CHAPTER THIRTY

Autumn

We visited Varnley, the home of the vampire court. I watched the love between Kaspar and Violet, which I had seen in my visions, play out, and I ached with them when they couldn’t touch. And I told Violet Lee about her fate, on top of Varn’s Point.

Those memories seemed to be the only images that weren’t obliterated by the sudden terror of placing a foot onto the floor of the hallowed halls of Athenea. That and Violet Lee’s expression as I pulled away from our embrace in Varnley.

Utter abandonment.

It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl about to face her almost-death. It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl destined to lead her people into peace. It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl whose love was about to leave her to die.

And even as I longed for her to be better able to face what was coming, I knew it was not a strength I possessed myself.

Athenea . . . Athenea is the most beautiful country on this Earth. It is a place of the Earth, and for the Earth, and of the people of the Earth. It is a haven, a name, a family, a set of values that permeates my blood and yours, child. It is emerald slopes and snowy mountains, salt water and fresh water, forests and valleys, palaces, mansions, schools, and industry. It is a mere speck on a map, but if you sit in the maerdohealle, its great hall, then all creatures are your friends, and all are your enemies. Yet Athenea . . . Athenea remains peace personified.

We left the second dimension in a whirl of cloaks amid the fading shouts of vampires. By the time they realized how they had been duped, we were gone. I had never crossed the borders without an escort—somebody actually holding me—but I arrived, not a second later, in the first dimension, two feet away from Fallon.

He gave me the once-over and then began jogging along the road we had materialized on. I knew it wasn’t far to our destination. In front of us, looming fifty feet high, was a wall, faintly yellow, totally smooth, and utterly impregnable. It was the inner wall of Athenea—the last defense encountered before you entered the sacred heart of the kingdom, where the palace, university, and top-ranking nobility were all situated.

The road was wide, straight, and without markings—there was no need, because cars were banned beyond the second wall. At its end was a wrought-iron gate as high as the wall and as intricate as it was intimidating. Into its metal were worked the Athenean crest, leaves, trees, flowers, and maple leaves. Between the bars there hung a faint blue glow: the inner dome-shield.

It was up to this impressive spectacle we ran, but Fallon darted to the left, into a long, low building at the road’s edge. I swallowed, hard.

Here goes nothing.

Inside, the building seemed a lot larger, partitioned off into sections and offices with glass walls. At the front were several large desks, security scanners for baggage and full-body scanners, too. A sign above the desks very clearly read, in Sagean, English, French, Romanian, and the many other languages of the dark beings: CHECKPOINT A—HIGH SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY.

The nervous fluttering in my stomach only got worse. I don’t have my passport, or any documents! Nobody had told me I would need them. I thought they would just let us in because of this whole mess!

I was relieved when Edmund appeared from a corridor just at the moment the border clerk sitting behind the desk looked up, wide-eyed, and combined getting off his chair with a bow. The chair, on wheels, skidded away and hit the glass partition behind with a thump.

Edmund raced up to his booth, yanked down the hoods of our cloaks, and pulled us both into a bone-crushing hug, one of us wrapped in each of his arms. Without saying another word, he let us go, helped us out of our cloaks, and handed passports to us both.

The room and all its occupants—border controllers, Athan, wall guards, militia—had fallen silent the minute my cloak was removed. For one long minute I thought it was my outfit: thick but ripped tights, shorts, and a tank top—the only old clothes I had, and the only clothes I didn’t mind ruining in Varnley. Once they had taken a long look at me, they turned to one another, and then all sank into hesitant bows and curtsies. Then I realized.

“Oh, I . . . Oh,” I murmured. This is odd. This is very odd.

Edmund came to the rescue. “No time. We need to get them through security quickly; the king has requested to see them ASAP.”

The king? Now? The thought sent my nerves into the cosmos.

I had no time to dwell as both my British and Sagean passports were checked, thumbprint scans taken, pockets emptied, and forms filled out. One of the questions was “How long do you intend to stay in Athenea?” I responded with N/A.

Edmund and Fallon were fast-tracked through with their identity cards and retina scans, something promised to me before the week was out, and, eventually, I appeared alongside them. My passports were handed back, along with a temporary visa, the first paragraph of which I read.

“This document grants the holder, the Lady He**ine Autumn Rose, duchess of England, temporary residence; security clearance level A; amnesty; and safe passage through the kingdom of Athenea, so long as his majesty King Ll’iriad’s good grace prevails.”

I looked down at it in a sort of awed stupor. Athenea. I am really back in Athenea.

“Welcome home, my lady,” said the smiling border official. Next to me, Edmund nodded in silent approval.

Fallon, smudged with dirt, boots dusted with pine needles, and smelling of a mixture of the two, held out his hand for me to take.

“Now to deal with Father.”

We took to the air to cross the vast inner circle of Athenea. Quickly Edmund led us away from the road, flying over the woods—a less scenic route to the palace. When it abruptly appeared I was disappointed; we were entering from the side, a view that didn’t do justice to the beauty and enormity of the building that was home to a royal family and thousands around them. Instead, far to my left, I could see the cliff the palace had sprung from, and three floors up the balcony attached to the maerdohealle.

As we landed on the massive stretch of lawn that separated trees from golden stone, our pace immediately picked back up to a run. Though I didn’t dare slow down, I wondered if Fallon’s legs were burning as much as mine, and if Edmund would carry me if I pretended to trip and fall. I didn’t test the theory.

We reached a small door tucked between the farthest wing of the palace and the cliff, and slipped through it unchecked by its guards. Inside, the passage was bare and clinical, piled with crates of fruit on the left side.

“Service entrance,” Edmund explained, answering my unspoken question. “There are court journalists and gossips outside the main entrance.”

He weaved left and right, taking abrupt turns and occasionally climbing steep, winding staircases. I was left with the distinct impression of a maze. The close walls pressed in on my chest, and my breathing got shallower and shallower, until at the summit of the second ascent, I doubled over, heaving.

“Where’re . . . we going?” I managed.

“The maerdohealle. The king wants to see you both immediately.”

“In this state?” I spat before doubling over again for a coughing fit. “We stink!” I tried to choke out, but it came out as “W’ink!”

Edmund got the meaning. “There’s no time to wash or change. Come on!”

I grabbed the end of the handrail before he could drag me away. “No. I can’t. I just can’t. I’m not ready, I can’t face the king. I don’t know what to say—”

My chest had a mind of its own. I was sucking air in at a furious rate but none of it seemed to get to my slowing heart, or panicking brain. My limbs felt like deadweights and I could hold myself against Edmund’s tugging without even trying.

“Give us a moment, Edmund, please,” said a terse voice as I was guided to sit on the top step. My vision was tunneling, but I could just see Fallon kneel down in front of me.

“No. No panic attacks today. You’ve done too well this weekend.”

I wrung my sweaty hands and groaned between breaths because my chest was hurting. “The king! I can’t, I won’t, you can’t make me, I’ll—”

“Hush,” he soothed. “Now breathe, from your stomach, here.” He placed a hand at the bottom of my ribs. “In, hold for two, and out for five. Feel my hand rise, I’ll count . . .”

And he did. One to two, one to five, over and over, tens and tens of times, until my diaphragm ached from the effort. But my mind was clear, my heart rate had dropped, and the pain had receded.

“Now, we’re going to go in there, together, and we are going to face my father, not the king, together.” He moved his hand from my stomach and cupped my cheek. “Can you do that for me?”

I nodded.

“And as to the clothes . . . you’re a He**ine, and you can rock whatever trend you like. So no issue there. Understood?”

I nodded again.

“Good girl,” he murmured, taking my hand and pulling me up. We strode straight past Edmund, who looked at us like our scars had changed color.

I can do this, I can do this . . .

My feet began to drag as we emerged from behind a tapestry, which hung a little away from the wall to allow a person to pass. We were in the main palace, on the third-highest hallway surrounding the front cloister, which divided east wing from west; the maerdohealle sat in between. I peered through the arched stonework. On the two higher and lower passages, Sage walked: servants in black-and-gold garb; students in deep navy blue; and noble people, gentry andcouncilors, in their finest, most extravagant outfits.

Edmund reemerged and led us around the cloister to the wide plaza at its far end and the even more impressive set of double doors, white and gold. On each side stood two manservants and armed guards; in fact, there were guards everywhere. More than I ever remembered there being. They peered at me expectantly in the tempered light, and straightened with a soft ringing of metal as Edmund and Fallon passed.

A manservant who didn’t even look fully fledged yet nervously flattened his lapels and shyly smiled at Fallon and me. The fact that he looked more terrified than me was somehow reassuring.

“Is the king ready?” Edmund asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied, and the other servant manning the door turned and placed his fingers around the handle.

“Are you ready?” Edmund repeated, to me this time. I ran a hand through my hair to catch any wisps, and then took Fallon’s outstretched hand.

“Yes.”

Together, with Edmund behind, we waited as the doors swung outward.

The sheer size of the maerdohealle was enough to take any creature’s breath away. The entire Manderley mansion would fit comfortably into its polished marble center; the chimney tops wouldn’t even graze the arched, cathedral-like roof, and only the uppermost windows would be level with the two-tier balconies that ran around as a continuation of the cloister hallways at the room’s edge. The left wall wasn’t a wall at all; below the balconies several tall arches led out onto yet another terraced balcony, which overlooked the grounds we had flown across. Below us was a long staircase that flared at the bottom; opposite, at the far end of the room, there was another staircase descending from the lowest balcony, which split into two small staircases; in the hollow they created there was a raised dais upon which sat a throne, large enough for two people. And on it two people sat.

On the balconies and between the pillars, under the arches and in the enormous space in the center, people were packed, row upon row, all gazing up at us. A room full of so many mouths should not be able to fall silent, but it did.

But as we stepped out of the shadows, there was no mistaking the gasps—and the mutterings.

Fallon squeezed my hand and we rushed down the steps, boots clunking against the veined marble. The crowd at the bottom tripped over their own feet to move back for us, and as we pressed forward, a few of them sank confidently into bows, while others hesitated, gazing around for a cue.

“That can’t be her!”

“She is so old—”

“Spitting image of the late duchess.”

“Why is she holding his hand?!”

Child, the court is like a fishbowl. All the big fish and the pretty fish get looked at. But it’s all silly. None of us are fish. We’re all just drowning.

We walked and walked through the long hall, the crowd obediently parting for their prince and He**ine. For me. As we passed the center point of the room, the people around us started changing: they stood taller and stayed silent. There were ambassadors—dark beings of every sort—and many nobles I recognized, sashes around their shoulders denoting their council membership, other politicians and advisors wearing the same garb, and all of them staring and so obviously judging through narrowed eyes. I couldn’t blame them. They were seeing a short, tattered blonde, wide-eyed and led by another person. Hardly He**ine material.

Suddenly, familiar faces started appearing. Eaglen, and the duke and duchess of Victoria, and other members of Fallon’s family. I could feel those that hadn’t seen me for some time staring, but they at least had the good manners to turn away when I looked at them.

Then there was no more crowd.

The king launched himself forward from the throne with all the determination of a ruler. Then he faltered, and stopped. His mouth opened and closed a few times.

“Your Majesty,” Fallon just managed to say before he was engulfed in his father’s arms. The two exchanged a few muttered words before Fallon eventually wriggled out, blushing to his eyes and rubbing the back of his head madly.

“Oh man,” he groaned. “Not you too, Mom,” he complained before the process was repeated.

I stood to one side, awkward in their family reunion. There were perhaps a hundred people on their knees behind me, among the anxiously upright masses, and here I was, scuffing my boots together.

Edmund had moved to stand behind me, one hand on my shoulder to hold me in place. The constant pressure stilled me, and it was only after the king and queen had both hugged and kissed their son until he resembled a beetroot that Edmund let go.

“Go,” he murmured softly, and shoved me forward. I approached the royal pair like they were my executioners.

Oh, fates above, years and years of etiquette lessons, don’t fail me now!

“Erm . . . hi,” I whispered, stopping in front of them. In my head, my grandmother started shrieking like a banshee, and my eyes went very pink.

Both of them were just as stupefied, and both were very pale, but my timid words snapped them out of it.

“Forgive me, my lady, so close . . . it was as though I was seeing a ghost for a moment.” The king shook his head and took one of my sweaty hands in both of his.

I dropped down onto one knee—curtsying would look odd in shorts. “Your Majesties.”

The king followed me down into a crouch just as fast, and I looked up from the floor to find him smiling, the sort of smile that made crow’s-feet appear around his eyes.

“No, young He**ine. You do not bow to us, or to anyone, anymore.” He tucked a hand under my upper arm and helped me to my feet. “Come, I shall make this short.”

He spun me around so I stood beside him, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. I wondered if he was worried I might run. There was really no need. I was paralyzed.

“Today, the golden rose of our kingdom has returned to us. Gossip travels fast in this court, and I daresay some of you may have heard, even in the short hour since we announced her position, the impressive feats of this young seer. Not only has she found the vamperic He**ine—”

This triggered a gasp so loud it sounded like a gale had ripped through the hall. They don’t know about Violet Lee, then?

The king paused and waited for the shock to subside. “Not only that, but just this week this rose risked, and almost lost, her life to save a human under her charge as guardian. A human who was on the brink of death.”

It wasn’t like that! It was selfish! I wanted to scream, but as I glanced up at the face of my king, I realized what he was doing. He met the eyes of those in the front rows—the ambassadors, the nobles, his advisors, all the people who held power—with a gaze so hard I half expected those his eyes fell upon to turn to stone. It’s a threat! He’s threatening them with my power! Whether he knew the truth of my actions or not, he was exploiting them.

“Your He**ine was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in upholding the Terra, and showed a compassion for humanity we must hold as an example in these troubled times. Fate has chosen well. So ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to join me in welcoming, and honoring, the Lady He**ine Autumn Rose.”

And he did something extraordinary: he bowed down onto one knee. On my other side, the queen dropped into a full curtsy and held it. One by one, their children joined them on the marble floor; Fallon, at their end, smirked and then nodded in silent agreement at the scene around him. It was a wave, a wave that sank and within a minute lapped at the very back of the hall.

I was the only person standing.

There are really only so many life-changing mad events a girl can take in one week.

Sadly, I hit the floor before I had totally blacked out. And it hurt.

This is comfy. Silky, squishy. Somebody was stroking my hair, taking great care to run their fingers between the strands to detangle it. My head was resting on a lap, but it wasn’t Fallon’s. This person was wearing a skirt.

“Fallon, I think she may be waking up.”

I felt a gentle pressure on my hand, and knew it was Fallon’s from the imprint of his scars. I squirmed and let myself slowly come around from whatever deep place I had rested in.

Opening my eyes, I found myself staring at the long, lean, finely bejeweled neck of the queen. She smiled gently down at me and pressed a hand to my arm, stroking it and holding me down as I tried to sit up in shock.

“No, my lady, stay. You need to rest.”

I pushed her away. “How long was I out? Violet Lee? What happened? Is she okay?”

Fallon pushed me back down into his mother’s lap. “She’s fine. Kaspar Varn won’t let her leave the dimension without him, so she’s staying for now but she’s completely okay.”

“King Vladimir is holding a council meeting even as we speak,” the queen added.

I was confused. In my visions I had definitely seen Kaspar Varn turn away. But he had contradicted my direct order to bring Violet to me. Was this the strength of their tied destiny shining through?

I couldn’t answer any questions of weight. My eyelids were just too heavy.

At that moment, there was a sharp knock at one of the many doors leading into the room. When granted permission, a councilor entered, distinguished by one of the council’s sashes. “Ma’am, there is news from the second dimension.”

My heart jumped into my mouth.

“It’s not just Violet Lee coming, Your Majesty. The entire vamperic court are relocating to Athenea for the winter season.”