Page 2 of The Blight of Hollowmire

“My lady,” Etia murmurs, curtsying to Bronwyn—who suddenly shrieks and drops the gown on the floor. A high-pitched chittering erupts from the armoire and a small, furry creature bolts forward, startling my sister and the maid.

I chuckle as the length of piebald fur races toward me. The women glower.

“Good morning, Nibblebones,” I coo. The corpse weasel scampers up my arm and burrows beneath my hair, settling on my shoulder with a rumbling trill.

“That creature is a menace,” Etia mutters, plonking the tray of medicinal tea on my table with an exaggerated clatter. “Corpse weasels belong with the dead.”

Bronwyn stoops to pick up the dropped puddle of gray wyrm silk and glowers at me.

“Is it any wonder why it haunts Vireth’s chamber, then?”

The remark stings, but I bare my fangs right back at my beleaguered sibling and spare a cold glance at Etia, whose eyes are downcast with second-hand embarrassment.

“You’ve delivered your tidings, and you—your tea—now, both of you get out.”

The low warning comes in time with a resonant rumble of thunder, and blessedly, they turn to leave. On Bronwyn’s heels, I hear Etia mumbling.

“I tell you, my lady,” she worries. “I just know this weather is an ill omen for Lady Sephia’s bloomday…”

The heavy wooden door closes behind them, leaving Nibblebones and I in disappointed silence.

“Joyous bloomday to me,” I mumble, rising to pull the tray of breakfast back into bed with me. Nibblebones whines piteously, so I swipe a mushroom through the savory marrow and feed her absent-mindedly.

Rain begins to tap against the windowpanes in a steadily increasing rhythm, giving pace to my thoughts. It’s sure to be another trying day, especially if I need to spend it at court instead of entertaining myself in the woods or sneaking down to the kitchens. Every moment I’m forced to stand in that obnoxious great hall is a moment of agony—trying to pretend I can’t hear every whisper, every disgusted voice that floats in my direction.

Nibblebones creeps closer to my bowl, her whiskers glittering in the morning light as she sniffs desirously at my breakfast.

“Did you not catch any mice last night?” I chuckle.

She whines again, and I proffer her another mushroom.

“Very well, but that’s the last of it for you. If I’m going to survive this day, I’ll need a full belly.”

The remark is meant with levity, but sounds about as light as an anvil. At forty, I should have learned how to block out the disdain, or at very least, how to keep it from burrowing under my skin, but all I’ve ever learned was how to keep a placid expression while it takes root in my chest and festers.

At court, my allies are thin on the ground—my friends, nonexistent.

“Perhaps it is time for us to leave,” I say to Nibblebones. “I hear that the southern edge of Moontide has plots of land for sale along the coast.” If I’m to be an exile in my own home, I might as well go somewhere with a better view. “Wouldn’t that be a dream, little one? Setting up in a small cottage between the sea and the forest, with land for me to have a little garden and wilds enough for you to hunt? And no one to bother us or scurry away in fear.”

With the rest of my sisterly brood having been married off or otherwise occupied, everyone’s attention fixated upon Sephia, and I was left largely to my own devices. Now, however, with her likely nuptials and departure for Moontide, I sense my mother’s caustic eye and iron will looming. The gods know what she might plan for her last unmarried disappointment, but I venture it will be worse than a thousand pots of leywort. Despair blooms in my chest, unfurling like a mushroom that has long ago taken root. Leave now, abandon all I’ve known in order to remain myself, or stay and wither in a place that has never been able to nurture me.

“I believe they refer to this as a rock and a hard place,” I murmur, and Nibblebones chirps.

My porridge bowl nearly empty, I turn to the wretched pot of bitter tea. Pouring myself a large mug of the hated stuff, I drink it down as quickly as I can without letting it burn my mouth. Immediately, the effects begin to drag through my veins—dampening my powers, silencing the gentle thrum of decay that pulses within me. I hate the quiet that follows, the utter stillness where my roiling soul should be. It’s like being stripped of flesh, stripped of skin, stripped of my connection to the earth. I become an ambulatory skeleton, bowing to propriety and clattering through the empty halls of my wing in the castle.

Nibblebones whines again, pressing her tiny nose to my cheek and licking the black tear that spills from my eye.

“And of course, no more leywort tea,” I sniff. It’ll help until you learn control, Mother used to say. But she never gave the stuff to my other sisters—not even when Naia had her heart broken and made it rain inside the dining hall for days on end.

The final bite of savory porridge and herby mushrooms banishes the last of the bitterness from my tongue. A full belly tempers some of my ire. I expect the delegates and guests to arrive just before sunset, which gives me plenty of time to don my gown and carve my lips into the vapid smile everyone seems to prefer. Enough time, I think, to visit the only one who is obligated to interact with me, thus passing for my closest acquaintance.

Slipping into my breeches, tunic, and boots, I pile my hair in a knot atop my head and whistle for Nibblebones, who’s distractedly licking the last smears of the marrow from my porridge bowl. She chitters and leaps to my shoulder, then winds her way through my messy updo. The warm weight of her on top of my head is a comfort on this cold, dismal day. Another deep rumble of thunder accompanies me through the halls, reverberating off the stones like giants lobbing boulders.

I find Ulfrid in the smithy that’s attached to the stables and adjacent the training ring. He’s hunched over the whetstone, sharpening a ceremonial sword that’s never drunk a drop of blood, but probably looks very pleasing dangling from some useless noble’s belt.

“Good morrow, Lady Vireth,” he grunts. “Shouldn’t you be helping your mother and sisters prepare for tonight’s festivities? I haven’t time for training today.”

The blade’s metallic scrape punctuates the meditative whirr of the whetstone—Ulfrid never losing his rhythm even as his black eyes flick up to meet mine.