Chapter 16

Chapter 16

M ariah wasn’t stupid enough to pull the slender, sharp paring knife out from between the mattress and the stone wall of her cell.

But her mind spun around it, nevertheless.

It started the moment her skin had touched Andrian’s in the dining hall. At the bolt of energy that shot between them.

She swore she saw something flicker in his eyes, something haunted and familiar and real. It had wavered, in and out, as he’d spoken to the lords, excused them from the table, walked her back to her cell.

There was a moment of utter clarity, when the haze had cleared from his eyes, leaving only the gleaming richness of tanzanite, as he’d tossed the knife at her feet.

Even with all her thinking, she couldn’t figure out why . Why this was what he’d chosen as his singular act of defiance before he’d slipped back away into his prison of flesh and shadow.

Mariah was still lost in those thoughts when, once again, steps sounded from down the dark, lonely hall leading to her cell. She sat up straighter, leaning her rigid back against the cold stone, focusing on the soft thump of approaching footfalls.

She noted they were light, delicate feet garbed in slippers instead of boots. They weren’t the footfalls of a man. They were the steps of a woman, dressed in finery, who had no idea how to move without alerting others of her approach.

The faint gold glow of allume appeared around the corner, and Mariah schooled her expression into neutrality as Anniliese Hareth strode from the darkness, dark hair pinned into a mass atop her head, her creamy neck bared and framed by a gown of rich fuchsia.

All the money in the world, and this girl chose to dress in fucking flower pink.

The sight of Anniliese roused something dark in Mariah’s blood, pulling out her anger despite her current defeat. Her jaw clenched, hands tightening around her threadbare blanket. She forced glittering knives into her stare.

Just like the knife now hidden below her bed.

But when the other girl came to a halt outside the heavy iron door of Mariah’s cell, peering through the bars, her rage faltered. Still hot, still burning, but tempered. Doused with a mist of cool water.

Despite her polished appearance, Anniliese’s honey-brown eyes were rimmed in red. As she stared at Mariah, who still wore the ugly, demeaning monstrosity from the night before, something in her expression dimmed.

“Why are you still putting yourself through this?” Anniliese’s voice was soft and muted.

Mariah kept her expression still, even as confusion raced through her. “Putting myself through what?”

Anniliese gathered her skirts in her hand, setting down the allume lamp. She rose again, still holding Mariah’s gaze.

“All … this.” She gestured with a pale hand at the cell, the mattress, the clothing on Mariah’s back. “You could put an end to it all, so easily.”

“Oh? I could?” A note of incredulity crept into Mariah’s voice.

Anniliese nodded. “Yes. My father told me that if you give up, if you agree to abdicate your power, all this will end. They will let you leave here with your life and dignity intact.”

Mariah couldn’t stop the dull, lifeless snort that escaped her lips. “You can’t honestly be that stupid.”

Anniliese stiffened. “I trust my father. The other lords can be … difficult, but my father?—”

“Your father had his hands up my skirts last night, pawing at me like an animal, just like the rest of them. He treats you well, certainly, but you’re his daughter. It’s how a man treats the other women in his life, the ones who have less value to him, that show his true nature.”

Anniliese’s mouth gaped open and closed, gasping like a fish. Mariah would’ve laughed.

Would have. If she’d been anywhere else, not trapped and defiled in a rotting cell below the earth.

To her shock, the other girl’s cheeks flushed pink. She hung her head, a few curls falling around her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t—I didn’t know. What they were going to do to you. I wanted to stop it, but—” Anniliese breathed a shaky inhale, still hiding her eyes.

Mariah watched her, curiosity settling like stones. “You’re afraid of them.” It was just a guess, but Mariah didn’t ask it as a question. There was something about the other girl that now felt so empty, so defeated.

Like Anniliese, too, was trapped in a prison. One that wrapped velvet and tulle around her neck and wrists, corseted bodices worn like chains.

Anniliese sniffed, wiping a quick finger beneath her eyes, before lifting her head.

“Why would I be afraid of them,” she said evenly. “They are my family, and they care for me. They will always protect me.”

“If you truly believed that, you would’ve stopped them last night.”

Anniliese raised her chin higher. “I said I didn’t know what they would do and that I was sorry. I didn’t say I had any wish to help you or protect you.”

Mariah smiled at her, somewhat sadly. “Then it’s quite a good thing I don’t need your help or protection.”

Anniliese blinked, before shaking her head. “Why do you do this? Why are you letting them break you?” Her fingers flew to her thin neck, toying with a delicate necklace lying there.

“Why are you suddenly so concerned about them breaking me, Anniliese?” Mariah narrowed her eyes. “You certainly didn’t have any reservations before about tormenting me.”

Anniliese released a frustrated groan. “That … that wasn’t my choice . They made me. They told me the faster you broke, the sooner I could become queen. I did what they asked, and I hated every minute of it.”

The air around Mariah stilled. Water dripped down the damp stone walls, collecting in frozen pools at the back of her cell. She shifted, her tangled hair brushing across her too-thin arms.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, no more than a deadly-quiet whisper.

Anniliese’s eyes widened, face leeching of color. “I—nothing. I was … nothing. I was talking to myself.”

The silence between the two women stretched into the sky somewhere high above, where the moons cast their longing rays upon the earth and the stars cried out for something to hope for.

“I want you to promise me something, Anniliese Hareth.” Mariah’s voice was still quiet, but there was strength behind her words. Strength she hadn’t felt in many long, cold weeks.

Anniliese regarded her cautiously. “I will not free you.”

“That’s not what I want from you.” Mariah shifted forward on her cot, placing her feet flat on the stone.

“Stop playing for your father. For men who will never appreciate a woman’s worth. Find it in yourself to start making your own choices. Do things not because they tell you to do them, but because it’s what you want for yourself.”

Something on Anniliese’s face cracked just a little bit further. A hint of the tortured soul beneath shone through, bright and raw and desperate for freedom.

Before it was shuddered away behind the mask of a Royal princess. She lifted her chin, staring down the bridge of her nose.

“Tell me what Qhohena’s magic feels like.”

Mariah cocked her head. Part of her wanted to push back against this spoiled puppet, but she couldn’t shake that brief, honest look she’d pulled from Anniliese. Something tugged Mariah toward a different response. Her own extension of honesty, a step towards the change some squashed part of her still longed for. She inhaled once, breathing in the cold air, letting it settle her before she opened her mouth to speak.

“It feels—felt”—she winced, the correction burning her throat—“like threads. Woven into my soul. A part of me.”

Anniliese nodded, some of that superiority falling away. “And what does it do?”

Mariah smiled sadly. She rubbed idly at the slender black and gold cuffs on her wrists. “I think I had only barely learned the true extent of it. So, I don’t think I can offer you a proper answer.” She met Anniliese’s honey stare, finding a reflection staring back at her.

Another broken soul, caged and thirsty for freedom. This girl had been used just as much as Mariah.

She just didn’t know it.

Anniliese watched her for a few more moments before bending down and picking up her allume lamp. “You’re never going to abdicate, are you?”

Mariah chuckled, shaking her head. “Don’t you understand? I can’t.”

Anniliese only watched her.

Mariah sighed. “The lords think themselves all-knowing, but they’re ignorant fools. A queen has no power over her own abdication, no more than she has power over her Choosing.”

Anniliese’s face hardened, mask slipping back into place until it settled into a scowl. “You’re wrong. High Priestess Ksee has told us it's possible. She says everything you say is a lie.”

“Is it?” Mariah snorted. “Yes, trust Ksee. I don’t think she’s held communion with her goddess in over a decade.”

Anniliese huffed. “You’re a disrespectful animal.”

“A title I bear proudly.” Mariah flashed a grin. “Anything else I can do for you, Anniliese?”

The girl sniffed. “I have tried to help you. I felt sorry for you, and I tried. But it seems you’d prefer to remain here, in what is as good as Enfara.”

“At least it’s quiet.”

Anniliese let out a final, frustrated humph before turning on her slippered feet and striding away down the hall, the light bobbing away with her steps.

The second the light vanished, Mariah dove for the space between her mattress and the wall. Her fingers slid across cool metal, grasping gently to avoid the sharp edge of the blade.

Several thoughts struck her at once as she withdrew the paring knife.

First, she felt the spark of life reignite in her belly. Glimpsing who Anniliese truly was, the girl trapped beneath the pretty shell, had awoken the raw desperation that burned through Mariah. She had a chance to change everything—her life, the life of everyone —if she were to be freed.

Second, talking about her magic had reminded her of what lived in her soul. There was a reason these lords hadn’t wanted her to ascend, why they’d taken her before the rite of coronation could be completed. There was a reason Lord Laurent had told his son that a bond with her would result in a forfeit to her life.

Perhaps it was just a threat, but it had worked: if Andrian hadn’t been so afraid, if there hadn’t been such a delay, then maybe, right now, she wouldn’t be here.

Third, she realized exactly what she had to do if she ever wanted to escape this place.

Her fingers clenched tighter around the handle, and for the first time in weeks, Mariah drifted to sleep with a smile on her face.