Chapter 10

chapter

ten

JOEY

Lorraine's guest bedroom isn't big, but it's tidy and homey. I step into the bathroom to wash my face. Quickly, I put my red curls in a messy bun to get them away from my face. I don't wear my hair up [JS1] often. I've always used it as a shield to hide my ugly birthmarks. The ones that so similarly match Kael's.

I lean forward, getting closer to the mirror, and peer at the wine-red splotches. First one side and then the other. What the actual fuck? I swear that I only had three such marks on each side, and now there are more. I run my fingers over the skin, and in doing so bring my thoughts back to Kael. The way he kissed me. The dirty things he'd said. The way he'd gone down on me as if it had been his life's greatest honor.

Clearly, I'm not getting enough sleep. Between the diner, the daycare and all the studying I have to do for school, I don't get much actual rest. Lately, it seems that my dreams are fitful, though I never remember them when I wake up. But obviously the lack of sleep is affecting my brain or something. Awesome, another thing to worry about.

I finish washing my face and brushing my teeth, paying no mind to the spots on my neck. Then I'm crawling into the full-sized bed with the clean, but aged sheets.

Always before bed, I take a few minutes to scroll through social media. I don't ever post anything, but I do like to check in on friends. One in particular who has been missing since she went on a trip to Europe right around the time of that big earthquake. I click over to Cressida's account, but there are no updates. Surely if something had happened to her, I would have heard. I hope she's okay wherever she is. She was my only real friend growing up, and though we haven't seen each other in a long time, we've always kept in touch.

I send her another private message letting her know that I'm worried and would love to hear from her. After double-checking my alarm, I turn my phone off and close my eyes.

Sleep takes me quickly. I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming, but it's unlike any dream I've ever had. I'm floating above a palace or stronghold of some sort. The sky around me is not blue, but I'm too close to it to properly determine the right shade.

And then it's as if I'm sucked down into the palace. I stare, looking out a window. From this position, I can easily tell the sky is a pale lavender, almost glowing in the bright afternoon sunlight. At the horizon, the lavender sky meets the deep violet of the ocean. Slashing across the sky at a sharp angle are the rings of Perse, a stunning line of deepest purple to charcoal gray.

It's so beautiful, I can't look away. And I don't want to.

I have seen this scenery nearly every day of my life. This is my view. My favorite spot in the palace. And I don't want to leave.

Not just because the view is so lovely, but because it's my home.

Behind me, a door opens.

A voice—my mother's voice—calls to me. "Elandra, it's time."

"No," my voice is quiet. Unexpectedly husky.

"We've been over this." There is tension in her voice. Anger, maybe. "We don't have time to waste."

"I'm not going."

"Elandra," her tone sharpens, and I jerk my gaze from the window to look at her.

This woman—my mother?—is tall and stunningly beautiful. Her dark hair is piled on her head in elaborate loops. Her crimson tunic is cinched tight at her waist and hangs to below her knees, so that only a few inches of her azure leggings are visible above her boots.

Her expression impatient, she crosses to my side with quick, efficient steps.

I turn fully to face her. This close to me, her gray eyes blaze. "You think sending me away is the only option, but it's not. I'm willing to be flayed. I can take the pain."

"It's not about whether or not you can take the pain…" she begins.

But I cut her off. "I know you think I'm soft. Because I didn't fight in the rebellion, like you and father. But I can take the pain. I'm ready."

I pull up the sleeve of my tunic and expose the underside of my forearm and the series of raised lines I've carefully cut into my wrists over the past month.

My mother gasps. "Elandra! What have you done?"

"I've been practicing. To make sure I could take it. I can. I'm ready. If it means I get to stay here with you. Then I can do it."

Her gaze hasn't left my forearm, so I can't tell if I've convinced her yet.

Before I can show her the marks on my other arm, she closes the distance between us and gently tugs the fabric back down over my arm.

"My dear—" Her voice breaks. Cradling my arm in one hand, she smooths her other hand down my forearm to grasp my hand. When she looks up at me, I see more pain, more open affection than I have ever seen in her eyes. "I never thought you weren't strong enough to withstand the flaying. I know how strong you are. But I never wanted this for you."

At the word this, her hand flutters the azure scarf at her neck, the one that hides her scars from when she had her own marks flayed from her skin nineteen years ago.

She steps closer, her voice barely over a whisper. "This thing the Sovereignty is asking of you, that it has asked of all of us, it isn't right. Flaying away a person's marks to ensure their alliance… it is the worst kind of injustice."

For a moment, her tone sounds like her normal voice, firm. Strong. But still in a whisper.

The palace may be the only home I've ever known, but even I know there are spies everywhere. And her words are treasonous. Even for her.

And I have never heard her voice such thoughts before.

"I went through the flaying for one reason alone. To protect you. And it worked. For many years. But now that Sorvin is insisting on these fealty ceremonies, no one is safe. And if your marks come in, he may have a fate for you that is worse than flaying."

I barely contain my own gasp. "Worse than the flaying?"

What could be worse than having your marks burned off with an ion laser?

"Yes. Worse. And I only have one chance to smuggle you out of the palace. I have only one last way to keep you safe. But we need to leave now."

I wake with a jolt, cold and clammy, despite the low purr of Lorraine's air conditioner. My pulse is racing.

I'm in my bed, alone.

But that dream…. that crazy, intense dream.

It's already drifting away, but I snatch at the memories, struggling to put words to the images.

The purple sky glowing bright with an arc of…. something. Like a rainbow, but shades of purple and gray and bigger than any rainbow I'd ever seen.

But it wasn't a rainbow. And in the dream, I knew what it was.

Rings?

Like the rings of a planet?

Could that be right?

And there was the woman. The beautiful woman with the familiar green eyes and the scars on her neck.

But she wore a scarf in the dream. So how did I know that scarf covered scars?

And why does it matter when it was just a dream? The weirdest dream I'd ever had, but still…

Dreams aren't important. Everyone knows that.

They are nothing more than a random compilation of information your brain hadn't had time to process during the day.

I shiver again and pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs and hiding my face in the crevice made by my knees.

I sit like that for a long time, shifting only to pull my blanket around my shoulders against the cold that isn't really there.

So I know the goose pimples on my skin are the memory of the dream, not actual cold. But I have never had a dream that left me feeling like this.

And I'm torn between wanting to hold on to the dream—because it feels important—and wanting to push it away, because whatever part of me created those images is terrifying.