Heart of Stone (18 page)

29.

Queen Cozette

Palace Royale, Gemmes

“My queen….” Drake wrung his gloves nervously in his hands.

“What is it Drake?” Her heart started to beat faster. Where was the king? Why was he not with this returning company?

“The king was … is….”

And then she knew.

Drake didn’t have to finish. He was gone. She looked in the courtyard and saw guards carrying a covered body.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

The king, her husband, was dead.

              Cozette realized, in that instant, falling was not a motion, not an action that occurred to a person or a thing. No, she realized falling was a feeling, deep inside, that was continuous and unending. The falling contained all the things she wanted to keep in the air. Things no longer capable of suspension.

              Cozette saw that falling was the moment when nothing is in the place it should be. It was everywhere and nowhere. Falling was nothingness. It reminded her of the stories she’d heard as a child, make-believe stories of the Hedge, the place between.

That was the figurative place she went when she learned from Drake that her husband was dead.

She didn’t believe him at first. She floated down the now seemingly sterile halls of her grand palace toward the body Drake said was her husband. The man who held so much, yet delivered so little. The man who was here, throughout, regardless. 

She saw his body. Not a scrap or a bruise. Not a cut or a slash. No burn, no bleed. His body was wholly there, just not in spirit.

His soul was the part that was floating; perhaps it had already landed somewhere. Cozette realized, with deep, tender longing within her chest, as she ached for the things that were never to be.

She ached for the man because she knew, more than anyone else, in ways no one else ever would, the severe suffering Marcus felt so many days of his life.

She thought it right that he suffered not in death, as well.

“How did it…?”

Happen? Start? End?

Cozette didn’t know what to ask Drake. There was no right way to ask how one’s husband was murdered, no way to put words to the longing that would never, ever, be filled again.

No way to put words to the fall.

Drake’s wife, Nicolette, was there in her chamber. A more faithful friend Cozette never had. Scarlet, her chambermaid watched solemnly in the corner. Drake stood in the room, too, the bearer of the news. Now bound to stay until dismissed by the queen.

The sole ruler of Gemmes.

“It seems the
Trésor de L’espoir
was not the only legend that has come true. Hedge Riders rode there as well,” Drake said, to the hushed shock from the women around him.

Cozette smiled in disbelief. Because that was what everything would be from now on. Disbelief. How could she ever believe that as soon as she heard she had a child near her death, she would lose the man who sentenced her so?

Disbelief.

“That can’t be true, Drake,” Nicolette said with reproach.

“They were looking for my girl, weren’t they? The Hedge Riders?” Cozette asked with a shaky voice, realizing the Hedge was real. She had spent her childhood imagining the unearthly Riders, depicted in fairy tales and storybooks. Like anyone else, she wanted the place the Hedge came from to exist. If it did, then there was life after death. She wanted them to be real.

And they were.

They were looking for the girl who was living because of a dark spell. Her girl.

Maybe she wouldn’t be forced to live a life of disbelief after all. If she found her girl, maybe there would be the possibility of belief. Marcus might not rise from the dead, but stranger things were happening, weren’t they? Her once dead daughter was nearly found.

“Your daughter.” Nicolette trembled as she knelt next to Cozette. She’d faithfully stayed by her side for so many years of mourning. 

Cozette had already explained to Nicolette, her oldest confidant, what Marcus had told her before he left to look for her girl. Drake explained to them how search parties scoured the country for any girl who might be the one. They awaited word from her as to when they should leave their posts to honor His Majesty.

Cozette didn’t have to fight to blink back any tears. There were none. She didn’t have time to cry when there was so much on the line. She had to find her daughter, before she died.

Losing them both in one fell swoop was too much to imagine. So she didn’t.

“Scarlet, you need to pack a trunk. Drake, gather a traveling party for me, I’ll meet the Légion in the Montagne and find my girl. I’ll know her when I see her.”

She turned to Nicolette. “You must plan the ball, in my absence. It will be the largest
fête
of the century. It will no longer be a party to celebrate trade routes – no. It will be to celebrate the return of the Princess of Gemmes.”

“But she might….” Nicolette whispered, tears in her eyes.

“Die? That is the word you are scared to use? Do not use it. My girl will be found. We’ll find a way to make her live, if it is the last thing I do.”

“Of course, Cozette. I will work on all the preparations. But the King….” Nicolette’s voice always trailed off. She wasn’t the sort of woman strong enough to say what she thought.

Cozette, however, was. A part of her, that buried part that was once tough, seemed to emerge as Marcus’s grip was suddenly loosened. She made a quick decision; she needed to lie to rest the past, so she might begin her future. It wasn’t callous; it was what Marcus would have wanted her to do.

Grieving would come later. After.

“We must have the funeral, it’s only right. Time is of the essence. Drake, have the people been notified of his death?”

“We have scribes working on letters to send with the carrier doves as we speak. If you want to hold off until after you find the girl … perhaps we can keep the news of his death to rumors. Until we can properly grieve as a nation.”

Cozette took in his suggestion. She always believed one of Marcus’s most redeeming qualities, as a leader, was that he had Drake as his right hand man.

“I don’t want to pretend it never happened. As queen, I will not ignore the truth. Our king is dead. Send the letters. Royally pronounce his death. The funeral will be tomorrow. Then I will go find my daughter. Later we can mourn.”

Nicolette ran to her friend’s arms, embracing Cozette’s narrow shoulders and kissing her cheeks. “You are so brave, so strong. You will find your girl. Your beating hearts will find each other.”

Cozette nodded her head, knowing what her friend didn’t completely understand. Only one heart beat now. It was hers. Her daughter’s heart was stone.

30.

Sophie

King’s Montagne, Gemmes

She knew it was dumb, but as the King’s Légion seized them for questioning, Sophie looked longingly at all those wasted caramels lying in the dirt.

              “Really, do you have to do this? Since when did the King’s Légion stop random citizens on the road and interrogate them?” Tristan implored.

He was understandably upset. Purposefully, he had always kept himself away from the king, and anyone who might threaten to take his gems.

“Identify yourselves!” the man who was in charge ordered, from under the awning of a carriage. Sophie gathered the king himself wasn’t in this group. However, it was clear these soldiers were a portion of his Légion, over a dozen soldiers and their guardsmen and servants. The large party rode through the hills, toward them. Sophie and Tristan were quite focused on one another to not hear this sizable group before they were on top of them.

“We’re citizens, okay? Seriously, do you have to detain us like escapees?” Sophie rolled her eyes, seemingly undeterred by the soldier’s grip on her arm.

“What are your names and ages?”

Tristan looked at Sophie, imploring her to keep her mouth shut.

Sophie huffed, irritated.

“Why are you doing this?” Tristan asked.

“Orders from the king,” he said wearily, eyes rimmed in red from lack of sleep.

The soldiers rifled through the bags. Their heavy eyes and need for a bath confirmed these men were tired, and had travelled a long time by. Her bag held nothing of interest in her bag, some dirty clothes and a pouch of jasper.

She was relieved in her choice to give Tristan the diamond, and his choice to take it to Madame Josephine’s. Any doubt in that decision, in her lack of loyalty to Henri, disappeared knowing the King’s Légion would have confiscated it if they’d found it.

“Your names, now, or we will hold you as prisoners.” The longer Sophie and Tristan withheld answering, the angrier the soldiers became.

The man who’d gone through Tristan’s bag spoke excitedly as he held up the Book of Lore. “Looky-here, Sam, a book that might be of importance.” He flipped open the cover revealing a name, broadly in red ink.

Tristan De’Cheval.

“Seriously, Tristan?” Sophie rolled her eyes, annoyed that he would be so obvious.

“Ahhh, so we’ve stumbled upon the infamous Gem Tracker. The man everyone speaks of.” Sam leered at Tristan’s face. Sophie noticed a line of sweat on Tristan’s brow; he was nervous.

Sam kicked the bag to the side. Sophie winced.

“It’s good; we hoped to find you. Now, let’s see, anything special in this pretty little thing’s bag? Clues that might give away who she is?”

Sophie wasn’t sentimental; she didn’t keep trinkets from her past, and certainly didn’t pack any with her when she left home.

“What do you want with him?” she asked boldly.

“It doesn’t matter; just stay quiet. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Tristan grabbed her hand, as if he hoped to reassure her. His hand did nothing for her except feel contained.

“Oh, Tristan. Seriously. You are so melodramatic.” She turned to Sam, and held his gaze, wanting to understand why she mattered to him. “Look, if you were looking for the tracker, you found him. You knew who he was, why do I matter to you?”

Sophie’s approach was direct, and it seemed to work. Sam dropped her bag and looked at her, the creases on his face deep, doing the king’s work looked exhausting, and he seemed to relax in her confidence.

“We’re looking for a girl, your age. An orphan. A girl who doesn’t know her parents. Orders from the king. That’s all we know. We scoured each village looking for her.”

“No luck?” Sophie asked, a sharp pain splitting through her chest, like it had the night she had the stone reading. The aching feeling inside her that she had felt back at Miora’s, crept awake once again. It felt ominous. Like Miora meant for her to be here, now.

“We thought we were close. We were in the
Vallee de Provence
last, and everyone there kept mentioning a girl who had recently run away. We found a woman, Francesca, who claimed to be her mother, but upon further questioning, we determined her a liar. Are you the girl who ran away?” He matched her direct question with one of his own.

Sophie was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t, however, ready to lay her stones on the table without knowing more.

“The woman … what happened to her?”

“She was executed. Treason to the king. She purposely withheld information. She wasn’t the girl’s mother.”

“You killed her?” Sophie asked her mouth coiling on the side in icy hatred for these men. The men who had shook out their possessions on the dirt road carelessly, the men who pawned through their belongings without regard.

Sophie clenched her jaw, not understanding why the crevice inside her split open, wider still. It hurt. Like she was dying. She grabbed her chest, rubbing the moonstone, now aflame, over the spot that hurt.

Sam scoffed and laughed, jabbing the side of the man next to him.

“Do you know the king? Have you heard of the Majesty?” he asked, his voice saturated in mockery. “He is a man without mercy. That why he is The Ruler. No one has the right to betray him with words or deeds.”

Tristan’s hand tightened around hers, and Sophie realized it was a motion she recognized. He wasn’t holding onto her
for her
. It was for him. He needed her. An image of Henri flashed through her mind again.

It wasn’t the time to be sentimental, if that’s what you’d call this.

This man, Sam, was telling her he had killed the woman who raised her. She didn’t want to react. If she did, he would know who she was. He wouldn’t let her go.

A stirring inside caused her to wonder why the king looked for her at all. Or at least wanted a girl
like
her.

“This woman … did she say anything about the girl? I mean we might have seen her. We’ve travelled for a bit,” Tristan explained.

“Oh, that woman wouldn’t speak. A young thing in town, who went to school with the girl spilled the jewels. They were rewarded. The old woman, she still hangs in the village square.”

Sophie felt sick. He had confirmed the truth. Her not-mother was dead. It was too much. She felt Tristan’s hand squeeze hers, understanding. She was the girl they wanted. Tristan remained still as did she.

“So what are you planning to do with me? Kill the tracker if he doesn’t speak?”

Sam laughed again. The Légion hung on every word she spoke, as they crowded closer. She didn’t feel safe. It wasn’t a sensation she usually experienced, but here she was, in the King’s Forest, with a few dozen soldiers, a handsome young man who was freakishly obsessed with her, and the knowledge that Francesca was dead.

“We aren’t killing the man who holds the
Trésor de L’espoir
in his back pocket, you fool. We are delivering you both to the Palace. The king can decide if you are the girl we were told to find. You may be the wench the old woman was willing to die for. How would we know?”

Sam’s men led them to a carriage, and told them to take a seat, that they were moving again, toward
Éclat
. Tristan and Sophie moved silently, as commanded. A soldier set their packs in their carriage, shutting the door.

Tristan leaned out the window, talking to Sam. “You’re letting us sit in here, in a Royal Carriage? Aren’t we prisoners or something?” Tristan’s voice hinted at disbelief.

The carriage was lined in golden velvet, encrusted with giant quartz the size of her hand. Sophie had never seen anything so remarkable. She looked at her dingy black frock and Tristan’s tattered pants, realizing how disheveled the pair of them were. How everyone was, in comparison to Royalty.

Sam held their gaze for a beat too long before answering, with a twinge of jealousy in his tone, “The king insisted if we find either the Gem Tracker or the girl, we are to treat them like we would his own children.”

He walked away, and the carriage started to move, as did the entire processional of the Légion.

Tristan reached for Sophie’s hand, looking at her as if trying to reach inside. Her chest burned. She rubbed her hand across the ache, trying to massage out the pain, but it did nothing. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to hear Tristan’s voice.

“Sophie,” he started, “your mother … she’s dead then?”

Of course the woman who raised her was dead. The soldier informed them of this.

When Sophie didn’t answer, Tristan continued, “I’m so sorry. I know how it feels. I lost both my parents.”

She looked at him coolly, thinking he didn’t know the first thing about her. How there was an emptiness inside her every day. How no matter what thrilling or scandalous thing she did, nothing filled the cavernous places in her chest. How nothing filled her with the passion he described, the kind of love Henri portrayed. He didn’t understand that even though she knew
she should
be in a mess of violent sobs now, instead she felt void. She wasn’t on the verge of tears.

She knew it wasn’t normal.

She knew
she should
feel sorrow. She
should
feel pain, but she didn’t feel any of that. She didn’t know how.

All she felt was curiosity. She wanted to know why the king might want her, a nobody orphan.

She used her free hand to feel the smooth velveteen seat, ignoring Tristan altogether. She didn’t have the energy to kiss him or placate him with words that weren’t her truth.

She pushed aside the tapestry of the curtained window, watching as the dense forest passed by. The vast woods, the miner’s camps set up along the way, she watched as villagers they passed paused from their day’s labor to watch the King’s Légion go by.

In time the throbbing pain inside her dulled, and she let herself imagine a life that wasn’t empty. A life where she didn’t chase adventure in hopes of filling herself up.

A life where she felt something other than nothing.

A life where she felt alive.