Dividing Eden (Dividing Eden #1)(30)
Elder Cestrum waited for the Queen to instruct him to begin. When she didn’t, Lady Imogen stepped toward the Queen and quietly asked, “Your Majesty, would you like us to start?”
“Of course.” Mother smiled. “Let the festivities begin.”
Festivities?
Carys didn’t have time to think about her mother’s behavior as Imogen turned and walked to seven candles standing on gold pillars behind the bodies of Micah and her father.
Imogen stood behind the first of them and lit it as Elder Cestrum intoned, “Humility.”
Imogen moved on to the next, looking strong and confident as she always did when performing her duties. So different than the way she presented herself when she wasn’t acting as seer.
“Strength.”
Then another—each virtue announced for each candle lit. Patience. Chastity. Temperance. Charity. Endurance.
Carys watched the candles flicker as the Chief Elder spoke of the crown’s defense of the virtues and the power of the light to keep the kingdom safe. It was easier to watch the shifting of the flames than look at the faces of her brother or father. But soon the words were over and the seer and Chief Elder stood on either side of her brother. They took the edges of a cloth decorated with the symbols of the virtues and pulled it up to cover Micah’s body.
Andreus took Carys’s hand in his and she clung to it like the lifeline that it was. The pressure behind her eyes and in her chest swelled against the barrier the Tears of Midnight had erected as the cloth shifted over her brother’s face.
The seer and elder then walked to the center of the chapel and repeated the process with the King. This time Carys forced herself to look at his face for as long as she could. To remember. And as the cloth settled over it, she vowed she wouldn’t let those behind his death escape justice.
The rest of the Council appeared. In the candlelight, they lifted both covered bodies into wooden caskets and carried them from the chapel. Carys followed her mother and brother down the aisle after them and through the castle and down the steps to the city below, where they would then ride to escort the King and Prince to their final resting place.
The gongs rang again as they walked down the stairs to where their horses waited. Andreus had to help their mother mount her horse. In the blue cloak Oben had convinced her to wear, the Queen waved to the people solemnly lining the streets while the procession made its way to the main gates and then turned toward the mountains.
As she rode around the plateau toward the peaks beyond the plains Carys glanced behind her. The line of horses stretched for at least a mile. One broad face framed by red hair turned, caught her attention, and held it. Even from a distance she could make out the exact hazel color of his eyes, the wide crooked nose, and the mocking smile she’d found so fascinating when he and Micah sparred on the guards’ practice fields.
Until a year ago, Lord Garret had been Micah’s best friend. Then one day Carys woke up and heard he’d gone. Garret’s uncle, Elder Cestrum, would only say that Garret had returned to help his father oversee the District of Bisog, and Micah refused to discuss the real reason no matter how artfully she asked. No one, not even Chief Elder Cestrum, had spoken Garret’s name since.
And now Garret had returned.
He smiled to let her know she was staring. With a frown, she turned and studied the river to the south where she and her brother had played as children. She would not give in to the desire to glance behind her to see if Garret was still watching. She was older now than when she’d first felt her breath catch any time he walked into a room—his hair looking like it was on fire. Since then, she’d learned not to be impressed by thick muscles or chests as round as wine barrels. Just because something looked as if it could keep you safe didn’t mean it would.
Still, she could feel him behind her as well as Elder Jacobs, who had warned her not to get too close to the flames or she would get burned. Was he referring to searching out the truth about the ambush or something else?
She rode silently, glad she had taken several sips from the red bottle to help her withstand the journey through the foothills that led to the Shadow Mountains and the majestic Tomb of Light that had been created hundreds of years before. Artisans of the past dug and carved and smoothed the stone, creating an ornate entrance to the resting place of Eden’s rulers. Twenty feet inside the cave stood two large iron doors that Carys’s father had had installed by the Masters of Light. Those doors could only be opened using the power from the windmill that chopped the air directly above the cave. Only the royal family and the head of the Guild of Light knew how to operate the doors. If the castle was attacked and the royal family slaughtered, the secret of the doors would stop the usurpers from desecrating those who had been placed in the light.
Their mother should have operated the doors now, but she just laughed at the idea of getting off her horse and told Andreus and Carys to go without her. Captain Monteros kept all of the mourners back as Carys and Andreus left their mother smiling in the sun while they went into the cave. Andreus walked to the left corner while Carys went to the right. It took only moments for each of them to pry up the correct stones her father showed them years ago.
Underneath her stone was a rectangular hole with wires and a pile of seemingly purposeless stones. It took Carys only a few moments to dig through the rocks and find the small, perfectly clear stone—the key the Masters had created. Carefully, she placed the stone in the space between the metal wires, while on the other side of the tomb entrance her brother did the same. A few seconds later the doors began to move. A light brighter than the sun at midday spilled from inside the cavern. Carys shielded her eyes as the guards carried the caskets inside, so that they might rest in that place, the room always bathed in the white light of virtue.