The Beauty of Darkness

  I buried my fingers in the sable blanket at my side, balling the softness into my fist. There was the matter of his anger to deal with. I remembered Walther’s words. It’s been almost a month, and he’s still blustering around. Even the much-adored Prince Walther had to sneak behind my father’s back to help me when he planted the false trail for trackers. The several months that had passed would not have diminished my father’s anger. I had undermined his authority and humiliated him. Would he even listen to anything I had to say without a shred of evidence to support it? I was branded an enemy of Morrighan, just like his nephew, whom he had hung. With only my word against a Chancellor who had worked with devotion at his side for years, why would he believe me? Without evidence, the Chancellor and Royal Scholar would turn my claims to make me look like a coward trying to wheedle out of my own culpability. The last time I had aimed even a mild insult at the Chancellor, my father became enraged and ordered me to my chamber. Would they use other, more permanent ways to silence me this time? My chest tightened with possibilities I couldn’t untangle. Could I be wrong about everything? Rafe thought I was.

  My brothers were my only hope for inroads, but they were young like me, only nineteen and twenty-one, and still low-ranking soldiers in the military. But if both of them pressed my father, maybe they could sway him to listen to me. And if not listen willingly, perhaps help me use more forceful ways to persuade him. Nothing felt beyond me right now, with so much at stake.

  A second round of music drifted up from the lower pasture—the party was well under way. It was beautiful, urgent music, the ringing conversation of a thousand strings, a chorus of rebuttals, satin strummed gauntlets laid down again and again, the tone similar to our mandolins but with a deeper, lustier reverberation. The farache, Jeb had called it when he came to pick me up—the battle dance. I had sent Jeb along without me, saying I wasn’t quite ready. Once he was gone, I told my guards I wasn’t going at all and encouraged them to go and enjoy themselves, giving them my solemn oath I wouldn’t leave my tent. I kissed two fingers and lifted them to the heavens as sincere evidence of my promise—then silently asked the gods to forgive my small lie. The godless oafs didn’t budge, not even when I commented on how delicious the roasted meats smelled and their eyes danced with visions of suckling pigs.

  I was nibbling on the pine nuts I had taken earlier when I heard the rattle of halberds outside my tent and the curtain was swiped aside. It was Rafe, dressed in elegant full regalia, his black jacket draped with the gold braids of his station, his hair pulled back, and his cheekbones burnished with a day in the sun. His cobalt eyes flashed brightly beneath his dark brows, and waves of anger rolled off him. He stared at me like I had two heads.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he said between gritted teeth.

  The warmth that had leapt beneath my breastbone when he entered quickly shriveled to a cold rock in my stomach. I glanced at the bowl next to me and shrugged. “Eating nuts? Is that against the rules for prisoners?”

  His attention shifted to my scant attire, and his jaw grew impossibly more rigid. He turned, searching my room until his eyes landed on the midnight blue dress Vilah had hung on the dressing screen. He strode across the tent in three steps, snatched it down, and threw it at me. It landed in a heap in my lap.

  His finger stabbed toward the tent door. “There are four hundred soldiers down there, all waiting to meet you! You are a guest of honor. Unless you want all of their opinions of you to match Captain Hague’s, I suggest you get dressed and make the small effort of an appearance!” He stomped toward the door, then spun with one last order. “And you will not utter the word prisoner one time if you choose to attend!”

  And then he was gone.

  I sat there, stunned. My first thought when he had walked in the door was that he looked like a god. I wasn’t thinking that anymore.

  If you choose?

  I grabbed my dagger and prayed for Adeline’s forgiveness as I altered the dress she had lent me, and Vilah’s forgiveness too as I pried free a long piece of chain from her chain-mail belt. I would attend the party just as he had asked, but I would attend as the person I was—not the one he wanted me to be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  RAFE

  I slumped against the paddock rail, where the torchlights from the party didn’t reach, and stared at the ground.

  Quiet footsteps stopped near me. I didn’t look up, didn’t speak. It seemed every time I opened my mouth, I said stupid things. How was I going to lead an entire kingdom if I couldn’t even sway Lia without losing my temper?

  “She’s coming?”

  I shook my head, closing my eyes. “I don’t know. Probably not after—”

  I didn’t finish. Sven could put it together without my rehashing every detail. I didn’t want to remember everything I’d said. It was getting me nowhere. I didn’t know what to do.

  “She’s still set on going back?”

  I nodded. Every time I thought about it, fear gripped me.

  More footsteps. Tavish and Jeb came up on my other side and leaned on the rail beside me. Jeb offered me a mug of ale. I took it and set it on the post, not feeling thirsty.

  “I wouldn’t let her go back either,” Tavish finally said. “We understand your position, if it helps.”

  Jeb mumbled agreement.

  It didn’t help. It didn’t matter how many agreed with me if Lia didn’t. As sure as I was that I couldn’t let her go, she was certain she had to leave. I thought about when I’d found her on the riverbank, half dead, and all the hours I carried her through the snow, all the times I pressed my lips to hers to make sure she was still breathing, all the steps and miles where I thought, If only I had answered her note, if only I had honored her simple request. But this time it wasn’t a simple request. This time it was different. She wanted to head straight into danger—and she expected to do it with Kaden.

  I grabbed the mug of ale and swallowed it dry, slamming it back down on the post.

  “You two are at cross purposes,” Sven said. He leaned back against the paddock rail studying me. “What was it about her that caught your attention in the first place?”

  I shook my head. What difference did it make? “I don’t know.” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

  “There must have been something.”

  Something. I thought about when I had walked into the tavern. “Maybe it was the first time I saw her, and I—”

  A memory surfaced. No. It was long before that. Before I ever laid eyes on her. The note. The gall. A voice demanding to be heard. The same things that angered me now had intrigued me back then. But even that wasn’t what had captured my imagination. It was the day she had left me at the altar. The day a seventeen-year-old girl had been brave enough to thumb her nose at both my kingdom and her own. A refusal of epic proportions because she believed in and wanted something else. That was what had first captivated me.

  It was her bravery.

  I looked up at Sven. He stared at me as if he could see the unsaid words behind my eyes, as if I were a horse he had just forced to drink from a dirty trough of my own making.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I snatched the empty mug from the post and walked back to the party, feeling his scrutiny on my back.

  * * *

  She was dancing with Captain Azia when I returned to the head table, smiling and enjoying his company. He clearly enjoyed hers too. Next she danced with a pledge who was no more than fifteen. He was unable to hide his infatuation and had a ridiculous smile pasted on his face. And then there was another soldier and another. I saw a few on the perimeter of the dance area staring at her bare shoulder, her kavah in plain view. She had cut away a sleeve and part of one shoulder on her dress to expose it, undoubtedly a message for me. The Morrighese vine tangled around the Dalbretch claw, holding it back. How differently I saw the kavah now.

  And then I spotted the bones.

  My fingers curled into my palms. I thought she had left the miserable
practice behind us in Venda.

  Where she had gotten so many bones I didn’t know, but against her fine blue velvet gown, a long chain of them dangled, swinging through the air as she danced like a disjointed skeleton. She avoided my gaze, but I knew she was aware of my presence. Whenever she paused between dances, she fingered the monstrosity hanging at her side and smiled like it was as precious as a jeweled belt of gold mail.

  Another round of the farache began, and I watched her dancing with Orrin, stamping her foot toward him, retreating back. They circled and clapped their hands high over their heads, and then slapped them together, the sound ringing through the field, echoing off the high walls. Orrin laughed, oblivious to my stare or her maneuvers, and I marveled at how he lived so fully in the moment. Whether it was dancing, cooking, or pulling back his arrow for the kill, only the moment mattered. Maybe that was why he was such a skilled archer, and a fearless one. I didn’t have the luxury of living only in a single moment. I had to live in a hundred fractured moments that held our futures in the balance. I had a new understanding of my father—my mother too—and the decisions they had to make, sometimes compromising something they wanted for the greater good of something else.

  The dancers sidestepped to the right, a new partner circled back from the opposite end, and I saw Lia matched with Kaden. I had been so focused on her, I hadn’t even noticed him farther down in the line of dancers. Their hands clapped overhead, and then when they circled, I saw words pass between them. Only words. She had spoken with Orrin too, but this time the unheard words burned through me.

  “Your Majesty?”

  Vilah caught me by surprise. I sat up from my slouched position. She curtsied, her brown cheeks blushing warmer, then she held her hand out to me. “You haven’t danced all night. Do me the honor?”

  I took her hand, trying to shake my flustered state, and stood. “I’m sorry. I’ve been—”

  “Occupied. I know.”

  Instead of me escorting her to the dance floor, she led the way, and instead of going to the end of the line, she squeezed in to Lia’s right. I reluctantly took my place opposite her, realizing how easily she had duped me. I raised a questioning brow, and she smiled, stamping toward me to begin our dance. I stamped back. We circled, we clapped, and it seemed it was only seconds before it was time to move to the right—to a new partner.

  Lia and I stood opposite each other. She dipped her chin in cursory acknowledgment. I did the same. The rest of the dancers were already moving toward one another. We worked to catch up. She stamped forward, and I retreated. When it was my turn to move toward her, she didn’t retreat.

  “Tired?” I asked.

  “Never. I’m simply not fond of that step.”

  We circled, my back brushing hers.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said over my shoulder.

  She snorted.

  I reminded myself not to speak.

  At our last overhead clap, just as our hands touched, the music immediately changed to the ammarra—the midnight dance of lovers. Someone was conspiring with Vilah. My hand squeezed around Lia’s, slowly lowering it, bringing it to my side. My other hand circled her waist, and I pulled her close—as the dance dictated. I felt the stiffness of her back, but kept my hold firm. I breathed in the scent of her hair and felt the softness of her fingers between mine.

  “I don’t know this dance,” she whispered.

  “Let me show you.” I tucked my chin near her temple and pulled her hips close to mine as I leaned her back, then swept her to the side, bringing her upright as we circled around.

  The muscles in her back loosened, and she relaxed in my arms. The night suddenly seemed darker, the music more distant, and though the air was cool, her skin was hot against mine. I searched for something to say, something that wouldn’t take our conversation to places I didn’t want to go.

  “Lia,” I whispered against her cheek. It was all I could utter, even though other words crowded my mind. I wanted to tell her about Dalbreck, its beauty and wonders, the people who would love and welcome her, all the things she would marvel at, but I knew, no matter what I said, it would lead her back to Morrighan, and for me it would lead back to the traitors and noose she would face there.

  The music slowed, and she lifted her head from my shoulder. Only shallow breaths separated our lips for a long-drawn moment, but then her back tightened again, and I knew it was far more than a breath that lay between us. We stepped apart, and her eyes searched mine.

  “You never intended to take me back to Morrighan, did you?” she asked.

  There were no more creative dodges left in me. “No.”

  “Even before you knew that your parents were dead. Before you knew any of your troubles back home.”

  “I was trying to keep you alive, Lia. I said what I thought you needed to hear at the time. I was trying to give you hope.”

  “I have hope, Rafe. I’ve had it all along. I never needed false hope from you.”

  Her expression betrayed no emotion, except for the glisten in her eyes, but that was enough to hollow me out. She turned and walked away, the bones jingling at her hip, the claw and the vine on her shoulder glaring back at me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  KADEN

  I was in the middle of ruins.

  Turning my head. Listening.

  Something was there.

  They were coming.

  A high-pitched howl split the air, but I couldn’t move.

  And then the world spun and I was flying through the air, tripping, stumbling. The fabric of my shirt cut into my neck as someone balled it into their fists. This part was real, not a dream. I instinctively grabbed for my knife, but of course, it wasn’t there. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was Rafe. He was dragging me from my bed toward the door.

  He threw me out of the barracks, then slammed me up against the wall, the night watch stepping aside, ready to let him tear me to pieces.

  Even in the darkness, his face glowed with rage. “So help me, if you so much as lay a hand on her, if you drag her back to that godforsaken kingdom, if you do anything—”

  “Are you mad?” I asked. “It’s the middle of the night!” The fury in his eyes made no sense. I had done nothing. “I’ve never harmed her. I would never—”

  “We leave an hour past dawn. Be ready,” he said between clenched teeth. There was ale on his breath, but he wasn’t drunk. His eyes were wild and bright like a wounded animal.

  “You woke me to tell me that? I already knew when we were leaving.”

  He glared at me, freeing my shirt from his grip, giving me one last shove against the wall. “Well, now you know again.”

  He walked away, and I got my bearings. The rest of the camp was silent, asleep in their quarters, and for a brief moment, I wondered if he’d had a walking nightmare. It wasn’t just anger I had seen in his expression. There was fear too.

  Griz and Eben poked their heads out the door, their eyes still full of sleep, and the night watch stepped forward. Eben was still under close watch.

  “What was that all about?” Griz grumbled.

  “Go back to bed,” I said. I pushed Eben’s shoulder, and he went back in. Griz and I followed, but I couldn’t get to sleep, trying to puzzle out what had prompted Rafe’s attack. If you do anything. What did he think I was going to do with two hundred soldiers surrounding us on our way to Dalbreck? I was skilled, maybe even foolhardy at times, but I wasn’t stupid, especially knowing they kept a suspicious watch on me too. I rubbed my jaw. Somewhere along the way, when he dragged me from my bed, he must have planted his fist in my face.

  * * *

  Dawn was just lighting the eastern horizon. Mist in the distance hovered close to the ground in soft layers like a downy blanket. It made the morning even quieter. The only sound was my boots swishing against the dew-covered grass. I had managed to elude my escorts at least temporarily. This was not a quest for which I wanted company. I reached the end of the merchant wagons near the b
ack wall of the outpost and spotted the charred carvachis—and Natiya.

  Her eyes met mine, and she drew a knife—and I knew she meant to use it. I stared at her, not sure she was even the same person. She’d gone from a soft-spoken girl with an eager smile who used to weave presents for me to a fierce young woman I didn’t know.

  “I’m going in to see Dihara. Step aside,” I told her.

  “She doesn’t want to see you. No one wants to see you.” She lunged at me, the knife blindly slicing the air, and I jumped back. She came at me again.

  “You little—”

  On her next lunge, I grabbed her wrist, spinning her around so the knife was at her own throat. With my other arm, I held her tight against my chest so she couldn’t move. “Is this really what you want?” I hissed in her ear.

  “I hate you,” she seethed. “I hate you all.”

  The endless depth of her hatred extinguished something in me, something I had nursed like a weak ember, the belief that I could go back, could somehow undo these last months. But to her I was one of them and that was all I would ever be. One of those who had tied up Lia and forced her to leave the vagabond camp; one of those who had torched her carvachi and burned out her quiet way of life.

  “Let her go,” Reena ordered. She had returned with two buckets of water in her hands. She set them down slowly and looked at me with large worried eyes as if I would really slit Natiya’s throat. She glanced at a poker near the fire pit.