The Soulstoy Inheritance (27 page)

“How do you know we haven’t been bought?”

“The Hereditary Scroll. It was the first thing abolished in Ratchet’s land, and yet here you are. A half-breed girl with no royal blood, brought to power by the words of a scroll, and a dead king’s desire to unite two empires and five races of people.”

“Uniting won’t be that easy,” Hazen spoke up, his head still in his hands. “My people are prejudiced against the synfees. They don’t think of the undead as Tainted Creatures, they think of
everyone
outside of their own kingdom as Tainted.”

“It won’t be easy,” Louis agreed. “And now I must go. I am sorry I cannot stay for the festival.”

“I understand,” I said automatically, my brain on autopilot while internally I tried to process the destructive maelstrom that Louis had handed to me on a silver platter.

“And thank you, Louis. We won’t forget that you did this.”

He nodded, those disturbing eyes resting on me for a moment, before flicking to Hazen, who had just stood up and was again holding his hand out to the vampire. Louis looked at the hand, and then hesitantly shook it.

“You’ll have your protection,” Hazen said.

The vampire sagged a little, as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from his shoulders, and he bent in a semblance of a bow over Hazen’s hand. When Louis left, Hazen moved to the window that he had occupied, and I gazed at the untouched glass of liquid in my hand, setting it aside. Ashen was staring at the wall, his expression blank, and Leif was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Leif?” I asked no one in particular.

“He’s organising a scouting party. We need to know numbers, and we need to be able to make a better assumption of when they will be marching,” Hazen answered.

“Ashen?” I approached the man cautiously, caught by the too-empty look on his face. “Did you know about all of this?”

“Not all of it,” he croaked. “And not to this extent.”

Chapter Nineteen

Festival of Revelation

I stood in my chamber again, too many women fussing over me for my own comfort. Flora was there—an intriguing addition—with her trembling, steel-grey curls and rouged lips, bustling about with cold determination. She wasn’t particularly talkative, but what she lacked in conversational skills she more than made up for in needle jabs and inappropriate pinches. I might have thought that she had it in for me, except that her manner was consistent with everyone who came into contact with her. She had arrived with seven handmaidens in tow, and over the course of the day she had managed to dismiss each one, until only she remained. I suspected that she was happier working on her own, and only kept the helpers around for the pleasure of forcing them to leave at intervals, in tears. Rose and Miriam were already dressed, after having spent most of the day with Flora and Gretal, while I hid from all of them in the barracks.

There was a new bruise on my collarbone and a thin graze gracing my cheek that might have been a death-defying flesh wound for all the fuss it caused. My ‘winter’ dress was an ordeal all in itself. The material was beyond anything I had ever encountered before. It was smooth as silk, but shimmered with each movement, as if lit with millions of miniscule stars. The skirt flared out a little when it reached my knees, ending in the longest train that I had been forced to wear yet. My cheeks and lips had been brushed with a fine, glittery white powder.

There were no sleeves to speak of, but rather small, silver shoulder guards. They resembled armour more than decoration. They weren’t large enough to be cumbersome, yet they caught the light often and distracted me out of the corner of my eye. The neckline was the only thing I approved of; it rose high and ended in a ring of small, teardrop pearls. My hair was left down and a small crown of pearls nestled into it. They stood around me and made noises of appreciation until I begged them to stop, and then Miriam, Rose and I moved down to the courtyard and out into the previously empty stretch of land that dwindled into Castle Nest. 

People crowded over every inch of it now, absurdly rich peasants and comically dressed-down nobles. The former all held small bronze pots; whenever a coin was dropped into one of them, the holder of the pot would bestow a kiss upon the other. Sometimes the kisses were chaste, sometimes they were bestowed unwillingly, and—very occasionally—they were enough to make me blush and turn the other way. People were dancing, there was a woman singing with a band playing behind her, and I could see Dom and his Owl on a love seat in the garden, a scattering of people seated about them. They seemed to be telling a story.

Between the news of yesterday, and the fact I had seen neither Nareon, Sweet, Teddy nor Harbringer, I was almost at my wits’ end. Grenlow had also seemed to disappear, but most of the advisors had been busy planning the festival, so I was trying not to be too worried by that. It felt beyond farcical, to dress up in pretty clothes and smile at people with everything that was going on, but I did it anyway, because I was finally starting to understand my role in all of this, even if I hadn’t been the one to decide it.

I knew when Cale was near because Rose stiffened beside me. I looked up and saw him through the crowd, talking quietly with Hazen. Rose suddenly grabbed my arm and yanked me to the side with surprising strength. She pushed me behind a cart selling fireworks, and pressed her hands to the side of her face.

I laughed and pulled her into a hug.

“It’s okay, Rose, what are you worried about? Hazen’s mind ability is disturbingly strong, I’m sure he can block out things he doesn’t need to see.”

She sniffled against me. “It’s just… I never planned any of it.”

“I don’t think it’s something you plan. Unless you’re Ashen, of course.”

She laughed then and pulled away, tilting her head to consider me.

“That
was
quite a kiss,” she remarked.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
It was just a kiss,
I wanted to say, but Hazen was right. It wasn’t. A smile crept over Rose’s face then, and she looped her arm through mine.

“You know what, this is silly. You’re the winter Queen tonight, and I have some lucky
nobles
to kiss.”

I laughed at her, and let her lead me to where we had seen the others. Cale was dressed in rags that did nothing to downplay his charm, and Hazen wore the colours of autumn, as did Miriam and Rose. Cale’s expression was serious, devoid of its usual playful humour, which meant that Hazen had filled him in. He swooped down and kissed my forehead—bypassing the glitter—and then stole Rose away, unsurprisingly. Miriam’s eyes followed them, a befuddled expression on her face.

Hazen was watching me, his expression darker than usual. I wasn’t sure what had caused it, but also didn’t want to ask in front of Miriam. Someone moved behind me and hands lit upon my arms before I could greet either of them properly, spinning me around. Ashen stood there, Quick beside him, and both were now examining my face with relief.

“Flora said she didn’t get a chance to explain the glitter to you,” Ashen muttered.

I moved to touch my cheek and he slapped my hand away.

“Don’t go getting that everywhere. It’s important for tonight. Traditionally the hosting monarch has coloured dust or glitter spread across their lips and face, so that everyone they kiss is marked with their favour.”

“Dammit, Ashen, no more kissing games.”

He narrowed his eyes. “This is no game, girl. I don’t want you to kiss just anyone. I want you to kiss Dom, and Hazen, and then wash off your face. Let them wear your mark of favour. It will spread a message, however subtle, that our kingdoms are united.”

“What if they don’t want to kiss me?”

Ashen laughed, squeezed my shoulder, and disappeared. I looked from Miriam to Hazen, to Ashen’s back and then grabbed Quick’s arm.

“Try to stop Owl from killing me,” I muttered to him, drawing him away.

I found them where I had seen them last, both dressed in the colours of spring, Dom with a wreath of flowers in the place of a crown. The people seated around them all looked to me as Dom fell silent. I swallowed, and then immediately altered my tact. Ashen be dammed.

I stepped through the people, who all reached out as I passed, their hands trailing across my skirt. Dom and Owl watched me, neither making a move to stand or speak. I got to Owl first, and bent, taking her face and kissing her lips ineffectually, brushing off how odd of an action it felt to perform. I did the same with Dom, and when I stood back, their expressions held understanding, my white glitter marking their faces. Perhaps the gesture was not so subtle as Ashen had thought.

“Thank you,” Owl whispered. It was the first time I had heard her soft voice.

I nodded and began to move away from them, before I once again deserted procedure, however unfamiliar it had been in the first place. I looked back.

“My favour is my protection,” I decided out loud.

The people seated around me broke into whispers, and Dom stood, moving to me and capturing my hand. He bent over it, much as Louis had Hazen’s hand, and then he grabbed my face and kissed me again on each of my cheeks.

“We will wear your favour for all to see, Lady Queen.”

I looked to Owl; she was smiling.

I couldn’t say anything else, so I only walked away, back toward where I had left Hazen and Miriam, except that neither were there. There were unbidden tears in my eyes, and beside me, Quick was silent.

“How much trouble will I get into for that?” I implored him faintly.

“What you did was a good thing. A better thing than most others would have done. Naturally, the advisors will not like it. With the exception of those who are loyal to you, of course.”

I choked back a half-laugh, half-sob.

“Hazen did it. He offered the vampires protection. That’s a riskier move than what I did, and he didn’t even hesitate.”

“Hazen is not a girl-queen, ruling over an empire of people to which he does not entirely belong. No offence, Lady Queen.”

I didn’t say anything to that, and we began to move back toward the castle, gaining higher ground so we might have a better chance of finding Hazen again. It did occur to me as stupid—at some point—that I hadn’t just kissed him while I had him there with me. When we had no luck, I started to get nervous, and eventually sent Quick to tell Ashen what I had done.

Hazen
, I called in my mind, almost as soon as Quick disappeared.
Where are you
?

“Here.” He didn’t answer in my mind, instead the word was whispered into my ear, and I spun around.

“Right,” I muttered. “Of course. You’re right there.”

He smiled a little. “Look at you, all torn up over a little kiss.”

I sucked in a deep breath, and then released it.

“I offered my protection to Dom and his people. I told him that my favour means my protection.”

He blinked, seemingly surprised. I wondered if my worries about kissing him had taken over my mind completely.

“Your advisors won’t like it, but you did the right thing.”

I nodded and turned partially away from him, biting the inside of my cheek. His hand slid along my arm, down to my hand, and his fingers threaded through mine. I started crying in earnest then. He didn’t ask why, only tugged on my hand until I turned into his chest, and his free hand slid to the back of my neck, beneath my hair, tracing idle circles along the skin bared above the collar of my dress.

I could feel one of my dark moods coming on, and steadily increased the flow of Force around me, until the wind began to tug gently at the train of my dress. I cried until there was nothing left inside me, and then I pulled back, trying not to look at the mess I had made of his shirt.

“Why is it so hard?” he whispered, tilting my head up until I was looking him in the eye again. “Why do you dread kissing me again? I can’t understand your mind.”

“You ruined me.” The words left my mouth long before I had approved them, and yet, with that much already muttered, I found myself powerless to prevent the rest from destroying what dignity I had managed to cling to.

“That stupid kiss ruined me. How will I ever kiss anyone again, after that?” I tore away from him. “We’ve danced around it long enough, don’t you think, Hazen?”

“Yes,” he said simply, his dark eyes considering me.

“I won’t kiss you for Ashen.” I moved back to him, like one end of a stretched length of elastic, snapping back into proper shape. “But I am going to kiss you, and you really should stop me, before I ruin us both.”

He didn’t answer, only stood there, his expression as undecipherable as ever. I closed the remaining space between us, my hand fluttering to his face. My fingers were shaking, but he did nothing to ease my uncertainty. I shifted my touch along the edge of his jaw, moving to his neck, and his eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening.

You’re not going to stop me
, I whispered internally, neither in plea nor question, but simple realisation.

I pulled myself to my toes, brushing my lips against his. It was a timid touch, but Hazen made a sound in his throat, his tightly leashed control finally snapping. He deepened the kiss immediately, his hands moving to my waist, long fingers pressing into my skin through my winter dress as he dragged me against him. It wasn’t enough. One of his hands threaded into my hair, tugging my head back, even as he pressed me crushingly closer. The kiss was violent, filled with all of the emotion that Hazen usually hid from me. His hands were almost bruising, but I held him just as tightly, and when my teeth scraped across his lip, he let out a laughing groan. I barely even registered the attention we were gartering, but when Cale’s shout permeated my mind, I tore my mouth free and buried my face in Hazen’s neck, needing to hide the heat creeping into my cheeks.

I didn’t hear what Cale had said, but Hazen chuckled, and I loosened my grip on his hair, wrapping my arms around his shoulders instead, as I wasn’t quite ready to let go of him yet.