A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth

Author:Ashley Shuttleworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2023-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19 Celadon

PICK IT UP,” LETHE drawled casually as he sauntered for the middle of the room, and Celadon’s gaze dropped to his feet—to the sword there hardening into steel from a burst of inky smoke.

The Crystal Atrium had always been one of his favorite rooms in the Luminous Palace. Back when he’d been younger, before he’d even figured out Reseda wasn’t his birth mother and Riadne had been no one more than his father’s greatest rival, he’d actually admitted this to Riadne in his last ever visit here.

The way sunlight filtered in through fissures cut like streaks of lightning in the rainbow-stained crystal… the way everything seemed to run together, fluid, like melted wax… It had seemed to Celadon back then like a dreamscape made reality. Celadon finally now understood why she’d been so guarded and uncomfortable around him that whole trip, but when he’d asked her back then—all wide-eyed amazed and embarrassingly earnest—if she’d ever teach him how to duel here, she’d smiled at him, so impossibly radiant… happy…

And handed him a sword.

I understand you just turned sixteen, High Prince. It’s Winter’s custom to mark such an important milestone with the gift of a blade. I’m sure your father has given you many; I would like to present you with one, as well, if you would have it.

Celadon hadn’t understood.

He’d simply been delighted by the present—an elegant blade of spring-green glass and wicked-sharp obsidian, encrusted with emeralds and black diamonds like stars around a moonstone moon inlaid in both sides of the hilt.

And when he’d later shown his father, he still hadn’t understood why Azurean had first looked stricken and then angry. He had berated Riadne fiercely for carelessness, and Celadon had assumed then his father had thought she’d been hoping he’d injure himself with the gift, or maybe it had been enchanted to harm him.

His response had been to act out—to show his father he was sorry for being so careless himself, to punish Riadne for putting him in that position. The Pokémon cards he’d used to make a fool of her in front of her Court… the genuine hurt in Riadne’s eyes when she realized what he’d done…. His father had laughed—relieved, Celadon supposed now, that their secret remained undiscovered.

That had been the last time the Viridians had ever been welcome in Riadne’s home.

Azurean had confiscated the sword immediately, and Celadon hadn’t cared, had forgotten it entirely—assumed it had been destroyed, and that was that…

Until now.

Until here it was, winking up at him, on the atrium’s gleaming floor.

“We haven’t got all day, Celadon…,” Lethe prodded, and Celadon blinked, resurfaced from his memories to bend and retrieve his blade.

Just as back then—like no time at all had passed for it; like wherever it had been stored, it had been well cared for—the blade was exquisite. Perfectly balanced in his hand, cool and smooth to the touch, it cut the air with a melodious whistle when Celadon tested its feel with a swing.

“You want me to train you.”

His gaze lifted sharply from his sword to find Lethe watching him.

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