Iron Hearted Violet (16 page)

Demetrius looked for Violet for the better half of the next day. When he finally found her, the Greater Sun had already set, and the Lesser Sun hung low and broad in the sky. Violet was in the library in a darkened corner at the very back, surrounded by stacks and stacks of open books. Each book, he noticed, was open to an illustration of a princess—both Andulan and foreign. In each illustration, the hair of the princesses hung down in great cascades to their knees or ankles. They shone at their edges with illuminations of silver or gold. Each princess had large,
wide-set eyes that matched each other perfectly. Each princess had skin like ivory or amber or onyx, unmarred by freckles or moles.

Violet didn’t see Demetrius at first, nor did she hear his approach. Instead, Demetrius noticed, she pored over a small volume that was hidden slightly by her curtains of unbound hair. It rested open on her forearms, with her hands curled around its top edge like claws. Her shoulders rounded over the top of it, and her whole body curved inward, as though she were going to curl right into its pages and disappear. Her breathing was quick and shallow, and her head and shoulders slumped toward the book, as though they had become, quite suddenly, too heavy to bear. Demetrius crouched low and rested his forearms on his knees. Violet still didn’t see him. He cleared his throat. Still nothing.

“Violet,” he said out loud. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Violet made a sharp snort in the back of her throat, as if she was suddenly waking up. She lifted her face, and Demetrius saw that her eyes were glittering strangely in the half-light, like jewels. Or broken glass.

“What happened to your—” But Violet blinked, and her eyes were back to normal, one larger and gray, one smaller and blue, as always. “Never mind,” Demetrius said.

“I’m rather busy, as you can see,” Violet said, quickly shoving the small volume into her satchel, followed by the rest of her papers and ledgers. She didn’t mention his swollen lips or his cut chin or his two black eyes. In fact, it seemed that she barely saw him at all. She pulled one of the open books—one with a picture of a princess with wavy black hair—onto her lap and stared at it. “I don’t have time for any of your mad adventures, Demetrius. No time at all.”

“I can see that,” Demetrius said, his voice low and soft. “That’s quite a collection you have there. And I know you’re working hard.” He gestured to the bulging bag on her lap. “But what are you working
on
?”

“Just getting ideas,” Violet said without looking up.

“What kind of ideas?” Demetrius asked. He picked up a dusty book from the far end of the table. It was a volume he remembered, crowded with stories and pictures. “Can you imagine?” he said, pointing to the painting of the princess. It was a particularly ridiculous image, showing the poor girl with hair hanging in ropes the size of a grown man’s
upper arm and falling into a heap on the floor. Artists, it must be said, are as bad as storytellers. Perhaps worse. Fancy having a head of hair that weighed more than a child!

“Can I imagine what?” Violet said.

“Here.” He showed her the page. “It’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t be able to stand with all that hair, much less walk.”

Violet glanced up, and once again her eyes glittered hard and sharp. It took two blinks this time to make them right. “I don’t see the issue. She’s just beautiful, that’s all. Like a real princess.”

Demetrius felt as though he had just accidentally swallowed a rock. That phrase! That blasted phrase. “A
real
princess? Seems like I’m hearing that a lot lately.”

Violet lurched forward and grabbed her friend by his collar. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked savagely. “
Who
is saying that?”

“No one,” Demetrius said quickly. “No one at all. Just making conversation.”

Violet let go and sank back into the chair. She humphed at him. “Well,” she said, “you’re not very good at it, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to make everything right. They’ll see.” Violet swallowed hard. Her eyes sank toward the book, though it seemed to Demetrius that she struggled against it and tried hard to keep her eyes away from the words on the page. “
Everything
,” she whispered, “
will be perfect
.”

“Violet—” Demetrius began, but she held up her hand, setting her mouth into a hard, thin line.

“If you wouldn’t mind, beloved Demetrius, I am frightfully busy and would prefer to be left alone.” Demetrius winced at the formal address and tried hard not to show her how much it hurt him. She lifted her face and gazed at him, a hard, sharp, cold stare. “This audience is over.”

“Fine,” he said, standing up. Already, Violet’s body seemed to collapse around the lure of the open book on her lap. “By the way,
Princess
,” he said. “What’s that you’re reading? The book you stealthily shoved into your bag so I wouldn’t see? I’m not blind, you know.”

“It’s none of your concern,” she murmured, burying herself back in the pages. “It’s a book for princesses,” she said in a softer voice. “
Real
princesses,” even more softly. And then she said nothing more.

Demetrius turned and left the room, his head swimming with questions. He stumbled into the hall.

Little did the boy know that the one person who could answer his questions was, at that moment, standing with her great-grandnephew under the window seat.

Auntie shook her head. “I gave you one job, Nod. Just one.”

“But, Auntie, I swear I—”

Auntie cut him off with a swift smack to the center of his forehead with the blunt end of her knitting needles.

“What was that for?”

“Idiocy,” Auntie said simply, but since she could never be angry with the boy for very long, she gave his shoulder an encouraging pat. “I know you tried, dear, truly I do. But facts are facts, Nod, and we must accept them. You failed. And now we must act.” Auntie sighed and began to absentmindedly smooth over the patchwork pattern of her apron. “Four thousand years of silence, and now it wants out. And here we are, only three. How can three defeat a god?” She shook her head. “There’s no good in fussing. Only action matters. Tonight we talk to the boy. The girl is beyond us, I’m afraid. The boy will help, though. He
wants
to help. And we must get ready.”

They turned and walked into the dark tunnels that had been carved and maintained by generation upon generation of ancestors. For all those years, the stone floor, walls, and ceiling were silent and still. But not anymore. Now the stone rumbled with the beat, beat, beat of the buried heart. And it was growing louder.

In my own quarters, I was unconcerned with heartbeats or stone beats or dragons or gods or anything outside my own cursed cleverness. You see, I had, just the night before, been visited by a dream. A
marvelous dream
. It was the sort of dream that storytellers can only
dream
about.

A story. A brand-new, magnificent story. Normally, you see, the hardworking storyteller must glean the world around him for bits and pieces to assemble into stories. Men and women are taken apart, reassembled, and transformed into characters. But sometimes, my dears, sometimes a story
comes in a dream. Sometimes it is fully formed, shining, and new—a gift from the broad multiverse. Such a dream had visited my sleeping brain but six other times in my life, and those were the six best stories I had ever told. This dream was the seventh. A lucky number, I told myself. And I spent days in my quarters ruminating on the language, perfecting the delivery. It would be, I felt, the finest day of my career.

I did not know that the dream was no dream.

I did not know who—or what—had
sent
me that story. And truthfully, I do not know what I would have done if I
had
known.

What I do know is this: Right as I was in the middle of my solo rehearsal, right as the heroine of my story was unlocking the secrets to eternal beauty and power and love, there was a rattling, panicked knock on the door. My concentration broken and my mood soured, I stomped to the door. Threw it open.

“What on earth do
you
want?” I barked at Demetrius.

The poor boy paled and recoiled from me—and for good reason. I had been in my chambers for three days at that point, without emerging to eat, bathe, or converse. The story had, I’m afraid, consumed me. But Demetrius was a
brave and good boy and wanted to do right by his friend. “Don’t shout, Cassian,” he said quietly. “I am worried for Violet. Actually, everyone has been acting strangely ever since…” The boy looked down at his shoes and shut his eyes tight. He wanted, I learned later, to say “ever since the Queen died,” but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words and couldn’t bear to hear them spoken. Instead, he said, “Ever since the King came back with that dragon. It’s strange. They say cruel things without remembering that they’ve said them. And they’re saying terrible things about Violet.”

Now, I have no memory of what I said in response. I can only assume that what Demetrius told me was true, though it makes my heart sick to even consider it.

“Well,” I said—according to Demetrius—“what can you expect? We lost our beautiful Queen. And now everything is wrong. A castle needs a proper princess.”

“What did you say?” Demetrius said.

“Nothing, child,” I said impatiently. “I’ve said nothing at all.”

“I see,” the boy said. He breathed slowly and ran his hand through his black curls, though inwardly his mind was racing. He drew himself up to his full height and
looked at me straight in the eye. “Beloved Cassian,” he said, taking the formal address, “I appreciate this audience. Would you be so kind, sir, as to check in with the Princess? She suffers, sir, in her mind and in her heart, and I have reason to believe that a story is to blame for it. Or maybe something that is rather like a story and rather like…” He searched for the word. “Something
else
.”

“Thank you,” I said coldly, “for the suggestion.”

Demetrius gave a curt bow and took the corridor at a run.

And
oh
, my dears, how it pains me—nay, it
disgusts me
—that I must tell you this! As I stood at the doorway, watching that dear, brave boy disappear into the gloom, my mind thought this:
Storytellers do
not
take orders from stableboys.
And with that, I retreated into my quarters and shut the door.

I did not tell the King.

The slippery insinuations from the mirrors moved quickly beyond the baker’s apprentices. Soon the castle was filled with narrowed eyes and cupped hands carrying whispers from mouths to ears. Every smirk, every shake of the head, every sidelong glance cut Violet so deeply she thought she might bleed to death.

Worst of all were the whispers.

Not a proper princess
, the whispers said.

We lost our beautiful Queen, and now look what we’re stuck with.

Not what we deserve
, other whispers agreed.

Violet bowed her head, clutched at her arms, and scurried out of sight.