Page 35 of A Kingdom of Destruction

Once Aven finished eating, the two of them wound their way out of the main doors toward the gates around the palace.

“This place isn’t what I expected,” she admitted.

Nora glanced sideways at her. The two were similar in build, both of them slight and on the shorter side. Except Nora moved with the grace of a willow tree’s bending branches. Lithe and delicate where Aven stomped along and always made more noise than her frame suggested.

“Whatdidyou expect?” Nora asked.

“There weren’t many stories about Mourningvale, or at least none that have ever reached my ears. Your soldiers are ruthless and war-hardened. I nearly expected your kingdom to be the same.” Or at least in the same state of decline as her ownterritory. As though the very earth revolted against the situation and turned against the people who walked on it.

“Things are not what they seem to be, although it’s easy to pretend otherwise.” Nora lifted a graceful hand to indicate the swaying trees around them. “Sometimes what you see on the surface isn’t really the truth.”

“Everything is very beautiful.”

Where Mourningvale bloomed with vitality, Grimrose had withered into a kingdom of destruction.

“This place isn’t what it used to be, but it’s home.” She gently steered the two of them away from the main gates. Their footsteps were nearly silent on the sun-warmed stone path.

Just ahead through the tree line, Aven caught a glimpse of red-tiled roofs and gables in the distance. The faint sound of laughter and conversation trickled through to them and faded with every stride they took away from the gates. A village—and no doubt one no one wanted her to be able to see.

“This palace used to be carved from the land itself. Even our buildings were made from living, breathing materials,” Nora explained. “Everything had a life and an energy to it. The war with mortals might not have been a big thing in the beginning, but the land began to revolt against the fighting. Soon my people had no choice but to start building out of stone. The palace withered, died.”

“The palace died—” Cillian had said something about it being old?

“I’ve heard my grandmother talking about it. How the walls used to sing, how the very stone had a melody of its own that anyone could hear if they paid attention. More has changed than you can even imagine,” Nora continued.

Aven stumbled over her next step, a rogue rock in her path catching on the toe of her slipper. She hissed out a breath.

A stray cloud crossed over the sky and darkened the sun as Nora reached out to steady her.

Straightening, Aven took her time to look around. Indeed, the more they trailed into the garden, the easier it was to catch the small details of decline. The way the weeds and moss crept over the path and the dead spots within both. Most of the trees were tall and majestic, though there were some among the grove with black spots on their trunks and dead limbs dripping down like clawed hands to grab whoever was unfortunate enough to stumble by.

Like her.

She and Nora walked through the gardens until a bell rang somewhere. At the sound, Nora steered them back toward the palace and deposited Aven at the door to her room with a plea to rest. The lady’s maid would return later to bring Aven downstairs for dinner.

So the day went on.

And the next.

The next.

Three of them until she grew to loathe the palace even more because of its beauty. When she focused on it, somehow, it became hard to remember how she felt about this place and its people. Things might not be the way Nora remembered them, but there was life here. And joy. These people around the palace seemed so blissfully unaware of the death around them. They were just people, going about their lives, doing the best they could for their families.

History lived and breathed here.

It was a part of everyday life and seen in the thousands of small details. Carvings and paintings. Tapestries, woodworking, metalworking. All of it beautiful and steeped in the richness of the fae culture.

It made things hard for Aven, made it difficult for her to maintain her hatred.

Especially considering the freedom they allowed her. She’d almost made peace with being a prisoner. With everyone pretending the opposite, allowing her space to roam, she wondered if it were real or if they were giving her a length of rope, hoping she’d hang herself.

Every passing day the prettiness of Mourningvale lulled her farther away from her desire for revenge. If she wanted to stay sharp, then she’d need her memories of the past rather than the prettiness of the present.

On the third afternoon, she excused herself from Nora’s company to walk the halls on her own, feeling safe enough to do so at this point.

There were no monsters ready to jump out of the shadows at her.

Everything here was a source of wonder. She made her way through hallways she hadn’t studied before, trying to make a mental map in her head to find her way back to familiar rooms.

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