Chapter 25

Ireach my arms above my head, my stretching groan morphing into a hissing wince as a blaze of pain shoots through the side of my neck.

My eyes pop open, my vision a haze of gold and blue, hands padding at a bandage wrapped around my throat like a noose.

I sit up, heaving air, certain I’m starved of it.

That I’m choking.

Heart pounding, I unravel the bandage in frantic, trembling motions and toss it aside, fingers coasting over the tender patch of ravaged skin throbbing with a deep ache.

I swallow a whimper, forcing myself to breathe slower.

Slower.

A room comes into view—all ornate gold furnishings and lapis lazuli walls. A dressing room packed full of gaudy dresses that aren’t made of much. A soaring, spectacular view of a glittering city that hides so many ugly secrets.

My room.

I look down at the pure white sheets pooled around me, tongue tingling as a wave of nausea swells.

Definitely my room …

It’s okay,I remind myself, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth—chapped lips thick with thirst. You’re out.

You’re useful.

I think of the little girl with red hair. Imagine finding a way to pull her free of that cage, wrap her in a hug, and tell her it’s going to be all right.

Clinging to that thought, I reach for a glass on my bedside table, almost knocking it over in my haste. I cradle it with both hands and tip it to my lips, guzzling so much water I feel it sloshing around inside my belly.

It’s going to be all right.

Shuffling sideways, I ease my legs over the edge of the bed and set my feet on the cold stone floor, a blue sleeping gown tumbling about my legs …

I swallow thickly, choosing not to think about how I was changed into this silky, strappy garment. About my long, near-perfect plait tied off with a blue bow to match, a few sprigs of hair loose from my sleep.

Sweat slicks between my breasts, down my spine as I settle the empty glass back on the table, clinging to it with a clawed hand. I hang my head forward and breathe.

Breathe.

It’s going to be okay. I’m going to get them out.

Somehow.

I cut a glance around the room, gaze narrowing on a glass jug full of water sitting atop my vanity. This deep, unquenched need flares within me. Like I’ve been stumbling through a dusty desert for days on end and have finally found a well.

I snatch the empty glass and rock to my feet, my body too heavy—such a contrast to my too-light head as I shuffle toward my vanity. Gripping the chair to steady myself, I pour my glass full, then drain the contents in gluttonous gulps, spilling some in my eagerness.

Slamming it down, my chest heaves as I wipe my mouth, braving a look in the new mirror that replaced my shattered one.

A tight breath cuts through my parted lips.

He took too much …

Dark circles cushion my flat, lack-luster eyes, lips hued blue, skin a sickly shade of gray—so thin in places you can see the map of my veins sketched below the surface.

I look like I just clawed back from the brink of a death that’s still clinging to my edges. How can I save a burrow of people—save a territory—if I can barely save myself?

Your kind needs sunlight to survive. It’s why Rhordyn had you housed in the northern tower all these years. It got the most of it.

Zali’s words strike me like a slap, and my gaze shifts to the open balcony doors. To the slabs of buttery light pouring past the billowing drapes, bringing with it the smell of freshly fallen rain. My feet move of their own accord, and I drift toward the doors like I’m attached to a tugging string. The drapes part as I step onto the balcony, and warm sunshine embraces me.

I shudder from my fluttering lids all the way to the tips of my toes.

Moving past the bench, I lean against the wall for support, then lower to the ground and stretch my legs—bunching my dress up to expose more of my flesh to the sizzling rays. Flicking the straps off my shoulders, I rest my head against the stone, close my eyes, and turn my attentioninward.

Transfixed, I watch beads of light bloom amidst my gloomy insides. One by one they swell, like winking stars sprinkled across a dusky sky.

Small seeds grow into big, strong things …

The backs of my eyes prickle with the promise of tears as I marvel at the fierce, ethereal beauty. At countless seeds of the strength I need to brace my spine and save those innocent lives.

Plucking some with slow, gentle grace, I cup them close, worshiping each one like I do a perfect stone scooped from the shore of Bitten Bay. I squish them, smooth them, take my time molding them into small but mighty domes I stack inside my chest. All the while, that raw, shameful pain in my neck throbs with each hammering thump of my heart.

I can’t afford another mistake. Another weakness.

There’s too much on the line.

* * *

Every clipped step down the stairs echoes the tap of my heels, my chin high and spine as strong as my freshly soldered determination.

A reticule hangs off my wrist, Cainon’s cupla bound around the other, feeling heavier than it ever has. My hair is a crimped gush over my shoulder, my dress an intertwining maze of gold and blue strips that show too much of my sun-kissed shoulders, my legs … every other part of me.

But it was the one laid out.

Izel found me asleep on the balcony and told me I’d been instructed to get ready. That Cainon has something to show me in the city.

A gift I will receive before the people of Parith.

All I really heard was city and people of Parith and a plan took shape inside me like a web of tripping wires—risky. Dangerous.

All I have.

I refused her help getting dressed so I would have time to make the appropriate preparations.

Walking past a tall hallway mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself and pause, struck by my eyes—bright with the sun’s luster, yet hard as flints. Like my soul has been snatched and stuffed beneath one of the many crystal domes nailed against my insides. A pretty graveyard for everything that makes me vulnerable.

I lift my hair, checking the bite mark; raised, raw, and angry-looking, throbbing with its own beat.

Reminding me of its shameful existence.

The bandage pulled too much attention—made me look weak—but my hair is the perfect camouflage.

Draping my heavy locks upon the hurt again, I continue down, nearing the foyer, Cainon coming into view with his back to the stairwell.

He’s clad in a finely threaded tunic trimmed in gold, his arms crossed, hair brushing his broad shoulders in loose, salty waves that make him look a little different than normal, though it doesn’t trick my thundering heart. Doesn’t stem my urge to backtrack.

To run.

He’s still the same predator whose eyes lost all their hue before he tore into my neck and almost drained me dry. Still an ancient animal forged from a time when power ruled the world.

I swallow thickly, lifting my chin as I round the stairs, like I’m stepping into a gilded Unseelie burrow. Reminding myself that I have a plan—I just have to grit my teeth and hold on until tomorrow night.

I just have to play the fucking part.

Cainon’s speaking with a woman dressed in a flowy gray robe. Her hair is woven into a crown of silky, golden locks, fine lines bordering dark-purple eyes, blue bursting from their pupils.

The same pretty shade as my friend Gael’s.

Her mother.

A few of my domes rattle, vicious, thorny emotions threatening to spear up as I remember the story Gael told me.

Remember the scars on her back.

As I look at the upside-down v carved between her eyes and battle to keep my knees from crumbling.

I hold the woman’s gaze all the way to the bottom of the staircase, and her brow buckles.

Cainon turns.

“Orlaith. I was just coming to get you,” he rasps, his hot, hungry stare raking across my skin. “But I got caught speaking with the High Septum …”

I paint a soft smile on my face, looking into his ravenous eyes. “I’m sorry I beat you to it.”

His throat works.

The High Septum reaches out and takes his hand, tugging him toward her. Frowning, he breaks my gaze and leans her way.

She whispers something in his ear.

Flicking me a sideways glance, Cainon gives me his back. The High Septum looks at me again, eyes narrowed, her hand slipping from his arm before she limps across the foyer and disappears through a side door—snapping the tension I hadn’t realized was crushing my lungs and making it hard to breathe.

Cainon clears his throat, turns, and extends his hand toward me. “Such exquisite beauty should hang off my arm. Always.”

Play the part.

Reinforcing my domes, I dish him a shy smile and thread my hand around his arm, every cell on edge as he tucks me too close to his side and leads me in the direction of the main exit.

I steal a glance at the side door. “Is the High Septum the Shulák’s … leader?”

“Yes,” he says with a laugh. “She’ll be overseeing your trial and officiating our coupling tomorrow.”

That’s unfortunate—I’m pretty sure she hates me already. Or at least doesn’t trust me.

Probably justified, since the feeling’s mutual on both accounts.

“You look astonishing,” he continues. “Positively edible.”

I flick him another forged smile despite my bristling skin. “Thank you.”

He spins, charging me back behind the large, golden door, snatching my breath. He cages me against the wall with such dominating force, my fingers twitch for the blade I’d usually have strapped to my waist or thigh. Thankful I don’t as I find a little vine of rage coiled between my vertebrae. Untangle it.

Stuff it under a dome.

“I like that you removed the bandage,” he purrs. “That you’re wearing my bite proudly beneath this pretty, pretty hair.”

His words crawl across my skin like the prickly caterpillars that nibble on my rose bushes. The ones that would leave a rash on my hands when I’d pluck them off.

“I’m so glad you approve,” I lie with a sultry slur that tastes like spoiled fruit, slamming another layer atop my creaking domes as I think of a warm kiss upon my head and a deep, bone-rattling voice seeping through the layers of my skin.

A voice I’d give my life to hear again …

Don’t cry.

Cainon sweeps my hair off the side of my neck, his fingers brushing the bite mark, and my skin flushes with goosebumps for all the wrong reasons. But they add to the ruse. Make it look like I’m enjoying his rapt attention.

Like my body’s responding to the low rumble boiling in his chest as he pushes so close there’s hardly room for me to breathe.

“It’s still so raw.” He swallows, the sound rattling the chains of the painful memory of him latched onto my flesh, drawing greedy gulps.

Itchy pops flare across my shoulder.

“It still smells like your blood tastes.” He drags his nose up the side of my neck, releasing a pained groan. “And if I don’t stop doing this, I’m going to rip into this pretty neck and ruin your lovely gown.”

I repress a shudder as he tilts back and grabs my hand, kissing my knuckles while looking at me through blown pupils. Drinking me in a gentler way than the one I’m certain he’s imagining.

Pining for.

“Later,” he promises, flashing me a serpentine smile that’s all teeth before he drapes my hair back over his mark and tugs me toward the exit.

Later.

I frantically reinforce my domes again …

Play the fucking part.

Swallowing waves of nausea, I’m led through the courtyard and out the palace gates, the sun blazing upon my face and all my bare patches of skin. We near a clopping swell of saddled horses and armed guards, each adorned with golden helmets winged at the sides. The horses’ eyes are half concealed with blinders, their manes hidden by flat, interweaving peels of gold that mold to their shape.

We move through the throng, approaching a huge white horse held in place by a stoic-faced Kolden. Cainon grips me around the waist, lifts me, and sets me upon the thick saddle blanket, the animal shifting in a tight, agitated prance.

I grab a leather strap as a blow of wind tousles the strips of my dress, exposing the swell of my breast and the curve of my inner thigh.

Blushing, I smooth the material as best I can with one hand, gripping the horse with the other. But a quick glance at the guards assures me they either didn’t notice or they know better than to steal a peek of what’s deemed their High Master’s property.

A boom rips through the silence, and I jolt. Some of the horses buck and squeal, the one beneath me tossing his head about and making my heart bolt. A litter of blue light rains from the sky, burning out before it hits the bay.

Cainon snatches the reins off Kolden and leaps up behind me, pulling me tight against his chest. I’m sealed between his legs, my heart hacking at my ribs as I catch Kolden’s fleeting stare—his jaw set, eyes hard.

He turns toward his own horse, and my gaze spears across the bridge, dread sitting heavy in my gut. “Do we have to go far before we reach this … gift?”

“Not far,” Cainon whispers in my ear, his excitement evident in his hitched voice.

More bristled bumps explode across my shoulder. Up the side of my neck.

Cainon digs his heels in, and we jerk forward. The beast leaps into a rocky trot, then a smoother canter that has my entire body rising and falling between Cainon’s thighs.

“Relax, petal. I only bite behind closed doors.”

I slam another ready-made shell atop the dome containing my self-disgust, then force myself to lean back, molding to him, feeling my blood curdle as a rumble of appreciation rattles from his chest through my back. It’s so close, so intimate, that I feel a chunk of my heart cleave off and crumble away like sunburnt soil.

Breathe.

Just play the fucking part.

We race over the bridge beneath the sun’s severe glare, trailed by an orchestra of hooves clopping against the cobbles. I keep my hair plastered around the side of my neck as we break onto the esplanade and slow, moving through the city streets, a sea of men, women, and children emerging from doors and stores and tight side alleys to follow our path. Some of the smaller children tug at the adults’ shirts or hands, frowning, questions pouring from their mouths in a jumble of garbled words.

“Whada we doin’, Maamy?”

“Ah we goewing to see mowah da pwetty sky spahkles?”

The adults remain tight lipped, quelling the children’s questions while nipping glances at the guards who escort us through the streets.

A heavy sense of dread settles upon my shoulders, even as I harbor a seed of hope tucked in my reticule—searching the crowd for a familiar face.

I just need one.

More and more people swarm, packing in around us, until we come to the end of the street, spilling into a massive cobbled square. The buildings surrounding it are tall and chunky, each boasting tiers of balconies stuffed full of people—their attention nipping at a large object draped in blue fabric.

A cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck.

Down my spine.

The guards behind us fan out around the perimeter, halting their horses in a steady, unified formation as hundreds of men, women, and children spill in after us.

So many people …

So many pairs of eyes that it’s hard to convince myself they can’t all see through my cracks. Can’t see the lie in the way I’m leaning into Cainon’s chest, or in the soft smile I pass him when he plants a too-hot kiss upon my ear.

I almost expect somebody to stand up and scream it. To call me out.

To sow seeds of doubt in Cainon’s mind that prevent me from saving those poor, innocent people trapped in his father’s burrow.

Cainon pulls our horse to a stop beside a stone podium draped in billowing blue curtains trimmed with gold thread. He leaps off, then reaches up and helps me down.

I barely feel him grip my waist, or my shoes setting upon the stone. Barely feel his hand press against my back, ushering me up the stairs, into the podium’s sheltered cove high above the ground.

We move to the balustrade where we look out across the crowd still compacting into the square, parallel lines of armed, stony-faced guards keeping them from filling a path of empty space between us and the obscured structure.

The crowd erupts—booing, yelling, screaming obscenities at a person being dragged by two burly soldiers.

My heart dives.

What is this?

The prisoner’s head is concealed with a sack loosely tied around their neck, making them blind to the fruits and vegetables being hurled their way. They ricochet off the guards’ armor, but the prisoner flinches every time one finds its mark.

My stomach threatens to turn itself inside out as threads of understanding begin to weave together.

This is not a regular gift.

I maintain my passive act, gripping hold of the balustrade to prevent my knees from crumbling as Cainon steps up behind me, then sets his hands on either side of my own—ensnaring me. I suck a tight breath, my heart thundering so hard I fear he might hear it.

“This is all for you, petal.”

I tilt my head to look at him. “Me?”

His eyes are wide, his smile bright and expectant as he nods.

My stare slides to a stack of arrows with blue fletching, their heads cushioned by bounds of white material—perhaps to protect the arrowheads from hurting anyone by accident.

They remind me of the chrysalides I used to find on the milkweed back at Castle Noir. I’d snap them at the stem, tote armfuls up my tower, and set them in a vase to keep them fresh so I could watch the butterflies hatch. I found such joy in seeing them fly for the first time, then flutter out one of my open windows.

I cling to the happy memory with trembling fists as the drape is torn off in a ripple of blue, revealing a pyre standing proud in the center of the square, constructed from hay, branches, and a tall log.

Muscles tensing, I fight to control the tremor threatening to cleave me down the middle as the prisoner is bound to the wooden pole.

A hush falls over the crowd.

The bone-chilling silence haunts me, muscles tensing, Rhordyn’s words booming in my ears like a thunderstorm:

Things are done differently here. That boundary is only ever cut into when they’re preparing to burn someone at the stake.

The memory of potent, charred flesh blasts the back of my throat as the sack is yanked off, revealing a man with golden skin, sandy hair, and azure eyes that find me instantly—sharpened with pain and fear, darkening with ire.

My blood runs cold.

Vanth.