THE SECOND BRANCH

Isabella

The cathedral was full of faces I knew and none I trusted.

I stood at the center of the stone floor and I looked around the hall. Duke Vance smiled from the front pew and his smile did not reach his eyes. Cecilia sat beside him and she would not look at me. She stared down at her hands. King Marcus sat rigid on his stone chair at the front, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. Vanya stood to one side with her staff pressed to the floor. Her face was calm but her knuckles were white.

"Isabella of Silver Creek," the High Priest said loudly. His voice echoed against the stone walls. "Step forward for the Rite."

I stepped forward. I let my hair fall loose over my collarbone, refusing to make the mark easier to find. I wanted to hide it until the last moment.

"The candidate will show her mark," the High Priest said.

"I will not," I said quietly.

"You must," the priest beside him said. "It is required."

I kept my hair over my collarbone.

"Isabella, you must show your mark," King Marcus said from his chair. His voice was firm but I heard strain in it. "This is the law."

"I know it is the law," I said.

A younger priest walked toward me. He did not ask permission. He lifted my hair aside and pinned it back in front of everyone with a small silver pin. The mark on my collarbone was now visible to the entire hall. I felt heat rise in my cheeks but I did not look away.

"Thank you," the High Priest said to the younger priest.

The sapling was planted in a bowl of ash. It was small and thin, with only a few green leaves. Its roots moved slightly inside the ash, as if they were searching for something.

"Bring the bowl forward," the High Priest said.

Two temple attendants carried the bowl forward and held it toward me. The roots crawled toward my wrist. I felt a cold pull from the ash.

"Place your wrist over the ash," the High Priest said.

I placed my wrist over the ash. The roots touched my skin.

For a long time nothing happened.

The hall was silent. I could hear my own breathing.

"Has it worked?" I thought to myself, and hope flickered that Vanya's vial has worked. I felt my mark dim under my skin from the vial I drank before dawn. I thought perhaps the sapling would read only a plain crescent.

"Wait," Duke Vance said from the front pew. He leaned forward slightly. "It has not finished."

The roots tightened around my wrist. A sharp sting moved up my arm.

"Something is happening," the younger priest said.

Then the leaves turned silver. One by one, the green leaves turned bright silver, until the entire sapling shone. A single blossom opened at the top, silver and wide.

The High Priest stared at it and his eyes widened.

"Vine," the High Priest named the line aloud before the King could stop him. His voice rang through the cathedral. "The line is Vine."

The hall erupted.

Some nobles rose in fury at the word traitor. One man shouted, "Traitor blood!"

Some gasped at a bloodline thought extinct. A woman near the back whispered, "Vine was supposed to be dead. Vine ended with Seraphine."

And Duke Vance's smile did not move. He sat still and watched me, his smile fixed.

"Silence!" King Marcus shouted, and he stood up from his stone chair. His voice was loud and angry. "Silence in this hall!"

The hall quieted slowly. People sat back down but they still whispered.

"Isabella of Silver Creek has been presented for the Rite," King Marcus said. "The sapling has read her. I close the Rite now. I declare the Luna verified under the old covenant. This is my right as King."

"You cannot close it yet," Duke Vance said calmly from his pew. "The Rite must be recorded fully."

"I am King and I can close it," King Marcus said. He looked directly at Duke Vance. "The Luna is verified. That is enough."

"What about the charge of treason?" a nobleman shouted from the side. "Vine was declared traitor twenty-five years ago."

"No charge of treason can be brought without royal assent," King Marcus said loudly. "I invoke my authority as guardian of an incapacitated prince, placing her under the Crown's protection where no charge of treason can be brought without royal assent. No one will touch her without my permission. Is that clear?"

The hall was silent again. No one answered the King.

I felt my wrist still held by the roots. The sapling was not finished.

"Your Majesty," the High Priest said quietly. "The sapling is moving again."

"What do you mean?" King Marcus asked.

"Look," the High Priest said.

A second branch pushed out of the ash. It did not look like the first branch. It was dark and brittle, black at the edges, and it grew quickly from the base of the sapling toward my other wrist. It cracked as it grew.

"What is that?" I asked. My voice shook.

"Do not touch it," Vanya said suddenly from the side. She lifted her staff. "Do not let it touch her."

The old priest reached toward it despite Vanya's warning. His hand touched the dark branch.

As soon as he touched it, the branch crumbled into black powder. The powder fell into the ash and the ash turned dark.

The old priest pulled his hand back and stared at his fingers. They were stained black.

"What does this mean?" King Marcus asked. He stepped down from his chair and walked toward the bowl. "What did we just see?"

The old priest whispered, his voice so low that only I and the King could hear him at first.

"The line has been burned out on purpose," he whispered. "By the same working that seals a wolf. Someone tried to end this line with a sealing curse. The Vine was not just declared traitor. It was burned from the inside."

"What working seals a wolf?" I asked. My throat was dry.

"It is a curse that closes a wolf's voice," the old priest said. "It seals the wolf inside and stops it from speaking. It is forbidden."

I felt cold all over.

I thought of a tavern, a bottle and a man who barely looked at her when he sold her. I thought of the man who sold my mother the bottles for Noah, the man who came every month with a plain face and a quiet voice, who never asked my name.

"He sold my mother the bottles for my brother," I said to myself, but I spoke out loud without meaning to. "He barely looked at me when he sold her the bottles. He said they were from the north. He said they would help my brother breathe."

"Who sold them?" King Marcus asked me. He had heard me.

"The apothecary from the north road," I said. "He came to Silver Creek every month. My mother bought potions from him for Noah. She said they were the only thing that kept Noah alive."

"How long did she buy them?" Vanya asked, stepping closer.

"For years," I said. "Since Noah was small."

The old priest looked at me and his face was full of pity.

"If the line has been burned out on purpose, it would need a steady dose to keep it sealed," he whispered. "It would need to be given over years."

I understood then. I felt my legs shake.

My father was the tavern keeper. He raised me. He told me he found me after my mother left. He told me he was my family.

"The father she has always known is not who he claimed to be."

The father I had always known is not who he claimed to be.