Assessing the room, and more specifically Ravanna, I decided to compose myself as well. If I played this wrong, Ravanna’s mask would slide back into place, and my thousands of questions would remain unanswered. I needed to stay calm and diplomatic. I was a future queen, wasn’t I? There was no better time to practice my statesmanship than the present.
After they’d left the room, and I could no longer hear them in the corridor, I turned to Ravanna and asked, “What can I do to help?”
Her measuring glare was cold and unexpected. I was too late. She was back to being herself. Whatever remnants of nurturing had been there with my uncle had already faded.
“Take a walk with me,” she said, “I’d like to show you something.”
I had stopped being afraid that she would kill me today. I didn’t know when exactly, but probably somewhere around when the Bog Witch confirmed she was my mother’s sister, my aunt.
If I was honest with myself, I could admit that I had a suspicion there was something more there since we’d found the initials in the abandoned chapel. Even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to myself. Maybe I didn’t put together that she and my mother were quite that close, but I knew there had to be an explanation for why my mother had been aligned with her.
But how did she fit into my mother’s death? And the deaths of my father and brothers?
There was only one way to find out. And it would start with taking this walk with her.
I followed her out of the dining room through the door she’d used earlier. It led us into another part of the Keep I had yet to explore. Our heeled slippers clicked against the polished floor, and I said a silent prayer that I wasn’t leaving a trail of mud and dirt in my wake.
At long last, she led me into a library. The doors, like the Temple in Heprin and the chapel at Elysia, had carvings. Dragons, mermaids, sea creatures, and even beasts that I could not name. And now, with this magical sight, I could see that each represented a different charm.
There were runes inlaid over the top of them. And all of it worked together to make the library a special, safe place. These runes were not as abrasive as the ones around the Keep. They did not force others out with power. They gently let all who seek inside.
Now I wondered what the doors in Elysia would say. Or in Heprin? Would they be as welcoming and kind as they were here?
Inside the library were stacks and stacks of books and scrolls. There was hardly any organization in the massive room. Just books everywhere. And places to sit on the floor near precariously towering piles.
Toward the back of the room were stone tables covered in glass bottles of differing sizes and shapes, all holding liquids. Potions, I realized, when I read some of the rune inscriptions. I did not have to ask to understand that she’d given Tyrn something from over there. Something she’d concocted for him.
His words haunted my thoughts. “You have to help me.” Help him do what? With what? From the potion? Or the crown?
Ravanna moved gracefully around her stacks of books. I followed her—less gracefully—but managed to avoid toppling any piles. We headed for the balcony. It was a cozy thing through paned glass doors. And bare except for us. It looked out over a graveyard. Each grave was marked with a rounded white stone.
The sun was dipping below the horizon. I had not realized how late it had gotten. We must have been in the forest for hours today. And now my stomach was growling because we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.
“This is the castle cemetery,” she explained, although I’d already figured that out on my own.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
She took a deep breath and pointed at a far corner. “Your grandparents are buried over there. If you’d like to read their headstones, I can show you tomorrow. They died before you were born.”
“Oh,” I repeated, but it was a stronger, more intent sound. My grandparents? Maybe she was about to—
“I wanted to bring your mother back here and bury her,” she confessed with a hitch to her voice. “I begged the council to let me rest her here, where I could continue to watch over her. But Elysian custom is to burn the bodies. They would not let me have her.” Her fist had balled up where it rested on the balcony ledge, and now her voice did not just have a hitch but it was also whet through and through with emotion.
“You really are my aunt, then?” I asked, afraid she would try to deny it.
Her dark eyes met mine in the twilight. “Yes, your aunt. I suppose I am. It just feels... strange to admit that. Gwynlynn and I spent so much of our adult lives denying our familial bonds so we could marry kings, I suppose.” One side of her mouth lifted in a smile. “Not that marrying well was our only goal. Although nothing is wrong with enjoying royal life, mind you.” The other side of her mouth joined the first, and I admired how beautiful she was when she actually smiled. “But we’d both wanted to help the realm, and we thought we could do that best as queens. Tyrn, well, Tyrn just didn’t want to be left behind. Although I wished he would have married. He liked a girl once. She was sweet. Very shy. But so sweet. They could have built a home here. Enjoyed a quiet, happy life. He wouldn’t have ever had to—” She cut herself off and looked back down at her hands.
I had many questions about Tyrn. But I was finally facing the answers to the things that burned hottest within me. There would be time for my uncle. Later. Right now, I must stay focused on the most pressing matters. “So my mother was from here?”
She smiled again, softer this time, and looked out at the graveyard. As the sun set, lights started to glow over each grave. No, not lights... flowers. I leaned forward to marvel at petals that seemed lit like candles. Only these flames burned an ethereal blue and purple.
“What is that?” I gasped.
“What I wanted to show you,” she said. “The people in this area plant them after someone dies and is buried. The petals soak up the sunlight all day long, then slowly release it through the night. And while they do, we’re treated to this breathtaking sight. It’s amazing that something so full of life could exist in a place so full of death.”
I thought of the Bog Witch’s words. “It lives where everything dies.” Could this be what she meant? Was it really so simple?
But to Ravanna, I said, “What was my mother like?”
