In the Wake of the Wicked (Veridian Empire #1)

31. Rose

31

Rose

I flew through the palace, following my map to the west wing and hunting for the entrance to the tower. When I turned left down another hallway, I was met with the sight of a winding wooden stairway, the steps becoming increasingly narrow as they extended into the upper levels and out of sight. I took a deep breath and gingerly eased myself onto the first step.

The wood creaked as I ascended the spiral staircase, the air growing colder and mustier the higher I climbed. I could tell I was nearing the top when a draft whistled across the steps and made the ends of my hair flutter. When I finally reached the highest point of the tower, the steps opened to a mostly empty room, save for a bench, a large, cracked mirror, and several dusty sconces lining the dark stone wall.

And a man standing in a high, open archway overlooking the palace grounds.

His gloved hands were held behind his back, which faced me, and his dark hair was tied and hanging at the nape of his neck. The cool night wind had his navy cloak billowing at his heels, casting a shadow that skulked along the wooden floor. He didn’t turn, even when the top step squeaked as I entered the tower, nor when I joined him at the archway .

We gazed down at the world spread at our feet, the trees mere flecks against the ground, streams flowing and branching like the veins in my palm. The buildings in the nearby village were as small as ants scattered across the terrain. My breath caught at how close the moon and the stars appeared—almost as if I could reach out and capture them in my hand.

“Many are afraid of such great heights,” Gayl said quietly, breaking the silence and making my muscles tighten in surprise. “But I’ve never understood this fear.”

He paused, as if expecting me to respond. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, so I said the first thing that came to my mind. “I’m not afraid of them, either. Just not particularly keen on the falling part.”

“Yes, that’s understandable,” he said with a chuckle, a low rumble that seemed to make the very air waver. “What I fear is the idea that inevitably, there will one day be nothing greater. No higher climb. Nowhere else to go. Eventually, you reach the end—a point where you will have no choice but to look down on what you have left behind.”

A chill swept through me. “Well, you have a lot of that, don’t you, Your Majesty?”

My eyes widened at my own brazen words, preparing for his wrath. But it didn’t come. Instead, he hummed.

“I know of your ire toward me, Miss Wolff, and it’s not unwarranted. However, I imagine you are angry for the wrong reasons.” He turned to me, and I matched his motions, seeing him for the first time in such close proximity.

His blue eye was as dark as an endless ocean, while his white was a sharp glacier, piercing me to the wooden floor. Deep wrinkles adorned the weathered skin at his forehead, beneath his eyes, and around his mouth. Shadows of a beard formed on his normally clean-shaven face. A tendril of black and silver hair had escaped its leather strap and fluttered against his neck. There was something in his features, in the cleft chin and straight nose, that sent a wave of familiarity cascading over me. Perhaps it was my Alchemy blood sensing his own great power.

“Do you fear me, young Alchemist?” he asked softly, tilting his head with his hands still clasped behind his back.

My heart pounded in my chest. “Yes.”

“Then why did you come?”

I considered my words, unable to read the expression on his face. “Because I want the truth.”

He nodded. “The question is, which truth? I have many to offer.”

“I…I don’t understand, Your Majesty.”

“I imagine you want the truth about the Somnivae curse, no?” My lips parted in surprise as he brought his hands up to a steeple in front of his face. “Or perhaps you’d like to hear what I know about those Sentinels you have become so fond of.”

Ice crawled across my skin. I took a step back, my spine hitting the brick of the archway. He knew about the Sentinels . And then I remembered—this wasn’t the first time he’d said that. When I’d eavesdropped on him and his advisor, they’d been talking about the group of rebels.

How much did he know?

But he wasn’t done. “Or you might be curious about your father and the truths of his past.”

The floor seemed to shake beneath my feet as his words knocked me off balance. “What are you?—”

“Which will it be, Miss Wolff?” His voice was soft, unassertive, as if asking what I wanted for dinner.

It wasn’t a question I had to consider for even a heartbeat.

“My father,” I responded. “What do you know about my father?”

Gayl’s lips split into a sad smile. “Oh, I knew your father well. We grew up together.”

I blinked, my jaw falling open. “ What ? You lived in Feywood?” He nodded. “How—how did I not know this?”

Theodore Gayl was an Alchemist, of course, but all manners of magic lived in Veridia City. I’d always assumed he’d been born here in the capital, perhaps even in this very palace, and that was how he’d gotten so close to the former emperor.

If he grew up with my father…how had my aunt and uncle never told me? It seemed like the kind of information one might be intrigued by, that the emperor of our realm used to climb the same trees as me, run through the forests of my childhood, practice magic on the very soil I was raised on.

“Not many people know of my origins,” Gayl explained, turning away and walking deeper into the tower. “I changed my name and moved to Veridia City well into my second decade of life, and as far as history is concerned, this was where my story began. But yes, I was born in Feywood. I knew who you were the moment I laid eyes on you in the Decemvirate briefing, Miss Wolff.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Did you know my mother, too?”

He shook his head. “No, sadly, I left before Hamilton met her. But you look so much like him—perhaps not in your features, but in your mannerisms. The way you hold yourself, that cunning glint in your eye, the rare smile I caught a glimpse of in the great hall. It’s as if I’m seeing him again.”

As he spoke, a writhing sensation began in the pit of my stomach. A small, sharp thought pecked at my mind, whispering words I didn’t want to hear. Piecing together fragmented edges I’d rather leave broken on the floor.

“Your Majesty,” I whispered, closing my eyes as if that would blind me to his answer. To the truth. But I had to ask again—I had to know . “How did you know my father?”

Thick silence permeated the air, aside from Gayl’s strong, steady breaths. I, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to force air into my lungs.

“I think you already know the answer to that,” he said quietly.

My head shook as I turned away, back to the open air of the archway, letting the cool breeze ground me.

“Rose, look at me.” His voice was right behind me, commanding yet gentle at the same time, urging me to turn around and face the truth.

Staring back at me was the same dark blue-gray eye that haunted my visions these last few days. The same eye I saw gazing up at me from a pool of blood. The same eye that once admired me adoringly while reading in front of the fireplace, that tightened in concern when I skinned my little knees, that glowed with pride when I cast my first spell.

How had I not seen it?

How had I not known ?

Gayl took a deep breath before uttering the words that irrevocably shattered my world.

“Hamilton Wolff was my brother.”