THE GATE TO THE CASTLE SAT IN A WALL SO THICK that the tunnel beneath it took us at least twenty paces to walk through. The stones of the wall had been polished smooth so that it would be almost impossible to climb, and the top was crowned with a sharply slanted roof studded with snow guards sharp as the heads of pikes. Soldiers stood evenly spaced along the walls, swords buckled at their waists and small knives sheathed down one side of their chests. Though they stood still as statues, their eyes sharply watched all the foot and horse traffic heading in and out through the yawning gate.
The closer we got to the building itself, the more troubled Hal’s expression became.
“Are you worried the king will recognize you?” I asked.
“More that he might think I’m complicit in what Nismae and Ina plan to do to him.” Hal’s voice was grim.
“He might make that assumption.” I wasn’t going to lie.
“And then what?” he asked.
“I vouch for you,” I said, holding up my bad arm. “She hurt me. Given that, there’s no reason he shouldn’t trust my word. I’m not going to throw you at his feet and run to save myself. That’s not what friends do.”
“You don’t really need me, Asra. You’re strong on your own. Once you get your audience with the king, you won’t need me. You have a gift that can make anything possible. You don’t even seem afraid of what it might cost you. The future is yours.” His eyebrows drew together with worry.
I tugged him to the side of the road. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I’ll abandon you?” The thought was ludicrous after all we’d been through together. His sister might never forgive him for stealing me from her. He’d made that sacrifice for me.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted.
“I want you with me,” I said. Of course I could survive without him, but that didn’t mean I wanted to. Not now, not yet—not unless I had to when I used the Fatestone to rewrite the past. I’d grown too used to sleeping with my back pressed against his, to waking up to his smile, to the way he made up nonsense words to popular tunes to make me laugh and our hours on the road pass faster.
“You have me.” He smiled a little, and his expression reminded me of the look in his eyes yesterday morning. We approached the castle doors. I felt no bigger than an ant in front of the building. A line of people spilled down the front steps, winding back and forth and continuing around the circular drive nearly all the way to the entrance we’d just come through.
I stared in dismay. “This is how many petitioners there are?”
“Yes, and their names have likely been on the ledger for a moon. This must be their scheduled day. Follow me.” Hal led me toward a smaller gate leading into one of the gardens surrounding the castle.
The palace garden had just blossomed into summer. Rhododendrons of every color burst with flowers, and butterflies hovered around daphne bushes that carried a scent so intoxicating and rich I slowed my footsteps to linger in the perfume. Hal and I passed by a wall of green that twisted into a hedge maze filled with shadows. I hoped the king paid as much attention to protection as he did decoration.
Ahead of us a stone walkway lined with columns led to a set of double doors into the castle. A uniformed woman stood guarding the entrance, her hand already drifting toward her weapon when she saw us coming.
“This entrance isn’t for petitioners,” she said.
Hal stood up straighter and smiled warmly at the stony-faced guard.
“We are here to clean the king’s commodes,” he announced with extreme formality.
I barely held back a snort of laughter.
“Of course,” the guard said, giving in as the tendrils of Hal’s magic seduced her. “Right this way.” She ushered us through the door and then waved a casual good-bye.
“The king’s commodes?” I whispered, stifling a giggle.
“Why not? Soldiers are so easy. They’re used to being ordered about,” he said, grinning. He led me through the hallways with the ease of someone familiar with the layout of the grounds, making me wonder how much time he’d spent there when he was younger. How close had he been to the king?
Our footsteps echoed on the stone floors, which were tiled with intricate mosaics made of different kinds of granite. A short flight of stairs at the end of the walkway led down into the cavernous main atrium.
“Not much has changed,” Hal said, smiling as my jaw dropped.
I looked around in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The ceiling towered over us, supported by dark-stained beams. The walls and floor were smooth, white polished marble laced with copper except for one notable exception—what looked like a huge pool of blood that spanned the center of the room, edges splattering out toward the walls. As we came closer, I saw that it was an illusion—just a different kind of stone. But strangely, it wasn’t inlaid. The rock was simply white and then red, with no discernible break.
Pages, nobles, and other members of the castle staff hurried about their business, paying no mind to the two of us. Calls rang out from various chambers around the edges of the room, and benches were lined with petitioners awaiting their turns to enter.
“How did they get the floor like that?” I asked Hal.
“You recall the first monarch?” he asked.
“The bear queen?” She had been the founder of Corovja, the first to raise her banner over Zumorda.
“The earth god took a particular liking to the bear queen, long before Zumorda was a unified kingdom. She led the queen to this very spot and gave her the power to wield earth magic to carve the rock out of the mountainside. When the bear queen did so, a perfect slab of white marble was revealed, and the bear queen declared it the future crown city of Zumorda. But before she and the earth god could so much as put walls up around the site that would one day be this castle, a challenger came for the crown—just as the first flakes of autumn snow began to fall. A snow leopard challenged the bear queen, one who not only believed this territory to belong to her but also wanted to keep the kingdom the way it was, with separate regions governed by different rulers.
“At first it seemed like the bear queen would lose. The snow leopard called on two champions to fight before her—one who manifested as a snowy owl, and the other a ram. The snowy owl pecked out the bear’s eyes, and the ram gored the bear almost through the heart. By the time the bear finally faced the snow leopard, dawn was rising. The bear was exhausted, her fur matted, her eyesight gone so that she had to rely on her other senses. But she had the favor of the gods, and that made all the difference.
“So as the sun rose, not only did the earth god lend her support, but the wind picked up and lent his hands. The fire god split the clouds with his sunlight. The water god gave the bear queen a pool in which to cleanse herself before the final ritual. The spirit god healed her wounds and gave her strength to go on, and the shadow god waited for the snow leopard with open arms. When the bear tore out the leopard’s throat and she bled onto the floor, the earth god sealed the leopard’s blood into the stone to remind all future challengers how the kingdom of Zumorda would be won forevermore—by the one with the greatest gods-given strength.”
I had heard the story of our kingdom’s origin, but not like this. Not with the evidence right in front of me. It was a stark reminder of the power of the gods, and how much they gave to a ruler. How could Ina and Nismae ever hope to stand against this without a god at their backs? It was madness. An uneasy feeling crawled through me as I wondered what they were doing with my blood. Would it be enough to make Ina equal to the king in battle?
Hal pointed to a splatter near the edge of where the red stone met the white. “Doesn’t that look like a bear print to you?”
I looked down, and sure enough, the marking looked just like the imprint of a bear paw tracking fresh blood onto the white floor.
“It does,” I said with terrible wonder. I had always known our kingdom was ruled by the strong and that the crown was taken by battle to the death, but seeing it here, having it be real, it hurt. In the deepest place in my heart, I wanted the world to be a place of kindness, not brutality. Maybe Ina was better suited for the crown than I had ever imagined.
“This site is almost sacred now,” Hal said. “It remains intact to remind us of the first battle—the first stone upon which our kingdom was built.”
“A kingdom built on blood,” I murmured. How apt.