Grim (23 page)

Erika ground the silver into her palm to keep herself from crying over her own selfishness. She finally understood why souls found it hard to let go of their bodies, since things like mourning and tears always came in pairs. And, if she were honest, she didn't want to lose that. The world was borne more easily when your body bore it too.

The king watched her grief for a long time before intervening. “Do you love my son?”

A little laugh burst from Erika's lips as she sniffed and tried to calm herself. “I don't know,” she said. “I hope not. It would be much easier if I didn't.”

“But if you did,” he said, “would it be because he takes after his mother?”

Erika stared at the rug beneath her feet and thought of her own mother and how she always said that you couldn't change a man. She thought of Jeremiah and how wrong he made her look. And she thought of all the changes he couldn't help, all the accommodations he made without thinking. How much she hated to watch him struggle over balancing her wants and his own, and how much she hated it when he lied to protect her.

“It would be because he won't give up,” she said. “Because he knows what's right, even when I don't. Because he tells me when I'm wrong, even when it hurts us both. So no,” she said, “if I love him, it's not because of his mother and what she was.”

“You care about Jeremiah most when he's honest?”

Erika ran her thumb around the Sickle and nodded. Her eyes burned.

“Then, regardless of what he is, your love for him
is
because of his mother.”

Erika gave him a weak smile and took a breath to steady herself before rising from her chair. She crossed the rug and knelt down at the king's feet.

“This belongs to you,” she said, offering him the Sickle.

He hesitated before reaching out, but when he finally did, his skin felt warm against her own, and soft with the wear of old age. He took the pendant and clasped it tightly in his fist.

Erika looked up at his face, cheeks slack and weighted, slipping from the bone.

“The first time you saw her,” she said, “did you know?”

“That I would love her?” His lips pouted as he shook his head, still examining the Sickle. Round and round it went, spinning slow between his fingertips. “I have never believed in love at first sight, but yes, she was beautiful. One of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.” He closed his eyes again. “Whether she was more beautiful than my own wife, I cannot say. I never had enough distance. They were very different, the two of them.” He looked up again, at the small paintings that hung near his fireplace — all of his sons, even Jeremiah, small and smiling.

“Whatever anyone may think,” he said, “my wife, my sons, my entire council — I did not fall in love with Jeremiah's mother because of her face, or hair, or voice. And that may be the hardest thing for anyone but myself to understand or accept. That I only came to love those things because they were a part of her. I have been a lot of things, Miss Stripling, but I have never been vain enough to love a mask.”

“And when did you stop loving your wife?”

“Never,” he said. “I lost respect for her, but not love. It's not until it happens to you that you realize exactly what the difference is.”

“I think I understand,” said Erika. She thought about John, and the way his breath felt on the nape of her neck. The way he woke her up with biscuits and fresh jam when she was pregnant, just because he could. The way he played with Rebecca on her toddling legs, running and running and scooping her up in the yard, clutching her like a football through the sprinklers, his clothes getting wet but his laughter getting louder. No matter what he turned into when he drank, and no matter how Shawn remembered him, Erika would never stop loving those things.

The king called her back from her thoughts by cupping his right hand against her cheek. The thickness of her hair kept their skin from touching this time, but she could feel his warmth even through her curls, and could see it in his face as he took in every line, every spot, every crease on her own. “You could be her twin,” he said, almost wistful. “Jeremiah was not wrong about that. But you could never be her.” He brushed his fingers down her hair again, from crown to chin, before pulling back his hand. “And maybe that's for the best, because I don't think that my heart could withstand loving her again.”

Erika nodded slowly, and he watched as she pushed herself up.

“Good night, Highness,” she said, not knowing whether she should bow or curtsey or kiss his hand.

“Thank you for coming, Erika,” he said. “You've helped an old man reach peace with his decisions.”

She wanted to ask him, just to clarify for the sake of her nerves, what those decisions were, but she held her tongue. Instead, she looked at the wall above the fireplace and the paintings of his boys. A fluted oil lamp perched on the corner of the mantel, looking too inexpensive for the private rooms of a palace. Beside it, a thin, black box inlaid with mother-of-pearl cuttings hovered open, by just a crack. Erika looked back at the aging king. He smiled and gave her a small nod, the tarnished Sickle still cradled in his closed hand. They said nothing else before Erika let herself out, taking the scent of roses with her.

 

The insides of the cave were scraped smooth, with pillars jutting up at intervals and a mural engraved all the way around. The Teeth and Arrowhead rose proud against the back wall, defended by the sisters, while the Colonies huddled, frightened, in one dark corner. Any unlucky seraph etched into the walls was being hunted down and devoured by hoofed animals with two faces, one human, one hyena, or by small, naked dogs with quills down their backs.

Jeremiah drew forward, to a space where the carved floor was badly scuffed and scratched. For the first time in his life, after offering sacrifices to them for centuries, Jeremiah laid eyes on the Furies.

The sisters lounged near the far wall of the cave, about forty feet from the entrance. They were lit by a bed of coals, twenty feet across and four feet deep, which distanced them from any visitors. Their women's torsos slipped into the scaled legs of eagles, claws glinting copper in the firelight. Their bodies curled like panthers', tails flicking lazy behind them, but were feathered, as were the cuffs on their forelegs, shafts sweeping up like bracers, and the crowns that grew in headdresses around their faces, fending off locks of long, thick hair.

The first sister was Alecto, the Sunset. Her hair and feathers were ocher, as were her eyes, when she had them. Legend said that Helen herself had taught Alecto how to splinter men with one glance.

The second sister was Megaera, the Twilight. She was the vainest of all the Furies, and so proud of her silver feathers and pale skin that she never left the cave while the sun burned. She wore thick ropes of pearls around her head, to hide the ears that the high queen had taken.

The last sister was Tisiphone, the Night. She was the wisest, because her temper bubbled quick and violent and had won her the most knowledge when the sisters first began their hunt for power. Her curse left her in silent disdain, hearing all, seeing all, but unable to speak her own mind.

“Jeremiah,” Alecto whispered. “The boy unwanted. What secrets do you hope the devil might tell you?”

“I come to take the eyes of Alecto,” Jeremiah said, “that I might do one last decent thing.”

Megaera hummed and tipped her head to the side. Jeremiah saw that she had her ears, and knew that there was a guide wandering the Woods. “Then you do plan to break soon,” Megaera said. “You couldn't, I suppose, have done it here for my sake.”

Alecto interrupted her sister's complaint. “Who is this rogue who cannot collect his own eyes,” she growled, “and how many princes does it take to bring them back?”

Jeremiah faltered. “What?”

Alecto drew herself up on her taloned feet and leaned over the coals. “Does it look, child, as if I have my eyes?” She opened her lids to show that her thick black lashes framed empty sockets.

Jeremiah, devastated, barely managed to open his mouth. “Who came?”

“The boy who oversteps his place,” Alecto said, settling back down. “We were bidden to give knowledge, not donations.”

“I don't understand.”

“He stole them,” Megaera hissed, and then groaned. A trickle of blood slid down her jaw and throat and dripped like oil onto the stones in front of her.

“Yes,” Alecto said. “He stole them. But he will suffer much for it.” She smiled. “I am not quick to forgive.”

Tisiphone gave a guttural sigh and arched her back as if just waking. She stretched her jaw wide and then cut her eyes at Jeremiah, still licking her lips with a newly formed tongue.

“What else, then, do you want to know, young prince?” she asked, savoring the words and her ability to speak them. “Would you like to hear about your mother? Would you like to learn what she really said before you lost her?”

“No.”

Tisiphone chuckled. “Quick to the answer. Tell me, Jeremiah: Why are you so terrified?”

“Does Michael mean to kill the children?” he asked instead.

“The children …” For the first time, Tisiphone seemed at a loss. “I do not understand.” She leaned forward and looked down the line at Alecto. “What children are these?”

“Then you don't know everything,” Jeremiah mused.

“Or you guess at questions to wound us,” Tisiphone said, but panic soured her voice.

“No matter,” Alecto yawned. “If it is worth knowing, then the winds will tell us, in time.”

“There is no time,” Jeremiah said.

Tisiphone squinted at him through the semidark. She seemed to have gotten control of herself. “Of course there is, young prince,” she said. “There is nothing
but
time.” She moaned and sank back into the shadows, silent again.

“I have to go,” Jeremiah told them.

“Then go,” said Alecto.

But Jeremiah hesitated, watched by the large almond eyes of Alecto's sisters. “What did she say?” he asked, finally.

Alecto wet her lips. “Who, child?”

“My mother,” Jeremiah said. His voice barely rose above a whisper. “Before she broke. My father said —”

Alecto chuckled, cutting him off. The sound rolled so deep in her throat that it came out as a purr. “Your father was desperate,” she said. “Now not even he can separate his fictions and truths.” She reached up and wiped the corners of her eyes, where blood was beginning to fall like tears. “Do you know what your father asked your mother?”

“He asked her if she loved me,” Jeremiah said.

Alecto nodded and opened her huge cat eyes. The firelight made them glow like orange citrine, and at last Jeremiah understood why they were so dangerous. They were eyes to lure you into the dark. Eyes to tempt and tear you slowly. “She said ‘I can't,'” Alecto told him. “So simple, isn't it? The one thing that he never wanted her to say. The one real thought she ever had.”

Jeremiah walked from the cave to the brink of the cliff and jumped.

When he passed the magic of the climber's ledge, his body faded into smoke and was folded into the night.

 

To the Fifty-seventh Council of His Magnificence the Throne:

Though I feel that your conclusions have been gratuitously callous on my part, I recognize the obligations ascribed to me, and to all recognized sons of the Throne, and know them to be irrefutable. Therefore it is with great sorrow that I move to accept your request. In full understanding of the consequences of this declaration, I hereby renounce my title of Sixth Prince of the Middle Kingdom and dissolve all relation with the current and reigning Throne, and therein all relation with any of its descendants.

It is my intention to emigrate from the Kingdom's protectorate within a period of no more than five days, and I request transitory papers to be delivered before this time.

With this so stated, I give my complete goodwill to His Magnificence the Throne and to His Majesty the Crown Prince, and beg pardon for any wrongs done to either of their houses.

With constant loyalty,

Your humble subject,

Jeremiah of the Lowland Colonies

 

Erika woke to a room filled with sunlight, and the quiet trundle of a carriage in the street. Martha stood at the window, pinning back the curtains with her careful hands.

“Is Jeremiah awake yet?” Erika asked.

“He never slept, miss.”

“Is he indisposed?”

“He's not at all disposed,” Martha replied, smoothing the wrinkles of her apron. “He's locked himself away, in fact. He had a letter for the post this morning, for the first time in his life. For the council.”

Erika gaped. “He hasn't renounced himself?”

“He has. I think it's broken his heart.”

When the door flew open, the handle hit the wall so hard it chipped the paint. Both Erika and Martha let out little screams of surprise.

Jeremiah rushed into the room, a smile splitting his face, and his eyes shut tight.

“We've won!” He threw his arms around Martha and spun with her, the toes of her shoes skimming the floor. When he let her go, she tottered and fell back against the wall, bracing herself on the windowsill. Then he turned to Erika, scooped her up from the bed as if she were a child, and pressed his forehead against her cheek. His dark hair brushed her skin, tinged with the scent of chocolate and black coffee.

The smell of fresh cotton clung to Erika's nightclothes, and the soft perfume of sleep hung across her neck. Jeremiah had to put her down before he forgot himself. He took a step away before carrying his hand up to her chin and opening it to reveal his miracle.

“The Sickle,” he said, his voice low.

There it lay, knotted to a piece of black silk, the pendant itself, so thin and delicate. Polished to a high shine, it kicked light across the room like a mirror. Erika took the ribbon from his palm and let the Sickle twirl slowly in midair.