The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,81
this place out today. At the base of the stairs, he pauses, swooping the torch from left to right.
Down each side stand tall tombstones, engraved with the names of the dead, looming over carved urns that contain their ashes. The statues of the dead stand in a silent row. The flagstones are worn from centuries of royal mourners. There’s the faint scent of lavender, but that doesn’t mean anything in particular, Cal knows: It’s often laid here in the summer, next to the tombs, and left to dry. He scuffs some of the once-purple debris with one boot, musing, as each stem disintegrates, on how much the flowers look like insect husks.
No Jander. Cal walks past the tombs, pointing the quivering flame into the shadows, but he’s the only one down here. If Jander was here earlier, he’s gone now. What would he be looking for, down here? What would he hope to find? The lavender would tell him nothing. The tombs can’t talk.
Near the tomb of King Phras, Cal pauses. It’s the oldest one here, because when Phras took power, all those centuries ago, he ordered the destruction of the Dellafiore dynasty’s tombs. He wanted to be seen as the first ruler, not the usurper that he was, the last ruler to preside over a united Avantine. His three-hundred-year reign of terror and sorcery destroyed it, and after his mortal death the region splintered into four kingdoms. The cult followers of Phras, the Aphrasians, withdrew to their Baer Abbey stronghold with the Deian Scrolls. Only Deia herself knows where those scrolls are now. Maybe in the north Cal would find them at last—though he doubts that. In his heart, he still believes that the supernatural beasts guarding the depths of the abbey have been conjured to protect something far more valuable than obsidian.
The tombstone of King Phras is taller than all the others. Even in death he looms over his descendants, the kings of Montrice who tried to salvage something from the wreckage of the great land of Avantine. Cal lights up its deep-cut letters with his taper, wondering if Jander made this same futile pilgrimage earlier.
Cal hadn’t considered the significance of Phras’s tomb until now—that is, he hadn’t connected the tomb of the dead tyrant with the castle’s dark magic and all its unexplained deaths. The tomb is just a tomb, surely—a piece of stone, an urn of ashes. That Jander might seek it out today is unsurprising: Phras is the one who cursed him, all those centuries ago.
Another failure on his part, Cal thinks. The king’s most recent reincarnation, Duke Girt, was killed, but he wasn’t burned in the fire of Deia in time. The demon lives on. Not in the form of the bewitched Lady Marguerite—that is clear now. But somehow he is here in Castle Mont, creating terror and bringing death. The mission to the north might be postponed right now, but sooner or later Cal will be forced to ride there on the orders of the Small Council. Doing this without discovering how King Phras and his demon power have found a way back into Mont would be the most calamitous failure of his career as an assassin. Lilac would still be at risk. Jander would still be trapped.
His father would be deeply ashamed of him.
Jander must know something, Cal thinks. What did Mesha give him when they were conferring in the cottage’s cramped cellar? Why were they so careful to keep Rhema out that day? What did Martyn discuss with him? They were “getting close,” according to Rhema. That’s what Jander told her. And now the physician has been murdered, and Jander has disappeared.
His instinct tells him that Jander hasn’t left the castle. The darkness they seek to destroy is here, within these high stone walls. Mont is rotting from within. This morning Jander didn’t know that the mission to the north was postponed; he was in the stables when Cal had the conversation with the captain of the guard. Looking at this from Jander’s point of view, there’s no way he was going to set off for the north and leave the demon at large here.
The torch in Cal’s hand flickers, and light darts to the dusty ground around the tomb. Something dark catches Cal’s eye and he drops to examine it. At first he thinks it’s an obsidian blade, flat but shaped like a spear tip. But when he holds the torch closer, he sees the object is less surprising.