Red Palace (2 page)

“
Psst.”

I spin on my heels.
I’m unused to the extra height, causing me to lose my balance and almost topple over. Behind me, the drape twitches. I narrow my eyes and take a step forward. Did the curtain just… speak?

“
Wh-what?”

“
Psst,” it says again.

I shuffle towards the drapes, beginning to worry about my sanity.

“Um, is someone there?” I whisper.

The curtain twitches and a hand appears from behind the drapes.
A tiny hand. After the hand comes a tiny face, with bright silver eyes. They brim with tears.

“Can you see him?” the
boy says. He must be around seven years old.

“Who?”
I ask.

“My brother.”
The small fingers grip hold of the drapes so tightly that his knuckles pale. “He was chasing me with a whip.” The boy shudders.

“Well, that’s horrible. Did you whip him back?” I say.

The boy shakes his head. “He’s bigger than me. Even though I’m a year and a half older. I
hate
my brother. He’s a brute.”

“You should fight back you know, then he won’t hurt you anymore.”

“If I fight back, Father locks me in the cupboard and won’t let me have supper. He says the future king shouldn’t be beaten by someone younger than me. He says I’m a mummy’s boy and I need to learn.”

“Your father is the kin
g?” I ask.

The boy nods sadly. “Yes.” He pulls the drape back a little further. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“You promise not to tell anyone?”

I draw across my heart with my fingers. “Cross my heart.”

“I don’t like my father or my brother, and I don’t want to be
king. But, I know I have to be king or Lyndon will rule the realm. That wouldn’t be good.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a very good
king one day,” I say. “You already sound much nicer than your brother and your father.”

“What’s your name?” the boy asks.

“Mae,” I reply.

“Father says I shouldn’t talk to commoners, but Mother says I should try to learn everyone’s names. I like your name.”

“Your mother sounds very wise,” I muse. I turn away and scan the crowd, suddenly curious that the king and queen are in this room. When I turn back to the little boy, he’s gone. “Strange,” I whisper.

I let the curtain fall back and step away. My footsteps echo
against the hard wood floors. It’s only then that I realise the music has stopped. The room has emptied. The ballroom is gone. All that’s left is an eerie sound that I know I’ve heard somewhere before:
click-ick-ick-click…

I trip over on my silly high-heeled shoes and take a tumble on the floor. As I fall it’s like my insides are being pulled down, sucked down faster and faster…

I yank my hand back from Cas’s face and clutch my chest. What just happened? I wipe a slick of sweat from my forehead and try to calm my breathing. What did I see? What did I
feel
? What did I hear?

It takes me a moment to recognise the basement of the palace and the
sleeping people spread along the floor. The familiar musty smell brings me back to my senses; it brings with it the panicked, trapped feeling of being stuck in the castle.

“
Cas, what are you showing me?” I whisper. I let my fingers move closer to him, to brush his skin. I wonder if touching him again will plunge me into his world, but this time nothing happens. Not even when I place my palm on his forehead. It seems I am not in control of whatever vision is being shown to me. I decide to move along to another sleeping body and see if the same thing happens. After all, Cas isn’t the only person who needs help. I can’t let myself be sucked into a world I never want to leave. I have to wake everyone in the castle, not just those I love.

Then I remember, and my stomach
sinks. I had heard a voice before the vision. A voice I have heard only once before, and the memory of that voice, plus what it represents, is enough to nauseate me.

The Nix.

I close my eyes, trying to block away thoughts of the Waerg Woods: my legs encased
in its freezing serum, the events it showed me, my own fears, the way I woke with the sharp stone in my hand, ready to hurt myself…

It had spoken to me in my mind as it always does. And in the vision I had heard the sound of it moving
, the clicking of the great shells along its back. A shudder runs down my spine as I think of its large, insect-like body, and the many crawling legs, and the circular shaped mouth filled with a spiral of teeth. If it is here in the palace… I shake my head. I cannot lose hope. I must focus on the words it spoke to me. It was some sort of riddle:

I am here when you run from me,

You cann
ot touch me, but I make you cold.

I am there in the faint of heart,

But rarely with the daring, and bold.

Who am I?

Back home in Halts-Walden, the only people who ever told riddles were the travelling bards and mummers. But they rarely came to our village because of our proximity to the Waerg Woods. I’ve only heard a few riddles in my life and am not particularly good at solving them. I ruminate on the lines, embedding them in my memory, whispering them into the quiet castle, all the time with my skin tingling at the thought of the Nix being out there somewhere, watching, waiting. What does it want from me?

I am here when you run from me

That sounds like the Nix itself.

I am there in the faint of heart

I stand up and walk around the basement, looking at the sleeping people. The queen, her head turned to one side, Lyndon with his mouth set in a firm line, the king, oddly vulnerable with his eyes shut, and Beardsley, blending into the white cobwebs. When I come to Ellen, a spider runs across her full lips and it makes me shudder. I shoo it away with the toe of my boot. As I gaze at her open face, the voice comes again, with the same words:

I am here when you run from me,

You cann
ot touch me, but I make you cold.

I am there in the faint of heart,

But rarely with the daring, and bold.

Who am I?

This time I’m ready for it. The sucking pulls me down, but I remain in control of my consciousness. In a flash I’m back in Halts-Walden. The bright sun sets my skin tingling. I sit on the knoll of a riverbank overlooking the mill, my muscles relaxed, my thoughts calm. The grass is warm beneath my fingertips, and there’s a sense of contentment that I’m not used to. The air smells sweet, with traces of honeysuckle from the nearby garden.

I’m humming to myself and fiddling with my long hair—
a gorgeous raven colour. My voice is not my own, it is prettier, and melodic in a way I could only dream of sounding. My hands are not my own. They are creamy in complexion and more delicate. The callouses I have acquired from climbing trees are now gone.

But this time I am
more aware of what is happening around me. I understand that this is some sort of vision. I know I am in Ellen’s body and that this is in her mind. It’s almost as though I am accessing her memories and her experiences.

A blonde girl walks towards me and my heart soars.

“Alice!”

It’s not me who focusses on
her golden hair or the way her dress hugs her narrow waist, it’s the body I’m visiting.

“Ellen!” She grins and breaks into a run. “Look! I have daisies to put in your hair.”

Ellen’s body flushes with joy, and yet I
feel
it as though it is my own. I feel the blood rush to her cheeks and her chest constrict with worry.

“Will you braid my hair?” she asks. There is a tremor of vulnerability in her voice. She is nervous, something I never imagined
of Ellen. Especially not back in Halts-Walden.

“Of cou
rse, sweet girl.” Alice’s skirt rustles as she places herself next to Ellen—and me—on the grass and she gathers my—Ellen’s—hair in her hands. “I wish I had hair as soft as yours.”

“Alice, your hair shines like the sun. Why in all of Aegunlund would you want hair like mine?” Ellen’s heart is pounding against her ribs and her c
heeks remain flushed with blood.

It’s
strange that she feels this way in the mere presence of her friend. I remember Ellen always being in Alice’s company. They would walk around the village holding hands, shoving their little noses in the air like they owned it all. The way she feels now is exactly like the strange way my body reacts around Cas. I never know what words or innocent touches will make my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Alice’s fingers braid Ellen’s hair with deft precision. Every now and then she pauses to show Ellen her handiwork, pulling the braid around to reveal tiny daisies woven like jewels through the strands of black.

“Alice?” Ellen asks. Here I sense the trepidation in her voice and the slight shake emerging in her hands. “Do you think we could do it again?”

Alic
e pauses for a moment. She tugs on the plait once, then wraps it around Ellen’s head, holding it in place with pins that dig against her skull. Ellen winces.

“I don’t think we should.” Alice speaks in a hushed tone, rough and fast.

“Of course,” Ellen says. “You’re right. Have you… have you wanted to since the last time?”

“No,” Alice snaps.
“Because it is forbidden.”

Ellen bows her head, staring at the grass below.
There’s a sickness in her churning stomach that is at odds with the girl I used to know. She wraps her arms around her body and hugs herself. One word pops into her mind but she doesn’t say it aloud.
Shame
.

Alice moves to face
Ellen. Her lips are puckered and her eyelids half closed as though in contemplation of her actions. She lets out a sigh and tucks an errant strand of hair behind Ellen’s ear.

“I have wanted to. V
ery much,” Alice says. “But it is wrong.”

“I know,” Ellen replies.
Tears burn behind her eyelids and she blinks rapidly to keep them at bay. “I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

Alice turns her head and looks around them. “Well, we are alone.”

Ellen’s heart soars again. Blood thuds in her ears. “Yes, we are.” When she speaks, her voice is breathy.

The grassy knoll, the soft swing of the mill, the lapping of the river, the birds in the trees, they all melt away. There is only Alice. Her hair smells like
rosemary and lemons. Ellen’s fingers rise to her cheek, touching the smooth skin and tracing a line to her ear. Both Alice and Ellen lean into each other, and when their lips touch, Ellen’s heart flutters.

She tastes like honey and her mouth is warm.
Inside Ellen’s body, I’m aware of how bawdy songs from the tavern described this act as against the Gods, an insult to Celine, yet I’m also aware of how it feels to Ellen. It seems natural to her, like breathing. How can that be? It goes against how we are brought up.

In that instant I question everything I’m taught, because none of those who preach could possibly understand the true meaning of the world and of the universe.
They don’t even know what the Gods want or believe. I am aware of my gift in this moment. There is nothing more powerful and true than the nature in my powers, and the love Ellen feels stirs the powers within. That is my truth now.

In the next instant I’m ripped away.

Ellen’s panic becomes my panic. Never before have I felt so trapped.

“Get off her!” the miller booms.

“Daddy,” Ellen says. Tears swell as her stomach twists with fear.

A rough hand yanks her up
, grasping the collar of her dress, and Ellen can only stare down at Alice who sits with her hand over her mouth, looking up with wet eyes.

“Daddy, please.”

Another yank tears Ellen away from her love. Ellen’s shoes drag across the grass as she’s pulled away. Hot water falls down her cheeks and she struggles against the large man.

“You make me si
ck, you little whore,” he growls.

Ellen cries out as she’s thrown into the small cottage the Millers call home, a place I had often been jealous of. I will never be jealous of Ellen again.

“Husband, what is happening?” Ellen’s mother—an attractive and slightly plump woman in an apron—rushes to her daughter’s aid, helping her up and away from the man.

“
I caught her at it with a farmer’s daughter. That
Alice
.” He says her name in a hiss.

“Oh, Ellen,” says the Miller’s wife. “We talked about this—”

“You
knew
!” he booms. “You’re in on it together? Two whores trying to trick an old man like me!”

His face turns red and his fists clench by his side. The Miller is a hefty man, but not someone I had ever considered violent. If anything, Father and I had often made fun of him being hen-pecked by his wife and daughter. As one of the wealthiest in the town, he often flashes his coin in the tavern or comes back from
Fordrencan with new cloth for dresses. We had always assumed the women in his life were the cause of his spending. Now I know differently. Perhaps those gifts were bought out of guilt for violent outbursts.

The Miller strikes his wife across the face and Ellen catches her as she falls backwards. Ellen screams as the Miller approaches her, grabbing her by the throat and pulling her to her feet.
Her pain is mine. Her panic is mine, too, and my throat burns from his tight grip.

I think of those absences from school. It wasn’t because Ellen thought she was better than the rest of us. It’s because she had bruises that needed to fade.

“You’re an abomination,” he says. “You make me sick.”

Ellen claws at his fingers, but the Miller slaps her around the face with the back of his hand.
I feel the smart as though I had been hit myself. My cheek stings from the blow.

“I had high hopes for you. You were supposed to marry
the prince and become a queen.” He yanks an amulet from inside her bodice. It’s almost identical to the one I saw Allerton wielding in the Borgan camp. It harnesses my own magic. “I got you this to make it happen.” He tightens the chain around her neck until Ellen is gasping for breath. “But you disrespect me with your whorish dresses and by whoring yourself out in the most perverted of ways.”

The panic gurgles in Ellen’s throat. Rough gulps of air become stuck in her windpipe while her lungs burn with
asphyxiation.

He throws her back and she staggers towards a chair
. Ellen’s body, mind, and soul are numb, as though she has disconnected from her feelings. I scream pointlessly from the depths of her body. I want to give her a voice.

“Daddy?” she wh
ispers.

“You’re not my daughter,” the
Miller says, as he pulls a poker from the fire place. The last thing I see before I’m ripped from Ellen’s body, is the miller approaching with his weapon.

*

I gulp in air and am met with the dust of the Red Palace basement. Next to me, Ellen’s chest heaves up and down and her head shakes from one side to the other. I hope she might wake, but a few seconds later her breathing is as measured as before.

I rub my neck.
Ellen’s vision had been so real that I’m still sore from where the Miller gripped his daughter. I glance down at her. For years I have been jealous of Ellen, of her beauty and popularity, and all this time she has struggled with her own secrets and her own troubles. I see her in a different light now, and I am sorry that I never stopped to wonder what the cause of her bad behaviour was. She hated herself. Perhaps we all hate ourselves at least a little bit. We’re all out there right now—spread out across Aegunlund—punishing ourselves for who we truly are.