Ebonwilde

By Crystal Smith

Get ready to be swept away, seduced, and swindled in the wickedly vicious third and final installment in the Bloodleaf series that Laura Sebastian called “enchanting, visceral, and twisty.”

When Aurelia awakens from her magic-induced sleep, it is to the face of a rescuer she didn’t expect, in a body she doesn’t understand, and into a world she no longer recognizes.

Desperate to know what happened to Conrad, Zan, and Kellan after the events at Greythorne Manor, Aurelia follows the threads they left behind straight into the forest. Suddenly she finds herself caught in a web of magic, intrigue, passion, and betrayal that stretches across centuries and ultimately reveals that Aurelia is the final piece of a deadly apocalyptic plan that is only days away.

All Aurelia wants is to reclaim her life and reunite with those she loved and lost; but with the end of the world looming, she’s forced to unravel the dark secrets of the distant past before she can get that chance.

With the fate of mankind on her shoulders, Aurelia must venture into the heart of the Ebonwilde and face the darkest parts of the forest—and of herself.

Ebonwilde is the thrilling conclusion to the epic Bloodleaf series, which Laura Sebastian called “a phantasmagorical wonder” and Sara Holland described as an “eerie, immersive, and fascinating” read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9780358531814

Crystal Smith

CRYSTAL SMITH is the daughter of a lighthouse keeper who discovered her passion for wildlife when she was small. She illustrates the natural world to spark curiosity and wonder, kindle concern and illuminate issues. She has also illustrated Mother Aspen, written by Annette LeBox. Crystal currently lives in Victoria, BC.

Book preview

Dedication

To my parents,

John and Lillian Campbell,

for letting me read past midnight

Map

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Map

13 Years Ago

Part I: The Midnight Strike

1. Now

2. Then

3. Then

4. Then

5. Now

6. Then

7. Then

8. Then

9. Now

10. Then

11. Then

12. Now

Part II: The Enemy Dressed as Friend

13. Then

14. Then

15. Then

16. Now

17. Then

18. Then

19. Then

20. Then

21. Now

22. Then

23. Then

24. Then

25. Now

26. Then

27. Then

28. Then

29. Now

30. Then

31. Then

32. Then

33. Now

34. Then

35. Now

36. Then

37. Then

38. Now

39. Then

40. Now

41. Now

42. Then

43. Now

Part III: The Longest Night

44. Now

45. Now

46. Now

47. Now

48. Now

49. Now

50. Now

51. Now

52. Now

53. Now

54. Now

55. Now

Part IV: The Journey’s End

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Crystal Smith

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Copyright

About the Publisher

13 YEARS AGO

Recite your virtues.

It was the last thing his stepmother told him before she and her red sleigh disappeared into the snowy distance. Recite your virtues, she said. It’ll be over soon enough.

Dominic did as he was told, beginning the familiar litany as the last echoes of her sleigh bells tinkled eerily across the cold expanse. He’d been forced to memorize them as penance for being caught with a deck of playing cards when he was nine; his father made him stand on a small chair with no food or water until he could recite them all without pause or mistake. It had taken two full days.

Humility, he intoned, taking one last look at the northern skyline before turning to face south. Freedom from pride and arrogance.

The bleak Ebonwilde ahead of him, he lifted his lantern and moved one foot forward in the snow. Abnegation, he said. Surrender of worldly wants. Another step.

The air had been still the entire ride from Fort Castillion to the drop-off point, where silver shoots of frostlace flower were growing straight out of the snow, unfurling their pale, fringed petals toward the frigid sky. Frostlace only bloomed at Midwinter, on the longest, coldest night of the year. By dawn, they’d be gone . . . but then, so would he.

As Dominic passed the blooming flowers and edged closer to the woods, the wind began to kick up, battering him with snow crystals that bit into his skin like thousands of vicious, icy insects.

Fortitude: the ability to bear pain and adversity with courage.

At this, Dominic’s recitations paused. His stepmother’s words, as she’d pulled him from his bed, came back to him. Get up, boy. The time is at hand. Don’t drag your feet, now. This is an honor. You have been chosen for a grand purpose. You’re making your family proud.

But the way she said it—with the tiniest hint of a sneer wrinkling her narrow features—made him wonder which part was the lie.

He considered it as he trudged through the calf-deep snow. Is this an honor or a punishment? Am I here now because I am important? Or was I chosen for this because I am not?

Not that the reason mattered much; he was to die tonight either way.

His mind wandered. Had it been this cold the last time this sacrifice was made? Had his great-great-uncle’s bones ached as much as his did now? Was it better to die in one’s youth, without the additional ties of progeny or community or household to tempt you from discharging your responsibility? Or was leaving everything behind easier at an old age, having gotten to experience those joys and pains to their fullest?

He used the repetition of the virtues to chase creeping, peripheral doubts back into the darkest corners of his mind. Honesty, he muttered through thick, numb lips. Forthrightness of conduct. Judgment: the ability to make wise and considered decisions and reach sensible conclusions.

That’s when he saw the sigil carved into the black bark of a crooked, ancient tree. Ice was crusted into the scar, making each of the spider’s seven legs gleam white in the moonlight. This was the marker for the beginning of the end; once he passed it, there would be no turning back.

He paused there, brushing away the hot tears that had begun to gather at the corners of his eyes. He wanted to fulfill his duty. He wanted to be the embodiment of fortitude, of self-sacrifice, of bravery. But, to his shame, he was afraid.

He didn’t fear death; he knew death was coming. He feared that once this was done, once his sacrifice was made, it would be forgotten. That he would be forgotten.

He sniffed, wondering if they’d lay a grave empty, like they did when his father’s body was lost in the collapse of the mine, or if his stepmother and young half brothers would bicker over their breakfast biscuits in the morning, completely oblivious to his absence at the other end of the table. To make it easier on them, he’d even laid out his own memorial candles by the altar in the Night Garden. Twelve tapers, one for each year of his life. Shouldn’t be too much to ask. When his father died, Stepmother kept all forty-six burning for a month. Dominic didn’t want a month—he’d be happy with just a day.

Then he chided himself for his vanity. What did it matter to him, anyway? Funeral rites were for the comfort of the living, not the dead. It was no concern of his whether they lit his funerary candles, or placed a marker over an empty grave.

But he hoped they would, all the same.

It was then that he heard a crack; he looked around for the cause of the sound and saw a quick flash of ginger fur. An animal of some kind, scrounging for food in the desolate forest on a cold winter night. He shook off his apprehension, and took his first step past the spider marker.

The fog came up slowly, stealing into the basin like a ghost, and was now wafting in great white swaths all around him. The stars overhead were dimming, dimming, dimming, and soon the only light was the wisp of flame in his lantern, and its scattered sparkles across icy branches. The wind’s bite grew sharper, and as Dominic approached the dark clearing that was his final destination, he thought he could hear voices within it. They whispered a canticle in a strange, foreign tongue, transforming the woods into an icy cathedral, buttressed by pine and spire-like spruce.

Welcome, said the winds in voices dry and scraping, like the scuttle of beetles over bone. Welcome, son of Castillion.

Across the clearing, a twisted and blackened old apple tree stood sentinel, its long-barren branches heavy with snow.

Dominic turned and turned again, suddenly aware of everything at once—the feel of frostbite gnawing at his toes within his too-thin boots, the rasp of icy leaves hitting against each other, and the impression of shadowy faces forming behind the nebulous mist.

Shakily, he bowed his head, trying not to look at the wraithlike figures circling him.

I am here to face the Verecundai—the Shamefaced Seven, Dominic cried. Show yourselves!

We are creatures of the dark, whispered the discordant chorus of voices. Put out the light and we will come.

He opened the door of the lamp and the flame burned its image into his eyes, but he hesitated before he could draw the breath that would extinguish it. If it was light they feared, this little fire was the last bit of power he had over them until the ritual was complete.

The Verecundai had been men, once. Powerful mages, favored servants of the Empyrea. But when they plotted to betray her, to take a piece of her divinity for themselves, she punished them with a curse: They would not die, but neither would they live. They would exist as shadowy wraiths for all time.

It was said that Dominic’s ancestor Marcellus Castillion had bound them to this lonely, barren glade of the Ebonwilde. Marcellus had been a blood mage, and proclaimed that once every hundred years on Midwinter, a son of his line would return to the spot and sacrifice himself to keep the wraiths imprisoned, securing prosperity and peace for another generation.

Recite your virtues. It was Dominic’s own voice reminding him this time, in his own head. A familiar habit he could fall back upon; he was too sad, too scared, too astounded to do anything else. He’d gone from humility through abnegation, fortitude, honesty, and judgment. What was left on the list? He closed his eyes, feverishly scouring his memory to find them.

Obedience, he thought. Submissive compliance to established authority.

Remembering why he’d come, he put his fears aside and blew the lantern out.

The wraiths materialized slowly, knitting together from shadow and towering over Dominic, composed of ever-shifting mist that made their visages impossible to fully fathom. He only seemed to be able to snag glimpses—fingers that were too long, teeth that were too sharp, eyes that were too black—before the image would dissolve into vapor.

Does he see us now? the voices asked, as if to each other. Does he know us?

I know you, Dominic said. The heretics who betrayed the Empyrea. Who stole a piece of her divine light for themselves.

Ah. There was a ripple in the fog, and a low rumble, like they were conferring with one another. But does he know himself? Does he know why he is here?

I’m Dominic Castillion, son of Bentham Castillion. I have come to sacrifice myself to keep you inside this prison for another generation, as so many of my line have done before me.

Sacrifice? they said. This is not a sacrifice.

If not a sacrifice, he replied, what is it?

A test.

A test? His Castillion blood was needed to seal them away, so that they and their malice would remain in the confines of their forest prison. That’s what all the lessons said. This same process had been completed dozens of times throughout the Castillion genealogy. None of those who had gone before him had ever returned—what part was a test?

I don’t understand, he said. I came here to die.

The Verecundai asked, in their cold, death-tinged voices, Do you wish to die?

And despite all of his preparation for this moment of temptation, Dominic replied fiercely, "I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be forgotten. I want to live. Live and be remembered."

Put forth your hand, son of Castillion.

Dominic did as he was told, and the shadows congealed around his open palm, merging into the shape of a spider. It was glossy and silvery black, with seven spindly legs, sharp as knives. Its abdomen glowed from within, dimly, like a piece of the aurora had been trapped under a smoky glass. He trembled as the spider roved up under his sleeve, across his arm, and to his chest just over his heart.

He cried out when it stabbed him, and screamed as the poison racked his body. He contorted from the pain, praying to die before his body fell to pieces.

Endurance, he recited, clutching his arms to his stomach as he coughed and coughed, leaving a spray of blood on snow. Withstanding difficulty and pain without giving way. The blood coalesced into thin lines of glowing crimson that snaked under the icy crust of snow, shooting across the ground until they swirled up the trunk of the tree, into the twisting limbs down to the farthest point of the sharpest branch. One white blossom formed, unfurled, and wilted as fruit swelled beneath it.

When it was done, a single ruby-red apple hung from the tree’s aged boughs. In a near trance, Dominic approached the tree, lifting his hand to pluck the fruit from its stem. It was perfectly symmetrical, round and ripe and the color of blood.

Eat, the voices said.

Dominic took a bite.

The fruit was sweet and strong and tasted slightly of salt and copper. As soon as he had swallowed it, his mind was flooded by strange thoughts and pictures. Voices of people he never knew commingled with images of places he’d never been. It was a kaleidoscope of color and sound as the earth seemed to spin backwards, stars streaking across the arc of the sky until they fell into a perfect circle of eight points with the moon at the center.

And then there were hands, dashing gold ink across a parchment map of the heavens, connecting the stars into the constellation of a spider. Aranea, they wrote next to it. The Spider.

He saw them trek across an untamed wilderness to collect the child who had been born beneath that strange cosmic configuration—a girl with hair as black as ebony, lips as red as a rose, and spirit as pure as white snow. Her name was Vieve.

You have been chosen by the Empyrea, the mages told her.

You will be her heir.

The first queen of a new and perfect world.

They brought her back to their grand observatory, where she was taught magic beneath the watchful eye of the endlessly starry sky, the passage of years marked by the shifting of gears in a giant overhead orrery, where brass planets rotated around a gleaming golden sun with the same dedicated devotion as the mages to their celestine Goddess.

The youngest of the mages was a boy named Adamus. He was drawn to the girl, and she to him. They grew into adulthood together like sapling trees, peerless in their power and youthful beauty, as enchanted with one another as they were enchanting, two halves of a single whole.

If I am to be a queen, she told him, you must be my consort.

Command me, my queen, he whispered back, I will obey.

When the day of Vieve’s ascension arrived, Dominic watched as the mages dressed the girl in garments of finest silk and fastened them with a brooch in the shape of a spider, crowned her in a circlet of silver, and brought her to a forest glade under the same portentous alignment of stars that had accompanied her birth. The boy-mage she loved led her to the center before taking his place among his fellows, who formed a ring around her.

She began her spell as she had been taught, unpinning the brooch to draw a drop of blood from her fingertip, and then spinning the magic within it into a thread. Each of the eight mages did the same, and she pulled the magic from their blood in silvery strings, braiding their essences together, one with another.

Above, the stars began to shake and tremble as they, too, began to bleed in long, brutally bright streams of light that poured into the mages from above and then flowed from their fingertips into the threads of the spell. The girl was incandescent, as if made of starlight herself.

A cry sounded from the heavens, tearing through the fabric of the sky as a shape began to gather from the roiling viridian clouds of the firmament.

The Empyrea was coming.

Her wings stretched from one horizon to the other, each stamp of her hooves sending arcs of lightning across the crystal dome of sky. She lifted her equine-like head in a scream and Dominic trembled at the sound of it. He had been taught all his life that the Empyrea had touched the earth at its dawn, that humanity had sprung up in her footsteps. That it was from her love and light that mankind was created. But that could not be true; the closer the Empyrea came to the earth, the better Dominic could see the hatred simmering in pools of fire that were her eyes.

She was not descending to save, but to raze. Not to create, but to destroy.

Vieve stopped still, the threads of her magic drifting in the crackling air, the tapestry of her spell unfinished.

No! Dominic tried to scream a warning, but he was a voiceless observer, helpless to change this outcome. The young mage Adamus, however, opened his eyes as if he had heard it. He broke from the circle, springing forward to save her.

It was too late.

Seeing the truth of the Empyrea’s intentions, the seven other mages had already drawn their swords.

It was over quickly. The Empyrea’s wings dissolved into streaks of clouds, the lightning stopped, and the air went still as the tear in the sky mended itself, sealing the Goddess behind it.

And in the center of the glade, Vieve was dead. Killed by the mages who had raised her, who had loved her, who had taught her everything she knew, so that the Empyrea could not use her as a weapon with which to destroy mankind.

Adamus had crawled to the center of the circle and was cradling Vieve’s broken body as her eyes stared sightlessly at the heavens. He took the spider brooch, still glowing softly with the embers of stolen starlight, and used it to prick his finger. Then he glared up at the other seven, and pronounced upon them a curse:

Even as you have taken from me, so will I take from you. You shall not die, but neither shall you live. You are cursed to walk this fallen earth until its end, when I and my love are born again and reunited, queen and consort, to reign in the Empyrea’s perfect new world, free of pain and death.

Fidelity, Dominic thought as he watched the man mourn. Unswerving faithfulness and devotion through all adversity.

The seven mages shrieked as their bodies disintegrated, and swirled forward, right through Dominic as he watched, stealing his breath and his warmth and plunging him into impenetrable darkness.

The last thing he heard before losing consciousness were the whispered words: The long wait is over. They have, at last, returned.

When Dominic woke, he was lying in the snow, face turned up toward the moon. The wind was gone. The white wraiths were gone. All was still and silent.

Had he fallen asleep in the snow? It seemed a senseless thing to do—but how else could he explain any of it? The things that were swimming in his head defied logic. They were dreams, of course. Nightmares.

But in his hands was a red apple with one bite taken from it. Atop the crust of icy snow, the flame of his lantern was still burning brightly. Beside it sat a brooch in the shape of a spider, its center stone still glowing softly.

It was all real. He’d gone into the Ebonwilde woods, faced the shades hiding within it, and come out alive.

But changed.

The snow did not seem quite as cold, the air less bitter. And he thought, if he listened hard enough, he could still hear those dry, whispering voices in his ears.

In the sky the first soft streaks of dawn were beginning to show, and all around the edge of the glade were the shriveled petals of the spent frostlace flowers. The longest night of the year had passed. From here on out, the darkness would slowly abate.

It took him nearly a day to trudge through the woods back to Fort Castillion on his own, climbing the hidden switchbacks on the western side of the mountain and slipping into the fort through its back entrance, through the secret warren of tunnels and caves Dominic’s ancestors had built their home upon. Inside, however, all was still. There were no dogs to greet him. No groomsmen in the stables. No guards at the door.

Everyone was gathered in the courtyard, coming somberly in and out of the glass cathedral that was the Night Garden. He was greeted by a guardsman. There you are, Lord Dominic. Thank the stars you’re here. When we found her ladyship like that, and you nowhere to be seen, we expected the worst. He paused, mouth falling open as Dominic removed his hat. What has happened to your hair? There’s a streak there that is white as snow!

My hair? he said distantly, hardly registering the comment. Her ladyship? he asked, confused.

The guardsman crouched next to him, speaking kindly. Yes, my dear boy. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your stepmother died early this morning. We found her frozen to death in her sleigh, right outside the village.

Dominic ran to the greenhouse, pushing people aside to get to the front. The soldier hurried after him, concerned for the boy, coming into responsibility for his province at such a young age, and without any parental figure left to guide him.

His stepmother’s body was laid out for mourning under the Night Garden’s glass dome while around her, thirty-two candles burned, one for each year of her life.

The guardsman said gruffly, She was never in very good health. Or humor. He shook his head. Apologies, my boy. I should not be speaking ill of the dead. Then, When you’re ready to begin making decisions, we’ll be ready to follow them.

I’m ready now, Dominic said abruptly. And then he made his first decree. Mourning is over, he said. Remove her body.

What should we do with it? asked another of the watching men-at-arms.

Find a pit, Dominic said, toss it in. And then, one by one, he blew the candles out.

Part I

The Midnight Strike

1

Now

AURELIA

10 DAYS TO MIDWINTER

1621

My teeth were at his throat.

I could taste salt on his skin; just a hint, from a thin sheen of sweat. Beneath it, blood pulsed through the artery in his neck. I could hear it singing to me, calling to me, begging me to set it free. To break that fragile barrier of skin and let the magic flow hot against my lips, like a kiss. And I wanted to.

Oh—how I wanted to.

Aurelia. The word was little more than a breathy exhalation, but it struck me oddly, like a discordant note from a mistuned string. I paused, poised on the brink of the killing strike, and remembered the name.

My name.

My eyes drifted down his neck, where a vial of blood hung from a cord, nestled against his chest. I knew it. Knew the sense of it, the smell of it.

My blood.

My clawlike grip on him went slack. I grabbed the vial and gave it a hard yank, until the cord snapped and came free. Then my eyes darted to the man who had been wearing it. Crimson velvet cape, white brocade overcoat, black lambskin gloves, dark brown eyes, and hair the color of ice.

Dominic Castillion.

The edges of my awareness suddenly sharpened. We were not alone here—wherever here was. Castillion and I were being watched by a circle of gathered people; some were dressed like statesmen, others like soldiers. All were wearing the Castillion livery. They were frozen, gaping at me, caught like insects in a spider’s web, too stunned or scared to move.

Be calm, Castillion said, though I wasn’t sure if he was addressing me or the audience.

Where is Zan? I croaked, my voice brittle from disuse, grabbing fistfuls of his cloak. "Where is he?"

One of the men in the circle moved forward, hand on his sword.

No, Castillion said. Stay back. I’ve got this. Castillion gently pulled my hands down from his cloak. Aurelia, he said slowly, I know this is strange. I know you’re scared. I know you have a lot of questions. I will answer them all, I promise. But first, I need you to let my guards leave the garden. Let us take the injured to the infirmary, and then you and I can talk as long as we need. Can you do that? Please? I know you don’t want to hurt anyone else.

He tilted his head to the side, and I followed the line of the gesture with my eyes, turning to see three men on the ground behind me, moaning. One was clutching an arm to his chest, one had a cut in his head that was seeping blood into his eye. The last was holding a hand to his neck, where blood was spilling between his fingers.

I didn’t do that, I said frantically, whirling around. I couldn’t have done that. I tried to wipe my hands on my gown, only to have them come away bloodier than before. This isn’t right. It isn’t real. But it was real, because there was my casket of luminous glass, lying open and askew on a funereal dais.

This was not the Assembly, where the sanctorium pews were populated with the remains of the mages Cael had killed upon his own emergence from that casket, but it wasn’t hard to overlay the image of those prostrate skeletons across this violence and recognize the similarities between them. It was a horror. A display of depravity. And it was mine.

I felt a hand on my arm. Aurelia . . .

Get back! I cried, shrinking from Castillion’s touch. "Get away from me!"

But, wait—

Go! I flung out my arm, but whether it was to attack or to scare him into retreat, even I didn’t know. But the magic, drawn from the soldiers’ unwilling blood, blasted like a gale-force wind, sending him flying into the scrambling group of watchers. When he was able to get back to his feet, his face finally registered a flicker of worry.

Then he nodded, turning to the man nearest to him. Get them out, he ordered. Don’t let anyone see, and speak of this to no one. Understand me?

When the watchers did not move, Castillion continued, This is my responsibility. I’ll take care of her. We just need space, all right? As much as we can get.

As the men and women filed out, I sank to my knees, despondent, bloody hands turned limply upward in my lap, the vial’s cord tangled in my fingers.

Aurelia, Castillion said, crouching beside me. I’m going to see them out. I won’t be gone long. You’ll be safe here in the Night Garden until I return.

In mere seconds, the greenhouse—for that was what the Night Garden was: an enormous, elaborate greenhouse—was empty of all life. Except for me, but I barely qualified.

They bolted the door behind them.

As a garden, it was an unusual one, with copses of birch and silver-green fir and trimmed with flowers that flourished at night. Gardenia and evening primrose spilled from hanging baskets, while five-inch-wide moonflower blossoms twined up iron pillars that branched into buttresses. White candles burned in the branches, held upright in place by hardened wax rivulets. Overhead, purple wisteria blossoms became a dreamy canopy, and on each side of the dais, great urns were overflowing with the shimmering leaves and tightly closed buds of frostlace flower that would bloom on Midwinter Night, soft white veins visible through the diaphanous amethyst-colored petals, like delicate, snowy spiderwebs.

Judging from the blossoms, Midwinter was only a few weeks away.

The centerpiece of the garden was a statue of white marble, at least twelve feet tall, depicting a man and a woman locked in an intense embrace, each with a halo of stars crowning their lovely foreheads. I might have thought the piece was relaying a moment of carnal passion, were it not for the knife hilt protruding from her back. This was not a representation of love, but rather its cruel extinguishment.

At their feet, the sculptor had chiseled a single white apple. A streak of castoff blood bisected the fruit, as if the stone had worn away in that spot to reveal its true color underneath. Above, a dome sparkled, the night sky black behind it.

How funny, I thought dully, that I had emerged from one glass prison only to be barricaded inside another.

My memories of going into the casket were strange—two different perspectives overlaid into one. One version of me lying down inside, the other standing over, watching. Taking something from around my neck and placing it under my other self’s hands. A ring. Zan’s ring.

Where was it now?

I stooped over the casket and scraped my fingertips over every inch of its interior, then moved to the marble floor, streaking through the sticky splotches of blood. I was still scrabbling around in that mess when I heard the bolt of the greenhouse door slide open and a single set of heavy footsteps come up the path toward me.

I glared at Castillion over my shoulder. Where is it? I croaked. Where is my ring?

If you had a ring, I did not know of it, he said. Nor could one have been taken from you while you slept. The box was sealed when we removed it from the Assembly and remained so until the moment you came out of it. Here . . .

He put out a hand as if to help me to my feet, but I flinched away from it with a snarl. "Stay back," I warned, remembering the men I’d hurt, whose blood still coated the floor.

I’m not afraid of you, Castillion said quietly, as if reading my mind. You were frightened. Confused. I harbor no judgment against you, Aurelia. Nor do any of the others who were here to see it.

I gave a guttural scoff. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you in front of your friends, I said. Because I wanted to. I wanted to kill you, like I killed your men.

My men aren’t dead, he said. Gravely injured, yes, but they’ll survive. And they’d do it again, every last one of them, without question.

I ignored his hand and awkwardly got to my feet on my own, glaring at him the whole time. At our last encounter I’d made a pact with him: I’d save him from a watery grave if he’d join Zan to raise me from mine. But with Zan nowhere to be seen, it remained a point of curiosity why Castillion hadn’t just let me fester inside my coffin for the rest of eternity. He could have walked away. He should have walked away.

Why? I asked, finally.

They trust me. And I told them that we can trust you.

But you can’t trust me, I said. Because if I find out that you’ve harmed Zan in any way . . .

I have not touched Valentin. In fact, I have invited him here on multiple occasions, including this one, and he has declined every one. He cast a pitying glance at me and then added, Your prince never came for you.

2

Then

ZAN

MIDWINTER NIGHT, 1620

"My grandmother used to festoon the house in sage and rue to keep Midwinter spirits away—and here you are, spending the holiday in a tomb."

Jessamine’s forceful voice sounded in the quiet dark of the crypt like a crack of a hammer against an anvil. Zan groaned and turned away from the throbbing light of her candle, his own having burned down to a nub hours ago. Midwinter? he asked, cringing.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know what day it is, she said dryly. Lorelai and Delphinia prepared some bread and smoked ham for you, and I left a bale of hay in the stable for Madrona. It isn’t much, of course, but it’s something. Bottles clinked at Jessamine’s feet, and she frowned down at them. There won’t be any wine with the meal, however. Seems someone has cleaned out the Stella’s wine stores.

You said some were Aurelia’s bottles. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes from both Jessamine’s candle and the withering glare it illuminated. I think she’d want me to have them.

If by ‘have them’ you mean ‘have them broken over your idiot head,’ then yes. I do think she’d want you to have them. She peered past where he sat at the base of Aurelia’s stone sarcophagus into the alcove concealing the rest of the long box. By all the stars. Is this what you’ve been doing down here?

The slab that concealed Aurelia’s mortal remains was plain—not like the detailed visages carved into the older caskets radiating the center vestibule. He couldn’t leave it that way; he was an artist, was he not? And while charcoal was his usual medium, he knew enough of painting technique to do her some justice at least.

He depicted her as she had looked on the Day of Shades, as she took her last breaths: dark hair waving around her temples, eyelashes fanning against her rose-tinted cheeks, a slight, serene smile on her lips. He’d elaborated from there: adding bloodleaf petals that swirled like snow around her crown, many-pronged stars caught in her hair, and trails of red-violet sombersweet bells that grew in tangles around her feet.

Midwinter, he thought as he gazed down at her visage. Has it really been six weeks already?

What’s that? Jessamine asked, pointing to Aurelia’s hands. Is she holding . . . a spider?

It’s supposed to be a flower, he said crossly. And it’s rough now. It’ll look better when I’ve finished it. He barely remembered painting it. Truth was, it did look a little like a spider. Some of the priests’ wines were more potent than others.

"I bet with some proper training, I could turn you into an excellent forger. Unfinished flower aside, Jessamine said, voice soft. It looks just like her. Then she looked at Zan—disheveled and sallow, bags under his eyes and covered in intermingled streaks of dirt and paint—and gave an exasperated sigh. Though I’m shocked you had the wherewithal to achieve it."

I work better drunk, he said with a shrug.

You need to get out of this place, Jessamine said. Get washed. Get dressed. Eat.

I’m not done, he said stubbornly. I can’t show Conrad until—

Conrad is already gone, Jessamine replied. He and Kellan left for Syric weeks ago. I’m going back to the Canary tonight. After that, there will be no one here but you and the dead.

This gave Zan pause. Weeks? He grimaced. They should have waited—

"There was no time to wait. These are strange and troubling times in Renalt. Conrad is a king. And no matter his grief, he must set his feelings aside and be king."

Are you attempting to compare me to an eight-year-old? He picked up a tin can of black paint and sighed. Empty.

"I am attempting nothing. I am absolutely comparing you, and finding you wanting."

My country doesn’t need me; it has Dominic Castillion. He picked up an unopened tin of paint and began to work a small knife beneath its lid, but his hands were unsteady.

Jessamine snatched the knife away from him. This is ridiculous, she said. If Aurelia could see you like this, she’d be—

At the sound of her name, Zan’s hand went instinctively to his chest, feeling the pointed vial through the fabric of his shirt. The last of Aurelia’s mortal blood hung like a weight around his neck, a desperate want and a tormenting doubt wrapped up in one.

He could still hear her voice in his ear, a coy whisper.

Come and find me.

Hope was such a pernicious, perilous thing. A rope to promised safety that could lead instead to the brink of a chasm, with no quarter for retreat or net to catch your fall.

Aurelia was the miracle worker, not him.

Reviews for Ebonwilde

[sennebec · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you haven't read the first two books, do so before reading this, or risk having no idea what most of what happens is. I also suggest reading this in a time and place lacking distraction. Otherwise, you'll have trouble following the story since it shifts viewpoint frequently. What you have is a dark, dandy, action-packed conclusion to one of the better trilogies in the past ten years. I'm so glad I got to read all three books.