She'd read some outlandish stories and some ridiculous conditions for breaking seals. A treasure chest on a pirate ship that could only be opened under the light of a full moon, in the month of December, and only when sprinkled with the blood of a pig. Several accounts talked about actual keys—not literal keys, but seals that could only be opened by specific items, usually magical. One interview featured a necromancer who had spoken with relish about how she had cursed her rival with a seal that would castrate any man who touched her. Only true love's kiss could break it. The true love turned out to be the necromancer herself.

She was fairly certain that last one was hokum.

"Well," said Anwen, "that's not nothing. We need the right key, you say. What do we know about the key?"

He disappeared behind a pile of books and reemerged with a wooden blackboard and a white stick of chalk. Valerie folded her arms, watching him write on the board.

The key is a woman.

"Yes," she said waspishly. "Well done. We knew that already."

"But," said Anwen, "we also know that the key has to be something more than that. If the seal only required a woman to open it, you could have done that already. What if it requires a specific woman?"

"You thought the door could only be opened by the royal family, didn't you? Why did you think that?"

Anwen shrugged. "Speculation. The Maska faith teaches that only the royal family have the goldentree's blessing. A barrier only they could enter would achieve that. What if Queen Shikra created a seal that only she could break?"

"Then this entire task is doomed. It's impossible."

"That's true," Anwen admitted.

"You met her, didn't you? Was she an intelligent woman?"

"Oh, yes—incredibly so. I never met a lady more accomplished."

"Then she wouldn't create a seal that could only be broken by her. That's stupid. If she dies, she cuts off the entire royal family from access to the elixir—or treasure—or whatever's in there. She had to have a contingency plan. She had to want someone to open it—to continue the royal line."

Yet they already knew that she'd cut off Bakra. Every day she added more questions for the prince to her list.

"True," Anwen murmured. "Yes, good thinking."

She waved a hand. "The rest is guessing. What I don't understand is why I can't sense any more than what the seal is already telling me. I feel like there's more. I feel like there are parts of it I don't understand. Anwen... can I tell you something in confidence?"

He put down the chalk and wiped his hands on his shirt, coming over. "Of course. What is it?"

"My—my magic isn't working. Something's been wrong since I arrived at the palace. I tried to put a simple spell into a dress I was sewing and it didn't work. I've done it plenty of times before. I don't understand it."

"Ah," he said. "Now that is interesting. Tell me more."

*

Anwen didn't have answers for her yet, but at least he was focused on the problem she wanted to solve.

In the meantime, she had to deal with Avon. Every night he summoned her to his quarters, and every night he asked her what she'd learned. He said nothing, but she sensed his growing impatience.

The night after the most trying day of all, when she'd thrown the useless rose gown back in the wardrobe in frustration, he was later than usual. She entered the chamber to find him in full ceremonial armour, his manservant unbuckling the gauntlets. Avon waved him away when he saw her.

"Come help me with this."

She moved forward reluctantly, unsure where to start. Avon removed the gauntlets himself and passed them to her. She worked out the rest with his guidance, carefully unbuckling each piece.

"How was your day?"

Always the same question. She blew out a breath through her nose. "Fine, my lord. Busy. Yours too?"

"A military address," he said. "Hence the armour. I'll be asking Anwen for a report on your progress tomorrow. I trust he'll have good news."

"I hope so, my lord," she said, a lump rising in her throat. Would Anwen get into trouble if they failed to come up with a solution?

"We also spoke with your uncle, Master Koel."

Her hands slipped on his plate mail. She looked up. "You—you did?"

They'd found her family. Which meant they were all at risk: Aurelia, her children, grandchildren, all of her cousins...

How had they tracked Koel down? She'd told him nothing other than her first name and occupation and—well. If the guards scoured every textiles business in the capital and asked for her by name, she supposed that was enough.

"After a thorough interrogation, I'm satisfied that Master Koel is not involved with the resistance, though he must certainly pay for harbouring a rogue sorceress. He was kind enough to confirm your address and some of the places you frequent. Thanks to you, we have a lead on the rebels."

Her jaw trembled. Every word was like a blow—poor Koel. And what could they possibly have turned up that he might call a lead? She kept nothing incriminating in the room she shared above the Crescent shop with her cousins. Maybe the locations themselves were enough. They'd held secret meetings in the apothecary. Iora worked there...

"What kind of lead?" she managed to ask.

"You'll find out soon enough. Or you could save me the trouble and tell me where they are. Do that, and I'll let you walk away a free woman after you break the seal."

She finished removing the sabatons, placing them at the feet of the now complete empty suit. Then she rose, meeting his eyes.

"I don't know where they are."

"If you did, would you tell me?"

"No," she admitted.

"Perhaps I'll have my men look again at the Crescent store. New evidence may come to light."

"I don't know where they are!" she snapped.

He let out a breath and stretched his arms, loosening up. "There's a letter for you. On the desk."

Valerie stared at him, then walked over to the writing desk. Her footsteps seemed heavy in the quiet of the room. A plain brown envelope lay at the top of the letter tray, unmarked. She turned it over and gave a little start at the seal imprinted on the envelope: a crescent moon. Trembling, Valerie opened it. She unfolded the letter.

Valerie,

We heard the news about you and Markus. He's labouring on a farm out in the country. Have petitioned for release.

Hold fast and keep the faith.

Aurelia

She clutched the letter to her chest, blinking away tears.

"The petition will be denied," said Avon. His footsteps were slow and deliberate. She felt his breath at her shoulder. "But you may write back if you wish."

"Thank you," she whispered.

One day they would drive out the invaders. One day they'd see a silvertree growing in Jairah again.

She looked up. "Markus... It says he's out in the country. Does he know I'm alive?"

"He does."

Which meant Avon was playing them off against each other. She was playing the obedient witch for fear that Markus would suffer the consequences if she refused. He would have to do the same. Not to mention the threat against her family.

She'd have to go straight home to warn them when she escaped. Then find Markus...

"Might I..." She paused. Avon frowned at her. "Is there any chance I might be able to see him, my lord?"

She turned to face him, one hand resting on the desk, the other still holding the letter. He'd looked no more vulnerable out of his armour until this moment, when his breath caught. Then the briefest flicker of consternation before he shook his head.

"You know the answer to that."

She'd get the same response if she asked about her family. No point in that. She looked away. "Well... Thank you anyway."

"Good night."

"Good night, my lord."

She felt his eyes burning into her all the way back to the queen's quarters.