“There is one place he cannot go,” said Araminta.
“Rathe Castle,” said Demelza, dully. “As I recall it, Father ‘and all of his ghoulish ilk’ were banned from Rathe Castle hundreds of years ago. I think the royal family would be more surprised he has children rather than an actual army of ghouls, but we are not allowed to step foot anywhere near the Castle without—”
“An invitation,” said Araminta.
She curved her neck, her orange bill disappearing in the marble plumage of her breast feathers. From this, she withdrew what looked like a paper sparrow. Only it was not made of paper, but sylke, a strange flower that gave its name to the Vale on the other side of the fog that separated the Silent Lakes district from the rest of the Isle. The blooms of a sylke flower were hardly more than a puff of smoke and the ghost of a sparkle… but in the hands of a Valer, the sylke could become anything. A skilled Vale tailor could sew his will into the cloth, such that the hem of a gown as blue-green as the sea might ebb and flow like the waves. Sylke was an impressionable bloom, and to braid the petals with will and words could conjure a thousand short-livedmarvels. It was what made the Vale the cradle of the Isle’s fashions and arts.
But then what was it doing here?
The fog that Prava had raised at the borders of his territory was near impenetrable.
“I could sense something had gotten lost near our borders,” said Araminta, when she saw the shock in Demelza’s gaze.
“But Father—”
“Your father was clever enough to trap me, but I am not a docile prisoner, my dear. Now hush. Listen.”
When the sylke sparrow shook out its wings, it sounded like the rustle of dry leaves. Its wings were edged in gold and when it hopped across the stones to Demelza’s fingertips, she recognized the shadow of the royal seal—three interlocked stars—and gasped. The sparrow opened its mouth and an invitation sang out, ringing through the tower and shaking the flowers overhead:
Hear ye, hear ye!
King Eustis, Queen Yzara and the Isle of Malys
Hereby request the presence of all eligible and interested maidens
To compete in a contest of beauty, power and grace
For the hand and heart of Prince Arris
7Rathe Castle Cannot Contain Its Excitement
On the entire Isle, nothing and no one was more excited about Prince Arris’s tournament of brides than Rathe Castle. Not even Arris’s mother—who had recently fired an atelier for conflating the shades of magenta and fuchsia as “practically the same thing” when it came to selecting the color of table napkins—matched the zeal with which the Castle threw itself into planning.
First and foremost, Rathe Castle was a fortress. It was imposing and impenetrable, exceptionally observant and possessed of ever-vigilant windows that peered into the corners of dozens of kingdoms, some of which had no idea that the Isle of Malys even existed.
Rathe Castle was as wary as it was accommodating. It had kept the royal family safe and reflected their individual tastes with every generation. For Princess Yvlle it had sprouted a turret overnight crammed with laboratory instruments and strange specimens. For Queen Yzara it had bloomed a hallway filled with perfumes distilled from thecolors of her moods. For King Eustis, a massive library where he might contemplate the making of the world; for Prince Arris a room that was a world of his own making.
Long ago, when its stones had been gathered and breathed with will, the wizard Prava had made a mistake. Prava had intended to imbue the Castle with one simple instruction: keep out intruders.
But in his haste—for war waged on the Isle at the time—he had forgotten the word “out.” And so, there was a time when all the Castle wished to do was, well, keep intruders. What was an intruder anyway? The family had never really said, and so the Castle simply kept… everyone. Its stones declaimed poetry with silver-tongued messengers snatched by the front door and kept in every comfort.
The Castle particularly enjoyed the company of artists, especially painters, for then it could show off how its windows might adjust the lighting based on the artist’s subject. Eventually, the alarming number of missing diplomats caught the royal family’s attention and Prava was summoned to clarify the Castle’s main directive.
For the most part, the Castle did not mind. It wanted to fulfill its duty and so it belched out dungeons and torture chambers as needed and spat assassins into the ocean when asked. But… it missed the challenge of entertaining a variety of company. Its social engagements were largely the same. It made grand entryways for diplomats, tasteful bedrooms for visiting aristocracy, ballrooms for revels, long hallways for royal dinner parties and dark chambers for the occasional mausoleum.
But then Queen Yzara ascended the throne. At her behest, the Castle had softened. Where it had been encouraged in the past to intimidate guests, Queen Yzara had suggested that perhaps it might fill them with awe instead. A subtlety, certainly, but the Castle enjoyed the distinction. The Castle reveled in elevating its atmosphere. When it straightened up, the ceiling soared and the once needle-thin windows melted out into glorious frescoes of stained glass.
No queen or consort had entertained at the level of Queen Yzara in centuries, and while the Castle enjoyed the liveliness, it sometimes longed for the early days of its architecture, when it changed all the time, constantly adjusting to the tastes of a thousand strangers.
The Castle could have never imagined the enormous task now set before it. A competition? For a bride! Why, that was not a single event… that was a whole slew of days! Perhaps even a fortnight!
The word “spectacle” kept echoing across the stones of Rathe Castle until the gray slabs of its floor gleamed silver in its excitement. Of late, the windows had widened, and the light that filled the Castle was reckless and giddy.
Once the invitation had been issued across the Isle, preparations for the competition had occupied the Castle’s every spare moment. The landscape needed refreshing and the pools required cleaning and all the cabinets bemoaned the dearth of teacups.
But that was only what occurred aboveground.
Below the ground an entirely different conversation was taking place. After all, the invitation had been issued notonly by Queen Yzara and King Eustis but by the Isle of Malys as well. It was not as though the king or queen had conversed with the Isle directly. As far as anyone knew, such a thing was not possible. But the land was old and wily and it was well aware that whichever bride claimed Arris’s heart—in whatever manner that might look like—would determine its future.
