The Witchwood Crown

  Where was Lillia? Simon wondered too. It was hard to believe his confident granddaughter, who strode the castle halls as boldly as any monarch ever had, could actually be the last one to find their hiding place. It reminded him of something Miri had once told him: “You and I were never scared of the same thing. You were always afraid of being found out, but I was always afraid of being overlooked.”

  The crowding made the small storeroom even warmer. “Shush, you lot,” he said, “or she’ll find us.” But a part of him wanted Lillia to find them, because he was feeling a little worried about her. “In any case, don’t push. You’ll only make it hotter in here.”

  It was getting warm—downright hot, like a summer’s night when covers clung to damp legs and sleep would not come. When his dreams had been so horrible in the months after John Josua’s death, Simon had nearly cried some nights just from weariness, desperate for sleep. Now sleep itself seemed like something dangerous as it pulled at him, as the quiet voices of the children around him mixed and slurred. Where had Lillia gone? He groaned and stretched, but could not free himself from the weariness that was on him. What if he fell asleep here like some old drunkard? Shouldn’t he be out looking for his granddaughter?

  Even as he started to nod again he heard new voices. They were distant, barely audible above the children’s whispers, but Simon heard them most clearly, as if they spoke in his own thoughts.

  Come to us, they said. It is time. The time is here, for you to have again what you lost so long ago. It seemed almost like singing, like a river of words, flowing endlessly past. It is time to come to us. It is time . . .

  Startled, Simon sat bolt upright. That had been no child calling to him, but something else, a voice from out of his lost dreams. It is time . . . What could that mean?

  No. It means nothing, he told himself. It is only that I am sleepy and foolish. A warm afternoon, a tired old man.

  But he could still hear noise from outside the storeroom, new voices this time, and growing in strength.

  “Quiet!” he told the children. “Let me listen!”

  “Oh, God save us!” a woman was screaming. “God grant us mercy! The poor princess!”

  Sweet Elysia save me, am I awake or dreaming? he wondered, but his heart banging against his ribs felt very, very real. The princess? Who could that be but . . .?

  “Lillia!” he cried, shoving the children to either side as he rose and pushed his way through the dark toward the front of the closet. “Lillia! Oh, sweet Elysia, please let nothing have happened to her!” He was suddenly hollow with dread. “Lillia, where are you?”

  And then the door swung open and his granddaughter stood there, nothing but a silhouette, a ghost, until his eyes adjusted to the light. Lillia’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “Grandfather! What’s happened?” She burst into tears and rushed to wrap her arms around Simon’s waist. “Why are they shouting that the princess is dead? I’m not dead!”

  He could still hear people shouting, even more of them now, cries of horror and shock spreading through the residence.

  “Stay with me, all you children.” Something very bad had happened, he knew, and nothing would ever be the same. He held Lillia tightly. “Just stay with me, little ones. I’m the king. I’ll keep you safe.”

  Afterword

  She had found it again somehow, against all odds, and now she clasped the witchwood egg close to her breast and tried to fight her way through the chaos. She had stood outside this roiling madness once, she thought, had been able to consider her situation with something like detachment, but if that had ever been true, it had been a long time ago. Now the sky itself had turned to hot gray slush, and muddy hands reached up again and again from the bubbling muck that surrounded her, catching at her limbs and hair, trying always to pull her downward. Even the branches of the sacred willows seemed to reach out to entangle her, to force her back into the endless, all-devouring lake of steaming mud. Every step was a nightmare struggle.

  Why am I even fighting? Always now this treacherous voice spoke in her thoughts, urging surrender. The heat will only be for a little while, it told her. Then everything will turn cool again, cool as running water, cool as early spring grass, cool as stones deep in the ground. The fight will be over. You will rest.

  But despite her breathless weariness and her muddled thoughts, Tanahaya knew that voice was not telling the whole truth. It was the sleep of death to which she was being invited, the cool of life finally departing her body. And so she fought on.

  Faces came to her as she struggled, her family, her loved ones. But instead of urging resistance they joined the treacherous inner voice, begging her to give up.

  You have fought well, said ancient Himano, her clan lord. There is no disgrace in surrender, child. No disgrace.

  It was not disgrace she feared, but obliteration. Tanahaya was neck deep in bubbling hot mud, tangled in roots, but knew she dared not give up. Her people were so few now. They could not surrender, did not surrender, would never surrender, no matter how terrible the odds.

  We love you, as-good-as-sister, Aditu and Jiriki told her. We will remember you when you are at rest. We will celebrate your sacrifice.

  But Tanahaya did not want to be celebrated. She wanted nothing but to see the sun again and feel its dry warmth, to drink the scents on a breeze, to hear the music of wind through forest branches. She wanted to exist.

  Give up the egg. It is not worth dying for, her childhood friend Yeja’aro told her.

  No, it is worth living for, she told herself—told all the voices—even as her strength flagged and she slipped deeper into the boiling mud. It is worth living for.

  Then without warning a wind swept across the world, just a whisper of a breeze at first, then stronger, gradually stronger, cooling the mud, cooling the drippingly hot air, cooling everything. At first Tanahaya thought it only another attack, but the mud that pulled at her began to turn solid and after only a few more moments she kicked her way free. The hot mire had lost its grip, and she pulled herself out of it and onto solid land for the first time in a long, long while. When she did not sink again, when the beautiful cool continued to grow, she knew she could finally stop fighting.

  The fever. It was a last thought before she let go, before she could finally, truly rest after so long. The poison fever—it has finally broken.

  • • •

  “Tanahaya. Can you hear me?”

  “It’s us, Aditu and Jiriki. Can you hear us?”

  She opened her eyes, not without difficulty, because the lids were crusted and sore. “Where am I?” she asked.

  “In H’ran Go-jao, Sister-bird,” said Aditu, the beloved face bent close above her. “It gives my heart joy to see you. We feared you lost, but the healers have done their work. And not just our healers—the mortals kept you alive until they could bring you here, praise to the Garden.”

  “Yes,” said Jiriki, and there was something in his voice that Tanahaya had not heard before, something deep and profound. “Praise to the Garden.”

  “Poison. My wounds were poisoned with something terrible. What was it?”

  “The healers still do not know,” Aditu told her. “None of them have seen its like before. We are astonished you still live, dear friend.”

  “But I failed my mission.” Tanahaya had recovered enough to feel shame. “I let myself be ambushed before I even reached Asu’a.”

  “Did you see who did it?”

  Tanahaya tried to shake her head but was still too weak. She felt fragile, no more substantial than dried flower petals. “They shot at me from hiding. It was more than one enemy and the arrows were black. That is all I know.”

  “Black like those of the Hikeda’ya?”

  “Perhaps. At the time I did not closely examine their workmanship, and when I awoke later they were gone.” She lay still for a moment, breathing slowly, trying to think.
“How did I get here?”

  “The mortals brought you. The young prince and Count Eolair, an old ally of ours.”

  “I wish to thank them.”

  Jiriki made Lapwing’s Cry with his long fingers, the sign for a sadness that could not be helped. “They have gone. S’hue Khendraja’aro sent them back.”

  “But we need their help!”

  Aditu sat up, her hands cradling her round belly. “Yes, and they sought help from us as well, but the time is wrong for it—perhaps wrong beyond mending. It seems the curse of our two races to be so often at cross purposes.”

  “So what will we do?” Despite her fear, Tanahaya felt sleep pulling powerfully at her, but she did not want to give up the world again so soon.

  “What we must,” Jiriki said. “Fight on. Give our lives if that is all we can do. Because if we lose this time, the ending is unthinkable. It will be worse than what Ineluki Storm King himself had planned.” He made a sign against the jealous dead. “It may bring Unbeing itself.”

  “But you are not ready to rejoin that battle yet,” Aditu told her. “Sleep, dear Tanahaya. Sleep. As we say, tomorrow the Garden may be closer.”

  But even as she let herself slide back toward exhausted sleep, Tanahaya knew that Aditu only meant to soothe her. The Garden was lost, as all their people knew. It would remain lost no matter what, or at least everything good it had contained was gone beyond reclaiming. That was the doom of her people.

  Appendix

  PEOPLE

  ERKYNLANDERS

  Aedonita—playmate of Princess Lillia

  Agar, St.—an Aedonite saint

  Avner, Father—Lord Tiamak’s secretary

  Begga—one of Princess Idela’s ladies in waiting; trained in healing

  Benamin—the royal butler of the Hayholt

  Buttercup—mistress of a brothel in Erchester

  Cloda—Prince Morgan’s onetime nurse

  Colfer, Baron—nobleman; part of the royal progress

  Devona, Lady—Lord Gareth’s wife; mistress of Northithe

  Dregan—an innocent wanderer in the Kynswood

  Eahlstan Fiskerne, St.—King Simon’s ancestor and founder of the League of the Scroll; sixth king of the Hayholt; called the “Fisher King”

  Elias, King—former High King; Queen Miriamele’s father

  Elyweld—Aedonita’s sister

  Etan, Brother—an Aedonite monk

  Evoric, Baron—baron of Haestall

  Feran, Lord—Master of Horse; Marshal of the Hayholt

  Gared, Earl—nobleman of Northithe; husband of Lady Devona

  Gervis, Archbishop—archbishop of Erkynland

  Goda—the ostler’s girl

  Hatcher—owner of the Quarely Maid

  Idela, Princess—widow of Prince John Josua; daughter of Duke Osric

  Jack Mundwode—a mythical forest bandit

  Jeremias, Lord—Lord Chamberlain of the Hayholt

  John Josua, Prince—son of King Simon and Queen Miriamele; Prince Morgan and Princess Lillia’s father; late husband of Princess Idela; called “Johnno” by King Simon

  John Presbyter, King—former High King; Queen Miriamele’s grandfather; also known as Prester John

  Josua, Prince—King Elias’ brother; Queen Miriamele’s uncle

  Jubal, Sir—a knight

  Jurgen of Sturmstad, Sir—Night Captain of the Erkynguard

  Kenrick, Sir—a young Captain Marshal of the Erkynguard

  Lillia, Princess—granddaughter of King Simon and Queen Miriamele; Morgan’s sister

  Leleth—Queen Miriamele’s former handmaid

  Martha—resident maid of the Hayholt

  Melkin—Prince Morgan’s squire

  Miriamele, Queen—High Queen of Osten Ard; wife of King Simon

  Morgan, Prince—heir to the High Throne; son of Prince John Josua and Princess Idela

  Morgenes, Doctor—former Scrollbearer; King Simon’s onetime friend and mentor

  Natan—a forester of the Kynswood

  Osric, Duke—Lord Constable and Duke of Falshire and Wentmouth; Princess Idela’s father

  Putnam, Bishop—senior of the priests traveling with the royal party

  Rachel—former Mistress of Chambermaids of the Hayholt; also known as “The Dragon”

  Rinan—a young harper

  Rowson, Earl—a nobleman of Glenwick

  Sangfugol—a famous harper of the Hayholt

  Seth of Woodsall—chief architect of the Royal Court

  Shulamit, Lady—one of Queen Miriamele’s court ladies

  Simon, King—High King of Osten Ard and husband of Queen Miriamele; also known as “Seoman”, his birth name; sometimes called “Snowlock”

  Sofra—a young woman; acquaintance of Prince Morgan

  Strangyeard, Father—former Scrollbearer and royal chaplain of the Hayholt

  Sutrin, St.—an Aedonite saint, also known as Sutrines

  Tabata—resident maid of the Hayholt

  Tamar, Lady—wife of the Baron of Aynsberry; one of Queen Miriamele’s chief ladies-in-waiting

  Thomas Oystercatcher—mayor of Erchester

  Tobiah—a guardsman of the Hayholt

  Tostig, Baron—a wool merchant

  Wibert, Father—Lord Chancellor Pasevalles’ secretary

  Wiglaf, St.—an Aedonite saint

  Wilona, Lady—wife of Sir Evoric

  Zakiel of Garwynswold, Sir—Captain of the Erkynguard; Sir Kenrick’s commander

  HERNYSTIRI

  Aelin, Sir—great nephew of Count Eolair

  Aengas ec-Carpilbin of Ban Farrig—former Viscount of Abaingeat; a merchant and scholar of ancient books

  Airgad Oakheart—famous Hernystiri hero

  Bagba—cattle god

  Brannan—former monk and cook to Aengas

  Brynioch of the Skies—sky god

  Cadrach ec-Crannhyr—monk of indeterminate order

  Cuamh Earthdog—earth god

  Curudan, Baron—Commander of the Silver Stags

  Deanagha of the Brown Eyes—goddess; daughter of Rhynn

  Elatha—Count Eolair’s sister

  Eolair, Count—Lord Steward, Hand of the Throne and Count of Nad Mullach

  Evan—one of Sir Aelin’s men

  Gwythinn, Prince—King Hugh’s father; killed in the Storm King’s War

  Hern, King—legendary founder of Hernystir

  Hugh ubh-Gwythinn, King—ruler of Hernystir

  Inahwen—Dowager Queen

  Jarreth—Sir Aelin’s squire

  Irwyn, Sir—a knight

  Lluth, King—former ruler; father of Maegwin and Gwythinn

  Llythinn, King—King Lluth’s father

  Maegwin, Princess—daughter of King Lluth; died during the Storm King’s War

  Mircha—rain goddess; wife of Brynioch

  Morriga—the Maker of Orphans, the Crow Mother; an ancient war goddess

  Murdo, Earl—a powerful Hernystiri noble

  Murhagh One-Arm—war god

  Murtach, Sir—a courtier who accompanies the royal progress to Elvritshalla

  Nial, Count of Nad Glehs—Countess Rhona’s husband

  Riggan—a kitchen servant of the Hayholt

  Rhona, Countess—noblewoman of Nad Glehs; friend to Queen Miriamele; guardian of Princess Lillia, who calls her “Auntie Rhoner”

  Samreas, Sir—Baron Curudan’s hawk-faced lieutenant

  Sinnach—former prince of Hernystir, also known as “The Red Fox”

  Tethtain, King—fifth king of the Hayholt; called the “Holly King”

  Tylleth, Lady—widow of Earl of Glen Orrga; betrothed to King Hugh

  RIMMERSMEN

  Alva, Lady—Countess of Engby; Jarl (Earl)
Sludig’s wife

  Dyrmundur—Jarnulf’s companion in the Skalijar

  Elvrit—first King of Rimmersgard, called “Elvrit Far-Seeing”

  Fingil Bloodfist—first human ruler of the Hayholt; called “Fingil the Great” and “Fingil the Bloody-Handed”

  Frode—Escritor of Elvritshalla

  Fray, the Green Mother—goddess

  Gerda, Lady—daughter of Jarl Halli

  Gret—Jarnulf’s sister

  Grimbrand—son of Duke Isgrimnur; duke apparent

  Gutfrida, St.—Aedonite saint

  Gutrun, Duchess—Duke Isgrimnur’s late wife

  Halli, Jarl—lord of Blarbrekk Castle

  Helvard, St.—Aedonite saint

  Hildula, St.—a visionary nun of an earlier century; also an Aedonite saint

  Hjeldin, King—second ruler of the Hayholt and King Fingil’s son; called the “Mad King”

  Ikferdig, King—third ruler of the Hayholt; called the “Burned King”

  Isbeorn—Duke Isgrimnur’s father

  Isgrimnur of Elvritshalla, Duke—ruler of Rimmersgard

  Ismay—Duke Isgrimnur’s younger daughter

  Isvarr—Grimbrand’s son

  Isorn—oldest son of Duke Isgrimnur and Duchess Gutrun; killed during the Storm King’s War

  Jarnauga—former Scrollbearer; killed during the Storm King’s War

  Jarngrimnur—Jarnulf’s brother

  Jarnulf Godtru—a Queen’s Huntsman

  Jormgrun Redhand—last King of Rimmersgard; killed by King John Presbyter

  Loken—fire god

  Lomskur—a smith in Elvritshalla

  Maggi, Jarl—one of Rimmersgard’s most important nobles; has large holdings along the border with Hernystir

  Narvi—thane (baron) of Radfisk Foss

  Olov, Brother—former royal tutor

  Ragna—Jarnulf’s mother

  Roskva—Tzoja’s surrogate mother, called “Valada” (“wise woman”)

  Signi—Duke Isgrimnur’s elder daughter

  Skodi—a witch in northeastern Rimmersgard; killed during the Storm King’s War