Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,123
the matronic down to Pala Amna via one of the larger surface-to-city air ducts.
“They’ll make camp here and wait for me to return,” the celeon says when he rejoins us. “So let’s ensure we all make it back.”
“Affirmative.” I salute facetiously even as I feel Fione’s eyes dragging on my back the whole way up the beach. She hasn’t told anyone, Lucien least of all. She wouldn’t. She wants Varia back no matter what, and I know she’s struggling with the idea of losing one of us. Me, or the princess. A hard choice to make, certainly.
But Fione won’t really lose me. None of them will. I’ll be here, always. The valkerax know it, the Tree of Souls knows it, and I know it too, now. Nobody’s ever really gone.
Evlorasin said it best.
This is never-goodbye.
Life is a garden that must flourish, and we will water its soil. The valkerax bodies, cut apart and piled on the beach of Rel’donas. The blood watering the sea, the sand, the mangrove trees growing greener as their roots soaked up crimson.
Evlorasin said it best, and most truly.
Something pretty on the not-red sand catches my eye. I bend down and scoop it, skipping up the beach to draw even with Lucien. I hold the tiny, brightly blue iridescent shell up to his face.
“Isn’t it pretty?” I ask. He doesn’t spare a glance my way, eyes determined and forward, but one corner of his lips perks up.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to say ‘not as pretty as you,’ right?”
“If you want to sound like a rehearsed theater performance,” I sniff. “Then yes. By all means, follow the script.”
“Can I deviate?” he ribs playfully.
“Are you capable of deviating? Or is it all just princely business in that head of yours right now?”
There’s a popping sound, and the shell disappears from my hand and reappears in his.
“Hey!” I pout. “No fair!”
His smirk grows, and the fingers of his working hand grow midnight void up to the first knuckle.
“I’ll give it back later,” he assures me.
I point accusatorially at him. “You’re a thief!”
“You’re a worse one,” he lilts. “Considering you stole my heart.”
“Ugh!” I tamp down the pleased rush in my chest. “You really are sticking to a theater script!”
His laugh fades as we walk over the sandy roots of the forest and toward the crowd. People with bandages over their eyes, their hands, some of them missing legs. Burned skin peeking out, children huddled together without family. The crowd is brimming with the injured, the old, the sick, and the hungry. A little boy tugs at Lucien’s overcoat, and the prince puts a hand on the boy’s head and offers a bit of jerky from his pouch. He takes it eagerly, chomping, and Lucien looks back to me. His smile is sadder this time.
“Right now, it’s princely business time.”
My unheart steels and I nod, carefully maneuvering through the crowd with him. People cry out when they see our swords, our clothes that aren’t rags. Some cling and beg for food, for shelter, thinking we’re with some authority, and I watch Lucien’s heart break one shard at a time. He reaches out to all of them with his food and coin pouch, but the crowd starts to frenzy around him, and I know instantly he’s in danger. Like a synchronized performance, I feel Malachite at my side as we step in between the prince and the crowd, making a ring with our backs and arms.
“Keep distance,” Malachite bellows. “And maintain patience! There’s room enough for all in Pala Amna!”
“Is there?” Fione whispers at my side. “It seems half of Cavanos is here.”
“Pala Amna is a fortress city,” Yorl assures her. “There are wings built into the Dark Below for just such an occasion.”
“And the food?” Fione presses.
“The beneathers are expert preservers and fermenters. They can stretch their stores to last for several weeks, even with this amount of mouths.”
“Enough time, then,” Lucien says, fists gripped tight at his side as he strides through the crowd and we follow. I can tell he’s trying desperately not to look at the people, lest he break again. “For us to do what must be done.”
“Won’t be able to endure a siege, though,” Malachite muses.
“If we do things right, there won’t be a siege,” Fione says. I clear my throat.
“Varia doesn’t want a siege anyway. That’s slow death. She wants immediate and total destruction.”
“Comforting.” Malachite throws a smirk at me, and I throw one back.