“Have you heard they’ve made up a song about it?”
I shook my head, and my stomach recoiled. Only the truly terrible plagues had songs sung of them.
“Little Arnaud’s head did ache, his eyes began to quiver. The gold rushed out, his mother cried, her boy had caught the Shivers,”the prince sang in a mincing falsetto.“His body danced, his body jerked, the Brilliance turned to black. His mother sobbed, his mother wailed, her boy would not come back.”The song blessedly over, Leopold pantomimeda bow. “They say that the children of Châtellerault skip rope to it, can you believe that?”
I could. Children’s games were often cruel, taking things of nightmares and setting them to music and dance.
“Wait,” I said, stilling as the jaunty tune looped through my mind. Itwasappallingly catchy. “What does that mean—‘the Brilliance turned to black’?”
Leopold shrugged. “They say that once the gold runs dry—once all your sins have been well and truly purged from you—then comes your atonement. The Brilliance darkens, running down first in streaks of bronze and rust—the Brilliance mixed with blood—until it’s black as midnight. It’s thicker then, tearing the body apart, ripping open flesh as it purges itself out. It’s said to be quite painful. You know, there was a footman here who—”
I cut off the gruesome tale before it could be recounted again. “I heard.”
He looked disappointed to not tell it. “Yes. Well. When your atonements are at an end, you fall into a shuddering fit and”—Leopold shook violently, miming a horrific seizure, before the movements came to an abrupt and horrific end—“and then that’s it.” He briskly wiped his hands. “It’s all over.”
“They’re dead?” I asked, unsure if there was more performance to come.
“Obviously.”
I thought through the timeline he’d laid out, grateful to have been given so much information, even if it had been theatrically presented. “So when the gold begins to darken, begins to bleed…how long until the seizures begin?” I asked.
Leopold shrugged. “I couldn’t say. I’ve never seen anyone with it myself. Just…” A look of realization dawned on him and his browfurrowed, marring his otherwise beautiful patrician face. “Has Papa begun to bleed?”
“I think so.”
Leopold sank back against the wall, wincing. “Then he doesn’t have much time left after all.” His head lolled my way but his eyes were distant, as if looking into a future I could not see. He looked as though he might throw up. “Tell me, little healer…,” he mused. “Do you think the crown will look good upon my head?”
I offered him a ghost of a smile. “I hope that’s something we won’t learn for a very long time to come, Your Royal Highness.”
He sighed, seemingly content with the answer, and closed hiseyes.
I noticed his lashes were thick with tears and I looked away, allowing him a moment to sit with his emotions. They’d laid his mother in her grave not even a year ago, and already he was having to deal with the notion his father might soon follow and the enormity of the changes that would ensue. The cruelty felt unspeakably heavy.
Leopold murmured something in a voice too hushed and too low to make out. I wanted to lean in to catch his words but remained where I was. He was probably praying to Félicité or the Holy First, begging them to intercede and spare his father’s life, begging for good fortune, begging for strength and fortitude should the crown be thrust upon him.
Who knew what princes prayed for?
Stretching, Leopold shifted and leaned his face against the wall. He was nearly asleep but still his lips moved, forming words I couldn’t help but overhear as he drifted off.
“His body danced, his body jerked, the Brilliance turned to black,”he sang to himself.“Then Leo sobbed and Leo wailed. The king would not come back.”
Chapter 26
The gardens were black.
No.
Not black.
Shades of midnight, navy, and deep eggplant, swirled together with obsidian and onyx. So much more than black.
It was like staring at the back of your eyelids as you tried to fall asleep.
But no one could sleep through this.
Music pulsed in the thick, humid air, setting it to life with cellos and basses. Their atonal notes felt like rolling waves against my sternum. They filled my body, setting it on edge until all I knew, all I could feel, was my consciousness and the black.
The not-black.
