The question hung as mist between us, painted on the cold air.
“No.” His smile faltered. “There was an accident, and she took her own life. In the stressful events of the day, she wasn’t fully searched and had a hidden knife.” He patted Lilyanna’s arm soothingly even though she hadn’t flinched.
“But—”
“It really wasn’t Clement’s fault, Tam.” His cheeks relaxed, the dimples popping as his smile casually returned. “He’s been distracted lately.”
My mouth fell open. I swiveled to Clement, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. His jaw was set, a muscle pulsing underneath the ever-lengthening beard.
“Shall we go back, Tam?” Without waiting for an answer, Lilyanna wriggled out of the prince’s hold and linked arms with me. My body moved numbly alongside hers. So many thoughts swirled through my jumbled brain, contorting with the rapidly rising anger.
The wind chased us inside, forcing us through the wide doors into the castle before instantly dying as we crossed the threshold.
“Lilyanna, you know that’s not true. It’s...we...” There had been no blood, no marks, no evidence. She’d not killed herself in that box.
“Please, Tam. There are some things you have to let go.”
As if in agreement, the stone walls groaned, mortar dribbling to the floor. The sconces on the wall pulsed, drawing us onward and back into the belly of the castle.
Our eyes met briefly before we both sucked in a deep breath and wound our way back to her rooms.
I was getting better at checkers. Not because I wanted to, but due to the lack of anything else to do. Dinner was cancelled once again, so we’d eaten in Lilyanna’s room and now sat across from each other, bent over the small brown and white pieces.
Dusk had already fallen outside the thick window. The deep purple air leeched into the flicker from the candles we’d stationed around ourselves, having automatically moved as far from the hearth as we could. Even if it meant aligning ourselves with the freezing stone wall.
“What do you see in the prince?” I pushed one of my brown pieces forward, the carved ridges sinking into the grooves of my finger.
“I mean, he’s handsome, generous, a prince.” She jumped one of my abandoned pieces, the cream tile clacking on the board. She piled it up with the others she’d taken.
“Sure, but is that what you want?”
She laughed, her eyes never leaving the board as she stubbornly stayed three moves ahead of me. “It’s fate. I told you it’s been read to me in my tea leaves for years. Now I'm here, it’s all coming true.”
“Being strangled and burned was in the tea leaves?”
Her mouth twitched. “I can see your attempt to look out for me.” She moved forward, exposing a rift down the center of her pieces. “Thank you.”
I pushed my piece toward the opening, realizing my mistake as soon as I’d let go. I huffed back into my chair and folded my arms. “Am I supposed to dote on the prince as well once you’re married?” She jumped one, two, three of my counters, never once looking up, her tongue wedged between her lips. “You know, choose his outfits, brush his hair. Am I tied up in your dowry?”
She jumped the final piece, the cream circles outnumbering the brown four to one. “When I marry the prince,” she noisily raked my counters into a pile, “and we eventually have children, you’ll have so much more to do, you won’t even have time to complain.” Her eyes met mine, face lit by candlelight. “How will you ever cope?”
I barked a laugh. “Maybe I'll get myself a maid.”
She waved a hand at the massacred checkerboard. “Or a tutor.”
A flurry of nails scrabbled above our heads. Blinded by the glare from the candles, only shadows swirled amidst the diamond ceiling, but a trail of ash floated down.
Lilyanna pulled her silk robe tighter, flapping up the collar to obscure her bruises. “I don’t usually hope for rats, but I do now.”
“And if for some reason the wedding was cancelled and not due to your untimely death?” The prince had lied to me, to both of us, but that wasn’t my primary concern. The look he’d flashed at Clement still haunted me. I didn’t like being wrong, I’d given him the benefit of the doubt for the past few weeks and believed him to be innocent. But now I was unsure.
“It must happen. I need it too.”
I leaned forward, dropping my voice to a whisper, “Why?”
She bit her lip. Her face shone wan in the orange flicker from the candles, bled of color. Every day over the past few weeks she became a little more drained, as if a vial of blood had been taken in her sleep.
“Gold mines are drying up.” She kept her voice low to match mine. “People are starving, our alms are stretched painfully thin. The queendom is arranged so precious metals are our only resource. The same thing happened to emerald, ruby, sapphire, and silver, but once they merged with Prince Bellinor, the supplies were refreshed and the trade routes opened permanently.”
