Tomo’s expression warmed with encouragement. “Remember, frightened people crave certainty.”
“You are confident,” Renata said under her breath. “You have matters under control.”
Alessa bared her teeth in a “confident” smile that made one guard flinch. She eased it down a bit.
Honestly. If she were to rank every possible description of herself, “confident and under control” wouldn’t make the list.
When she’d first been presented in this piazza, everyone had crowded close, eyes sparkling with hope, smiles heavy with promises.
One day, she was an ordinary girl. The next, Dea’s chosen savior. Beloved, important, and so popular she hadn’t known where to look first.
Not anymore. Now no one vied to become her Fonte. No one wanted to share their gift with her. Although it wasn’t really sharing, was it? Sharing implied they’d get something back. That they’d both be alive at the end of the transaction. That was a promise she couldn’t make.
But she’d try. She always tried.
Even in such a restless crowd, it was easy to find the Fontes, draped in a visible miasma of gloom. She’d met them dozens of times, but they were still nothing more than strangers with familiar names:
Kaleb Toporovsky, whose eyes slid away a bit too fast as he smoothed his burnished copper hair with a look of perpetual boredom.
Josef Benheim, impeccably clad in midnight black, his gaze so steady she could almost hear him reminding himself not to blink. He looked so much like his older sister that Alessa’s heart caught in her throat. Families rarely had more than one Fonte, but when they did, it was seen as a sign of strength, of the gods’ favor. He should have been one of Alessa’s top candidates, but she’d already cost his parents one child.
Other Fontes reluctantly met her searching eyes: Nina Faughn, Saida Farid, Kamaria and Shomari Achebe.
Most tried to blend in with the crowd. She couldn’t blame them. While she’d barely known the people she’d killed, they’d all grown up together.
Now they were expected to act like they were desperate to be chosen by a girl whose power was useless without theirs.
Dea, give me a sign.
What she really needed was a push. Hours upon hours watching from high above the city, longing to be amongst the people, but every time she escaped her golden cage, her wings forgot how to fly.
She only made it three steps before a sudden commotion in the crowd stopped her.
A woman shoved her way through the tightly packed wall of people to burst into the clearing.
In stark white robes, she stood out like a star on a moonless night. What kind of person started a shoving match at a funeral?
The woman’s gaze landed on Alessa, and her eyes blazed.
For a bizarre moment, Alessa was embarrassed. It had been a few years since anyone had been overcome with religious fervor at her presence, and it was an awkward time for a fit of rapture.
The woman’s face twisted, the gleam in her eyes turning dark, and she broke into a run.
Alessa’s pulse raced to the beat of footsteps against the stone.
The robed woman didn’t slow, didn’t flinch, heedless of the guards rushing at her from all sides. Without breaking her stride, she drew her arm back.
And threw.
Something whistled past Alessa’s head with a whine so high-pitched it was painful.
Guards tackled the woman, wrestling her to the ground, their bodies muffling the words she tried to scream.
Alessa reached a hand to her neck, and the fingertips of her glove grew warm and wet with blood.
“Dea,” she breathed. Not that kind of sign.
Two
Chi cerca trova.
Seek and you shall find.
Alessa’s breath came fast and shallow as she wiped the hot trickle from her neck. Blood wouldn’t show on her gloves, and fear wouldn’t show on her face. It couldn’t.
Her eyes followed the trail of crimson droplets on the stone to a flash of sunlight glinting off a dagger. If she’d been one step to the left, the blade that had notched her ear would be lodged in her skull.
The Captain of the Guard barked orders, and his soldiers formed a protective wall around her. For the first time in her life, she yearned for the protection of the Cittadella’s high walls.
“Wait,” Renata said. “They need to see she’s unharmed.”
Alessa clenched her fists. Hiding wasn’t an option. Not for her. Never for her. Duty called, a little blood be damned.
“Chin up, Finestra,” Renata muttered. “Show them you are not afraid.”
Alessa fought the horrific impulse to laugh as she lifted her head so high, no one could see the tears burning behind her eyes.