Page 83 of Cursed Crowns
Instead of multiple courses, the servants brought everything out on giant platters for sharing. There was a mountain of greens cooked with red chilies, thick hand-pulled noodles swimming in a bone broth, and steamed whole chicken served with ginger and onions, all of it deliciously fragrant and steaming hot.
The greens were so spicy they made Rose’s eyes water. She downed her wine to cool her tongue before reaching for another.
“Too hot for you, Queenie?” Kai smirked as he scooped out another helping.
“It’s delicious but quite spicy, isn’t it?” said Rose, looking around her. But no one else seemed to be struggling. Shen had already gone back for seconds. “I’ve never had anything like it.”
“We grow our chilies in the palace gardens,” said Feng proudly. “I’ve spent years perfecting their spice.”
“With my help,” interjected Grandmother Lu. “I whisper to the chilies when everyone is asleep. They grow nice and spicy for me.”
“I’m amazed you were able to grow anything at all,” said Rose, trying to catch Shen’s eye again so they could share a sliver of conversation, “living under the desert these past eighteen years.”
“You’ll find that like all things in the desert, the Sunkissed Kingdom is resilient. It can thrive where most things wouldn’t,” said Feng a touch defensively. “We don’t need anyone but ourselves.”
Shen fidgeted with the ruby ring around his neck. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. I never knew I had the key.” He frowned, then. “I didn’t know anything.”
“You were very young when we lost our sky,” said Grandmother Lu, heaping more noodles onto his plate. “You cannot blame yourself.”
“But what happened?” Shen traced the ring like it might whisperto him of the past. “I can’t remember. One moment I was here with my family, and the next, I was all alone in the desert.”
Grandmother Lu set the noodles down and sat back in her chair. “After the murder of King Keir and Queen Lillith”—she paused to dip her chin at Rose in respect—“Anadawn went to war against the witches of Eana. Many of the witches welcomed the fight. They were angry. They wanted to take back what the Valharts had stolen from them, what theycontinuedto steal from them.”
Rose thought of Banba marching out to face the full cruelty of Rathborne’s army, of Thea losing her eye in the battle, and of the countless other witches who had perished that day. Not long ago, she had glimpsed their spirits in the Weeping Forest, heard their dying screams in her nightmares.
“But Lillith’s War was not our fight,” said Feng coldly. “For hundreds of years, we had lived in the desert without the Valhart royals even knowing of our existence. We had our own ruling system, our own king and queen. By then, we had all but seceded from Eana.” He glanced meaningfully at Rose. She held his stare. “We didn’t want Willem Rathborne to know the strength of our warrior witches, the power of our tempests, the quickness of our enchanters. We wanted to be left alone, as we always had been. And so we decided not to join the fight.”
Shen bristled. “You abandoned the other witches?” He looked between Feng and Grandmother Lu. “But there are thousands of us here. We could have turned the tide of the war!”
“Or died alongside everyone else,” said Feng.
“You don’t know that,” said Shen. He met Rose’s gaze—flame on flame—and for a heartbeat, they were united in their anger.
“You sound just like your mother, Shen Lo,” said GrandmotherLu, sighing. “Queen Ai Li couldn’t bring herself to ignore the witches’ cry for help. She and your father argued about what to do.Ceaselessly, I might add.In the end, she decided to go on her own. She was one of the most powerful tempests I’ve ever seen. She believed she could make a difference.”
“And my father?” said Shen, clenching his fists on the table.
“Your father was a formidable warrior. A formidable king,” said Grandmother Lu, her brown eyes softening. “He stayed here with his people. To protect them. To protect the kingdom. When your mother left, Gao asked her to hide us, as she’d done many times before.”
“Our kingdom has long moved beneath the sands,” said Feng, stepping back into the tale. “Separate from Eana. Separate from Anadawn.” He glanced meaningfully at Rose, then went on. “But there has always been a key to unbury it.” He gestured to the ruby ring hanging from Shen’s neck. “Your mother left that key with the person she loved most in the world. The safest place she could think of.”
Shen clutched the ring in his fist, his eyes turning fearful. Rose was seized by the urge to reach for his hand across the table, but this wasn’t her story. She was outside the glass bubble again, looking in.
“But you followed her, Shen,” said Grandmother Lu gently. “And she never knew. You wandered into the desert, and the key was with you.” She looked down at her hands, and Rose saw they were trembling. “After your mother died in the war, our only way out disappeared.”
Shen closed his eyes and raised a fist to his mouth, like he was trying to keep himself from crying out for her.
Grandmother Lu went on. “Your father believed he’d lost both his wife and his son to the war. The grief was too much for him. He barely lasted a year beneath the sands before his heart gave out. He went tojoin your mother in the stars.” She shook her head, a tear slipping down her cheek. “All this time, we thought you were there, too. How could a boy so young survive in the desert on his own?”
“Banba found me,” said Shen numbly. “She took me to Ortha.” He dropped his head in his hands, his pain muffled by his fingers. “And I spent eighteen years wearing that damned ruby around my neck.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Rose, breaking her silence before it suffocated her. “How could you have known?”
Kai cleared his throat. “It sort ofishis fault.”
“Kai!” snapped Lei Fan.
“What? It’s true! If he hadn’t chased his mother—”