Chapter 22

169

Chapter 22

After what felt like years, the first hint of warmth flared faintly, finally, at Oriane's heart.

Dawn was approaching.

‘The king. All the people in there …' she murmured. She was hiding outside again with Kitt. She had not seen Andala since the dance. Her drunkenness had fizzled away, but the bone-deep weariness that had settled in its place made her words come out slow, heavy. ‘They think I'm this … goddess. This saviour. But I couldn't save my own father, and I can't save any of them.'

Kitt was quiet for a moment. ‘I don't think they need you to save them, Oriane. I think they just need to know you'll keep lighting their way.'

She scoffed, that blessed anger flaring to life once more. ‘Why should I? What good is my light in a world like this?'

Kitt looked unsure how to answer. Before he could do so, a laugh rang through the night, followed by a voice. The king's voice, animated and jubilant.

‘… did I tell you? It's going to work this time. It's more powerful than ever, I can feel it …'

A woman murmured something indistinguishable in return. Oriane recognised Hana's voice. Soon the royal pair came into view. 170 Oriane and Kitt were themselves hidden behind a thick-leaved tree, strung heavy with lanterns. Oriane felt distantly guilty that they were intruding on a private moment between the siblings as Hana said something else to her brother, and he laughed again.

‘But that's just it, it will be worth it!' Tomas said. ‘And it will work, and this will all be behind us. And isn't that something to celebrate?'

Hana must have said something in agreement, for Tomas picked her up and spun her in the air. She laughed then, too. It was a beautiful sound; a sound that stabbed through Oriane's ribs like a blade. They were family, Hana and Tomas. They had each other. And because of them, now Oriane had nothing.

She glanced at Kitt. He was frowning, too, though likely not for the same reason as her. But before either of them could speak, the royals walked past the tree, pulling up short at the sight of them.

‘Kitt, my friend. And Oriane!' Tomas said, his smile as bright as the lanterns. ‘It must be almost time now, Lady Lark?'

But Oriane was looking at Hana. The princess had frozen, staring back at her, and there was something in her expression that gave Oriane pause—

A hand alighted on her shoulder, and Oriane started. Kitt was guiding her gently to her feet. ‘Is it time?'

Oriane swallowed her envy, her ire. It lodged in her throat, but she nodded. And on numb feet, with the warmth at her heart steadily turning to heat, she followed them towards the ballroom.

They had almost made it to the doors, Tomas and Hana parading through the crowd ahead of them, when a voice called Oriane's name.

It was Andala; she looked pained, her voice urgent. She caught hold of Oriane's arm. ‘Oriane, wait. I—'

‘There's no time.' Oriane pulled free of her grip. Whatever it was, 171 she did not want to hear it. She pushed her way into the ballroom, keeping her eyes forward.

Being close to Andala would only hurt. She had realised that after they danced. It hadn't just been the sting of Andala vanishing into the crowd, as if she couldn't wait to get away. No, it was the new knowledge Oriane had, something she should have realised long ago but had not: it was certain, inevitable, that everyone she cared for would leave, one way or another.

The room was darkening, growing closer shade by shade to the velvet blackness of the sky outside. Oriane realised that they were dimming or extinguishing all the lanterns. The better to see the first light of dawn, she supposed. The thought left the taste of iron and bile in her mouth.

People were speaking to her as she passed, but she did not hear them. At one point her gaze landed on Terault. He was watching her with that faint, knowing smirk of his. It sent a bolt of feeling through her that turned her vision red. She wondered: did he think it worth it? Did the king? Did they all believe it a fair price to pay – her father's life for their precious skylark, come back to call their precious sun?

Finally, she came to the front of the room. The crowd parted for her, revealing the dais where she was to perform. She stopped short, limbs locking in protest, but more people – guards, she realised – swept in to surround her, moving her forward.

They forced her up the steps, onto the dais, and the seneschal met them, ascending from the other side.

In his hands was a cage.

A gleaming, gilded cage. Terault set it upon a pedestal, its bars catching the last of the low lantern light. Its little door stood open and ready. Ready for her. 172

She did not feel surprised, somehow. She just felt cold. The cage seemed preordained; inexorable, inevitable, as if she had known from the beginning where she would end up.

Oriane did not remember transforming. It seemed to happen without her awareness or consent, as it had when she was young. She only recalled seeing a last glimpse of Kitt, his eyes wide as he spoke urgently to the king; Tomas, brushing Kitt off as he moved towards Oriane, Hana at his side; and Andala, a look of purest horror on her face as she forced her way through the crowd and saw the cage too.

Oriane's mind had gone grey and silent, and so she did not think to fly. She barely felt the rough hands scooping her up and forcing her into the golden cage.

The skylark looked out between the bars, at the people and the king, at Hana and Kitt and Andala. The warmth in her chest had become a burning. The night was waning. The darkness readied itself to die. But, as ever, the day would not dawn without her. Calling the dawn was her duty, her family's legacy. Her song was as strong as the sun was bright, as sure as its light was warm.

And yet.

What if she did not sing?

What would happen to the world, she wondered, if the skylark saw fit to keep her voice inside?

She looked out at them all, the people she had been so desperate to please. At the life that awaited her now – the one her father had paid for with blood. Would she perform, then, like the good little songbird she was, to admiration and rapturous applause? Would she mark her father's death with music and light and a fluttering of wings, with a world that kept turning when her own had shuddered to a halt?

No. 173

Her mind had turned clear again, sharp, and it was made up. No . They would not have her any longer. None of them would. Not the king or his guards, not the many faceless others who had no idea what they had cost her.

She pushed down the heat in her chest, smothering it, absorbing it. It hurt. She did not care.

Let the night linger. Let the darkness reign. Let their only light be the flames of her burning home, of her father's funeral pyre.

The skylark would keep her song to herself. 174