“Fine, fine,” Tomo said. “Finestra, why don’t you get some air before the guests arrive?”
Renata still hadn’t opened her eyes.
Alessa slipped out, settling the door on its frame, and she waited, listening. There’d been a strange undercurrent to Renata’s words.
After a long silence, Renata spoke. “What if the next one doesn’t work out either?”
“It will.”
“We’re running out of time. If they’re right, and she truly can’t—”
“Have faith, Renata. The gods wouldn’t abandon us.” For someone who enjoyed a spirited debate, Tomo sounded almost angry. “Don’t speak of it again.”
Renata sighed. “I’m not suggesting it, but we have to discuss our options.”
“Five hundred years of tradition cannot be dismissed.”
“Oh, so abandoning precedent to risk your health is fine but—”
“It’s one thing to bend the rules,” Tomo said. “Another to kill a Finestra.”
Six
Dai nemici mi guardo io, dagli amici mi guardi Iddio.
A man’s worst enemies are those in his own house.
Days before her fourteenth birthday, Alessa had won a race and became Finestra. The two events weren’t related, but she’d often wondered if she could have avoided it all by reading a book instead.
After a classmate, tall for his age and built like a baby ox, convinced the girls to chase him around the schoolyard instead of the other way around, packs of schoolgirls had become military strategists. Some plotting to steal a kiss, most simply tagging along for fun.
Alessa wasn’t the fastest or the most determined, but she’d turned the right corner at the right moment. Or the wrong corner at the wrong moment.
Caught off guard, her target hadn’t stood a chance, and seconds later she was sitting on his chest, flush with victory, realizing she had no idea what she was supposed to do with him.
So, she’d touched his forehead and declared, “You lose.”
And he died.
Or at least, she’d thought he had. Tendons taut as bowstrings, blood-flecked foam between clenched teeth, he’d spasmed beneath her. He’d nearly bitten his tongue off and still talked with a lisp. Not to her, of course. He’d screamed so loudly when the Cittadella guards escorted her past his house later that day, they’d stopped to lecture his parents. That was when guards were still offended by things like disrespecting the Finestra.
Adrick had wheedled his way into the convoy, insisting he had to carry a few “priceless family heirlooms,” and gleefully rehashed every second during the walk to her new home, tossing her case from hand to hand.
Tomo and Renata had been waiting on the stairs out front as he wrapped up his impression, and Alessa had forced herself to laugh despite a current of unease. Maybe she’d already sensed it wouldn’t be the last time her touch brought pain, or that Dea’s gift would become a curse.
* * *
Alessa needed her fury to stay red hot, to solder herself together, but as she waited in the archway to the courtyard, it fled, leaving behind an aching hurt.
Tomo and Renata were already seated at the head table, with no trace of doubt or fear in their proud expressions.
She’d always known they were loyal to the island, not to her, but even if it wasn’t her death up for discussion—and it was difficult to put that aside—their sworn duty was to train the next Finestra, not kill her.
And she’d thought, maybe, they even cared about her. A little.
She pulled the tattered shreds of anger around her like a cloak against the cold as trumpets announced her arrival. A bass drum or out-of-tune violin would have been more appropriate.
The carefully curated guest list of influential citizens took to their feet around tables groaning beneath so many candles it was a miracle no one had caught on fire yet.
No daggers flew. No one shouted their allegiance to Ivini. No one gave any sign at all they were losing faith in her.
Like a dutiful show pony, Alessa promenaded past pillars wrapped with flowered vines, beneath strings of twinkling fairy lights that burnished everyone and everything with a warm, romantic glow. A true storybook wonderland for everyone’s least favorite ice princess.
Renata looked proud and Tomo smiled as Alessa took her place between them at the head table.
She didn’t return it. Maybe someday, after she’d wed her next Fonte, and the battle was over, her mentors would completely forget they’d ever considered killing her. She never would.
Discreetly, she adjusted herself as every ragged breath shifted her low-cut bodice a fraction lower. While a wardrobe malfunction might tempt some candidates, she’d burst into tears if anything else went awry.