State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(13)
The people began to stir, lowering their knives and looking to the dais. Sorrow didn’t notice, lost in her thoughts. It was wrong to wish her father dead, though she’d heard him beg for Death to restore his golden son and take his dark daughter instead. Even so, like her hatred for Mael, sometimes the desire to be rid of her father rose like a snake inside her. But she always tamed it, locking it back in a box inside her mind. She’d have to govern if he was gone. Submit her name, and be elected. Take control of Rhannon… Try somehow to repair the shattered land, and people… Be responsible for it all. The people, the land… All on her.
Suddenly even the thought of Rhyllian bread wasn’t enough to whet her appetite.
“Sorrow?” She was so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Charon approach. He sat in his wheeled chair, looking up at her, the worried expression returned to his face. “I think it’s time, Sorrow. It’s getting late.”
Sorrow dipped her head guiltily, the motion buying her a second to recall herself. From the corner of her eye she saw Charon shake his head as he turned his chair abruptly and wheeled back to his table. When she looked up Rasmus’s eyes were gleaming, not with tears but amusement at her distraction. She looked away, rising to her feet, her hands clasped before her.
“My father wanted very much to be with you tonight,” she lied, her voice deadened by the endless drapes. “But this night, of all nights, is hard for him. To remember that eighteen years ago, Mael still walked among us, is unbearable for him. For us all. This land has lost much, and is poorer for it. If you would pray with me now.”
She paused to allow them time to push away from their tables, for those who were able to kneel on the stone floor, heads bent, hands clasped before them. “Our beloved Grace of Death and Rebirth, we beseech you today to care for Mael, our dearest son.”
The speech was a modified version of the one her father, and later her grandmother, used to give, and the words were scored across her brain, and that of everyone there, she could see them now, their lips moving as they mouthed along with her. A woman sitting at the Jedenvat table had covered her face with gloved hands, her chin lowered to her chest, praying.
“… and we pray that one day soon we will be reunited with him in the kingdom of—”
Before Sorrow could finish a scream rent the air, and everyone turned to the sound.
It was the praying woman, head still bent, clutching at the hematite beads around her neck, as though they were the cause of her malady.
Everyone around the woman recoiled suddenly, scrambling over benches to get away from her. She turned towards Sorrow, her hands outstretched as though pleading. Her hands were covered in blood. And her eyes … her eyes…
The woman’s eyes were sliding down her face, like the albumen of an egg, blood and pinkish fluid coating her cheeks. Her screams were now silent, her mouth gaping as she continued to tear at her necklace.
Fear wrapped icy fingers around Sorrow’s heart as she vaulted over the table, running towards the woman. What was this? Some disease?
But no, as Sorrow got closer she saw the redness around the woman’s nose, like it had been around her father’s. She saw the small vial that she must have dropped. She hadn’t been praying. She’d been taking Lamentia. Inhaling it, as Harun had. And it had done this…
The necklace broke, sending dozens of small, shining dark beads to the ground, the sound like hailstones against the tiles.
“Call a physician.” Sorrow’s voice was shrill with fear. “Someone do something!” For a moment, no one moved, then two of the guard stepped forward, their faces grey as they edged towards her.
The woman saved them the need to aid her. She took a great gasp that sent those who’d been nearest her tumbling even further back and then she slumped to the floor, spasming briefly before falling unnaturally still.
Immediately everyone in the room froze too, their eyes on the body. Irris stepped forward then, removing the cape from around her shoulders and placing it tenderly over the woman’s head. Her movement broke the spell, and Sorrow heard someone begin to sob.
“Return to your lodgings.” Charon took charge as Sorrow stared at the now-covered body. “Add your prayers for –” Charon paused, searching for the woman’s name “– Alyssa’s soul to those for Mael’s. Pray for them both.”
Alyssa. Charon’s words penetrated Sorrow’s stunned horror. Balthasar’s new wife. So he’d dragged her into his addiction with him. And now she was dead.
The court began to leave, but Sorrow couldn’t take her eyes from the covered mound on the floor. She kept seeing Alyssa’s empty eye sockets, the remains of them glistening on her cheeks as she collapsed. Irris moved to her side as the room emptied, leaving the two of them and Charon behind. When Irris slipped an arm around her shoulder, Sorrow leant into her friend’s touch.
Behind her Charon was now giving orders to the guards. “Remove the body to the infirmary. Find her husband.”
“He’s in the cells,” Sorrow said in a low voice, and Charon turned to her sharply. “I found him earlier when I went to see my father.” She paused then, watching the guards lift Alyssa’s ruined body and leave with it, waiting until they were out of earshot before she continued. “He’d … he was under the influence of Lamentia.”
“Balthasar? Or the chancellor?”