“Sounds like melancholia,” I say, trying not to sound relieved. It isn’t a pleasant illness, but it’s common enough I know a few different herbal remedies to try.
“That was the doctor’s initial diagnosis too.” Delphine resumes climbing. “He prescribed vigorous exercise and sunshine. And I tried to make as much time for Cloudia as possible when I wasn’t working. We’d take walks to her favorite overlooks, and I’d smuggle her treats from the palace. But she continued to get worse. Eventually, she remained in bed all day. That’s how it’s been for months now. She lies there, as still as the dead, aside from random fits when her arms and legs suddenly jerk and her eyelids fly open, searching the room without actually seeing anything. Sometimes she whispers in a strange, scratchy voice until sheruns out of energy and appears to faint.”
Delphine shivers, and it’s all I can do not to follow suit.
“I see,” I say with a contemplative nod, careful to keep my expression neutral and my breath steady—like the healers under the hill do. So she can’t see the fingers of anxiety slowly tightening around my throat. “That sounds horrible.”
“It’s terrifying,” Delphine agrees. “The only thing it reminds me of, even slightly, is the foaming sickness some animals get. The one that drives them mad.”
At last, the ground levels off, and I double over to catch my breath. My relief is short-lived, though. When I glance up, Delphine is staring at me expectantly, awaiting promises and reassurance I can’t give her. On top of this, the mountaintop is nothing how I imagined.
For some reason, I expected the abandoned mines to be vast open pits Soren greedily scooped from the earth, in order to extract every useful gemstone and mineral as quickly as possible. But it’s actually an intricate system of caves and crevasses riddling the mountaintop like mouse-eaten cheese. Some shafts are so narrow, I’d have to wriggle on my belly to crawl inside. Other caves are so large and black, they could easily house entire families of mountain lions.
I curse under my breath as I take it all in. It will take weeks to simply find and catalogue every cave, let alone search them for Soren’s secrets or clues to what Rowenna was up to.
I want to sit down hard and bury my freezing hands in my hair. I want to shout into the velvety-black sky and berate my sister for making every step of this process so difficult. For leaving me to do this all alone.
“Come on.” Delphine takes my arm and gently tugs me toward a shallow cave entrance near the trail. “It won’t be so bad. We’ll start here and proceed in a clockwise fashion. It shouldn’t take too long.”
But after five long hours of combing through dripping walls and mossy floors, we haven’t found a trace of my sister. Or bagrava. Or anything even slightly out of the ordinary. Just spiders, muck, and oldrusted mining tools.
Delphine wipes her sweaty face on the inside of her blouse and glances at the trail leading down the mountain. “We need to get back before the sun rises and someone notices you’re gone.”
I’m bone-weary and half-frozen, but the thought of returning without anything to show for our efforts feels even more painful and exhausting. “Just a little while longer,” I beg. “Elodie is the only person on the mountain who pays me any mind, and she’ll be asleep for several hours yet, thanks to my special tea.”
“She’s the only one whoopenlypays you mind,” Delphine corrects me as she tugs me back down the trail. “Don’t think for a second Soren’s inquisitors aren’t watching your every move. They’re always watching all of us.”
“What are you talking about? What inquisitors?” I ask as we slide down a steep field of scree.
“Those of us who work in the palace and have witnessed their machinations firsthand, like to call King Soren’s councilorsinquisitors, since they do far more than simply offer advice. They’re always sniffing about for trouble and watching over our prayers, compelling us to get rid of inconvenient memories.”
“What?” I grind to a halt, forcing Delphine to stop too. “Von Nevus told me that memory tithes fuel Soren and Alaric’s power, but he didn’t tell me you don’t get to choose which memories to sacrifice when you pray.”
“In theory, each person chooses what to remember and what to give to the land, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t heavilyinfluenced. Soren and his inquisitors often makesuggestionsor offerincentivesfor purging certain memories that might be problematic or paint them in a bad light. Then they watch us like hungry wolves, ready to pounce if we haven’t followed through.”
It feels like Soren is here, yanking the ground out from under me. This must be what Alaric was referring to when he said his peopleweren’t the most forthcoming. When he insisted I was wasting my time hunting for the truth about Rowenna’s death.
Thereisno truth—only King Soren’s carefully curated version of it.
Thismust be how why his people still love him. And why no one seems to remember anything substantial about Rowenna. And why I’ll never be able to piece together the truth about her death.
“But how is it enforced?” I ask Delphine. “Soren and his councilors can’t possibly know if you’ve purged specific memories,right?”
Delphine sighs. “Like it or not, our actions reveal our thoughts. Even if you’re careful and try to play along, it’s impossible to be perfectly vigilant. Every day, I’m terrified I’ll slip and reveal something about Cloudia’s illness. After her initial visit with the healers, I lied and said she was getting better. I’mstillmaking up stories and excuses to explain her absences because I’m terrified the king and his minions will take her away if they know the truth. They’ll say they need to isolate her to keep the illness from spreading. They’ll claim they’re doing us both a kindness—Cloudia is clearly suffering and watching her decline is affecting my nerves, distracting me from my work. But what then? Will they lock her away for observation? Use her for experimentation? Kill her outright, even? I’d never know because they’d order me to forget it all.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That’s…horrifying.”
I feel suddenly guilty for asking her to hide even more. Risk even more.
“Sometimes, in my weaker moments, I want to be done with it all,” Delphine admits. “It would be such a luxury to purge my problems and flounce around the palace like the giggling courtiers.”
I nod with understanding. “The truth can be heavy, but remembering the good and the bad makes usrealin a way the vapid courtiers will never be. It makes us strong. I would never choose to forget Rowenna, not even if the pain of losing her feels like having my innards scraped out with a spade. Not even if my efforts to avenge her never amount to anything. I don’t expect you to continue putting yourself and Cloudiaat even greater risk by helping me, though,” I say, meeting Delphine’s gaze in the moonlight. “The less you know about my machinations, the better. I’ll still do everything in my power to help Cloudia, even if you choose not to continue searching the caves.”
Delphine studies me with a strange, almost perplexed expression. Then she turns abruptly and resumes her descent. She doesn’t utter another word as we wind through the city streets and climb back up the turret wall. Only once we’re back in Elodie’s rooms, standing over the courtier’s prone form, does she speak.
“I take back what I said before—about you being nothing like Rowenna. You’re just as brave, just as determined. But you’re also kind, perceptive, and empathetic. You’re exactly what we need—”
“I don’t think Elodie wouldn’t agree with your assessment,” I interrupt in a strained whisper, looking down at the courtier in her bed. “Especially since I’m going to have to drug her again in order to continue searching the caves.”
