We came onto the stone bridge, fringed with thorny brambles.They seemed to long to overtake it; one bad step and I would be pierced or caught.
Beside us, the moat’s surface rippled in the breeze. The water sparkled under the moon, blue and silver, looking clear and drinkable, and I hazarded a long, long look.
Where I came from, water this color was hoarded. It was rationed out to us by the innermost districts, and only the guard in the outer districts were afforded the resources to dig deep enough for a well.
Here, it had been used to fill a moat. I’d thought those belonged in storybooks, too.
Ahead I began to discern the shape of a trellised entrance to the tree. Brambles choked the latticework that fielded the path up to large double doors that were only distinguishable from the trunk because of the symbols etched into them, which sometimes caught the moonlight and shone silver.
Here in the inner ring, gnarled wood had been shaped into benches for two. Something like gardens adorned either side of our path, and the flora that grew in them was unfamiliar. Purple-leafed blooms were wide open to the sky, and smaller red flowers furled tightly in vines over the benches and trellises.
It was dark and beautiful—it was empty. We were the only two around.
We passed under the trellises and up to the large doors. My captor stopped here and turned to me.
“Don’t speak in there,” he said, brow drawn. “And put that stupid thing away.”
I didn’t move. I kept the knife in my hand and stared up at him. If I was going to obey him, I needed a reason.
He stepped closer, looming. “Do you want to die here tonight?” The carmine limning his pupils seemed brighter.
“If it’s a stupid thing, then what difference does it make if I hold it?”
“Proper fool. It’s not me who’ll take offense—it’s them.”
I could handle barbs. I’d been fielding them my whole life. “Who?”
He wanted to swipe the knife from my hand; I could sense it in the flick of his eyes and the swick of his fingers together. Instead, he said, “The court.”
The court. Who the hell was the court? All that mattered to me was the sincerity in his voice and his eyes; those were all I had. And for the first time, I thought I saw and heard something like it.
I slid the knife into my belt.
With a low, unconvinced breath out, he turned toward the doors. His hand went up to the center of the leftmost one, and I realized they didn’t have handles or knobs. Both doors opened inward as soon as his long-fingered palm lay flat on the surface.
They opened to a grand, open room. I stared, unmoving, at the inside of a tree, which had been hollowed out.
A parquet wood floor swept a hundred feet beyond me to a far, gnarled-wood throne set atop a dais. It was occupied and surrounded by people, but that was the least of my focus. The floor had been laid variously with animal skins and woven rugs. The same strange symbols I’d seen on my captor’s cloak and on the doors of this place had been etched on every wall. They looked like vine-runic lines: angular slashes softened by curling strokes, like a blade that had sprouted a flower. Some glowed faintly; others were darkened as though seared into the bark with a hot brand.
Along the walls, cut purple crystals emanated their low light into the space. Twin spiral staircases climbed each side-wall, converging on a central balcony where a wide curved doorway led deeper in. The walls were alive with purple blooms like lichen, but which grew like vines in striations as far up as I could see. Their scent was heady and pleasant, like incense but earthy.
My chin lifted and lifted. The ceiling towered and continued into impenetrable darkness. Up there must be the spire.
Finally, my gaze lowered to the many pairs of eyes staring back at us. Men, all of them in some way or another resembling my dark-haired captor, stood in various poses around the occupied throne. One with hands clasped behind his back. One with crossed arms. There must have been twelve or fifteen, each of them at least six feet tall. They didn’t wear cloaks; their clothes were simple, fitted browns and blacks and greens. The colors of nature.
And at the center of them, upon the throne, sat a woman. Burgundy curls tumbled in waves to her chest, a woven bramble crown sat upon her head, and her forearms and palms rested on the arms of the throne.
In our kingdom, anyone sitting the throne wore decadence in cloth and gems. I had seen drawings of our king draped in plum and white velvet, a lush cloak clasped at his throat, and a tall golden crown on his head.
Not her. Like the men, she wore simple, spare, earth-shaded pants, a jerkin, and boots. Clothes meant for movement. Nonetheless, there was nobility about her, obvious in her poise and severe gaze.
And in the way the men gathered around her.
A pulse of envy tightened my chest. Until tonight, I had never seen a woman sit higher than a man.
Their attention pressed in on me like a living, disdainful entity. I had entered a place I was not meant for.
“That explains it,” the man with crossed arms said, his voice loud and echoing. “Dorian and his obsession.”
