“That’s not all,” Silas said, pen scratching the parchment even more quickly. “The final four missives encrypt something even more relevant.” She put her pen down with a thunk. “Your mother entered into an agreement with an unlikely ally. It says here,” Silas said, her face a ghostly white, “that my sisters were murdered by a man named Ludwig. He was once the prophet of the Second Son.”
25
The air was thick with the threat of rain as the carriage rumbled into Velle’s city proper. Clouds hung low, shadows stretching long and lean across the cobblestones.
On the other side of the coach, Katrynn shivered. “This weather feels ominous.”
Brianne did not respond. She was pressed against the carriage window, staring at the posters hung in every window. The moths were uniformly sketched—the curve of their bodies, their drooping antennae, the spotted markings drawn on their wings. It was clear these symbols had been printed and distributed. Every single building in the Commerce District boasted one.
“It’s a pestilence,” the youngest Warnou whispered, eyes so wide Sabine feared they might fall from her face. The New Maiden crossed her arms, trying to breathe through her rising panic. He had been busy in her absence.
They turned toward the Manufacturing District and were met with a grim scene. People filled the road, squabbling over wood and stone, some wielding their wares as weapons. Their anxiety was tangible, a bitter, metallic tang that coated Sabine’s tongue and left her unsettled.
The message on the posters was new: First came fire, then famine and flood. When war and death are all that’s left, which side will you fight for?
Their driver called out to the horses, drawing the attention of the rambunctious crowd. The mob lunged for the vehicle housing the three girls. Hands slapped against the carriage windows, clambered for the door handles; some even clutched the spokes of the wheels until they began to splinter. The horses let out shrieks of panic, their whinnies shrill and fearsome. The carriage driver shouted as a stone shattered the window. Shards of glass fell at Brianne’s feet.
“Where is the New Maiden?” Dirty hands scrabbled inside the broken window, skin sliced by the slivers of glass. Blood stained the carriage’s upholstery.
Katrynn pounded on the roof, calling for the driver to move. “Run them down if you must,” Sabine’s sister shrieked.
“Give us the Maiden!” the crowd demanded.
“She isn’t here,” Brianne shouted, her voice breaking. Sabine pulled the young girl away from the window.
“We must deliver Her to Him!”
The momentum of bodies caused the carriage to sway. The crowd was too big. The coach would topple, and then those scrambling, squabbling hands would pull the girls from the wreckage. The New Maiden would be harmed in unimaginable ways because the onlookers were afraid.
But Sabine was not frightened. She was furious. “Leave us!” she shrieked, Katrynn and Brianne howling with her. A burst of lightning struck a tree, setting the brittle, bare branches alight. The crowd paused their onslaught to watch the fire, awestruck.
“Flying fish, Bet,” Katrynn whispered. “Did you do that?”
“Did we do that?” Brianne asked, almost hopefully, as though her rage might hold power, too.
Sabine shook her head disbelievingly. “I have no idea.” But there was no time for wonder. No point in mourning the fact that her darkness had not returned with her magic. “Go,” she cried instead. The carriage driver did not need to be told twice. His horses barreled forward, leaving the dismal scene behind.
When the coach pulled up to the north gate, Sabine hid within the depths of her cloak, shrinking beneath its hood like a child behind a panel of curtains, face pressed to fabric, huddling in the dark. She could not risk being identified again. If the fervor in the streets was that intense, she was loath to face the frenzy within the palace walls. But the coach was waved through with no inspection, and the courtyard was all but abandoned. A stable boy hurried forward to take the horses, and a steward frowned at the state of the coach, but the usual bustle of Castle Warnou was nowhere to be found.
“Perhaps everyone has taken shelter from the thunder?” Katrynn suggested, glancing at the sky.
Sabine kept her hood up as she disembarked from the carriage. It was too quiet, like the surface of the ocean before a storm.
The girls hurried through the gardens toward the royal chapel, wind whipping through their hair, shaking loose dying leaves from withering branches. Water splattered from the fountain onto the earth below. Although a grumble of thunder began in the distance, the skies did not open up until the three of them were safely harbored in the sanctuary. Giant droplets of rain pounded against the tall windows, shutters clattering as the thunder rumbled closer, shaking the earth beneath their feet. The lightning was infrequent but dazzling, the sharp cracks lighting up the sky like a sunny day before plunging the world back into night.
Brianne frowned as she emerged from the Chaplain’s office. “Silas isn’t here.”
“I’m sure she’s all right,” Katrynn said gently.
“Where would she go?” The youngest Warnou looked close to tears. Brianne had lost so much in her short lifetime—her mother, trust in her father and sister, her role as the New Maiden—that it was now a reflex to always assume the worst.
“Silas is strong, Brianne,” Sabine said. “I’m certain that whatever she is doing is for the good of us all.”
“I am grateful you think so highly of me, Maiden.” Silas’s steady voice floated toward them from the pulpit.
“Where did you come from?” Brianne strode forward accusingly. “I was just in that room, and there was no one there.”
“That’s quite the walk,” came the breathless voice of the queen. “Really, Silas, how did you take that route every—” She stopped speaking the moment she saw Sabine.
Elodie looked exhausted. Her slumped shoulders were a jarring contrast to her usually impeccable posture. Her starlight hair had lost some of its sheen, and her bottom lip was chapped from where she had worried it between her teeth. But her eyes took on new life the moment she met Sabine’s gaze.
The Queen of Velle walked purposefully down the aisle of the royal chapel and fell to her knees before the New Maiden’s feet.
“Elodie, what are you—”
The queen reached for Sabine’s hands, entangling their fingers together. “I pledge myself to your cause, heart and mind. Body and soul. I am yours, even if you are not mine.”
Warmth flooded Sabine’s cheeks, swirled gently in her chest. “I know not what I have done to deserve such allegiance.”
“Which is exactly why you are owed it,” Elodie said. “You do not beg loyalty. You earn it. I am only sorry I did not pledge it sooner.”
“I know where your loyalty lies,” Sabine said, pulling the queen to her feet. Elodie put a hand to her cheek affectionately. “But I fear why you feel so compelled to remind me. What has happened in my absence?”
“Tal offered me a choice,” Elodie said darkly, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Velle, or the New Maiden.”
“And you chose Sabine?” Brianne asked her eldest sister with trepidation.
