Chapter Text
ASTERION: The Blood of the Sunless
Part I: The Delegation From Sine
Magic flickered and waned as Finley rushed down the corridor. Darkness filled the narrow space, complete and settled, abrupt as a candle snuffed out. Yet it was intricate in its own way: there was no hiss as the flame died, no smoke billowing from the last, valiant ember atop the wick. The magic fuelling the light was banished, swallowed whole, and it was not until Finley put distance between them, rounding the corner, that it remembered itself and its power.
Even in the depths of the royal palace, in the winding anthill the servants called home, there were crystals. Those crystals, mined from the labyrinth far below the palace’s foundations and crudely split into shards, were the fragmented scraps, imbued with the royal witch’s power.
Afterthoughts though they were, few would ever encounter finer crystals or stronger magic.
It meant little to Finley, foil that she was. A maid clicked her tongue in annoyance as Finley passed, not appreciating the plunge into absolute darkness, and Finley called apologies over her shoulder. Usually, she’d have a lantern in hand, but she’d been halfway to the heart of Sunspire when she’d heard the news.
“Finley,” boomed a voice from behind her.
Finley skidded to a stop and did her best to stand equidistance between the crystals, leaving her no shadows to escape into.
Ocari, head of the palace staff, poked their head out of an adjoining room. Finley glanced down, checking her boots for any mud she’d trailed into the palace.
“You blinded me in the middle of writing. I knocked a whole inkpot over,” Ocari said, scowling.
Had Finley not worked in the palace for the past twelve years, she would have withered on the spot. Ocari had been trusted with the daily running of the palace for decades, and though they were nothing short of reasonable, they had a commanding tone any queen would envy. Finley stood to attention as though she was a child caught sneaking in after hours, and Ocari’s frown made her toes curl in her boots.
“I’m sorry! I was going as fast as I could, I thought the lights would only be off for a second, and—” Finley began.
“What are you doing here, anyway? Isn’t it your birthday? I thought I gave you the afternoon off,” Ocari said, scorn moving from their wasted inkwell to Finley’s untimely appearance.
“You did! And thank you again, really, but I heard that—”
Ocari waved a hand.
“Don’t matter what you heard. Go on, get going. It’s your birthday and you’re welcome to waste it as you please. Just be more careful, next time. Stick to the far wall,” Ocari said, and slammed the door by way of a goodbye.
Finley shook her head and hurried on. It wasn’t like her. As a foil, she’d grown up with no choice but to learn to live around the magic that could neither harm nor help her. She was agile in the presence crystals, ever avoiding them so as not to inconvenience anyone. She was usually more careful, but she’d been given the wrong afternoon off work.
The servants’ kitchen was too big for Finley to cause any problems. The light crystals in the corners of the room were far enough away that their power didn’t start waning until a few hours of her presence, and she had no reason to drift towards the ovens kept warm and ready with magic.
“Yda?” Finley called.
A few of the cooks busy preparing lunch glanced her way, offering smiles and birthday wishes.
Yda appeared from a larder, apron-clad.
“Young Finley. Didn’t we send you on your merry way for the afternoon?” Yda asked, wiping flour from her dark, worn hands.
“You did! But I heard the Sinite prince is touring the grounds this afternoon, and what kind of groundskeeper would I be if I missed that?” Finley said.
“Are you turning thirty-five or five? And since when have you ever been interested in foreign princes?”
“Not the prince! Though I do want to see him. It’s his knight. They’re saying the prince came all this way so that his knight could slay the Beast, and—”
“Who’s this they? If it’s not Ocari, I wouldn’t trust any of it.”
Sighing, Finley perched on a counter and tried another approach.
“It’s my birthday. Aren’t you going to come with me?”
Yda shot her a withering stare, even as she untied her apron strings.
As the head cook for the royal family, Yda was wont to find herself upstairs. The old queen had often called on Yda to discuss the daily menu, and Yda had been in attendance at the welcoming feast held in the Sinite’s honour, though she had little to report back on any of them. She had no need to chase after foreign delegations through the palace grounds.
Finley took the dozen, shallow stone steps to the servants’ entrance, hidden from view by a formidable hedgerow. A dozen sparrows fled. Yda followed diligently along, squinting as her eyes met natural light for the first time that day.
Snow covered the palace grounds and the narrow path offered little grip. Winter was no time for a prince to be travelling, and all agreed that his arrival had been a sudden, unexpected matter. The palace had but four weeks to prepare for the foreign delegation, and the groundskeepers had done what little they could with the season slumbering beneath more than frost.
Sunspire’s palace was the largest building in all of Thisia; across the entire continent, it was said. It comprised over nine-hundred rooms, and the tawny, stone façade bore intricate carvings and friezes, making the perfectly rectangular building a marvel to behold.
Finley, who had never been into the palace proper, thought of it as little more than an empty thing. Her interest laid in the grounds, big enough for half a dozen palaces, a world away from the bustle and sheer density of the city that surrounded it. Much of it was open land, gleaming stone paths surrounded by neat borders of the queen’s favourite flowers, but there were hidden corners too, behind the hedge mazes and outbuildings, where the rich soil was allowed to take on a more wild nature.
Ahead, a dozen groundskeepers had hastily gathered beyond the ornamental gardens. For the past fortnight, they had been busy laying a new path and constructing an intricate pair of columns. Cutting back the unwanted shrubs had been no lean task with the ground frozen.
Without blinding arrays of Thisia’s finest flowers to impress the Sinites, the higher-ups in the palace had turned to magic. Finley had helped build the twin columns at the apex of the path, there to support two enormous crystals, and assumed she would deconstruct them in the weeks to come, too.
None had any idea what the crystals were for. They had only been placed on the pedestals in the last days, but all like Thisian crystals, they were a wonder to behold. Nowhere else were crystals found in such abundance, and never did they grow so large or so clear. Their potential for magic was greater than any other kingdoms’, and Thisia owed its strength to the caverns far beneath the palace.
Finley took Yda’s wrist and slipped amongst the other groundskeepers. A few friendly elbows met her sides as the hushed conversation fell silent.
Finley wasn’t too late.
A party made its way from the far end of the path, flanked by Thisian and Sinite guards alike. At its head was a dark-skinned man, somewhere in his thirties, dressed, Finley was certain, as a prince beneath the thick coat he wore. He gesticulated as he spoke to the woman at his side, the woman Finley had only ever seen from a great distance.
Princess Alexandria Rowan Renshaw did not often leave her chambers, and never rushed to entertain foreign dignitaries. Rumour had it that she hadn’t attended the ball the queen had thrown to welcome the Sinites to the capital and was perhaps now serving her penance by giving tours of the grounds.
She was a little younger than Finley, with thick, black hair that fell in waves. While her face was not unpleasant, she ever looked displeased. Finley knew her personal maid in passing, and it was the bane of Rosa’s life that the princess scarcely let her attend her duties, insisting on brushing her own hair and rising whenever the fancy took her.
“And here, Prince Iyden, is what we truly came for. Whatever it might be, for I cannot say,” Princess Alexandria said, gesturing to the crystals. “I shall leave it to our witch to explain.”
Prince Iyden stared politely and patiently at the crystals. His knight stepped forward, never further from him than his shadow, and the prince chuckled.
“Sir Mazur, please. You’ll step on my toes,” he said.
The prince’s accent was so heavy that Finley thought him speaking his own language for a heartbeat, though his Thisian was perfectly structured.
Sir Mazur, armour-clad, halberd at their back, stepped away with a shrug. They were all the rumours had made them out to be and more: brown-skinned with the sternness of a storybook knight, bestowed with a misty sort of beauty. Dark brown hair fell about their face like a mane, and tattoos scored their features. It was as though they had dipped their fingers in ink and smeared it across their eyes, then down to the line of their jaw.
But more than all that, Finley noticed their mismatched eyes. The left was a dark brown, while the other was a stony grey, almost shining by comparison.
The royal witch squeezed through the crowd following the prince, Sinite dignitaries and Thisian nobles alike. Again, Finley recognised her from a distance comprised mostly of downstairs gossip. Luna had been in the service of the palace far longer than Finley had lived there, though she appeared no older, and like all witches, was born with perfectly white hair and eyes.
“Princess Alexandria is doing this all a great disservice, Your Highness,” Luna said. “It isn’t every day that I’m given crystals this big to play around with.”
“They are rather large,” Prince Iyden agreed.
Imbued with magic as they were, the crystals glowed with a potent copper light. Prince Iyden stared at his own reflection.
“You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to get them up there! The sheer weight of magic alone required a handful of cranes to be set up here. I’m impressed the groundskeepers have managed to salvage the lawn.”
Prince Iyden clasped his hands behind his back, eager for the crystals to do more than shine.
“Less praising the gardeners for succeeding at the most basic aspects of their jobs and more magic. I know you’ve been eager to show off your latest little display,” Princess Alexandria interjected.
Luna pursed her lips together, holding back a reply. She bowed her head, half-curtseying as she joined the prince.
Closing her white eyes, Luna reached up to one crystal, then the next. The magic within was a bright, swirling manifestation of all the power that coursed through her veins and marrow. It responded to her and her alone, bursting as swords of light from the crystals’ facets, laying an illusion over the snow-dusted land.
Illusionary magic was one of the few types Finley could appreciate, from a distance. She stepped back, fearing her influence might disrupt the phantasm of spring unfolding before them.
The snow seemed to melt. Beneath it, the grass was longer than it would ever be permitted to grow on the palace grounds. Prince Iyden stepped back, marvelling at the flowers bursting to life around his feet, each turning to a sun that could not offer them the warmth they craved.
An impressed murmur ran through the crowd. Finley’s fellow groundskeepers laughed, pointing to the impossible blooms growing to unimaginable heights. Even the princess watched with a raised brow, caught off-guard by the depth and richness of the display.
Butterflies danced above the long grass. Two-dozen goldfinches blossomed from falling petals, flying skyward and disappearing into the pure, cold blue above.
Finley forced a smile. She saw the illusion, but she saw beneath it, too. As the grass swayed free, so too did it bow beneath the snow. Daffodils flowered next to chrysanthemums, ignoring the barrier of seasons, and hytham flourished, though it would never grow somewhere as temperate as Thisia.
Finley squinted. There was the real and the unreal, layered over one another, indistinguishable. One of the crystals thrummed with more than power, though no one else lifted their head at the sound of something not unlike a song. Finley did her best to ignore the illusion and tried to distinguish the words over the gasps of delight around her.
She stepped forward, closed her eyes, and focused.
There was more magic in this than the illusion, yet only she strained to listen.
She’d been wrong. It wasn’t a song, for there weren’t words. Thoughts, perhaps. It threaded low in the air, thick as smoke, and then there was no sound.
The mute crash of the ground against Finley’s side held a long, trembling chord, screaming out a bruise against her ribs. The silence swallowed all sense, till the ringing in her ears said a great clamour had spawned it. Understanding she didn’t realise she’d lost trickled back in. She forced herself to open her eyes.
The world was sideways. Smoke filled the air, and the air itself shone amber-gold as magic, free of crystal and witch, burnt and dissipated. Her cheek was cold, wet, pressed to the snow the illusion had not melted.
People moved around her. Someone grabbed her shoulder, shaking her. Finley could not parse what was before her, what the strange, hulking shape laid at the ruins of the twin columns was. Bringing up a trembling hand, she wiped at her face.
Snow, dirt, and blood.
A high-pitched whine filled her ears.
It was the Prince of Sine laid before her, Sir Mazur hunched over him, protecting whatever remained with their own body. Finley pushed herself up. The world span two, three times before righting itself.
All there had been knocked down by the explosion. Finley knew inexperienced witches would occasionally shatter a small, poor-quality crystal in their early attempts, but had never imagined something the size of her torso exploding.
A small crater graced the grounds, the columns were dust and debris, and only one crystal remained. The illusionary magic fluttered weakly, threading flowers through the bodies on the ground.
Gods. She’d have to set all that right. She’d have to see to it that the hole was filled, the stone filtered out of the soil, the lawns re-laid, and she wouldn’t be given enough time for the task, those upstairs didn’t understand that the world worked to its own rhythm, that nature could not be rushed, seasons could not be transplanted, and—
No, no. It wasn’t the time to worry about that. There were dead bodies feeding the frozen garden, for all she knew.
People rushed over, guards and servants alike. Voices filled the air. The screaming had always been there, but it slipped off her mind. There was that music, the not-singing, again.
Finley lurched forward. Her leg screamed, but she stumbled through the weight of pain, past the prince and his knight, and fell into the dishevelled earth.
The second crystal glowed with a light not its own. The air around it drew in close, thick and still, and cracks spread across the surface.
Finley stumbled onto the crystal. The music of thought, the light of havoc, faded.
The pain remained, but all at once, everything was as clear to Finley as it had been hours before the explosion. She understood all that was being said, saw the princess hurried away by her knight and a half-dozen guards, and felt the cold of winter on her cheeks.
She took a deep breath, banishing the last of the ringing in her ears. The crystal slumbered under her palm.
“Oh. Oh, that’s very good timing,” said Luna, stumbling and sliding to Finley’s side. Shrapnel from the crystal had sliced her right cheek and the top of her arm, but beyond that, any harm that had come to her was in equal measures of bruises and dirt. “I’m not going to win any points for this, but let me guess: you’re a foil.”
Finley’s jaw trembled as she nodded. She could not manage a single word, much less the bright, upbeat tone of Luna’s words.
“Wonderful! And what brought a foil such as yourself to the royal gardens today?”
White though they were, Luna’s eyes did not seem to glow in her presence.
“I’m, I’m a—” Finley said, tasting dirt. Dirt and something worse. “Groundskeeper. I work here.”
“A foil and a groundskeeper? Now there’s a talent! My name’s Luna. Now, since you work here, I imagine you already know that, but it would be rude not to introduce myself. This is a rather intimate situation we’ve got ourselves into!”
Finley blinked hard. This was no illusion she could see beneath.
Her palms slid across the crystal, slick with sweat.
“Finley. Finley Yael,” she stuttered.
Smiling, Luna tugged her sleeve down and used it to wipe Finley’s face.
“It’s good to meet you, Finley, circumstances most certainly notwithstanding. You’ve done a very brave thing here, but you know what’s going to happen once you remove your hand from the crystal, don’t you?”
Finley shifted her feet, pressing more of her weight to the crystal.
“Another explosion.”
“Exactly! And with you muting the magic, I can’t draw it back into myself. The danger is held back – which we’re all grateful for, I promise! – but it isn’t gone,” Luna said, placing one of her own hands on the crystal. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to let go. Slowly, that is. As soon as the magic returns, I’ll draw it straight out again.”
People surrounded them. Not a crowd, but more than should be gathered in the interlude between two explosions. Finley didn’t dare look away from Luna, but she saw them in the corner of her eye, reflected in the dull, grey crystal.
“It’ll explode,” Finley said.
Her voice was weak. The pain in her ribs was starting to register over the pounding of her heart. Surely she could sit by the crystal, pressed to it, and close her eyes. It was the only thing she wanted in the world.
“It will! But nothing like that first explosion. There’ll be a few flying chunks of crystal, but with the magic drained, it’ll be no worse than having a rock or two thrown at you.”
“That still sounds pretty bad.”
“Oh, it is! But I wanted to be honest with you.”
“It’s okay. I can keep the crystal muted. Get everyone away, then it won’t matter if there’s an explosion. Or flying rocks.”
It occurred to her that Luna’s white eyes had faded. It was impossible to find them again, to focus on anything. Again, sound failed, and cold, dirt-covered hands patted insistently at her cheeks.
“Finley. Finley,” came Luna’s voice, soft and urgent. “Open your eyes. No passing out, you hear?”
Finley bolted back to consciousness. Her hands slid across the crystal’s polished surface.
“The sooner we get this done the better,” Luna said, wringing out one last laugh.
Shadow fell across them both. A plated arm reached between Finley and Luna, holding a large, round shield between their heads and the crystal.
Sir Mazur, bloody-faced, glanced between the pair of them.
“Sir Mazur! We haven’t been formally introduced and this isn’t the best time for it,” Luna said. “You need to get back. No one else needs to get hurt.”
Sir Mazur tilted their head towards their shield.
“No one will.”
“This is all very knightly of you, Sir Mazur, but you need to leave. Now.”
“Rydal.”
“Excuse me?”
“Rydal. My name.”
Luna took a deep breath. Frustrated, amused, terrified.
“Well, Rydal, don’t you have a prince to protect?”
Rydal shrugged.
“Not a healer,” they said.
Luna placed a hand on her forehead, muttered something unintelligible under her breath, and slipped into a grim smile.
“Alright, Finley. You heard them. I need you to take your hands off the crystal and get as far back as you can. I’ll draw all my magic out. It won’t take more than a second, but that’s all the time an explosion needs, as we’ve just learnt! But since Rydal insists on being a human shield, dashing as they are, I think the pair of us might make it out in one piece. Are you ready?” Luna said.
Finley had never been so poorly equipped for anything in her life. Her hands, once warm with traitorous sweat, were fused to the crystal. They wouldn’t even shake.
Luna placed an encouraging hand on the back of her wrist. Sir Mazur’s mismatched eyes met hers and their face remained impassive.
Her hands fell from the crystal’s surface. Magic forced itself back into the crystal, cracking it from within like bottled lightning, and Luna’s eyes blazed brighter than the moon.
Finley gripped the pendant beneath her shirt.
Sir Mazur dug their feet into the ground, pushing their shield firm against the crystal’s splitting surface. The metal sung, struck a dozen times, and darkness came.
Queen Briar was not happy.
Angry Sinites had been at her door morning, noon, and night, the infirmary was now home to the visiting prince, half a dozen of his people, and eight of her own, and there was a crater in the palace grounds.
Her advisors hovered around her, each offering their own sensational opinion. No one had been killed – rather, no one had died yet – so surely the queen need only send the Sinite king a brief letter as a matter of courtesy. The prince, wounded as he was, was receiving better medical care than he would in his home country, so the Sinites ought to be grateful to them. But it was a Sinite plot, wasn’t it, gone awry, striking the wrong target, and it was a boon to have the prince informally detained. Yet if the queen were to see the matter clearly, it was evident that this was some sabotage from within her own country.
Once it was ascertained that none were dead, all conscious witnesses had been interviewed, and an official statement was sent out to the city, Queen Briar locked herself in her study with Princess Alexandria and the witch Luna.
Luna stood to attention, white hair hastily tied back. There wasn’t a bruise or scratch on her, thanks to her own magic, but a glassy exhaustion filled her unsettling eyes.
Princess Alexandria sprawled across a chaise longue, one booted foot rested on the velvet, ignoring the queen’s every word as she read letter after letter.
“Would you put that down, cousin?” Queen Briar said, rubbing her temples. “You’ve made a dozen alterations already.”
Turning a page, Princess Alexandria hummed.
“Indeed. Because you twice implied that it was Iyden’s own fault that he had his chest cavity near blown open, and openly stated that you are treating the situation as a Sinite hostility.”
“And you’ve made your meticulous corrections, for which I thank you. Now, hand it over. It’s already been two days; I ought to have sent it yesterday,” Queen Briar said, stretching a hand over her desk.
“One moment,” Alexandria muttered, almost certainly only pretending to read. “My Sinite is much better than yours, after all.”
Queen Briar exhaled heavily through her nose. The witch Luna rocked on the balls of her feet, pretending not to hear. She had only penned the message in Sinite at her cousin’s insistence, claiming it would be the more sensitive thing to do, considering the situation, but now saw that she had been lured into a pointless pit of frustration.
“I’m fluent. You’re fluent. Stop being pedantic and hand it over.”
Shrugging, Princess Alexandria carefully folded the letter and tossed it onto the queen’s desk. She laid back on the chaise longue, hands folded over her stomach.
“Thank you,” Queen Briar said, searching a drawer for her seal. “For the last time, cousin, do you or do you not think this was sabotage? We still don’t know why the Sinites chose to visit, what gave them the notion to impose on us, and that crystal very nearly wiped out you, your knight, and the royal witch.”
Princess Alexandria closed her eyes. For all her petulance, she had spent the last days questioning those she could, ordering around the palace guards and healers alike, and barking at any nobles or advisors who came seeking sympathy for an explosion they hadn’t been involved in.
“Perhaps it was your royal witch. Luna made those crystals, didn’t she? I wouldn’t let her stand too close to you, cousin. That crystal you’re using to heat the wax might set your entire desk ablaze,” Princess Alexandria said.
Luna could no longer pretend not to listen. Her gaze shot to the princess, eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Queen Briar pulled her hand away from the small, heating crystal she had used day in, day out, for years.
“Luna?” Queen Briar asked evenly. “Do you have any idea what caused your crystals to malfunction?”
Luna’s face flushed at the mention of malfunction. Queen Briar appreciated the restraint it took not to lash out at either royal in the room.
“I don’t believe it was a malfunction, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t use a crystal that big for anything other than an illusion – well, other than the ones in the labyrinth! – knowing what a single mistake could cost. Failed illusions don’t cause explosions. They just sort of flicker out and fade,” Luna explained for the umpteenth time. “This was an interference. It was intentional. I just can’t begin to imagine how or why.”
Queen Briar nodded slowly and returned to melting wax. As tempting as it was to find a quick answer, Luna had held the rank of royal witch for nineteen years, having lived in the palace since they were all children.
“Throw her in the dungeons, just to be safe,” Princess Alexandria said. “Maybe schedule a beheading. That will sate the masses.”
Before Queen Briar could sigh or Luna could snap, a knock filled the study.
“Would you get that, Alexandria?” the queen asked.
Princess Alexandria made no move. Luna glanced the queen’s way, and with a nod of approval, hurried to answer the door and let Ocari in.
“Ah. Excellent. Thank you for coming at this late hour, Ocari. I’m certain you’re as exhausted as we all are,” Queen Briar said.
Ocari, always having an easy, respectful way around royalty, nodded their head in a brief bow of greeting.
“Not at all, Your Majesty. I’m one of the lucky ones. I wasn’t there, not like the princess or our witch. Asking questions is the least I can do,” they said.
Dark marks burrowed beneath their eyes. Queen Briar doubted they had slept in days and let that faint camaraderie get her to her point.
“I’ve received all your reports. They’ve been most illuminating. Is there any word on the foil who stopped the second explosion?”
“Our Finley? Sure, they said she’s going to be just fine. Battered and bruised, mostly, concussed to hell, but she’s muttering in her sleep. They say that’s a good sign,” Ocari said.
“I wish there was something I could do for her. I keep going to my workshop, certain I know just the crystal to make her, only to realise how powerless I am in this situation,” Luna said, sighing.
“It seems awfully convenient that she was there, the moment the Luna’s crystals made a mess of everything,” Princess Alexandria hummed. “I take it she’s a recent hire. What do you know of her background, Ocari?”
Ocari tilted their head. Queen Briar had known them to be friendly with the princess, dropping all propriety in easier matters, but they stood straight, hands clutched behind their back.
“New? Afraid not. Our Finley’s been here for, god, twelve years now. Always been out on the grounds, always had an exemplary record. Biggest problem she’s ever caused is making the lights flicker downstairs when she’s in a rush.”
Princess Alexandria sat up, batting loose strands of hair out of her face.
“God. There really are so many of them, aren’t there? I don’t know why you insist on hiring so many servants, cousin. Twelve years and I’ve never once caught a glimpse of her,” she said. “Well. Keep an eye on her, won’t you? Have her brought to me the moment she’s conscious and making sense again.”
Ocari bowed their head.
“Sure.”
“Thank you, Ocari. Go, get some sleep,” Queen Briar said, knowing she would not take her own advice.
Like all senior staff, Finley was given her choice of roommate. She had lived with Yda for the last two years, sharing a small, bare room with her, windowless but clean, furnished with two narrow beds, a large wardrobe, and a basin.
When Finley awoke, she was not in her room. A dream she could not yet remember but still tasted in the back of her mouth clung to her, and light filtered in through tall windows, blinding her closed eyes. Finley shuffled onto her side, whimpering as a dark pool of pain seeped through her.
A warm hand pressed to her face. In time, she opened a bleary eye and found Yda’s face pressed close, blocking out much of the bright, unfamiliar background.
“Hey there, idiot. What were you thinking? We might cook and clean for ‘em, Fin, but we don’t throw ourselves on exploding crystals for them,” Yda said.
Finley blinked. The pain in her side remembered its purpose and stretched out to her head and hands. It all rushed back to her, a memory, not a dream, and she understood the infirmary around her for what it was.
“Yda? You’re okay? Is everyone safe?” she asked groggily.
“I’m just fine. There are plenty of people battered and beaten, but no deaths, yet. I’d say we have you to thank for that,” Yda said, carefully smoothing Finley’s hair back. “You’ve been out for two days. You wouldn’t believe how many people have come to the door, crying, thinking you’d been blown to pieces. Even that witch Luna came visiting.”
With great effort and no small amount of help, Finley pushed herself into a sitting position. Dried flowers in their dozens were shoved into vases and repurposed cups around her. For all the sleeping she’d embraced, Yda had done little, and Finley felt the weight of those missing days on her chest.
She pressed her hand to her sternum but found no chain. Yda saw the distress on her face and gathered up an amulet from the side table, placing it in her palm.
Finley closed her fist around it.
“No idea why I did any of that. Everything hurts,” she grumbled.
“Well, let that be a lesson to you,” Yda said. “Now, get drinking. The orders are clear: rest and fluids.”
Though she meant to refuse the proffered glass, Finley found herself draining it in a few painful gulps. Yda told her all there was to tell of the last few days, of Prince Iyden and the ghastly healing procedures he’d undergone, the questioning of all the staff, and the buzz of political panic in the palace halls.
A healer came to tend to Finley, handling her head like an intimate object and twice checking her pulse, slathering a foul-smelling salve on the worst of her bruises, and leaving several small vials of herbs by her bed.
Finley had been hidden in a distant corner of the infirmary, where she couldn’t interfere with any of the countless crystals lining the great room. The vast majority of healers were not witches, though they were adept at using the crystals witches prepared for them, preferring magic to anything that would require stitches.
Of course, magic was not always at hand during an emergency, and any healer with a modicum of self-respect knew how to stanch bleeding, disinfect wounds, set bones, and which plants and herbs would bring relief from pain.
Finley spent the afternoon apologising to Yda for the inconvenience, drifting in and out of sleep, and receiving visit after visit from her fellow servants. The groundskeepers and guards who’d been present were especially eager to give Finley their thanks, and through her dizziness, Finley could not comprehend that she was the person they were talking about.
Come dinnertime, Yda insisting on making her the best-cooked, blandest food the kingdom had to offer. Finley ate in small bites, jaw aching from chewing hytham root all day, and slowly settled into her body.
She lost count of how many people visited her that day alone, and wanted nothing more than to close her eyes than to sink into the deep, heavy pain in her ribs until she fell into a sleep to rival it. Yet when Ocari showed theirself, concern belying their placid face, Finley forced herself into the waking world.
“There you are. Heard you’d come to properly this morning, but I didn’t want to be a bother. Glad to see you awake,” Ocari said.
“Thanks,” Finley croaked. “Sorry for all the trouble.”
“Trouble? You’re the only reason we’re not in a whole lot more of it. Still, you know what they say—no good deed and all. The princess is wanting to speak with you.”
“Then the princess can come down to the infirmary, just like everyone else,” Yda said. “It’s only because of Finley that she’s still in one piece.”
Ocari nodded shallowly, not disagreeing, but had been part of the song and dance of palace life since Finley was an infant. The pain in her side, now migrating to the roots of her teeth, negated any fear Finley was sure she ought to feel, and her mind was too blanched with the memory of cracking crystal to construct elaborate scenarios how she was to lose her job, or worse, be blamed for the explosion.
Yda clicked her tongue but gave up arguing. Together with Ocari, she helped Finley into a wheelchair, while Finley murmured and protested that she was fine to walk, really.
Ocari, free to walk in the disjointed worlds of the palace’s up and downstairs, pushed Finley through the wide, tall corridors Finley had never been granted so much of a glimpse of in her life. She still did not take anything in; so much of it was a blur, details impossible to focus on, and all she could do was close her eyes and pray that the world stopped spinning around her.
The princess had the decency to meet with Finley on the ground floor. Ocari took her to a library Princess Alexandria had claimed sole occupancy of, and the pair waited a solid minute for her to look up from the book she was lost in.
Ocari cleared their throat.
The princess snapped the book shut in one hand and offered them a frown.
“Oh. Yes. That whole situation—Finley, isn’t it?” Princess Alexandria said, not waiting for a confirmation. “I suppose I ought to say something on behalf of myself and Queen Briar. Let’s see: we are both most appreciative of your bravery, grateful for the political strife it has negated, and so on.”
Finley had never spoken with a noble in her life, much less a princess. Even without the explosion and all its flying shards of crystal, she doubted she would know what to say, though not speaking felt like a hangable offence.
“Our Finley’s in pretty bad shape, Your Majesty, and she’s wanted back in the infirmary,” Ocari said, not going so far as to make an actual suggestion.
“Yes, yes,” Princess Alexandria said, waving a hand. “Finley. I’m told you’re our head gardener.”
“Actually, I’m just a groundskeeper. I’m not in charge of anything,” Finley heard herself say. The princess stared at her, dark eyes giving away nothing but a glimmer of confusion, and Finley hurried to add, “Your Highness.”
“What do you mean? Ocari told me you had been working here for twelve years. I hope they haven’t misled me.”
“That’s right. I’ve been working on the grounds for that long.”
Alexandria tapped the spine of her book against her open palm.
“And you haven’t made any upwards progression in that time? Are you bad at your job? Don’t tell me you’ve kept her on out of pity, Ocari.”
Had Finley not been in pain, had her head not spun, making it hard to cling to the conversation, she would have liked to believe that she would have made to defend herself in some way.
“She likes working with her hands, mucking in, and is the best at what she does. She doesn’t want to be tied down, drawing up plans and giving orders,” Ocari said. “And Finley wasn’t even meant to be at the big unveiling of those dodgy crystals. I’d given her the afternoon off on account of her birthday, but she still turned up. That’s dedication, eh? And a good thing, too.”
Princess Alexandria dropped her book onto a table, leather binding hitting wood with a thuck that rattled Finley’s bones.
“It was her birthday? Gods, Ocari. Double her pay.”
“For?”
“For being in the right place at the right time.”
“No. For how long? A day, week, month…?”
“Oh. Indefinitely. Finley is going to work for me, starting from today.”
Finley gripped the arms of her chair. Her aching ribs and pounding head faded in the face of such absurdity. If not for Ocari’s open look of disbelief, Finley would have convinced herself she had misheard the princess.
“I’m sorry. I’m going to work for you, Princess?” Finley asked in a loud, clear voice.
“Mm. Both my cousin and knight have turned against me, insisting I have a foil at my side until this whole mess is sorted out. A precautionary measure, should any other crystals choose to shatter in my general vicinity,” Princess Alexandria explained.
She reached for her book, thumbing open the cover. She had decided to change the course of Finley’s life in a single conversation and wanted nothing but to return to her reading.
“I’m sorry. You want me to be your foil? I can’t guard you. I don’t know the first thing about it. Your Highness,” Finley protested.
“Stop apologising. Your powers, if they can be called such a thing, are as passive as they come. All you need do is be near me and no magic will run afoul,” Princess Alexandria said, finding her page. “You can heal up while on the job, as it were. No need to strain yourself. If anyone comes at me with a sword or blade, ignore them. Sir Kiln shall see to all that nonsense.”
Finley looked to Ocari for help. Ocari had known the princess from her infancy, and Finley trusted that they truly could do nothing to intervene when they simply shrugged.
“But—but I’m sure there are dozens of foils in Sunspire. Maybe even a hundred!”
“Maybe. But you have been here for twelve years, have caused no trouble, and Ocari vouches for you. I rather wouldn’t take my chances with a newcomer who might be embroiled in this whole ridiculous scheme.”
Princess Alexandria’s eyes fell to her book. The conversation was over. Finley knew that opening her mouth would not only be a folly, but futile, too.
Patting Finley’s shoulder, Ocari ducked down and said, “I’ll get you a new uniform sorted,” as they took their leave.