Red Palace (11 page)

I follow her instructions, forcing my weak, sha
king fingers to pull my makeshift bandage tight.

“It was the king,” I mumble.
“In a vision. He shot at me because I was with Cas. Cas said he loved me.”

Sasha frowns. “Is this another vision from the Nix?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s a lie anymore. I’m confused, Sasha. I don’t know what to believe.” I almost choke on my own tears. I feel so tired. I’m at breaking point after the Nix’s games. The longer this goes on, the less reasoning I see behind it. Now I believe it’s little more than an elaborate way to torture and kill me.

“Then believe in yourself. Believe that you are going to
survive this and kill that squirmy little shit once and for all,” Sasha says. Her mouth tightens into a thin line and her red curls fall over her face. She is dressed in the same hooded cowl all the Borgan’s wear.

“I’m
glad it’s you this time,” I say.

“You called me,” she replies. “I didn’t know I was even a protector, but you called me.”
She gives a small smile. “I think you missed me.”

I laugh, but the pain isn’t worth it. My vision begins to cloud and my breaths are ragged.

“No, no, no! Stay with me, Mae.” Sasha kneels down by my side, but the corridor is already floating away.

The Red Palace isn’t silent at all; it’s just that we don’t listen. If you stay very still, you can hear the sound of thousands of creatures beneath the ground, burrowing and burying. There are just as many roots spreading and growing through the soil. Ancient soil; connected to my ancestors, the Aelfens; walked on by thousands of feet over thousands of years; steeped in history, enriched by the bodies of our dead. I feel the magic as I feel my own extremities. The soil is my blood. My life force. It is as though there is no stone between us. No castle basement. The barrier has lifted. I have become one with the mud, and its nutrients flow through me like the magic.

Nature exists in all
things, and therefore so does the craft.

Allerton told me that once. He was right. I
feel
the magic in the soil, and I am at one with it. We’ve become bound together in a great tangle of limbs and roots.

As I am barely conscious I hear Sasha singing the same song she sang through the Waerg Woods, about a
girl with a broken heart who begged for the tree to pull her down into the ground. I understand that now. I understand how it is possible to join the soil—to long for it.

As I lay dying,
my mind drifts from reality to insanity. My thoughts are fractured, with parts of the Nix’s riddles coming to me in segments:

I devour hearts.

You cannot touch me, but I make you cold,

Who am I?

Trai
ling silk, I glide.

I’m always wrong and so are you.

Who am I?

First comes the mental torture, and now the physical injuries. Has the Nix gone too far? Has it killed me at last?

There’s a special kind of peace spreading from my toes, and I suspect that it is the magic
trying to soothe away the pain.

But it’
s when I see her that I know I
am
going insane.

At first, I think it is another Nymph come to hurt me. She is iridescent in her
loveliness, and glows like the Glowbugs in the Waerg Woods. But as she approaches, I see her dark skin and hair black as night. I see the strange blue eyes, and her full lips.

She is naked
and should be ashamed of her exposed body. But somehow she is not. She seems neither boastful, nor bashful. She holds her head up high, her shoulders are thrown back, and yet her eyes are soft, misted with dew. She looks at me in the same way the queen looks at Cas, like a proud mother, with her mouth turned into a sad smile. Wet eyes and glowing skin and gentle features. She is beautiful.

She crouches next to me and lays a warm hand on my cool forehead.

“Who are you?” I ask.

Close up, I see even more of her beauty. Her eyes are ov
al and framed by curled lashes. The symmetry of her face is so striking that you feel yourself pulled in by her presence.

“
I am Avery, little one.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I want you to live, of course. You seem to be giving up, and I can’t have that at all.”

“Why is the Nix trying to kill me?”

“Why, I don’t believe it is, dear one. But its intentions are not pure at all, and I am very sorry for everything it is putting you through.” She glances at my wound and raises an eyebrow. “Such a cruel way to try and obtain what it wants from you.” The corner of her mouth lifts in amusement. She raises her hand from my forehead.

“I need to help
Cas,” I whisper. “And I must find Anta.”

“Yes, you will need to be alive to help your prince.” She hesitates and a small frown plays on her lips.
“I am sorry for what you will endure. It is almost too much for a little one like you. Never stray from your path and remain as strong as the oldest tree in the Waerg Woods. There will come a time in the future when you have a difficult decision to make, dear Mae. You must go with your heart when it comes. Always trust your heart, and always trust the magic within you.”

She stands straight and tall and backs away. As she leaves, a thread of heat works its way
through my fingers. I can feel the knitting of my chest as my wounds begin to heal.

She steps back, singing softly as she goes:

Over yellow sands,

Our girl will weep,

Great river run,

Calm the drought.

Under yellow sands,

Our girl will cry,

Streams flow free,

An ache subsides,

Win for us,

Our girl will try.

Strong of heart,

Of will, of mind.

We wait, we wait.

We’re free, we’re free!

But never she.

Never she.

“Mae? Mae?”

As I begin to wake, I am vaguely aware of Sasha leaning over me. She seems so real that I almost ask her to help me up.

“I have work to do,” I sa
y, attempting to sit and experiencing another searing bout of pain explode in my chest.

“Oh no you don’t
,” she says. You need to sleep. I wish I could help tend to your injuries but I can’t touch you.” She lowers her voice. “Mae, I was frightened for you.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Avery helped me.”

“Avery? Who?” Sasha replies. “Never mind. The Nix is not here. You must sleep and help the wound heal. Keep using your craft, Mae. Let it heal you.”

Now I know why the craft-born needs the Borgans. Without Sasha I would be drifting and alone.
I would be frightened and weak, like a small child. Her presence gives me strength.

Back in Halts-Walden
, I had always thought that I didn’t like the company of others. Perhaps I told myself that to make myself feel better when the other villagers kept their distance. It simply isn’t true. In fact, it is the opposite. I think I have always been afraid to be alone. That is why Father’s death left such a large hole in my life and why Casimir’s presence brought me such comfort.

The problem is—
I am not used to being around anyone except Father. I don’t know how to be someone’s friend. I didn’t think I even knew how to love anyone except him. At least, not at first.

Love
.

The word
sits heavy on my heart. Did I ever tell Father how much I love him? Did he die without knowing?

It wasn’t
Cas’s vision version of me who told him she loved him, it was me. It came from me, and there was part of me that wasn’t even sure if I did. After those long weeks in the Waerg Woods, the nights around the fire, and the ways in which we rescued each other. It has been a slow progression that has built with intensity.

How long has he been sleeping in the
basement of the palace? How long have we been apart?

Those moments in his vision have left another hole, one which burns away like an ember that refuses to die.
If there is even one iota of truth in Cas’s vision…

Oh, the Nix is clever. It uses every trick it can to play with my mind. How long will it be before it uses the death of my Father, too? I clench my fists as I lay on the stone floor, waiting for my wounds to heal.
I drift in and out of consciousness, listening to Sasha’s melodic hums.

I want sleep, now. I want a dreamless sleep where I am alone.
There I can mend.

I’m not sure how many more cruel tricks I can stand from the Nix. I don’t know who to believe, or what is real. How can I be hurt in some visions and not in others? It must be when I am me. When I am in someone else, or when I am a bystander, I come away unscathed. It is the Nix’s way of punishing me for trying to take control.

Perhaps that means I am close to defeating it. If the Nix needs to weaken me in every vision, it means that I am doing something that must be quelled. Avery mentioned the hardships I endure. What if this is all a test?

I try to sort through what I have discovered from the visions so far.

Beardsley is afraid of something he created for the
king.

Trai
ling silk, I glide, spin patterns to catch you, suck you dry.

The spider.
I shudder at the thought.

Ellen is afraid of her father, and of her love for a girl.

I am there in the faint of heart,

But rarely with the daring and bold.

Fear. The Nix repeated this riddle twice. It was warning me of the fears.

Both
Cas and the queen are afraid of Lyndon.

I am in you.

Evil. Evil is in all of us, but there is more in Lyndon than anyone else I have met. Even the king.

Cas
is afraid…
for me
? Or that he loves me? I can’t work out Cas’s fears. Some of the visions show his perspective of my own memories. No, not my memories, the memories that the Nix has chosen to show me. They could be twisted memories for all I know, teasing me of what might have been but what could never happen because Cas will never love me. He isn’t here to ask.

Whatever you see, he will never love you. It will not be because of the craft-born imposter, it will be because you lied to him.

You will break your heart in two.

I’m always wrong and so are you.

My emotions are too tangled with this vision. I cannot think clearly. For the time being I must disregard my last vision with Cas and concentrate on the facts.

Other things I have learned:

The
king has a journal with the combinations of many of the locks in the castle.

There is
some sort of code in the tunnels.
En Crypt Saran.
I don’t believe it to be a crypt at all.

The
king is in debt to the Haedalands.

The
king has paid for weapons to be forged.

The payment to blacksmiths and the debts in the Haedalands could at least mean unrest. There’s a chance that the king is stockpiling weapons as a precaution. But why put the realm in yet more debt for the sake of extra weaponry? When I read Father’s books on the old wars, they almost always began when one region wanted something from the other. They usually made up excuses, like the execution of a family member, or the dissolution of a marriage, but really one king wanted to steal from another king. I saw a lot of greed in those books, and I already know the king is greedy.

But as I consider the king’s motives, there
is an itchy feeling inside that tells me there is more to all this. Why would the Nix care about a war? Even though part of me has begun to believe that this is all a sadistic ruse to torture and kill me, I know deep down that it doesn’t make sense to go to such efforts. There has to be more to it.

Aller
ton was right. The key to all this is learning to use my powers. If I can channel the craft, I can not only fight the Nix, but grow strong enough to control the visions. If I can control them, I can figure out what it is the Nix wants. There is too much manipulation within these visions. I have to take some of the control.

Sasha’s humming soothes my mind as I relax. I can do nothing while I am injured. It’s time to let the craft mend me, and as I meditate on my powers, I feel them blossom inside. It’s like the opening of a flower in spring.
I’m reminded of the sunflowers that grow in Halts-Walden. Even though our cabin overlooked the dark woods, the sunflowers grew strong and tall. Many of the wives in the village were jealous of our garden. Little did they know that it has always been my connection with nature that has allowed them to flourish.

I must concentrate on the knitting of my flesh. I take deep breaths an
d imagine myself to be tiny enough to hide in droplets of my blood. The thought of blood and torn flesh is hideous, and yet it gives me some comfort to think of these things as they multiply and mend. I become whole again.

“Mae, how are you doing?”

“How long have I been sleeping?” I ask.

“A few hours… actually, that’s a lie.
Almost a day.”

I bolt upright and feel a twinge in my chest.
“A
day
? Why didn’t you wake me?”

I check on my wounds with Sasha’s supervision. They are healing well. Together we move through the castle back to the kitchen where I can eat and regain strength. I have no fear of the Nix now. It did not kill me when it had the chance. Instead, it left me to heal. I do not beli
eve that the Nix wants me dead. I am a tool in its game, essential for as long as it needs me.

“This soul-rip is odd,” Sasha says. “I can’t touch, or feel.
It’s like I’m not human anymore.”