with equal bloodshed, and more effort than I can comprehend. The Free Republic was not always so, and is still rife with its own flaws, hidden as they may seem.
If I were a Lakelander, it might be comforting to ask some distant god for guidance now, for a blessing, for the power to make everyone see what we can accomplish if given the will and the chance. But I believe in no gods, and I pray to nothing.
My bare hands start to go numb; the cold has that effect even on someone like me. I don’t bother clicking my bracelets to draw forth flame. I’ll go inside in a second and chase some sleep. I just need one more bracing gasp of cold air, and one more glance at the stars overhead, infinite as the future.
Two floors down and maybe twenty yards away, someone else has the same idea.
The door creaks slightly on old hinges as she steps out into the chilly air, already shivering. She’s careful to shut it softly behind her so as not to wake anyone. Her terrace is bigger than mine, wrapping around the corner to face down into the city. She keeps to the darker edges, staring into the trees as she tightens a blanket around her shoulders. Her frame is small and lean, her motions smooth with lethal grace. More warrior than dancer. The dim lights of a sleeping mansion aren’t enough to illuminate her face. I don’t need them to. Despite the distance and the darkness, I know.
Even without her lightning, Mare Barrow still manages to strike me through.
She raises her chin to the sky, and I see her as she was when we found her in that disgusting room, surrounded by blood, both silver and red. There was Silent Stone all around them. She was sprawled, her hair matted and wet, her eyes shut against the gloom. Next to her, Maven’s eyes were open. So blue, so wide. So empty. He was dead and I thought her gone too. I thought I’d lost them both, lost them to each other one last time. My brother would have liked that. He took her once before and he would have taken her forever if he could have.
I’m ashamed to say I reached for him first. His wrist, his neck, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there. He already felt cold.
She was alive, her breathing shallow, the rattle of it softer by the second.
I can tell that her breath is even now, clouding like my own in tiny, rhythmic puffs. I squint, hoping to see more of her. Is she well? Is she different? Is she ready?
The act is futile. She’s too far away, and the lights of the palace are too dim to do much more than outline her bundled figure. It isn’t too far to shout, and I don’t care about waking up half the estate. Still, my voice dies in my throat, my tongue weighted down. I keep silent.
Two months ago, she told me not to wait. Her voice broke when she said it, broke like my heart when I heard it. I wouldn’t have minded her leaving if she’d done it without telling me that. Don’t wait. The implication was clear. Move on, if you want. To someone else, if you want. It stung then as it stings now. I could never fathom saying such a thing to a person I loved and needed. Not to her.
The balustrade warms beneath my hands, now clenched tightly and flooding with heat.
Before I can do something foolish, I spin and wrench open the door, only to close it softly behind me, making no noise at all.
I leave her to the stars.
THREE
Mare
Before I open my eyes, I forget myself for a moment. Where we are, what we’re doing here. But it comes back to me. The people around us—and the person who wouldn’t speak to me last night. He saw me; I know he did. He was out on the balcony just like me, looking at the stars and the mountains.
And he didn’t say a word.
The ache hits me like a hammer to the chest. So many possibilities blur through my head, too fast for my waking mind to fathom. And they all come back to his silhouette, a shadow against the night sky as he walked away. He didn’t say a word.
And neither did I.
I force my eyes open, yawning and stretching for show. My sister worries about me enough. She doesn’t need my