but knew their expressions must have been horrific.
Immediately she turned to sprint out of the archway behind her and almost impaled herself onto a spear. Four guardsmen stood there, the spear tips pointed at her and the wolf, who had backed into the far corner.
“Were you speaking to that thing?” her mother shrieked. Her father shook his head uncomprehendingly, glancing at her like an unwelcome stranger.
Lilac opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
Face purple, the queen lunged at her, grasping her shoulders and shaking hard. “Answer me! How do you—how is th—” Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling and back into her head as she toppled to the floor.
From then on, everything seemed to move in slow motion—her father roaring for the servants to come revive the fainted queen, the guardsmen slipping a noose over the wolf’s head, while another dragged a kicking and screaming Lilac after them. Hedwig pressed against the wall, clutching her hair cap.
“My heavens,” she gasped as they passed her. “Lilac, what—”
With a single glare, King Henri quieted her. All Lilac could do was sob and avoid Hedwig’s gaze. The kind soul had always looked the other way when Lilac snuck into the kitchen for sweets or alcohol. Now, Lilac kept her head down and hoped Hedwig wouldn’t feel any sort of guilt. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not anyone’s except her own.
Lilac fought the rough hands that gripped her, as she and Freya were led into the foyer and out the double doors. She screamed for her mother, for Hedwig, for anyone’s help when they dragged her out into the cold, across the stone bridge and onto the grass, where her father viciously pointed a finger at a lone tree stump, meters away from the tree line. She thrashed and bit and cried when the king ordered the guards to pin Freya to the stump. The guards who held Lilac didn’t force her to watch, but by the time she finally realized what would happen, she was unable to turn away even if she wanted.
A tall, hooded figure had appeared with a double-edged axe, taking a wide-footed stance beside the trembling animal. In one swift motion, the executioner slashed through the wolf’s neck; as it hit the floor rolling, a dismembered human head bounced in its place. Long, strawberry blonde hair, matted in dark blood.
The ten-year-old princess couldn’t scream, couldn’t bring herself to cry. For once in her short lifetime, she regretted rebelling against her parents, regretted her mischievous sense of adventure. All she’d wanted was to help the creature, since what her parents provided was evidently not enough. With the fury inscribed upon her father’s features, Lilac knew her actions had struck change into motion.
There was a price to be paid, and this was only the beginning.
3
After the news of Lilac’s Darkling Tongue had spread, she was confined to royal grounds at the expense of maintaining—or saving—her parents’ reputation. Unallowed to socialize with the other children of nobility and even those of the servants, she immersed herself in her studies. Alchemy had been too technical for her liking, and Philosophy was outright annoying; it was frustrating, taking a course based on the opinions of dead men.
According to her studies, the sprawling forest of central Brittany crawled with the unspeakable. Creatures who looked human by day, but transformed into quadruped, fanged beasts by light of the full moon. Impish brutes who could often be found playing an instrument or recklessly intoxicated—usually both. Bewitching creatures with olive skin and aventurine eyes, who had an affinity for wearing precious family heirlooms plucked from war corpses. Things that stood twice the height and ten times the weight of the burliest Breton soldiers. And human-like parasites that could charm any mortal into letting them feast from her veins. Creatures whom the first settlers were quick to call Darklings.
Living, breathing omens of darkness.
Still, never in a million years did Lilac suspect that her lessons would prove useful in one day preparing her for survival.
As she made her way through the towering trees, the threat of encountering a Darkling in the flesh began to terrify her. All she wanted was for the creatures to leave her alone on her way to Paimpont. Deep down she knew she would come face-to-face with one sooner or later; if it wanted to give her trouble, she was ready. Lilac grasped the handle of her dagger even more tightly.
Dry pine needles twirled down from the branches above, settling into her hair; eventually, she