Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf 1)

“No, no, I do . . . just . . . what made you pick that one?”

“Emerald was my mother’s favorite stone,” she said, lifting my day dress over my head before helping me step into the gown. “She had an emerald ring that looked just this same color of green. She always told me that it’s a stone of wisdom and foresight.”

“Does your mother know very much about stones?”

The girl was threading the laces of the bodice. “She did, yes, m’lady, before she died. She liked those twisty knot braids, too. She taught me a few fancy ones.” She lifted a section of my hair. “I think it would look nice. Would you like me to try?”

I shrugged. “Why not? Your mother . . . she must have been young. Was it the fever epidemic last winter?”

“Not fever, no. She was burned for a witch four years ago.”

I felt the coil at my center tighten. Emilie couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen—?which meant she was only eleven or twelve at the time of the execution. Motherless and alone at that bewildering brink between girlhood and womanhood . . . I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her. And Emilie’s mother was just another of the countless number of men and women killed for the practice of witchcraft. Innocent or guilty of the charges, it didn’t matter; I raged at the unfairness, the vicious pointlessness of the loss. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, my voice tinny. I didn’t know what else to say.

“As am I.” She stepped away to give me a look-over. “She was a good person,” she said, quieter. “What they call witches—?most of them are just regular people, nice people. The evil ones are those that hunt and hurt others, witch or no.”

I snagged her hand and held it. “Thank you,” I said. It was a brave thing to say aloud, even to someone like me.

* * *

Most days I took my meals alone in my rooms. Not because I had any particular aversion to eating with my brother and mother and the rest of the court but because of the dead man at the bottom of the staircase that led to the banquet hall.

The stairs were steep, and his fall down them must have been terrible, because his neck was bent at such a deeply unsettling angle. Shades like him were often pinned in place by the memory of their

traumatic death, burdened with a compulsive need to share it, even reexperience it . . . And if he touched me, I’d be forced to watch it happen again. Often the spirits’ memories were so vivid that I could not distinguish them from reality. I relived them as if they were happening to me in real time. And right now I could not afford to collapse, blind and screaming, in such a public place; I’d be dragged away to the gallows before I ever hit the floor.

On days like this I was forced to pass the ghost on the stairs or use the only other route to the banquet hall. As I took my first step inside the kitchen doors and the buzzing energy of the staff stuttered to a halt, I wondered if I might have been better off risking the stairs.

I lifted my chin and made my way past the plates of steaming meat pies and platters of roasted duck that were waiting for their florid entrance. I didn’t flinch even as the servants stared. They could think me strange, but I’d never let them think I was apologetic about it.

When I came into the hall, the dinner guests were all steeped in conversation and so did not seem to notice my entrance from the service door. Kellan was nearby, though, waiting without comment. He never asked me about my peculiar habits anymore. He’d decided long ago that I was the product of my circumstances, that if it weren’t for my betrothal to the prince of Achleva, no one would have thought twice about my strange habits and weird eyes and I’d have never developed these evasive routines. If I told him about the broken-necked man on the banquet hall stairs—?or the purple-faced girl beneath the surface of the lily pond, or the bleak-eyed woman who paced the west wing parapet—?he’d probably think me mad.

Kellan guided me to my place at the head table. He looked polished and powerful in his gold-and-ivory uniform and cobalt-colored cloak, the ceremonial costume of the ranking guard. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and made an effort not to notice how one of his corkscrew curls had escaped the rest and was now dangling fetchingly against his brow.

“You’re not wearing black,” he observed. “I didn’t know you owned dresses of other colors.”

“I don’t always wear black.”

“I suppose you’re right. I think I saw you in gray once.”

I wasn’t sure if I should smile or glower at him, but I didn’t have to choose. He took his place behind my chair, back to being a guard now that we were in full view of the waiting guests. Formality was something he could take on and off like a mask: one moment he was the heart-strong boy who’d laughingly taught me to ride when I was fourteen and friendless; the next he was the stern and practical knight, in whom I could entrust my safety but never my secrets. I loved the first one—?in a discreet and delicate way, known only to myself—?but I was thankful for the second. Seeing him so distant, so rigidly severe, made it feel like maybe I wouldn’t be losing as much.

“All rise for Queen Genevieve and Prince Conrad.” A ripple went across the room as everyone scrambled from their chairs to pay respect to the entering queen and crown prince. Conrad had his arm linked with Mother’s, leading her with a dignified tip of his chin, though he was only half her height. He’d never enjoyed the spotlight, preferring books to banquets and arithmetic problems to people, but his posture was proper and steady—?he’d been practicing, I could tell. He was even smiling a little. Now only months away from his seventh birthday, he looked like a small copy of our father with his golden hair and blue, blue eyes. At least, he did until he saw me and his smile wavered and disappeared. He gave me a polite nod.

We used to have a game in which I’d tie a colored ribbon someplace he would see it—?on a door handle, or the branch of a tree, or a staircase spindle—?which meant that somewhere nearby I’d hidden a prize or a treat. The color of the ribbon told him where to look: yellow for up, blue for down, red for north, green for south, purple for east, orange for west. Black meant it was within ten paces and hidden from view, white meant it was within twenty paces and in plain sight. When he found his prize, he’d hide one for me using the same rules. It was an excuse for me to spoil him, really. I showered him with candies and riddle books and little toys I had to sneak out to the market­place to purchase. When his hands were busy, he found it easier to focus during lessons and lengthy state functions, so I got him puzzle boxes, tiny gyro spinners, a ring that concealed a small compass, and—?my favorite—?a walnut-size figurine made of metal and magnets, with parts that could be twisted and rearranged into the shape of a half dozen different animals.

It was our own secret pastime, and I reveled in it. While it lasted.

But it was inevitable that Conrad would eventually cross paths with the whispers about me. It was clear that somewhere in the last months he had heard the rumors, understood them, and begun to believe them. He didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that distrust soured into something worse. I could hardly bear it, and so I coped the only way I knew how: I avoided him.

After my mother and brother were seated, the rest of us followed, and soon servants were scurrying around us, filling goblets and lighting candles. The seat to my left was unoccupied; it was my father’s chair, and would remain empty until Conrad ascended the throne. The seat to my right was where the toothless, doddering marchioness of Hallet usually sat, too senile to speak to me (or complain about me). But the marchioness was not in attendance; her seat was instead occupied by a man in an austere black Tribunal coat.

“You look lovely, Princess,” Toris said. “That color suits you.”

“Thank you, Toris,” I said through a tight smile.

He absently straightened the place setting, his rings—?of which there were five on each hand, one for each finger—?glinting. Mother said he’d been an academic once, a man with an unquenchable curiosity for history, who’d traveled far and wide collecting myths and artifacts, who had won her cousin Camilla’s love with his humor and wit. Losing his wife changed him, Mother said. But I remembered Camilla well; she was sweet and kind and lovely as a summer’s day. The Toris of my memory was exactly as detestable as the one currently straightening the silverware into precise and even parallels. If ever there had been a different version of this man, it was gone before I was old enough to recall it, long before Camilla died.

When the seafood fork was exactly one inch from the soup spoon, he said offhandedly, “I saw you this morning, dear Princess, somewhere you shouldn’t have been.” He leaned forward on his arms and turned a stare on me. “You’re getting rather reckless, don’t you think? You’d do well to be more careful.”