A blade pierced my leg, ripping it open just above my earlier wound. The gun fell from my grasp. “Get out of here, Shaila!” a Shade boy yelled behind me, pulling me back into a chokehold. I screamed, stars dancing in my eyes.
Before I could shift my way out of the grip, another Sentry swooped down and wrested the Shade off of me. I fell to my knees with a gasp, then watched breathlessly as the Sentry slit the throat of the Shade with his own knife. He released the body, and it fell limply to the ground at his feet.
“Where’s the girl?” the Sentry demanded. I turned around; she was gone, vanished into the woods. I shook my head.
“I’ll find her.” The Sentry shoved past me and took flight, leaving me alone with the dead body of his kill.
I stayed there, silent and still, for a good five minutes, listening to the gunshots and screams echoing around the woods until I heard hers, the shriek of the little girl as she died at the hands of the Sentry who’d rescued me. Then I grabbed my fallen gun and took off, flying back into the fight.
3 October: Cassatia
Iven takes me back to Austfonna Castle and leaves me at the door to the banquet room. “Your father’s inside, I think,” he says. He’s right; I can hear his voice, muffled, coming from the other side of the door.
“Thank you,” I say gratefully. “I’m really sorry about all this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the prince assures me. “Hopefully you’ll feel better after you get some rest.” He steps away with a bow and a flash of a smile.
Taking a deep breath, I wait for Iven to retreat out of view before wrenching open the banquet room door.
My father stands at the other end of the room, deep in conversation with Evana and Caphian. Hearing me come in, they go quiet and turn to face me, surprised looks etched into all three of their faces.
“Cassatia,” my father says. “You should be upstairs with your maidservant, preparing for the ball tonight.”
I close the door behind me, leaving a handprint of ice on its surface. “The ball?” I ask, “or my bond-lock ceremony?”
My father stiffens; Caphian turns to him with a look of what I assume is legitimate surprise. “Bond-lock ceremony?”
“How did you find out?” my father asks me quietly.
“Prince Iven told me,” I say. “Right after he tried to kiss me.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe this, even from you.”
“Cassatia—” Evana begins, but my father lays a hand on her arm to stop her. She nods, stepping back to give him the floor.
Fenris frowns at me, disappointed, like I’ve performed beneath his expectations. I glare back at him, not blinking. “You can’t blame me for not telling you earlier,” he says, “given how you reacted the last time.”
“And speaking of the last time,” I say, “what about Ainsil? What happened to your big deal with Professor Fayeren?”
“I only promised Natanael that our families would be joined in marriage,” Fenris says. “Ainsil has a sister, and you have a brother.”
“That’s disgusting.” Icy tendrils creep up my arms, twisting and turning like vines across my skin. “Aren’s thirteen.”
“And unlike you, he understands the importance of his marriage.” Fenris steps around the banquet table, coming closer to me. I shrink back until I hit the door. “I have given you the prince to take as your bond—the next ruler of Nixa’s Kingdom. No one in our family has received that kind of honor before.” He grabs me by the shoulders. “Do you not realize what you are being offered? You’ll be a member of the royal family; you’ll have everything you could possibly want.”
Not everything. I swallow, meeting my father’s eyes determinedly. “I won’t,” I say, shaky and quiet. “You can’t make me.”
Fenris scowls, looking at me like he wants to give me a slap across the face. “You’re acting like a stubborn toddler,” he says. “I don’t understand it. Is there another boy you want to marry? Had you ever even kissed a boy before today?”
I’m silent. My father nods. “That’s what I thought.” He steps back from me. “You aren’t refusing to bond to the prince out of love—you’re refusing out of stubbornness and pettiness. You don’t want to marry him only because I want you to.”
“Fenris,” Evana says, coming closer. “Don’t be hard on her; she is overwhelmed.” She looks at me with a glint of sympathy in her pale eyes. “The trip must have tired her, and a marriage as big as this one would be hard for anyone to take in so quickly.” She runs a conciliatory hand down my father’s arm. “Let me take her back to New Fauske. She should feel better after she’s had a little time to process everything.”
Fenris narrows his eyes at me, weighing his options. Then he nods. “I’ll make the necessary excuses,” he says. “If my daughter is going to disgrace her family, I’d rather her not do so in the middle of the holy city.” He beckons Caphian over. “Can you fly Evana and Cassatia back to New Fauske?” Caph nods, bowing.
“Come on, then.” Evana touches my arm gently and leads me out of the room.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her. Going back to New Fauske will, at the very least, postpone my getting married for a little while. Getting married….
My father’s right. I’d never been alone with a boy before Iven, and certainly never kissed one.
But I had kissed a girl.
Seventeen Months Ago: Cassatia
The thwack-thwack of helicopter blades slicing up the air behind the castle was never a good sign.
Cars and planes and helicopters weren’t allowed inside the city except in emergencies—helicopters meant that there had been an attack somewhere in the sector, that Sentries were injured. Or dead, of course.
I quickly sent Phoebe off to find out whatever she could; she returned to my room breathless twenty minutes later, telling me there’d been a revolt in a Shade camp called Fersa.
“Caphian took most of the new Sentries out with him,” Phoebe panted. “The ones who didn’t fight in Alexandria.”
I froze, my blood running cold. Keira was a fantastic fighter, especially with the blessing from my mother’s pendant—if Caph had taken a patrol of new Sentries with him to Fersa, Keira would’ve definitely been on it.
“Thank you, Phoebe,” I said, my voice strained. “You’re dismissed for the night.”
“My lady.” Phoebe curtsied and ran off, leaving me by myself.
I spent the next hour pacing in circles, fiddling nervously with anything within arm’s reach and filling my room unintentionally with ice and snow. Keira Keira Keira Keira Keira. Where the hell are you, Keira? I knew I couldn’t look for her in the infirmary—no one was allowed to disturb the healers after a battle—but I had to know where Keira was, if she was in there.
I glanced out my window; if Keira wasn’t hurt and had flown back to New Fauske with the rest of the Sentries, I hoped she would stop by my room to let me know she was okay. But she never did.
I felt a tug on my dress skirt and looked down to find Rhody at my feet, blinking up at me with big dark eyes. When he saw that he’d gotten my attention, he gave a little growl and pulled again at the dress, more insistently this time.
“What do you want?” I asked. In response, Rhody ran to my door and turned back to me with his tail wagging, prompting me to follow.
I sighed. “You want to go outside.” Maybe that was a good idea: Keira didn’t seem to be coming to see me anytime soon, and the outdoor air always helped to clear my mind. “All right, then.”
I let Rhody lead me down to the castle’s south entrance. Only one Sentry stood guard at the doors instead of the usual two—he stopped us before we could pass through. “We don’t have any spare guards to accompany you outside, my lady,” he said. “Almost all of our Sentries are occupied after the Shade battle.”
“I don’t need an escort,” I insisted, pointing to Rhody. “I’m just taking my dog out. We won’t go far.”
For once, the guard didn’t argue. He drew back the doors, murmured a qu
ick explanation to the Sentry on the other side, and waved us out.
The snow outside had deepened underfoot, and more was falling in thick spiraling sheets; the return of the Sentries from battle had, apparently, distressed the Nixans of New Fauske considerably. Rhody bounded forward past the ice pond, circling around the side of the castle to the stables where we kept our family’s two Katyran horses. I followed him, parting the snow ahead to give me a clear path forward. “Where are you going?” I demanded.
Rhody stopped at the stable door and scratched at it, barking. Its lock had been opened, I noticed, which struck me as slightly unusual. “We’re not going in there,” I said, catching up to him. “Come on.” I tried to draw him away, but he plopped down beside the door and resolutely refused to move.
“Stupid dog,” I muttered, coming back over. “There’s nothing in there but the horses. Look.” I pried open the door to find two horses with their heads poking out from their stalls, and on the raised platform beneath the back window, a girl massaging a very bloody leg.
“Hey,” Keira gasped. “You think you could help me out here?”
“Oh.” I froze in the doorway. Rhody squeezed his way past me, barking.
“Your dog’s a genius, Cass,” Keira said with a wince. “All I had to do was tell him to go find you.”
Recovering from my shock, I stepped over Rhody and ran to her, kneeling beside her and running my hands down her leg. “Ow, ow, ow!” Keira complained. There were two wounds: one a long gash, stretching from her thigh to a little above her ankle, and the other a deep incision that looked to have reached her muscle. Blade wounds, definitely.
“You should be in the infirmary,” I said. “You should’ve come back in one of the copters.”
“I would have,” Keira said through her teeth, “but your stupid pendant kept me from feeling any pain until we were already halfway back. And besides,” she added, “I’d rather leave the infirmary for people who need it.”
“It looks like you need it,” I muttered, examining the wounds again.
“You know what I mean,” she said; “the dying people. The people who got stabbed in worse places than their leg.”
“It’s not exactly a little scratch, Keira,” I pointed out, my breath hitching. “You’ve lost a ton of blood.”
“That’s why I need you to help me, you idiot,” Keira wheezed. “Use your Nixan magic.”
“I’m not a healer,” I protested. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ve healed yourself before, plenty of times.”
“That’s different,” I said, my voice climbing an octave. “That’s automatic, almost, and it’s much easier.”
“Please, Cass,” she breathed. “Just try.”
I sighed. “All right.” I bent over Keira’s leg, shoving Rhody aside when he put his paws up on the platform to sniff. Then I closed my eyes and concentrated until I felt the tingle of ice in my fingertips. Keira took in a sudden breath; I opened my eyes to see rivulets of ice climbing up her leg, mending the wounds before evaporating into the air. By the time they’d finished their work, the leg was red and bloody but entirely gash-free.
Keira let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks.”
“Yeah,” I said, “no problem.” But the effort had drained me—I felt suddenly lightheaded, as if I were the one who’d just lost two pints of blood. “Can I sit down, though?”
Keira slid over to give me room beside her on the platform. I fell back against the wall with a groan, wiping my forehead. “Now I understand why healers have to rest all the time,” I murmured. “That one leg just about knocked me out.”
Keira smirked. “It just about knocked me out, too.”
“What happened out there, exactly?” I wondered. “The Shades surrendered, right? What did you have to do?”
Keira sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, right.” I crossed my arms. “Just like you don’t want to talk about the Sentry trials, even an entire year later.”
“Maybe because blood and murder aren’t my favorite topics of conversation,” Keira growled. “Why do you care, anyway?”
“Because,” I said, “I want to help you.”
Keira shook her head. “You can’t help me, Cass. You’re a Nixan lady; my mental well-being isn’t your problem.” She leaned forward until she was close enough for me to taste her breath. Her silver eyes bored into mine, bright and sharp. “Seriously, Cass, don’t worry about me. Please.”
“I have to,” I whispered. And suddenly I couldn’t help myself anymore—something in the way she looked at me broke down any resistance I had remaining. I wrapped my arms around her neck, put a hand to the back of her head and pulled myself in to her. She didn’t resist, so I tilted my head enough to miss her nose and pressed my lips to hers. I twined her hair around my hand and tasted her, her sweat and her warmth and her breath.
Then I felt a hand on my chest, and Keira drew back her head. “Whoa,” she breathed.
The feeling was gone, as suddenly as it had surfaced. I could help myself—I had to help myself. I pulled away and stood up, the world spinning and lurching around me.
“Hey.” Keira grabbed me by the arm, but I shook her off.
“I have to go,” I said. “Come on, Rhody.” The dog stood from where he lay under Taurus’s head and followed me to the stable door.
“Cass—” Keira stood to follow me, but I held out an arm to keep her back. My heart was racing: no no no no no. “Can we talk about whatever the hell that was?”
“You know what that was,” I panted. “That was me not thinking straight because I used up all my energy fixing your damn leg.” I stepped outside, into the snow.
“Cass,” Keira said, “where are you going? Don’t—” I shut the door before she could finish and fell back against it with a sob, trying and failing to hold back tears. Keira was never going to look at me the same way again.
“What was I doing?” I murmured, hugging my legs to my chest. “What did I do?” Rhody pawed at my side, wondering why I was suddenly so upset, but I ignored him. “You shouldn’t have brought me here,” I told him, my breath catching. “I’ll never be able to take that back.”
3 October: Cassatia
Evana spends the first hour of our flight back to New Fauske in the cockpit with Caphian; when she finally climbs back into the passenger cabin, she hands me a bag of chips and a soda before settling herself in the seat next to mine.
“I thought you would’ve fallen asleep by now,” she says. “You’ve been up for ages. Are you doing all right?”
I pop open the soda. “I’m tired of worrying about getting married,” I mutter. “Maybe I should become a priestess like you. Take a vow of celibacy and everything.”
Evana nods, a little flush coloring her cheeks. “I’m sure it was hard finding out like that.”
“Yeah,” I agree with a raise of my eyebrows. “I know I’m about to turn eighteen, but plenty of Nixans don’t get married till after that.” I sigh. “Does my father just want to marry me off so Aren can inherit the province instead of me?” My father has always liked Aren better, mostly because Aren listens to everything he says.
“It’s not that at all,” Evana assures me. I mmm at her skeptically. “Your family—the Loraveires—have been nobility for only a short amount of time. Before Avasol Loraveire laid claim to America, your family line was all commoners. The king at the time made Avasol duke of the new Western Province, but that did nothing to change your bloodline.”
“That’s what this is about?” I ask incredulously. “My bloodline?”
“Exactly,” Evana says. “That bloodline has plagued your family for centuries. For generations, many Nixans refused to accept your claim to the duchy because of it. And until recently, no one from the older noble lines would marry into your family out of honor. Your father’s marriage to a Carasten was an incredible advancement for the Loraveires; unprecedented.”
I bite my lip, a lump forming in m
y throat. “My father loved my mother, though.” I say it almost like a question—my mind flashes back to the night five years ago when I found Evana tangled with my father in the sheets of his bed, their arms and lips and everything else locked together. It’s something I never told anyone about, even Keira.
Evana nods. “Of course he did. He loved your mother more than anything. But he also loved her pedigree—the Carastens’ line branches directly off of the Heilagurs’. If you didn’t have your mother’s blood, I doubt King Aknes would have allowed you to bond to his son.”
“Because keeping royal blood intact is all about incestuous relationships.”
“Distantly incestuous, yes.” Evana shrugs. “But all of us are related to some extent. The Fayerens share blood with the royals, too. It’s the reason their family has so much power, and why your father originally wanted you to be a part of it.”
Of course. I hadn’t known that—I hadn’t cared to know it—but it certainly made sense. “This is messed up,” I say. “My father can’t decide who I marry based on how royal their blood is.” He shouldn’t be deciding who I marry at all.
Evana looks me right in the eye. “He’s only looking out for his family,” she says. “Think of the honor it would bring your name if the next king or queen of the Kingdom had Loraveire blood. It would be the ultimate gift to your ancestors, and your descendants, to marry Prince Iven and bear his children.”
“You think I should, then?”
“I think you should look to the Goddess for guidance,” Evana replies. “But if you’re asking for my opinion, yes, I do.” Gently she touches my shoulder. “I think you’d like living in Svalbard with Iven. He would be good to you, and you’d have tremendous power, ruling the Kingdom at his side one day. Everyone in New Fauske would be so proud of you.”
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