“Perhaps,” the Chaplain said. “But past failings do not dictate future actions. What matters now is that you have chosen to make amends. Besides,” she added, “the crown is far too heavy for a girl so young. You have been doing your best with the resources provided you. None can fault you for that.”
“How would you know?” Elodie asked darkly. The compliment was not reassuring. Her aunt had been close enough to observe her struggle, but not invested enough to step forward and intercede.
The woman looked uncomfortable. “I have, on occasion, stopped by the queen’s study to observe your work.”
Elodie raised her eyebrows. It was disquieting, to know that she had been unwittingly perceived. “I beg your pardon?”
“I just wanted to ensure you were managing.” Pink flushed the woman’s cheeks. Her face held more wrinkles than Tera’s had, but then Elodie’s mother had not been expressive. Her face had not aged because she had not offered the world access to her heart.
“And no one noticed you lurking outside the door to the queen’s study?” Elodie asked, incredulous. “Surely even New Maiden’s cloth does not pardon you from such scrutiny?”
“It was not my status that protected me from onlookers, Majesty,” Silas said, “but my vantage point.” At her niece’s bewildered expression, Silas got heavily to her feet. “It seems this castle has carefully guarded its secrets. Come with me.”
Elodie followed Silas through a cramped hallway hung with fresh white robes, a lineup of ghosts patiently awaiting their turn to be resurrected. The queen expected her aunt to lead her into the office where René had once lorded over the parish, making unique and increasingly expensive demands in the name of the New Maiden. Instead, they stopped before a stone wall.
Silas produced a strange, knifelike key from her pocket, which she jammed into the shadowy crevice beneath a loose brick. She fiddled softly for several seconds before the rock emitted a mechanical click and the wall swung forward to reveal a cavernous darkness.
Elodie gasped.
“I suppose I’d better lead the way,” the Chaplain said measuredly. “Watch your step. We’re going down.” She descended into darkness. Elodie followed carefully, holding her hands out in front of her lest she walk face-first into a wall.
“You’re not like I thought you’d be,” the queen said, after a moment of silence. It was indelicate, but the truth. When she’d imagined her mother’s secret sister, she’d pictured Cleo’s conviviality with a hint of Brianne’s tenderness. But Silas—Rowan—was none of those things. She was terse and sharp, expressive but judgmental. She was nothing like Elodie had pictured a woman of the cloth or a fourth Warnou daughter to be.
“Well, expectations are a breeding ground for disappointment,” Silas replied, sounding unconcerned. “How did you imagine me?”
“When my mother wrote to you, she made you sound—”
“She wrote to me?” Her aunt’s voice came out strangled. Elodie was lucky her hands were still out in front of her, or the two of them would have collided.
“I found letters,” Elodie admitted as they continued onward, “written to someone, begging for help. It was because of them that I learned of your existence. It was my father who revealed to me your name.”
“Which one is your father again?”
“Antony.”
“Ah, yes.” Silas made a soft sound. “Always liked him. He deserved better than my sister.” Elodie had secretly felt the same. “Where are these letters?”
“In her study,” Elodie said. “I mean, my study. The queen’s study?” The desk behind which Elodie’s mother so often sat had never truly felt like hers to claim.
“Struggling to accept your title is nothing to be ashamed of, Elodie,” Silas said gently. “The monarchy as a whole is a rather unethical system of governance.”
“Oh?” The sentiment reminded Elodie of her brother’s angry words, and thus she was inclined not to consider it. But beneath her resentment, she was beginning to see Rob’s point. The longer she held the crown, the more she questioned what gave her the right to make decisions with such life-altering ramifications. She did not want that responsibility, nor had she earned it.
“While I was in Adeya, I learned more about how the Republics structure their administration,” the Chaplain said, huffing as the path they followed grew steeper.
“Curse the Republics,” Elodie said, voice dripping with venom. “They worship the Second Son and have stolen all my soldiers.”
“They are not righteous examples,” Silas conceded, “but their systems are worthy of consideration. What gives Warnou women the right to absolute rule? What philosophy do we hold that others do not?”
“Country above all,” Elodie said, but the familiar phrase had turned rancid on her tongue.
“Tera taught you that one, did she?” Elodie could hear Silas’s smile. “That is too heavy a weight for one person. I should know.” She stopped walking, causing Elodie to run into her again. “We’re here.”
“Where?”
Metal scraped against stone. Hinges squawked, and a faint trickle of light illuminated a set of steep steps. Faint light glowed through the cracks in the wall to reveal the outline of a door. At the top of the stairs, Silas bade her niece to peer through the gap. On the other side was the queen’s study.
“Lady above and among us,” Elodie breathed. “You were spying on me.”
“Just to see that you were all right. You’re only a child,” Silas said, looking apologetic. She unlatched a small lock and pushed the wall forward. Silas stepped over the books that had fallen to the floor, their pages crumpled, their spines cracked. “This is too much for any one person, let alone a girl of seventeen failed by a mother who was fixated on absolute control.”
“She wasn’t so terrible,” Elodie argued. “She let me choose my own outfits. Most days.”
Silas chuckled darkly. “You’re funny. You must get that from me. Now let’s see those letters.”
Elodie procured the correspondence from its hiding place and handed them over to Silas. Her aunt sank into the desk chair and began to pore over Tera’s words. Elodie, wanting to give her some privacy, collected the scattered tomes and fitted them back into their place on the false bookshelf.
As Silas worked her way through the many pieces of parchment, Elodie reflected again on her aunt’s distaste for the monarchy. Her views were similar to Rob’s, but Elodie was now disillusioned enough with the crown to take the questions seriously. What might her country look like if decisions included its people? How might its economic structure, its creativity, its position of power change?
Tera Warnou had fought so hard to instill in Elodie a reverence for the crown—had touted it as absolute and essential—that the eldest Warnou daughter had never taken the time to wonder if it really was worthy of her devotion. What’s more, she had never offered herself a chance to question if she truly wished to bear the brunt of its weight. Instead, she had simply followed her mother’s directives, much the way that Tal might have done with the Second Son.
She was no better than he. No less corrupted by power.
“There isn’t anything revolutionary in there,” Elodie said, when she could stand the silence no longer.
“On the contrary, Elodie dear,” said Silas, who had taken up a pen and was scribbling onto a spare scrap of parchment. “There is much within these pages if you know your mother’s cipher.” She looked up, her gray eyes sparkling. “Which luckily, I do. These three letters offer up a message that is quite unexpected indeed. It says: While I had a hand in our sisters’ murders, I was not the one who killed them.”
Elodie fiddled with her sleeves. Tera’s confession did very little to absolve her of such a heinous crime. Elodie did not think it mattered much whether her aunts had died by her mother’s hand, if Tera Warnou was the one who had set their murders in motion.
