Page 95 of Into the Heartless Wood
“If you do not join the army, Owen, I honestly don’t know what will become of you. Your sister will still be looked after, but I can’t think you’ll ever be allowed to see her. Because what will you be? A beggar? A thief? Your sister must be protected from you and your father both.”
I drop my head into my hands. “Please let me see her. She’s lonely and scared. She needs me.”
Taliesin scoffs. “She doesn’t need you. Now give me your answer. Will you accept His Majesty’s generous offer? Will you sign the statement that you know nothing of your father’s actions, and enlist?”
I think of Father, head bent over his star charts, ink staining his fingers, his cup of cinnamon tea gone cold on the desk. I think of Awela, romping in the grass like a newborn lamb, her face stained with strawberries. I think of dancing on a hilltop to the music of a phonograph, four minutes at a time. I think of my mother turning to ash in a bloody wood.
“I appeal to the king,” I say quietly.
“Speak louder, boy. I can’t hear you.”
I fling my head up, locking my eyes on Taliesin’s. “I appeal to theking.It’s my right as a citizen of Tarian. You’re bound by law to uphold that right.”
The captain sighs, like I am the greatest inconvenience he’s ever had to deal with in his life. Maybe I am. “Fine,” he says, standing from his chair. “But I’m afraid you’re not going to like it very much.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting of the interior of the palace, but it isn’t this: a foyer under a low ceiling, the walls covered in wood paneling, the carpet a deep mossy green. Taliesin leads me down a corridor lined with more wood paneling, carved intricately with leaves and vines. I have never seen so much wood in my life, and think fleetingly there must be a reason the Gwydden seems to hate the king so much. That’s foolish, of course. She has no particular grievance with the king—she’s centuries old and he was crowned only thirty years ago, when my father was a boy.
Glass lamps flicker from sconces on the wall, and it takes me a moment to realize they’re not oil but electric, eerie and buzzing. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of electricity, but now that I’m suddenly confronted with it, I find it more unsettling than anything else.
I’m surprised when the captain ushers me into a parlor off the main corridor. I was imagining we’d have to walk a long way to reach the king. He gestures at the claw-footed sofa facing an enormous pianoforte. “Wait here.”
He steps back out into the hall, and shuts the door behind him.
I pace the room. Apart from the sofa and the pianoforte, there’s a real wood-burning fireplace on the left wall with a narrow bookshelf beside it, and a window looking north. A clock hangs above the fireplace, the seconds ticking down. There aren’t any electric lights in here, just an ordinary oil lamp on the end table.
I pace until my legs begin to ache, then trade off between peering out the window at the dim stars and perching on the sofa, neck craned around toward the door. I try not to look at the clock. An hour passes. Two. Three. Midnight approaches, and my stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since the train. I wonder if the king forgot about me. I wonder if Taliesin even told him I’m here.
I grow stiff with waiting, my mind inventing terrible things: Awela locked in a prison cell, my father executed and buried in an unmarked grave, Seren, her silver fingers dripping blood, laughing as she steals my soul.
I ache for home, for the telescope in the observatory, for Awela sleeping soundly in her bed downstairs, for Father drinking tea at my elbow.
It’s after four in the morning by the clock on the wall when the door at last,at last,creaks open.
I jerk up from the sofa, heart racing, and stare straight into the face of King Elynion. I know him from newspaper articles, from his portrait that hangs in the common room at the inn. He’s far more imposing in real life. His piercing eyes are green, his beard is neatly trimmed, and his dark hair lies loose on his shoulders. He doesn’t look a day over forty, and he’s thin as a sapling.
Belatedly, I bow. My legs nearly give out.
“Well then, Owen Merrick. You have proved a very inconvenient ending to my day. Make your request and be done with it.”
I gulp as I straighten up again, pleading with my body not to shake.
He folds his arms across his chest. “Well?”
“Your—Your Majesty.” I chew on my lip. “I’d like to see my sister. And I’d like to know what my father is charged with, and to visit him as well.”
The king frowns. He’s wearing a green suit and jacket embroidered with gold thread, which glistens in the lamplight. I catch the scent of earth and damp leaves, and realize it’s coming from him.
“No,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“No. You may not see your sister. You may not know what your father has done—if indeed you do not already know—and you maycertainlynot visit him. Is that all?”
It feels as if the room is closing in around me, and for a moment, I think I catch that same scent of decay that drenches the Gwydden’s Wood. “Your Majesty, why can I not see my sister?”
“Because it is best for her if she forgets you and your father, and never remembers her life under the stars.”
There’s a roaring in my head. “Why?”
