Cracks forming in her heart, pain leaking out like spilled ink, midnight black and poisonous. It hurt, she had never felt anything like this, not even when she experienced Leo’s anguish in the locket memories—that had been an echo of someone else’s pain. This was her own, real and unrelenting, and it hurt.
She realized dimly that she was still holding the locket. She hadn’t let go of it, even during the commotion. Part of her wanted to throw it away, crush it beneath her foot. The clasp was broken, she couldn’t even wear it. Instead, she slipped it into her sleeve.
Already, it was a relic of a time before—a time before Crier could ever have imagined this happening.
Ayla.
Finally, the guards decided the room was safe. Crier looked around at the wreckage of her things—her books and maps everywhere, her desk drawers emptied, one of the bookshelves knocked over, her clothes strewn across the floor; one of the guards had even taken his sword to her mattress and pillows and now there were feathers dusted across the room like snow. Everything ruined. Crier felt a dull pang of loss for her books and maps, but couldn’t even think about the rest. Ayla.
“Come, my lady,” one of the guards said. “We have orders to take you to the sovereign’s study. It’s safe there.”
She didn’t bother snapping at them or trying to resist when they pulled her roughly to her feet. All the adrenaline, all the fight, had leached out of her, and now she was just—empty. She let the guards lead her through the dark halls of the palace. It was strange not seeing a single human servant. Crier wondered how many had been part of the attack. How many had been plotting to kill her?
They reached her father’s study. The guards pushed the door open, ushering Crier inside. Hesod was standing in the center of the room flanked by his own guards, and when he saw Crier his face collapsed in relief for a split second before smoothing out again. Crier wanted so badly to run forward into his arms. She wanted her father to hold her and tell her this had all been a terrible dream. But she was not supposed to do things like that, had been punished for it before. She held still.
“You are safe,” said Hesod.
She nodded.
“Do you require a physician?”
She shook her head.
“Well, sit by the fire,” Hesod said, scrutinizing her. “You look ill.”
Crier obeyed, taking a seat on the lip of the hearth, and a moment later Hesod draped a thin blanket over her shoulders. She must have looked something worse than ill if he was worrying over her like that. She wondered what her expression was doing. If he’d noticed her shaking hands.
Ayla was going to kill you. She wanted to kill you.
All this time—
Crier pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders, even though she knew it would do nothing. There was no banishing this kind of cold. Ayla’s dagger hadn’t pierced her, but it might as well have: the cold felt like a knife blade lodged between Crier’s ribs. Surely she’d been wounded, somewhere unseen.
A guard came in and spoke to Hesod. About half of the rebels, by their calculations, had escaped, he said in a low murmur.
She didn’t know which ones hadn’t.
It was a new and humiliating level of pathetic: hoping that someone who had tried to kill her had escaped unscathed. She stared into the fire. The flames were so bright, burning white mouths eating the kindling. Then the door behind her swung open, creaking on its hinges. Crier straightened up automatically when Kinok, flanked by her father’s best guards, stepped inside. Kinok’s eyes were as flat and lightless as two black pools of ink.
“Clear the room,” Hesod ordered.
The guards hesitated.
“I said clear the room,” Hesod thundered, and the guards hurried out. He closed the door behind them and turned to face the study, now empty of everyone but himself, Kinok, and Crier. “Rise, daughter.”
Crier got to her feet, trying not to stumble on her stiff legs. She’d been so tense for hours. “Father, what—?”
“The guards are still searching the palace and all the surrounding lands for the human traitors,” said Hesod. “Barely two leagues to the south, they overtook a single courier bearing no colors, no crest. He attempted to run from them. As if he’d been expecting an interception. He did not succeed. The courier was carrying only one letter. A coded message to Queen Junn of Varn.”
It took