They’re all watching, this host of goblins and soldiers. They’ve seen me beaten before, of course, but Sira hasn’t been this upset in a long time. I can’t show them just how badly she’s hurt me.
Casually, I run a hand through my sweat-soaked hair. “Nothing like a session from Emberlash to really get the blood flowing.” I wink, gesturing to the bloody stone. “I’d recommend it anytime you need a boost.”
The faces of the crowd are completely shocked. Awed that I’m standing, awed that I’m speaking. Lastly, I fix them with a glare, a dark look that says: that pain was nothing to me, and if they ever disobeyed, this would be a fraction of what I inflict on them.
“Well, sister dear, shall we take our leave?”
I couldn’t summon briars right now if I tried. She knows it. The Nightingale fixes her own menacing glare on the crowd and prismatic thorns coil around us. Being oddly careful of my back, she drags us under.
The moment we push up through the ground and I recognize my own room, I cry out and collapse. Birdy’s thorns don’t let me fall, encircling my arms and placing me face down on my bed.
I writhe, screaming into my pillow, and try to reach around to touch my searing back.
“Don’t.” Birdy smacks my hand away.
“Is there even any skin left?” Through my blurred vision, I see her grimace, the quirk of her lip. My sister doesn’t often get squeamish.
“Be grateful Mother forbids anyone from laying a hand on your face.” She holds a bottle to my lips. “Drink.”
It could be any one of her concoctions, but I drink anyway. I should feel more worried, figuring the last time I saw her, I annihilated her squadron.
But … that’s not how it is between us.
Swallowing, the world fades away.
When I come back to myself, everything is hazy. My skin still throbs, but it’s settled down to a dull ache. I crane my neck and see Birdy has laid thin ointment-laden strips of fabric across my back. She’s kneeling over her bag of supplies, no longer dressed in her armor, but in a long black tunic and leggings, short hair tied up.
She looks so much younger like this.
“What time is it?” I ask, voice hoarse.
“Just past midnight.” She comes and sits down on the floor by the side of my bed.
Mentally, I work out the timing of it all. “Only a few hours until Ezryn’s trial, then.” It was one of the last things I had learned before I was moved from detainment to the square. The Spring Prince had been witnessed without his helm and was to go on trial.
And, of course, there was the matter of his mate bond.
“You killed my Dreadknights.”
I don’t break her blue gaze. “I thought you’d be sadder about it. Not even a tear? I know you’re able to pull out all manner of emotions at will.”
Her stone face doesn’t crack. “You destroyed them for what? For Keldarion? For those princes you’re obsessed with? Or was it for Rosalina? The Dreadknights were all I had, Cas.”
Maybe she thought they were her path to freedom. I can’t blame her for trying. I try, too. All the horrible things I’ve done—the trickery of my bargain with Farron, the goblin siege in Autumn—are only minor consequences compared to what will happen if I fail to escape the Below.
“The Dreadknights may have taken your orders,” I say, “but they were loyal to Sira. What was the first lesson I taught you?”
“You can’t trust anyone in the Below,” she answers.
“You can’t trust anyone in the Below,” I repeat.
A question lingers between us, unsaid: Can I trust you?
I don’t think either of us knows the answer to that. But I say what I can. “Birdy, they weren’t all you have.”
“What do you know about it? I had my Dreadknights and my thorns! That’s it!” She rises, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm. “You have your shadows and your thorns and whatever that green magic—”
“Trust me,” I say, “you want nothing to do with that.”
“And she …” the Nightingale continues. “She has thorns and fire, and who knows what else? Not that she’s any good with either. But these briars are all I have left now.”
“How do you know, Birdy?”
Her face cracks, and she shakes her head. “Stop squirming.” She lifts the edge of one of my bandages. “They’re healing.”
“Is Kairyn going to sentence the High Prince to death?”
The Nightingale stills. Says nothing.