by Hannah West
I feel…riveted.
Nexantius responded with a low laugh and stroked one cool finger down my back. He was everywhere, inside and around me, yet still barely a breath across my flesh.
A knock sounded on the door. Propped up on the priest’s writing desk, I crossed my legs and rearranged my black skirts until they revealed everything up to bare thighs. “Come in!”
Severo Segona cracked open the door and peered into the fire-lit room cramped with bookshelves and Agrimas iconography. When he saw me, his gaze snagged everywhere I expected it to.
“Where’s Father Peramati?” he asked.
“Saying his nightly prayers in the edifice. Come in and shut the door, Severo.”
After a brief pause, he did as I asked. I held out the wooden chalice I’d filled with red wine, propping the other hand on the desk cluttered with inkwells, leafs of parchment, and wooden scrolls. “Drink with me.”
He hesitated before crossing the room to accept the wine, his brown eyes luminous.
“Your Perispi has improved,” he said.
I tossed my cascade of hair to one side, exposing a bare shoulder. “I’ve been practicing.”
He smiled. He was delicious. Every time I saw him, I couldn’t help but imagine caressing his loose coils of black hair, his pronounced cheekbones, his soft and full mouth. The same fingers that had just wrapped around the priest’s wattle now found their way around the distinguished curve of his upper arm. “Do you find me appealing to look at, Severo?” I asked.
“I think you know I do.”
Even though the words were reluctantly spoken, I sighed at the pleasure of hearing them in his husky voice. I hooked my leg around his.
“King Myron has been kind to me and my family,” he said, planting his chalice on the desk without taking a drink. Wine sloshed over the lip and stained a leaf of parchment. “If I had known this was the reason you called, I wouldn’t have come.”
He sounded like he meant it, yet he didn’t move away.
“What my husband doesn’t know can’t break his heart,” I whispered. “Besides, aren’t forbidden things more tantalizing?” I knocked an open inkwell out of my way so I could lean back on my elbows. It spilled over scattered pieces of parchment, blotting out whole pages of writing. Severo didn’t stop me as I slid my hand from his chest to his solid abdomen. Where Myron had become cushy from middle age and endless meetings, Severo’s body had been neatly hewn by his job of spilling blood and rending flesh.
A primal part of me wanted to see him at work.
I reached for his hand and brought his callused palm to my lips. His deep sigh made desire shudder through me.
Don’t lose track of your purpose, Nexantius said.
“I heard the priest sent you on an errand last night,” I said. “Whom did you meet?”
“So this is why you summoned me.” Severo yanked his hand away. “You could have asked me. My loyalty is to the king, not the priest.”
“It’s not why I summoned you. I’ve wanted to do this since the moment we met.” I took his hand once more, dragged it along my parted lips again, and then began to guide it elsewhere.…
“No!” Severo barked, nearly upending the desk as he broke away from me. “I will not betray King Myron. He’s a good man. And you’re a fool for not respecting him.”
Indignation burned through me at his double-sided insult. Not only did he dare to reject my bold advances—he was calling me names as well. I could not permit that.
I glared at him. “Tell me where you went and whom you met.”
“I refuse to speak to you again without the king present.” He marched to the door and flung it open.
“Your family,” I called after him, sitting up. I waited until he turned around and faced me, a budding horror overtaking his expression. “Your siblings, whom Myron has taken such excellent care of…”
The heels of my slippers clinked on the stone tiles as I slid off the desk and strode toward him. “Unless you tell me where you went and whom you met last night, I’m afraid grave misfortune might befall them.”
His top lip curled, but he stifled his outrage just as he had stifled his desire. He was not as susceptible to carnal cravings as I had hoped. “I met an old man outside of Enturra,” he said. “I didn’t recognize his face. I barely even saw it. I hope your inquest is worth threatening innocent children.”
He walked out and slammed the door.
Seething, I stared after him for a long moment before I picked up a Holy statuette and smashed it to bits against the wall, releasing an unbridled screech. I tore handfuls of parchment and thrust the shreds away from me, yanked books off the shelves and smeared fresh ink over the pages.
I stared at the destruction I’d caused. My hands shook as I realized how difficult it would be to frame the priest’s death as an accident with his living quarters in such disarray.
What had I done? Why had I threatened Severo’s family? He and I had become friendly. He was reserved from the start, but he had warmed up to me. We had even laughed together last time I saw him.
There was no going back to who I was before tonight. The blushing princess who cared more about the regalia of wealth than the power that secured it, who could claim ignorance when she made selfish mistakes…She was a husk, a specter, a fading note of a sweet melody from a simpler time.
“I’ve done as you asked,” I said aloud to Nexantius, my voice hoarse from shouting as I broke and destroyed. “The priest is dead. Make good on your promise. Tell me how we will destroy Valory Braiosa.”
The others and I have waited long for an opportunity to claim worthy flesh vessels, Nexantius replied. You opened the door for me…for us. The others want worthy vessels too.
“What does that have to do with Valory?”
She would make a fine vessel.
Envy stabbed me like a thorn. “I offered you myself so that I could become more powerful than she, more powerful than anyone. If one of the other Fallen claims her body and mind—”
Don’t worry. We shall conquer her will. She will cease to exist. And when all four of us have claimed vessels, scourges will beleaguer our enemies. You will sit on your throne with unmatched beauty and power—as long as no one finds the sealed scroll. No one can know how to stop us before we’ve accomplished our goal.
“Is that a promise?” I asked, my desperation grating even my own ears. “If I do everything you ask, what I seek will be mine?”
I promise, my magnificent darling, Nexantius replied. Help me find vessels for the others before anyone thwarts us. Then you will reign sovereign over all.
EIGHTEEN
GLISETTE
MY head ached. Hunger groused in my gut. But I pushed us deeper into the rolling forest of oaks and evergreens toward safe shelter.
We had replenished the skin with stream water and foraged wild olives that were hard and bitter. Plenty of juicy meals on four legs had crossed our path, but I didn’t know how to catch the creatures without hunting weapons.
Mercer had once rigged a rabbit trap during our journey through the Forest of the West Fringe. But we’d moved on so quickly that he’d disassembled it before it had a chance to prove useful. I’d watched closely enough to feel I could brave an attempt as soon as we found a safe place to rest. I needed daylight, and somehow the sun was already sinking, deepening the blue sky to a melancholy violet.
“Another quail!” Navara whispered, as though alerting me to its presence might allow me to shapeshift into a hunting dog who could catch it between my teeth.
“I think we’ll need to stop soon,” I said. “We’ll settle for berries and mint leaves tonight. I’ll set a rabbit snare, and we’ll see if it’s worked in the morning.”
Navara groaned. “Then we should sleep soon. The sooner we sleep, the sooner we’ll have a rabbit to eat.” She said this as though the snare might set itself, as though sleep alone would bring breakfast frolicking onto our plates. For all the valor she showed defying Ambrosine, she was
a rather helpless traveling companion.
But I was grateful for her juvenile grumbling; it reminded me of my immediate goals: find food and shelter. These dominated my thoughts, shoving darker matters mercifully aside.
“That hollow between those boulders should do,” I said, pointing to a mass of mossy rocks. “Why don’t you gather leaves for bedding? I’m going to set the snare.”
Try to set the snare, I thought, but I didn’t have the heart to tell the poor girl it might not work.
While enough light remained, I searched for a rabbit path. Mercer had said they tended to use the same paths every day, noticeably shaping the brush. I wandered around, studying the undergrowth until it was almost too dark too see, and settled on a spot for no reason except that I was running out of time. I rigged the snare with pine saplings and hoped it might miraculously bring us an early catch.
With a deep sigh, I traipsed back to the rock shelter, ducking into the passageway. At the other end, the rock covering disappeared, revealing a patch of velvety black sky teeming with stars. Navara lay curled up on her side in the twilight.
I rubbed my eyes and dropped down beside her.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” she mumbled, half-asleep.
“Well, I did,” I whispered, and drifted off as soon as my sore head touched the ground.
The scent of rain filled the air the next morning. I blinked awake and saw somber clouds drifting over the opening in our shelter.
Wonderful.
The nervous feeling in my belly became a pit of dread. Maybe I didn’t know how to survive in the wild. Maybe I only knew how to follow. Maybe we would wander in circles until we starved while perfectly edible creatures loped about.
Or worse, maybe I would survive unharmed. Maybe I would defeat Ambrosine and return to a world without Perennia. Maybe I would let the people of Volarre down just as I had let her down. Maybe I didn’t deserve to lead when I couldn’t even protect the most precious thing in my life.
Maybe you should just let yourself…die, a small voice said. Valory will come and fix it all eventually. This world doesn’t need you.
“Have you checked the snare?” Navara asked sleepily, wiping her short, messy hair from her face.
But she needs me.
Grateful to have a task to silence my insidious thoughts, I ducked under the passageway and went out, hoping against hope that I had caught something.
My soles crunched the briars and saplings as I approached the snare and found a full-grown brown rabbit squirming to break free.
Elation and relief washed over me like a cleansing tide. But then my empty stomach sank. It seemed I had made the loop too large, catching the rabbit by the hindquarters instead of strangling it and giving it a quick death, free of suffering.
How long had it struggled in fear?
I tugged the knife out of my pocket and forced myself to catch the frantic creature by the hind legs. As quickly and decisively as I could, I sliced the poor thing’s neck to sever an artery, hoping its light would burn out quickly. But it twitched as it bled out, and I gritted my teeth through the onslaught of tears. A slight chill laced the morning breeze as I waited for it to die.
When at last it did, I used my bloody knife-holding hand to palm away the tears, took several deep breaths, and stalked back toward the cave just as rain began to fall.
Navara gleefully gathered kindling and worked to light the fire. I put aside my emotions and dragged the boning knife, once again poorly suited to the task, along the rabbit’s flesh to skin it. When the animal was gutted and ready to cook, I turned around and found Navara still struggling to light her poorly assembled kindling.
“Let me,” I said, prying the flint stone and rock from her fingers and rearranging the kindling. When the fire caught and seemed healthy enough to need only a little tending, I barked, “Surely you can handle it from here,” and stalked back to the privacy of the rock shelter.
I’d barely reached its welcome shadow by the time a violent sob wrenched my body. I staggered into the shelter, dropping to my knees and issuing a silent scream.
How had an innocent life found itself the victim of a cruel, broken world?
Perennia. Perennia. Perennia. You’re gone.
A frigid wind swirled through the shelter, scattering leaves and carrying the taste of bitter winter, of snow and ice. I wept and wept, my shoulders shaking with sobs. I wept until I wretched up the berries and sunflowers seeds that had failed to sustain me, and wept even more, without holding back, refusing to care about the consequences of the stinging cold I was provoking.
When I woke, walls of glimmering ice surrounded me. The world sparkled in clean, pale colors.
Maybe I had died. This seemed like a faraway place, a place from a dream. I felt safe in this peaceful palace of silver.
But then I remembered Navara, the rabbit, my unrestrained power. I remembered weeping myself to sleep in a den of rocks in a foreign forest.
I gasped, realizing what I’d done, and my exhale clouded the air.
My aching bones creaked as I pushed myself up. The snow underneath me was deep enough to drown my ankles as I stalked toward the mouth of the shelter and ducked to pass through, looking at the world on the other side in disbelief.
Glittering, white winter cloaked the forest. A frozen creek cut through clumps of fresh snow, and little flurries dusted down like powdered sugar.
“Navara?” I called. My voice echoed in the eerily quiet woods.
“I’m here,” she said hoarsely. I turned to find her huddled up under an icy ledge near the ghost of the campfire, shivering, her hair damp and clinging to her face.
“Are you all right? I’m so sorry.” I almost gathered her in my arms to warm her, but I realized I was soaked to the bone.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” she said reproachfully through chattering teeth. “When I tried to wake you, it got worse.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, softer.
“I saved you some of the rabbit.” She unwrapped what was left of the juicy meat on a stick, which she’d tried to shelter in a layer of her skirt. It must have taken a great deal of self-restraint not to devour what remained.
“Thank you.”
“Ambrosine will have no doubt we’re alive now,” she said.
I licked my lips and reached for the skewer of rabbit meat, hunkering down next to her. “I’m afraid not.” My teeth tore the flesh and the flavor burst on my tongue. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think again until I’d finished the last bite.
“Do you know how far this spread?” I asked, gesturing.
“Much farther than I could go without worrying I’d get lost.”
“Maybe the sun will come out and melt it before anyone else sees,” I said optimistically, but I knew how powerful I was. I couldn’t help thinking of villagers who would have to strive to forage and hunt in this weather, their crops ruined and plans waylaid.
Not that we would be any better off than they were. I dreaded the inevitability of our tamed hunger roaring back in just a few hours.
“What do we do now?” Navara asked. She’d asked me the same question yesterday, but at the time, I had been focused on our most urgent needs. Now we had to face the inevitability that Ambrosine would hunt us down.
“You might be better off going it alone,” I said. “I can’t seem to lay low to save my life, and you’re the beloved princess. I’ll bring you to one of the outlying towns, where you’ll find a sympathetic soul to offer you food and shelter. You can hide out until this is finished.”
Navara glared at the fire. “No. We are supposed to go back and finish this. We are going to save my father and my kingdom, and avenge your sister’s death.”
The word death bit, stung, tormented.
“You’re not abandoning me like some useless rag,” she commanded, but her tone softened as she said, “and you’re not going to let yourself die out here.”
I looked at her, surprised by her intuition, but the
sound of hooves in the snow drew our attention. Startled, I stood and seized the boning knife, pinning it against my thigh.
I noticed the dappled gray rouncey trudging through the snow from the north before I recognized his fur-clad rider: the huntsman.
“She’s sent him back to finish his work,” I said, shoving Navara behind me.
“He’s here to help,” Navara argued, and stepped away from my protection. Land of light, this girl was more naïve than Perennia. How would I keep her alive?
But I saw that furs spilled from the huntsman’s saddle bags, and that he had not drawn a weapon. Had he come to bring us aid? Or was this a trap?
“Did you hope to get us all killed with this?” he demanded, slinging his lean weight down from the saddle. “I told you to hide.”
“It was an accident,” Navara said. “She can’t—”
“Without my elicrin stone, I have no control,” I said over her.
“We shall have to retrieve it, then,” he said irritably, his breath pouring like smoke from his nostrils.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
“I tracked you from where I left you until the snow covered your trail. Then I went against the wind because I knew it would lead me to you.”
“You know about my—?”
“Everyone here knows what the royals of Nissera can do. They will know who caused this.” He stalked past us to kick snow over the pitiful remains of the fire. “What’s more, the queen is saying you killed your sister and kidnapped Princess Navara.”
Rage wrapped around my every nerve. “As though I would murder my…”
I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words: murder my own sister. But why was I shocked? Ambrosine had thought I was dead, unable to return and tell the sordid truth behind her lies. What difference did it make to her if my reputation died with me?
“She’s offering a reward for your capture and the princess’s safe return.” The huntsman returned to his horse to gather the furs. “She didn’t think she would have to pay it, of course, believing you dead. Now she’ll know the truth. It’s a good thing I left before the snow reached Halithenica.” He handed the princess a fur cloak before roughly tossing one my way. I caught it with a scornful glare. “And there’s something else: I saw your brother arriving at the palace as I was leaving.”