The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,9

and not because it fulfilled a loveless agreement on paper.

Pauline squeezed my hand and sat up, adding more wood to the fire. “We should get some sleep so we can make an early start.”

She was right. We had at least a week’s ride ahead of us, assuming we didn’t get lost. Pauline hadn’t been to Terravin since she was a child and wasn’t sure of the way, and I had never been there at all, so we could only follow her instincts and rely on the help of passing strangers. I spread a blanket on the ground for us to sleep on and brushed the needles of the forest floor from my hair.

She glanced at me hesitantly. “Do you mind if I say the holy remembrances first? I’ll say them softly.”

“Of course you should,” I whispered, trying to display a modicum of respect for her sake and feeling a twinge of guilt that I wasn’t compelled to say them myself. Pauline was faithful, while I hadn’t made a secret of my disdain for the traditions that had dictated my future.

She knelt, saying the holy remembrances, her voice hypnotic, like the soft chords of the harp that echoed throughout the abbey. I watched her, thinking how foolish fate was. She’d have made a far better First Daughter of Morrighan, the daughter my parents would have wanted, quiet and discreet of tongue, patient, loyal to the ways of old, pure of heart, perceptive to the unsaid, closer to having a gift than I would ever be, perfect for a First Daughter in all ways.

I lay back and listened to the story she chanted, the story of the original First Daughter using the gift the gods gave her to lead the chosen Remnant away from the devastation to safety and a new land, leaving behind a ravaged world and building a new, hopeful one. In her sweet lilt, the story was beautiful, redemptive, compelling, and I became lost in its rhythm, lost in the depth of the woods surrounding us, lost in the world that lay beyond, lost in the magic of a time gone by. In her tender notes, the story reached all the way to the beginning of the universe and back again. I could almost make sense of it.

I stared into the circle of sky high above the pines, distant and untouchable, sparkling, alive, and a longing grew within me to reach out and share its magic. The trees reached for the magic too, then shivered in unison as if an army of ghosts had just swept across their upper boughs—an entire knowing world just beyond my reach.

I thought of all my hidden moments as a child, sneaking away in the middle of the night to the calmest part of the citadelle—the roof—a place where the constant noise was hushed and I became one of those quiet specks connected to the universe. I felt close there, to something I couldn’t name.

If I could only reach out and touch the stars, I would know everything. I would understand.

Know what, my darling?

This, I would say, pressing my hand against my chest. I had no words to describe the ache inside me.

There’s nothing to know, sweet child. It’s only the chill of the night. My mother would gather me in her arms and lead me back to bed. Later, when my nighttime wanderings didn’t stop, she had a lock added to the rooftop door just out of my reach.

Pauline finally finished, her last words a hushed reverent whisper. So shall it be for evermore.

“Evermore,” I whispered to myself, wondering just how long that was.

She curled up on the blanket next to me, and I pulled the wedding cloak up over both of us. The sudden silence made the woods take a bold step closer, and our circle of light grew smaller.

Pauline quickly fell asleep, but the events of the day still churned inside me. It didn’t matter that I was exhausted. My tired muscles twitched, and my mind jumped from one thought to the next like a hapless cricket dodging a stampede of feet.

My only consolation as I looked up at the blinking stars was that the prince of Dalbreck was probably still awake too, furiously jostling home on a rutted road, his old bones aching with pain in a cold, uncomfortable carriage—with no young bride to warm him.

CHAPTER THREE

THE PRINCE

I cinched the buckle on my pack. I had enough to get me by for two weeks, and enough coin in my bag