“What do I look like?”
I looked down at the nightgown I hadn’t bothered to take off. I’d promised myself a bath at some point today, I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But I’d brushed my hair this morning.
Or was that yesterday morning?
“Ouch!” I tried to squirm from Matilda’s grasp, but she held on tightly by tangling the brush in my impossible hair.
“Your hair looks like your fox’s nest. Now sit down so I can make you presentable for the kings and queens.”
“They’re here?” I gasped.
She harrumphed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
I tried to sit still, but I was too agitated. “Have you seen them?” I asked breathlessly. My heart took off in a gallop as I realized that the moment I had been equally dreading and anticipating was here. I could finally face the council and explain everything. And they could finally decide my fate.
Whatever that might be.
My stomach curdled and I thought I might be sick. My uncle had promised to punish me if I lost Conandra. Grief struck at my heart every time I remembered his cruelty to me.
I tried to imagine myself in his shoes, if I had been the one to rule after I had lost everyone I loved, and then someone I thought was dead suddenly showed up at my doorstep.
Wouldn’t I be skeptical? Wouldn’t I harbor ill will against the person trying to take the only thing I had left of my dead family?
But there was more to my uncle than careful skepticism. Instinct told me that he believed I was who I said I was.
It wasn’t doubt that made him behave this way. It was greed for the throne he occupied and the Crown of Nine.
Matilda jerked the brush through the end of my copper colored curls and I nearly cursed at her. “I haven’t seen them,” she said. “I just overheard one of the footmen rushing to tell the herald that carriages were seen in town.”
“How many carriages? Are they all here?”
“Cannot say. But I doubt it. With all eight of ‘em en route, they couldn’t possibly arrive at once. Could they?”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember what little education I’d had as a child. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Soravale, Tenovia, and Barstus will be the closest. Then Kasha, Aramore, and Vorestra. Heprin and Blackthorne are the farthest away. It will take them at least another three days. Depending on the pace of their travel, probably longer.”
My heart pounded with possibilities. I only had maybe a week left before Conandra began.
What then? Would they believe me? Would they also mistake me for the ghost of my mother?
That reminded me. “Matilda, have you heard that this castle is haunted?”
Her hands stilled in my hair. “Aye, I’ve heard that. But where did you hear such nonsense?”
“The guards,” I admitted shamelessly. “They thought I was trying to escape when Shiksa knocked over a tea service the other day. I told them it was a ghost and they believed me. Don’t you find it strange that royal guards would believe in ghosts? And not just believe, but be truly afraid?”
“I don’t know about that. I doubt they were afraid; more likely they were anxious to call a chambermaid is all.”
I spun around, interrupting her work. “Matilda, they fled. I don’t know how else to describe it. I suggested a ghost to entertain myself and the three of them practically ran from the room.”
She snapped her fingers and I turned back around so she could finish her work. “I’ve heard them speak about such things around the castle. There are rooms they believe to be haunted and they avoid them when they can. I’ve heard them speaking of things being moved, tables and chairs and candles and whatnot, but usually they’re more vexed than afraid. It is a strange thing. I’ve never seen a staff so concerned with ghosts and the like. In Soravale, King Hugo would shame us all for believing that pagan hogwash.”
“Pagan? What do you mean?”
In the religion of the Light, they didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits. I knew that. When a body died, if the person was good, the soul became part of the Light. A bad soul would become part of the Darkness, or Denamon. Throughout time the sun grew brighter and brighter with all the multitude of good souls. And Denamon darker and darker. The monks believed that a never-ending battle was being fought to see which side would win. They believed that at the beginning of time there was nothing but darkness, but people made the Light expand until the day was mostly light and only a small part given to the darkness.
Matilda’s voice dropped and she leaned in over her work. “Aye, ghosts are for the pagans. They believe a soul with business still in the realm of the living will wander bodiless until that business can be resolved. They believe it is the right of the soul to avenge its death or pay back a debt before it crosses over the veil.”
“Unresolved business?”
“They believe the soul has power the body does not. It can move vases, for instance, if it’s wanting to catch the attention of a maid. Or knock a tea service over in a fit of rage. Ghosts are as real to the pagans as you and me. Although they may remain unseen to the common eye, the pagans believe restless spirits control all the magic left to this realm.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I thought back to everything my mother had ever told me about pagan religion. Never once had she mentioned ghosts and spirits. She had talked about magic, but she had never seemed to think it still existed. Magic was spoken of in the past tense, before peace and the Marble Wall existed. If she said anything about it at all, it was to illustrate a story or tell the legend of a hero. “I’ve met pagans before,” I declared. “I’ve never heard
