But I got out. It was hard as hell, but I got out. I told myself I’d never return to that work. My kills are now served on the dinner table—not dumped in the paupers’ mass grave. But to guard Sabine’s secrets, even from herself, I’m afraid of what I’ll have to do.
That night—the final night of the ride before we reach Duren—I tie Sabine’s wrists and ankles again. As much as I want to stay awake to watch for danger, I need sleep. I don’t think she’s foolish enough to escape, but desperate people do desperate things. Hell, there’s not a small chance she’d try to throttle me in my sleep.
It would be a kinder death than I deserve.
With the blanket wrapped around her, the birds and insects roost in the tree branches overhead, waiting until they’re needed again in the morning. It’s like a goddamn jury of black-eyed demons up there peering down at me, ready to cast down my own death sentence.
Once Sabine is asleep, I pull out her father’s crumpled letter but don’t open it. For all I know, that damn goose overhead can read and will tell her what it says. I don’t need to read the letter, anyway. Every word is burned into my head like a branded nightmare.
What I’m trying to decide is, should I give it to Rian? Of course, with the broken seal, he’ll immediately know that I opened and read his private correspondence—a sin punishable by the dungeon. But I’m less concerned with the dungeon than what Rian would do with the letter’s information.
There’s a chance he’d see it for the threat it is, and surround Sorsha Hall with his sentinels, even if it means calling back entire battalions from Old Coros and the southern border, where he rents them out to the crown. That’s what I’d do. That’s what any caring husband would do.
But the Valveres are a different breed. There’s a chance that Rian will see it as an opportunity instead. With King Joruun’s failing health, and the crown’s future in Astagnon on shaky ground, this could be the fuel he needs to make a run for the throne, if what Folke said about his ambitions is true.
It would be foolhardy, stupid even. Practically a death sentence. But the Valveres drink down risk like wine.
I stuff the letter back in the rucksack, deciding it’s too risky to show to Rian. Instead, I’ll only tell him about the note in the spy’s pocket that indicated Volkish raiders are targeting girls like Sabine. I’ll tell him about the starleon, too, and how there must be a breach in the border wall. I can convince him that Sabine needs extra protection without revealing the true reason.
I’ll be there, too. As her bodyguard. Shadowing her. Ghosting her. Guarding her door while she sleeps. She’ll hate it, but she’ll have no choice but to accept it.
As I drift off to sleep, thinking about ancient dangers seeping across the Volkish border, I recall an incident about a year ago, when a hermit from the Astagnonian side of the Blackened Forest stumbled into one of Sorsha Hall’s masquerade balls. He was delirious and dehydrated, raving about how he narrowly escaped death from a monoceros, a vicious black-scaled horse with a sharpened horn capable of doling out fiery ruin on anything in its path. Monoceros all went to sleep a thousand years ago, along with the rest of the fae’s mythical beasts. Even back in the Immortal Age, there were only ever one or two known to exist.
The hermit was laughed out of the castle. His tale was lifted straight from the Book of the Immortals, a scene when Immortal Artain found a monoceros with a broken leg trapped in a thick mud pit. Naturally, everyone assumed the hermit was crazy. And maybe, now that I think about it, he was confused, melding Immortal Artain’s story and his own, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t actually see a monoceros.
If it’s true that goldenclaws, starleons, and monoceros have awoken, then what’s next? The fae themselves?
Fuck.
All night, dreams plague me. The border wall crumbles in a giant earthquake, the boulders that form it tumbling down our mountains to smash the Blackened Forest flat, blazing a path for all the ancient, dark magic buried in Volkany’s soil to rise again, spreading into our kingdom like poison ivy, until everything is choked out from the sun.
In the morning, the first thing I see is a goddamn owl peering down at me with yellow eyes. It had better the hell not shit on me.
I rouse Sabine, who for a sleepy second smiles up at me, forgetting her hatred, until it comes crashing back like a bucket of ice water.
And she turns away sharply, refusing to look at me.
My chest sags.
I can take her hatred. But that flash of love I saw briefly before it was dashed—that’s going to kill me.
Chapter 25
Sabine
As soon as I settle on Myst’s back, a motley collection of owls and dragonflies and crows land on me. This isn’t the first time animals have come to my aid unbidden. They sense a need in me, just as I do in them. If they’re hungry or cold, I offer them what I can. But I’ve never experienced anything quite like this. The creatures covering my nakedness have a mind of their own, as though something greater than all of us summoned them. For maybe the first time, it makes me believe in the old stories. That magic threads through everything, not just the few godkissed, whether the fae are sleeping or not. That magic connects us all.
Golden Sentinels are waiting for us two miles outside of Duren. They’re so well trained that they say nothing of my state of undress, though they keep a wary distance from the birds, throwing my animal companions alarmed looks. Good. I want them to be afraid.
Rian’s soldiers escort us past villages and farmsteads, where children run out to wave banners made from scrap fabric and cheer for us. For me. There are no leers here, no catcalls, not even titillated curiosity.
“Lady!” the children call as they wave. “It’s the new Lady of Sorsha Hall! Look at the birds! Hullo, my lady!”
Their warm reception throws me off. Shame? That I expected. I was prepared for it. To keep my head high and my chin tipped against the people’s slander, as I’ve borne for the last three weeks. But this is different. What were these people told? To welcome me? Show me respect? Maybe it’s just another twist that my future husband has thrown into his game.
“Just ahead, my lady,” a mounted sentinel says, motioning to a bend in the road ahead. “The gates of Duren.”
Duren might be known as “Sinner’s Haven,” where one can bet on dog fights in the arena, or have women of any skin color ride one’s cock, but from the outside, the town looks unexpectedly solemn. The city’s high stone walls are plain except for slitted windows and guard towers. The only decoration is two white banners, emblazoned with an image of a red key, rippling in the breeze on either side of the gate.
Oh, great.
My stomach sinks. Red on white is the color and emblem of Immortal Iyre, who Lord Rian must think is my patron goddess because of my time in the convent. Why, in the name of the Immortals, would I worship anything related to my abuse?
Basten, walking a pace ahead of me, glances back at me. It’s only then I realize I’m growling so quietly in my throat that no one but him can hear it.
Once we pass through the gates, however, everything changes. The city’s dour exterior walls give way to a veritable symphony of color and activity. Paper lanterns hang from house gables and street lamps, painted to depict colorful scenes from Immortal Iyre’s life. The air is heavy with the scent of brewing ale, roasted meats, salted smoked fish, fritters and puddings. People line the narrow streets three rows thick. Children run and shriek, energized by the festivities. I’m immediately struck by the residents’ fashion, much finer here than in a provincial town like Bremcote. The women wear asymmetrical hems to mimic the fae gowns in the Book of the Immortals, and their hair is twisted into immortal braids. More than a few wear pointed golden caps on the tops of their ears, secured by a delicate chain, to further mimic the ancient fae. Some have painted light blue fey lines on their arms and necks. Almost everyone—men and women alike—line their upper eyelids in bold colors to make their eyes appear winged.