The Crown of Embers(11)
The catacombs, which were built to take advantage of the natural water-formed caverns, are my favorite place to find solitude.
The guard at the entrance is not surprised to see me. He greets me with a bow and a smile. “Glad to see you back safely, Your Majesty,” he says. “I heard what happened.”
“Thank you, Martín.” But I don’t want to talk about that. “How is your wife?”
He is one of the youngest among the Royal Guard, and it’s hard to believe that someone barely older than me could be married and expecting a child already. “Approaching her ninth month of pregnancy. And cursing the desert heat every day.” He lifts a torch from a wall sconce and hands it over. Martín’s grin turns sheepish. “If it’s a girl, she wants to name her Elisa.”
I nearly drop the torch. “Oh. Well . . . er, I would be honored, of course. Either way, you must promise to introduce the child to me when it comes.”
He knocks his chest with the flat of his fist—the gesture of a true oath. “I swear it, Your Majesty.”
It’s a strange thing to be a queen, to have one’s every word given such import. I am a bit discomfited as I hold the torch high and descend the cool, tight stair. My gown drags on the steps behind me, but I don’t care. I pray as I go, asking God’s blessing for Martín’s baby-who-might-be-Elisa, that she grow up to be charming and slender and beautiful.
An orange glow suffuses my path ahead. I duck through a low archway and enter the vast Hall of Skulls.
It’s a cathedral of bones. Skulls layer like bricks, reach toward an arched ceiling so high as to be lost in shadow. A row of larger skulls juts out at the wall’s midline, their gaping jaws plastered open and inset with glowing votive candles. Curving rib bones frame dark openings at regular intervals along the wall.
I am weary of death. When I close my eyes, I see blood leaching into the sand, flesh melting like wax beneath an animagus’ fire, gangrenous wounds, lifeless eyes. But these beautiful skulls are free of their rotting flesh, preserved and smiling. I love this reminder that death is an important foundation of my great city, that something of the dead can remain forever.
I pass through the third entrance on the right and enter the tomb of King Alejandro de Vega. His chamber still smells of roses and incense. I sconce my torch in a brass holder and wait as my eyes adjust to the dim light. In the echoing distance, the underground river pounds through the caverns. It’s near enough to stir the moist air, and my torch wavers.
Five stone caskets rest on giant pedestals, but the meager torchlight illuminates only the nearest three. One holds the remains of Alejandro’s father. The second contains my husband’s first wife, who died giving birth to our little prince, Rosario.
In the third is my husband.
A silk banner covers the casket, and I trace its smooth length with my forefinger. Banners cover the other caskets too, but they are tattered with time, or maybe with the moisture that pricks at my nostrils.
“Hello, Alejandro.” My whisper echoes around me.
Talking to a dead man is likely foolish. Do those who cross the barrier into the next life see or hear what happens to those stuck in this one? The Scriptura Sancta is unclear on the point. But I talk to him anyway, because even foolish comfort is something.
“I watched a man set himself on fire today. I thought of you, the way they burned you.” I place my palm against the casket, and for a crazy moment, I imagine Alejandro’s heartbeat thrumming beneath the stone. I wrench my hand away.
“The Quorum wants me to remarry, and I think I must do as they ask. Our marriage was a jest, I know. Still, we started to become friends in the end. You even said we could have loved each other, given time. Or were those words simply your final kindness to me?”
I came close to death myself today; I embrace it fully, let the truth of it wash over me. The animagus could have turned his fire on me. I would have died young, like most of the bearers before me.
And once the idea has settled into my bones, I’m suddenly eager to say to Alejandro what I never could when he was alive.
“You were a good man but an awful king. Indecisive, frightened, unwise.” I swallow hard against the still-unfamiliar sensation of missing him. “Oh, but now I wonder if I judged you too harshly. I must tell you, because I must tell someone, that I am . . . anxious. About being queen. I’m not sure I’m doing a good job of it so far. Ximena tells me I’m the only monarch in history who is also a bearer. But I’m only six . . . seventeen. What if I’m even worse than you were? Maybe—”
The Godstone freezes. I gasp as icy shards shoot through my blood, numbing my fingers and toes. I spin, seeking the source of danger.