Wind races down from the cliff, coiling around my ankles, tangling in my hair. “Then that is where I must go.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
OWEN
TALIESIN DEPOSITS ME IN ONE OF THE BARRACK DORMITORIES, A small room crammed with two sets of triple bunks and already occupied by five slumbering soldiers. I clamber into the middle bunk on the right wall—the only empty one—and find it’s been stripped of both mattress and pillow. There’s only a hard board between me and the bunk below, with not even a sheet to lie on. I use my pack as a pillow and attempt to sleep, but my mind is too wild with anger to let me.
I’m damned if I’m going to let the king keep me from Awela. Or leave my father to languish in prison for treason he didn’t commit.
I think back to that last night I spent with Father in the observatory, meteors raining down from Heaven like it was the end of days. The shifting constellations. The changing stars.
Father told me he was going to send a telegram to the king to inform him about the anomaly.
And then he’d been arrested.
It can’t be a coincidence, but it doesn’t make any sense. Anyone could look at the night sky now and know it was different than it had been last week. It wasn’t something to get thrown into prison for.
Was it?
Do you know why he does it? the king’s man asked me all those weeks ago. Why he pays your father for these charts every month?
Was this it? Was the impossible transformation of the stars the thing the king had been waiting for? Watching for? That doesn’t make any sense, either. No one could possibly have known that that meteor shower was going to happen. I saw it myself and I still hardly believe it.
I roll onto my side on the hard bunk. I’ll play the king’s game, I’ll be a soldier—I don’t have any choice. But I’m also going to find Awela and uncover the truth about my father. If I can’t convince the king of his innocence, I’ll find a way to break him out of prison, and the three of us will flee to Saeth. We can start a new life there. Away from the king and the war and the wood. Away from all of this.
I jolt awake to the sharp call of a trumpet and the muttered curses of my bunkmates. I can’t have slept more than an hour, and my eyes feel like they’re full of sand.
In the light of a single overhead lantern, the five other soldiers tug on their uniforms, somehow managing to not bump into each other in the limited floorspace. They’re all about my own age, a couple of them maybe even younger, and they take no notice of me.
They all stumble out the door, and I roll over in the awful bunk, deciding I may as well get some more sleep—Taliesin left me with no instructions, and I secretly hope no one knows I’m here.
But half a moment later, the older female guard from last night comes in, and scolds me roundly for still being in bed. She introduces herself as Commander Carys, and makes me turn in my clothes—including the extra sets in my pack—in exchange for an army uniform: blue trousers, white shirt, blue jacket. There’s boots, too, a matching blue cap, and a heavy sword belt. She stands there with her arms crossed the whole time I’m getting dressed, which I do as quickly as possible, flushing hotter and hotter with every moment that passes. The uniform is staggering and stifling; it makes me feel claustrophobic.
Carys orders me outside when I’ve got it on, and I have my first view of the barracks in the daylight: ugly, sprawling buildings made of mud bricks. She points out the four training fields, a gun range, a riding arena, a mess hall, and a bathhouse, which she informs me I won’t be able to use until I get my first paycheck, as each visit costs a whole silver penny. I’ll have to use the pump in the courtyard until then.
Then she tells me to report to one of the training fields, where the commanding officer makes me run laps with a handful of other new recruits.
The uniform is heavy and suffocating, and I’m not used to running. I’m used to sitting in Father’s observatory painstakingly filling in the star charts, or weeding the garden while Awela digs for worms. Not even the smallest part of me belongs here. But I’ve nowhere else to go, and I refuse to give up my proximity to my father and sister.
So I force myself to keep running. I collapse on the field after five laps and am brought directly to the medical tent.
The nurse on duty is a dark-skinned woman with shrewd eyes and a blue cap pinned to her tightly curled hair. She gives me water from a canteen and tells me to drink it slowly.
I do, my eyes flitting about the tent, listening to the shouts and pounding footsteps drifting in from the training fields. It’s a relief to be in here, away from the brutal glare of the sun. I wish I never had to leave, but only moments later, the nurse says I can go.
“Work up to the drills slowly, you hear?” she tells me with a shake of her head. “I’d wager you’ve never run a mile in your life. You shouldn’t try to do ten all at once.”
My cheeks warm. I mumble thanks and duck back outside.
After that I report to a different training field for sword drills, which are conducted by the younger female guard from last night. Her name is Luned, and she’s Commander Carys’s daughter. She has me and a dozen other recruits practice guard stances, footwork, and raising and lowering heavy wooden swords in thrusts and parries until I’m certain my arm is going to fall off. It only gets worse when we trade our swords for muskets, and are made to load, tamp, aim, and fire at hay bales draped in brightly painted canvas. My ears ring with the noise of the guns, and my left shoulder hurts from the recoil of the musket ramming into me again and again.
By the time Luned dismisses us for lunch, not only am I fairly convinced I’m dying, I almost want to. We’re fed lentil stew and days-old bread in the mess tent, and I itch to be back home in the kitchen, yelling at Awela to stop flinging her porridge in all directions while I chop lamb and veggies to put in our cawl.
In the afternoon, there’s riding drills and marching drills that fill the time until dinner. Afterward, a majority of the soldiers tromp off to the bathhouse, while the rest of them play cards in the mess hall, bemoaning the fact that there isn’t time to go down into the city and be back before the gates shut for the night.
I drag my weary body up the hill to the palace, following a worn track from the training fields that leads to the kitchen courtyard. It’s as good a place to start looking for Awela as any—I’m not about to attempt the front door.
A harried-looking serving woman is plucking chickens just inside the courtyard gate. “If you’re sniffing about my girls, you can go right back down to the barracks, young man,” she informs me curtly.
I’m rather offended at her implication. My face warms. “I’m not sniffing about at anyone.”
“Then you were sent up to help?” Her whole face brightens. “We’re so short-staffed, and the king will have his feasts every night. There’s a mountain of potatoes to peel. Go on.”
Before I have a chance to protest, she shoos me inside, where I find she was not exaggerating. A pale-skinned serving girl stands at a huge wooden counter in the center of the room, dutifully peeling the potatoes that cover nearly the entirety of it. This seems to be some kind of back room to the kitchen proper, which I glimpse bustling past another doorway. The serving girl looks up as I come in, and her eyes grow huge. Her hand slips with the knife, and she yelps, blood welling red on one finger. She stares at the cut and turns almost green. She looks like she might pass out.
“It’s just a little blood,” I say hurriedly, grabbing a clean-looking rag and pressing it against the cut. “It doesn’t look that deep.”
She sucks in shallow, panicked breaths as I tear another rag into strips and tie one of them tight around her wounded finger. She leans against the counter and, slowly, returns to her normal color.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
She nods mutely, still staring at me with her large eyes. She’s pretty in a pale sort of way, with blonde hair pinned badly underneath her maid’s cap, and a generous allotment of freckles covering her
nose. Her blue uniform and crisp white apron hang overlarge on her skinny frame.
“I can help for a few minutes,” I say, grabbing a spare knife and starting in on the potato mound, “but I’m really here to sneak into the palace. I’m looking for someone. Could you show me to the servants’ entrance?”
She nods again and picks her own knife back up.
We peel together in silence for longer than I mean to, and the light outside the window begins to fade. We’ve made barely a dent in the potatoes.
“Thank you for helping,” she tells me, when I tell her I have to go. “I can bring you through the kitchen now.”
She does, leading the way through a huge rectangular room, where cooks and servants vie for space amongst four iron stoves and a half-dozen work stations. Thankfully, they’re too busy to notice us.
“That way,” she instructs, pointing to the narrow stairway that winds up from the kitchen.
I smile at her. “Thanks. I’m Owen, by the way.”
“Bedwyn,” she returns, with an unnecessary bow. “And thank you for binding my hand. I—I don’t like blood.”
I shudder at the unbidden memory of the train passengers, slaughtered in the wood. Of my mother, cradling her heart in her hands. “I don’t either,” I reply, and climb the stairs.
I want to search the palace for any sign of Awela, but it proves more difficult than I’d thought. There are servants and nobility roaming the halls, and I’m terrified of bumping into the king around every corner. I do my best, darting down hallways and hiding behind large potted trees, the sight of which make my skin crawl.
It seems the king is obsessed with the Gwydden and the wood—there’s evidence of her influence everywhere, from murals and tapestries depicting the wood itself to floor tiles patterned with leaf designs, and, of course, the potted trees. Each floor seems to be going for a slightly different section of the forest—oaks on one floor, elms on another, birches on another still. These last ones make me shiver.
Every hallway flickers with more of those eerie electric lights. The whole palace hums with them, giving it an unnerving energy that feels like insects crawling up my spine.
I wind my way nearly to the top floor of the palace without finding the slightest hint of Awela’s whereabouts. But at least now I have a general idea of the layout, and can focus my search better tomorrow.
The stars have been out quite a while by the time I crawl into the horrible bunk in my dormitory. My exhausted body drops immediately into sleep, and I dream I hear Awela screaming.
I wake to the sharp blast of that damned trumpet, and drag myself from the bunk to do everything all over again.
Another day passes in an excruciating haze, and the second night’s search of the palace ends in disaster. I’m caught on the birch tree floor, and the guard who finds me drags me all the way to Taliesin’s office for judgment. Taliesin seems exasperated to have to suffer my presence again so soon after our last meeting. He barely looks at me as he waves a dismissive hand and orders me to be whipped.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
SEREN
GRASS AND SKY BLUR PAST THE TRAIN WINDOW.
I dig my fingernails into the seat cushion.
I try to banish my fear.
The whole car rattles and shakes,
like it will break apart at any moment
and spew me out onto the earth.
“First train ride?” It is the woman across the aisle. She has skin as pale as mine, with smooth dark hair and a book open on her lap.
I look at her without speaking. I nod.
She tells me with confidence: “You’ll get used to it. We’re perfectly safe—it’s not like we’re headed into the Gwydden’s Wood! Although between you and me, I wouldn’t take the train to Saeth these days for anything.”
I grimace at her with what I hope is a smile.
I turn away.
I press my face against the train window. The glass is cold.
I never thought I would be at the mercy
of the humans’ iron machines
as they were once
at my mercy.
Yet here I am encased in one,
like sap in a tree.
My brothers told me the way to Owen’s village.
They gave me coins they had found in the wood years ago, enough for the plain gray dress I am wearing, enough for a train ticket.
Not enough for shoes, or the food this frail body craves. My human stomach growls, loud enough for the woman across the aisle to hear.
“Haven’t you brought a sandwich?” She is incredulous.
I shake my head.
“Well, here, you must have one of mine. I made too many.”
I do not accept or decline, but I find her settling into the seat next to me, drawing food out of her bag.
I take it, because my body demands me to.
I eat, and think about strawberries.
I sip something sweet from the cylindrical container she offers me.
While I chew, she says: “What sends you to Breindal City? I’m visiting my sister. She’s in the army, you know—she just made commander! I am excessively proud of her. My talents lie in a completely different direction. I make sandwiches and knit sweaters and keep our old mother company, and here she is off protecting Tarian!”
She chatters on and on. She does not seem to require an answer to her initial question. This suits me.
But after a while she stops recounting every detail of her life and studies me. Her face softens. “You seem to have come upon a hard time, my dear. Do you have somewhere to stay in Breindal?”
I shake my head.
“You’ll be looking for work, then. You should try up at the palace—they’re always needing new servants. According to my sister, so many of the maids have gone to join the army, they’re shockingly short-staffed. Just mention Carys’s name at the door—that’s my sister—and tell them she’s sent you. They’re sure to hire you right away.” She pats my arm. “But I’ll let you sleep now.”
Her kindness humbles me. Tears prick hot in my eyes. “Thank you. For the advice. And the sandwich.”
She smiles. “Don’t mention it, my dear. Don’t mention it.” She goes back to her own seat.
I lean my head against the window, my eyes sliding shut.
The motion of the train lulls me to sleep.
When I wake, it’s pulling into the station.
The chaos of the city overwhelms me.
The noise, the press of people, the stench.
It is steeped in filth and smoke,
with buildings squeezed so tightly together they seem to leer over the street.
I am lost among them.
My companion from the train warned me that there would not be time to get to the palace tonight. She suggested I take a room at an inn until morning. She even gave me money for it.
I tried to refuse, but she just shook her head and folded my hands tightly around the coins. “You need them more than I do, dear.” Then she gave me careful, detailed directions, and we went our separate ways.
Even with her directions, I get lost.
I can read, thanks to Owen’s lessons on our hill, but I cannot make any sense of the street signs. And there is just so much noise.
I can hardly breathe.
But I stumble upon the inn at last, and hand over the coins to the woman in charge.
My head pounds and my feet hurt from my long walk on the hard stone streets.
She frowns at my lack of shoes, but ushers me up a creaking narrow stair to a little room on the top floor anyway.
She snaps: “Dinner’s downstairs,” and goes away again.
The room makes me panic even more than the crowded streets.
How do people live shut indoors all the time?
How do they breathe?
At least there is a window. I figure out how to open it. I poke my head out into the night air. It is heavy with smoke and unpleasant smells, but it makes me feel a little
easier.
My human body is too tired to go downstairs again. It drags me to the narrow bed.
I lay my head on the pillow, shut my eyes.
I sleep.
In the morning, the cross innkeeper begrudgingly gives me a bowl of something called porridge. It is sweet and good, but so hot it scalds my mouth.
I have a long, miserable walk through the city, all the way up to the gates that lead to the Soul Eater’s palace.
My feet are cut and bleeding by the time I get there. The two men standing watch look at me suspiciously. “No beggars here, girl. Away with you.”
I hold myself very straight. I try not to tremble. “I am not a beggar. I was told there is work, up in the palace. A woman called Carys sent me.”
The name works just as my train companion promised it would.
I am let through the gate and taken up the hill, around the massive front doors of the Soul Eater’s palace, to a smaller entrance around to the side.
It frightens me, being this close to the Soul Eater. But if Owen is truly here, I have to find him.
Protect him.
Get him safely away before my human form falls away and I am once more revealed to be a monster.
I am ushered through a wooden door into a small room.
Flames leap greedily in a stone hearth.
Heat curls off of it. I scramble backward until my shoulders press up against the wall.
The guard who brought me frowns. “What’s wrong with you? Have you never seen a fire before? Sit.” He waves me onto a low cushioned stool.
I obey, sitting as far away from the fire as possible.
The guard instructs: “Wait here.” He disappears through another door that leads, perhaps, farther into the palace.
I am even more uneasy in here than I was in my room in the inn.
I cannot see the sky or feel the wind, and the fire burns and burns, reaching out its many wicked tongues. It laughs at the thought of devouring me. Even from across the room, its heat pulses on my skin.
The inner door creaks open, and a dark-skinned woman in a pretty blue dress comes in. Her black hair is pulled back into a severe bun. She is short and plump. She thunders: “Who let you in here?”
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