Page 78 of The Mad King and the False Queen

Martine had turned her horse around and was approaching Dagmara at a trot. “You alright?” she asked, and her horse stopped with her back to the field.

Dagmara knew her expression gave away her surprise. “What is this?” she asked. However, she wanted to know if Claude was behind this more than anything. There were hundreds of bodies—thousands of bones. There was no way to bury all of these if someone wanted to.

“The Field of Valor,” Martine announced. “I believe you have a sea of scarlet?”

Racking her brain, Dagmara remembered the poppy field Magda always went to on her rides, beside the waterfalls. The elders claimed the flowers were markings of the deceased, and the field was the gravesite for the fallen from the war for magic. The war was centuries ago, and Dagmara had always assumed the poppy field was more an abstract memorial.

“It used to be covered with irises,” Martine continued, filling the silence. Her back was purposefully to the field, but Dagmara couldn’t seem to look away. “The day King Percival Mirage—Claude’s father—was killed, the irises began to transform to what you see here. It certainly makes you question if the stories about the war for magic were actually true.”

Finally able to tear her eyes from the endless graveyard, Dagmara met Martine’s gaze, surprised to find an expression of remorse. “Do you believe the stories? About the war against the First Prince?”

“His Majesty believes they are real.”

“I asked what you believe,” Dagmara countered.

Martine hesitated, fiddling with the reins in her grip. Her eyebrows narrowed as if she wasn’t sure what her answer was at first, and she was simply trained to answer with the king’s rules. After a long pause, she spoke, her voice timid, “It doesn’t all add up. The First Prince wanted to kill his siblings before entering the trials, something against all sacred tradition. Then all the guardians teamed up to get rid of him. According to legend, the First Prince was the most powerful guardian to ever exist. So why would he try to kill his siblings before the trials if his win was practically guaranteed? And why are the guardians connected to their territory as though they are the land’s lifeline?”

Dagmara looked to the field, littered in bones. She answered under her breath, “I don’t know.”

A few hours later, they arrived at Nouchenne. Dagmara’s chest and lower back were wet with sweat, and she wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. She had brought everything with her to face the worst, her throwing stars, her stunning potion, and even the jasny light flash her brother had invented. Martine, on the other hand, had daggers lining her thighs, and a sword at her side.

The morning mist had cleared, and the entire village came into view at once. Dirt paths cut through gray, stone buildings, and their pointed roofs were interspersed by rain clouds. Around the two-story houses, were once healthy trees and flower beds that now were crippled with blight. Tan, scorched grass extended out into the fields, making the entire village a mournful color. There were no distinguishing characteristics—just rows of melancholy houses with tangled weeds, surviving in a thick coat of dust.

As they neared closer, the buildings grew larger, but the atmosphere remained quiet. At the border of town, Martine spoke first.

“Shall we dismount here, explore on foot?”

“No,” Dagmara replied. For one, she wanted to conserve her energy. She couldn’t walk long distances without easily exerting herself. Secondly, she didn’t know what they would encounter and if they would have to make a hasty exit. “Let’s keep going.”

They ventured into the town, proceeding down the main road. The dirt road narrowed, turning into an alleyway. Dagmara pulled her horse forward in the lead, both sides of the road blocking her vision due to the thick, stone houses. Who knew how long it would take to find out why the townspeople were cleared of this area.

“What if it’s an illness?” Martine asked, a new quiver in her voice. “What if we are exposing ourselves to something here?”

That hadn’t crossed Dagmara’s mind. It was too late, anyway, as they were already here. “It can’t be,” Dagmara denied. “That’s too easy. Wouldn’t the king have told people that reason? Besides, I’m sure the villagers would’ve been put in quarantine, not sent to a neighboring village.”

Yet as they rounded the corner, turning into the center of town, the answer was directly before them.

In the main square, a gaping hole swallowed the central fountain and the rock foundation of another building. The cobblestone crumbled into the depths, and a line in the earth was drawn away from the hole, like a river running away from a lake.

“What is this?” Dagmara asked, dismounting from her horse and tying him to a nearby post. The sinkhole in the earth didn’t look like it was created from an earthquake or natural disaster. It was eerily precise. It would’ve been a perfect circle if the broken cobblestone path didn’t give it the illusion that it was uneven. On closer inspection, Dagmara saw that the line running away from the central hole seemed to extend deeper into the ground, as though it were a tunnel leading into the earth. And Dagmara wanted to know where it led.

“Come on,” Dagmara said, approaching the crater.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go down there,” Martine objected.

“I want to know,” Dagmara replied. “Are you coming with me, or am I going alone?”

Martine let out a sigh. “Let me go first,” Martine said, having already dismounted from her horse. She approached the gaping hole and slowly descended. Her tactic was nearly a crawl, squatting and putting her hands on the ground before dropping to the next stable piece of earth below.

Following Martine’s every move, down to her hand placement, Dagmara descended. Curiosity brewed deep inside her, and the same interest exuded from her guard. She climbed over broken chunks of rock, fumbled over the statue that was once at the center of the fountain, and even uneasily crossed boards and wooden planks that jutted out from the nearby structures. By the time they reached the bottom of the crater, she could no longer see the town. They were so deep in the earth, that all that was visible to them was the rubble they descended upon.

At the bottom of the crater, there was a small crevice in the wall. It was narrow enough that Martine had to turn sideways to shimmy through, but wide enough that she could slide through without touching either side. Dagmara turned her body sideways as well, and followed Martine. The crack in the earth at ground-level seemed far above them, but allowed the sunlight to cast enough of a beam for them to see their surroundings.

Martine’s armor clattered as she stepped out of the narrow crack and into an open space. It was a tunnel that descended slightly downward. Relief flooded through Dagmara as she too exited the crevice. The two proceeded toward a light in the far distance. Then they emerged into a cave.

The cavern seemed to be the end of the underground space, since there were no other exits Dagmara could make out. The ground underneath them was stone, and another wide hole was in the center of the room.

Crossing to the hole, Dagmara peered down and only saw darkness. Even she was not brave enough—or stupid enough—to jump in and find out what secrets lay beyond.

---