State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(90)

Sorrow stared down at the page, her vision swimming. It was a coincidence. It had to be.

But there was a chill in her bones, a deep, heavy pooling of dread in her stomach.

She had to find Charon.

She hurried from her room, ignoring Dain when she asked if Sorrow was all right as she passed. She left the small palace and began to run, the piece of paper gripped in her hand as she followed the covered walkways. She should have asked him where he was staying – wait, what had the woman, Deryn, told her? With Ambassador Mira. Charon was staying with her.

Sorrow saw two Rhyllian guards walking ahead of her and sped up, slowing when they turned at the sound of her feet pounding the gravel.

“Ambassador Mira’s quarters?” she panted. “I need to find them.”

The men looked between themselves, silently conferring, before one pointed towards a small palace, painted a soft green. “There.”

“Thank you,” Sorrow gasped, forgetting Rhyllians disliked the simple phrase and breaking into a run once more.

There was another guard outside, and he moved to block her path as she approached.

“I’m Sorrow Ventaxis,” she said as she drew up before him. “I understand the Rhannish vice chancellor is staying here. I need to see him, urgently.”

She wondered how she looked to him, still dressed in the pale blue gown she’d worn to the Naming ceremony. She could feel her hair had fallen loose from its knot atop her head as she’d run, knew her face would be flushed, her eyes wide and panicked.

The man gave her a once-over and, apparently deciding she wasn’t a threat, stood aside, and Sorrow entered the ambassador’s palace.

The layout of the ambassador’s palace seemed the same as the one she occupied, so she turned to the left and followed a short passageway down to where the rose parlour was in her own quarters. As she’d hoped, it was the same here, though instead of roses the walls were patterned with birds, vases of feathers instead of flowers, but the room was empty of the vice chancellor.

At the sound of her footsteps a butler appeared from a small door behind the bar area.

“Can I help?” he asked in Rhannish.

“Is Lord Day here?”

“Yes, miss. I believe he’s in his rooms. From the hallway, follow the corridor down; it’s the second door on the right.”

Sorrow nodded her thanks, turning back and heading to the room she’d been directed to, heart beating in time with her hurried footsteps.

She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

“Yes?” Charon called.

Sorrow went in.

As in the small palace, the room was a library, now adapted into a bedroom for Charon, so he could come and go as he pleased without needing to be carried up and down stairs. There was a low bed, and a small sitting area, and a screened part that Sorrow assumed was for bathing or dressing. But at that moment she didn’t care about the setup of the room. She didn’t care about anything but getting an answer to the question that was bubbling through her like poison.

Charon was sitting up on the bed, the chair parked beside it, his legs under a light blanket, a book in his hands. The window was open, birdsong and the low buzzing of bees drifting in through it, and the room smelled of the roses that grew outside. Charon frowned when he saw Sorrow, opening his mouth to speak.

Then he saw the piece of paper in her hand, crumpled and ragged.

Without saying a word, he swung himself off the bed and into his chair, rolling to meet her in the middle of the room. He met her gaze steadily, though she could see the fluttering of his pulse at his throat.

“Tell me…” Sorrow began, but didn’t know how to finish. “On the day I was born, a baby girl vanished from the hospital—”

“Sorrow…”

“No.” Her voice was high, still breathless from running. “Let me finish. A baby girl vanished the night I was born. And I was born with the cord around my neck, wasn’t I?” she asked as Charon lowered his head. “That’s the story. Grandmama revived me when the midwife froze. Whisked me out of the room to save me. And she did. I lived.”

Charon said nothing.

“Or did I die?” Sorrow said. “Rather, did the real Sorrow die? And my grandmother took me instead, to take her place. Is that why you didn’t want me to look at the reports? Not because it was a waste of time, but because of this?”

Still he didn’t speak, his eyes locked on hers, his mouth pressed together. On the wheels of his chair, Charon’s knuckles were white.

“I’m an imposter,” Sorrow said.

“No.” Charon spoke then. “You’re not an imposter.”

“So I’m wrong? This is a coincidence?”

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“Sorrow, please. Sit. If you fall I can’t catch you.”

If it hadn’t been for the fact her bones felt as though they were made of spun sugar, she would have remained standing to defy him. But she didn’t trust them to hold her for much longer, so she sat, collapsing into a chair covered in gold silk, as Charon moved opposite her.

“I want to hear it all. The whole truth.”

Charon gave a single, deep nod.

“I didn’t know until afterwards – that’s not an excuse,” he said. “But I want you to know it wasn’t a scheme. None of it was planned, by anyone. And by the time I found out it was too late to do anything without destroying the country. I was in hospital myself when it happened.” He gestured down at his legs. He would have been bed-bound, the bones in his legs shattered beyond repair when he dived after Mael.