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Perhaps someone still would. Who knew what would happen on that dreadful pilgrimage.
Foolish tradition.
I nestled my way into a small alcove at the edge of the market, my back against a brick wall nestled between two shop sellers. Dressed as dark as I was, when tucked into shadows I was not sure many would notice me, let alone keep their voices down when sharing gossip. If I hoped to make it past the tall black gates of the Runturin, I needed to know what I was up against, this was the perfect place to do that. I could see the high gates clearly, the voices from the market carrying right toward me and providing me with all manner of gossip.
A small cluster of guards in black and purple stood at attention by the gates, their posture rigid as they scanned the crowd. I was sure I could end them easily, but that would only call attention to myself. I needed another way in.
From where I sulked in the shadows, I could see the high spires of the Runturin peek over the high, stone walls, the dagger-like spires cut from stone so dark it looked like streaks of dried Fae blood against the mountains behind.
The first time I had arrived in Turin, I had been in awe of the high spires of the castle, the way they looked to be carved into the mountains. I spent hours staring at the long guard walks, and the high smooth walls. The Runturin was a fortress, one made even more impenetrable after Dalyah took her crown.
After the wicked woman had appeared, I had tried to regain a position inside, I had even tried the old hidden entries into the Runturin I had found, but all was locked. There was no way in. Besides, everyone had heard the wild stories about how the new Queen had changed the interior to keep the King safe. Even if I was to find a way in now, I wasn’t even sure I could find my way around to reach her.
“Take the lot!”
“I need five eggs, you gave me seven, you bloody louser!”
“Bread! Fresh bread! A copper for a half, two copper for the whole!”
“By the Goddess you can’t mean to charge that much.”
The voices rattled, everything blending in a cacophony of noise as the crowds continued to mill and wander around me, no one paying a knicks worth of attention to the man half hidden in shadows, staring at the high spires that had haunted my nightmares as well as my dreams.
There was something different about them, however, as though something had changed. It wasn’t just darkness in there anymore. It was as though some magic was inside me that shouldn’t be; it tingled over my skin, the wicked dark bleeding through me and screaming that I needed to get in there right then and–
“Fresh Ham! Slaughter this morn! Fresh Ham!” The voice cut through the panic that had been winding through me, taking such a tight hold that I hadn’t realized I had stopped breathing. I hadn’t realized I had taken a step forward into the light. I tucked myself back into the shadows, forcing down the odd mix of terror and panic that was still trying to creep its way through me, the unwanted emotions mixing with the heat of a magic that would be more than a little dangerous this close to the queen.
“Ham! Ham!” The man kept yelling until another man with a crook in his back made his way through the crowd, a gnarled hand on a cane.
“Stop your blathering, I’ll take it all.” His snap was gravel as he leaned over the cane, looking at the other meats the seller had laid out as the overjoyed butcher wrapped the pig in paper, a young boy of about ten doing everything in his power to tie the twine around it.
“Do you think the Princess will make the journey?” I nearly jumped at the voice, the woman at the flower stall gossiping with what looked to be the partner of the old man, the woman just as crooked and wrinkled.
“I dunno dear,” she whispered, taking a look around before she continued. I didn’t dare breathe or shift against the slimy wall lest the subtle motions catch their eye. “It’s been a few years since that Queen let her outta there. I know she has no magic, but neither do the lot of us and we get along fine.”
“They say because her Catalyst died the magic that’s still inside of her is like an infection, making her sick.” The younger woman said, now tying together a second bunch of flowers.
“They say a lot of things dear, when you get as old as I am you realize most of them is a lie.”
The younger woman nearly froze at that, as did I, although clearly not for the same reason. The old crone had no idea how close to the truth she actually was.
“You don’t think Princess Elara is sick?” The flower seller nearly gasped the words.
The old woman shook her head, “I don’t, and I’ll tell you, there are days I sit in my window, staring at that horrible fortress and I swear I see a flame of gold on those high spires, yellow and gleaming like that poor princess’s hair, like the light I am sure she has boiling in those royal veins.”
The younger woman stared at the older, her lips pressed together as her eyes continued to dart around.
“You might be right. I had a woman here last week, works in the Runturin scrubbin’ floors. She said she sees that girl everywhere in there. Dressed in rags and–”
The two women shifted closer, their voices dropping lower so as not to have been overheard. I could have still heard them, would have if it wasn’t for the guard that emerged from the black gate, a long cloak draped around him and falling nearly to the slick cobbled road.
That wasn’t what made everything fall away, however. That wasn’t what made my heart hammer in my chest as both my magics rose up as if they were fighting for space to explode out of me.
It was the white snake that was embroidered into the front of this man’s uniform.
Not the royal emblem of wings and crown, but a white snake.
The same snake of the army the queen controlled in the world I was born in. The army that had killed my sister. The world fell to smoke at the memory of the face of that man, the face that had haunted so many of my nightmares flared through memory, the scar that ran down his face, those deaths eyes, the pointed ears of the Fae.
