by Bree Barton
The girl obliged. Over and over, the silver in her palm shifted.
A cloud raining silver hail.
A boat bobbing on the sea.
A flock of silver birds.
Pilar was fascinated, then wary. A magic of objects could be used for evil, just like all the rest. How were the silver birds any different from Freyja’s red wren? The queen had said nothing could harm you during the Reflections, but surely the act of being dragged through your darkest memories was harm enough.
Sometimes our objects tell the truth, even when we don’t.
As long as Quin had the lloira, Pilar couldn’t trust him. But over the last few days she’d started to wonder. What if he destroyed the moonstone? Would she forgive him then?
And another thing. How was Angelyne controlling everyone else in the river kingdom if she’d sent her moonstone off with Quin?
Pilar kept thinking about something he’d said in the forest. Angelyne was storing her magic in new objects now, ones they wouldn’t even recognize.
She massaged her temples. Her whole head hurt.
A whoop of laughter sounded from across the tavern. The blond boy was dragging a heap of silver coins toward him. He gloated while the other men grumbled and chugged their pints.
“I could make them pay attention,” the girl said. “If I wanted.”
She closed her fist again. This time when it opened, a dozen tiny silver spheres rose above her palm.
She flicked her wrist. The spheres flew so quickly they were invisible.
The card players swore. Pilar spun around, expecting to see blood. But the men were unharmed.
Their drinks, on the other hand, were destroyed, punctured with tiny holes. Every glass on their table had shattered, oozing ale and spirits all over their cards.
“Witch!” sniped one of the men. “Keep your sorcering to yourself!”
The girl said nothing. She turned to Pilar.
“You’re very gifted,” she said.
“I’m gifted?”
“But you don’t use your gifts. Why?”
Pilar frowned. “I don’t know what you—”
“My show is only as good as the magicians who come to it. And usually”—she sniffed at the men mopping up their spilled drinks—“no one good comes.”
“You’re not making sense.”
The girl sighed like she’d explained this a hundred times.
“I’m a sorceress. I tap into other people’s magic. I’m at my best when a magician is refusing to use her own gifts, because then there’s more magic left over for me to play with.” She pursed her lips. “It builds up in your body, you know. You should be careful. Someday you’re going to explode.”
An idea was forming in Pilar’s head.
“You’re saying there’s a way to siphon off a Dujia’s magic . . . and use it for yourself?”
“Yes.” The girl stiffened. “But I don’t hurt people. Ever. That isn’t how this works.”
In one move, she swept all the talismans into her skirt.
“Wait,” Pilar said. “That wasn’t what I—”
“Good night.”
The girl hurried up the tavern stairs. One of the card players cursed her loudly as she left, shaking his soaked cards.
Whatever idea had been forming vanished along with the girl.
Pilar went back to the bar and flopped down on her stool.
“More death.”
The bar matron poured a generous thumb. “The sorceress is strange, isn’t she? No family. No friends. Arrived here in Kom’Addi after the river queen opened the borders.”
Pilar sat up. “Angelyne opened the borders?”
“Why else would all you Glasddirans be coming around?”
“I told you, I am not Glasddiran.”
“No? Well he is.”
The bar matron waved toward the far end of the bar, where a blond patron hunched over his spirits. Pilar nearly dropped her silver death.
She was staring at Prince Quin.
Chapter 30
Fierce and Lovely
“YOU’RE DRUNK.”
Pilar’s first words to Quin as she stood behind him.
He spun around on the stool. His face was smudged with dirt. He looked tired but otherwise safe.
Quin’s green eyes warmed for a moment. Then cooled.
Pilar felt happy. Then furious. Then confused. What in four hells was he doing in Kom’Addi? The queen had shipped him back to Kaer Killian a week ago.
“I’m not drunk,” he said flatly. “For a sniveling little prince, you’d be surprised how well I hold my spirits.”
He turned his back.
So he wasn’t happy to see her. Fair enough. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Still, the sight of his cold back stung.
Pilar had a fierce and sudden urge to apologize. She shook the idea out of her head. He should be the one apologizing to her.
“This stool taken?” She sat on it before he could answer. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“I’m not.”
“Really? Because last time I saw you, you were being carted off to Glas Ddir.”
“Mmm. Thanks for that, by the way.”
She noticed the backs of his hands were caked with dirt and grime. When he saw her staring, he moved them off the bar.
“Turns out mining is dirty work.”
His voice sounded thick—with bitterness or exhaustion, she couldn’t tell.
“Mining?”
“Yes, Pilar. The Snow Queen gave me a choice. Either she would ship me back to the river kingdom on her fastest ship—back to Angelyne, back to your mother—or I could go to Kom’Addi to work in the fyre ice mines.”
Pilar shifted on her stool, uncomfortable. “And you chose the mines.”
“They say a man isn’t a man until he’s done manual labor.”
“Who says that?”
“Me. Just now.”
Quin held up his palms. His hands weren’t just caked with grime: they were red and blistered, so raw it made her wince.
“I don’t imagine I’ll be playing much piano.”
Pilar kept noticing new things, like how much his shoulders sagged. Or the fresh purple bruises on the inside of his arms. The air was stuffed with words he wasn’t saying.
“When did you—”
“Get here? Same time you did. I was in the brig belowdecks.”
She was astonished. “You were on my ship?”
“I’m sure Queen Freyja assumed you’d stay above deck, where the non-prisoners reside.” He flagged down the bar matron. “Three thumbs of death, please.”
“Hoarfrost?”
“The more the merrier.”
The bar matron licked her thumb, swirled it once around the rim, and stamped the glass into a plate of ice crystals.
Pilar stared at the crusted saliva. She was glad she’d said no to the hoarfrost.
“They give us three coins a week,” Quin said. “That way they can call us workers, not slaves.”
When the bar matron slid his death across the bar, he tossed her a silver coin.
“As you might imagine,” he said sourly, “a week’s wages don’t go very far.”
Maybe Quin was lying. Maybe this was all a ploy to get sympathy.
“Why aren’t they here? Don’t they worry you’ll run?”
He snorted. “Run to where? It’s three days to Suvi West by foot. Even if I made it that far, the only way out of the port is on one of the queen’s ships. I’m stuck in Kom’Addi forever. Or at least until I’m too old to be of any use in the mines.”
Pilar shifted from one ass cheek to the other. She didn’t like the idea of people being forced to work in the mines. It didn’t match up with the bright picture of progress Freyja and Lord Dove had painted.
“Oh, but I destroyed Angelyne’s moonstone,” Quin said. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
He thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out the mangled pendant. The metal had been
pounded with an anvil or some other blunt instrument until the gem dislodged. Quin handed her the empty scoop.
Pilar held it on her palm, a tide of conflicted emotions rising. Why wasn’t she pleased? She could still hear herself in the music room, furiously demanding he destroy it.
But she could also hear Quin begging her not to destroy it. Pleading with her. You have no idea what I’ve lost.
She tried to give back the warped piece of metal, but he waved her off.
“Keep it. Something to remember me by.”
“For all I know you’re keeping the lloira somewhere else.”
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, tugged them inside out. “Come see for yourself.”
She hesitated, then set the pendant on the bar. She leaned over and felt his pockets. Pinched the thin fabric between her fingers. Ran her hands down his legs. Up his hips, his stomach, his chest. No stone.
His body was warm.
Her face was scalding.
Pilar retracted her hands, suddenly unsure what to do with them. She tried her lap. Her sides. She felt furious for having hands at all. Finally she balled them into fists.
“You should know I did it of my own volition,” Quin said. “Before Freyja could force my hand.”
“And how has it been? Without Angelyne in your head?”
“Lonely.”
He lifted his dram of silver death and licked the hoarfrost from the rim. Tipped it back. Swallowed in one gulp.
“Cold frost for a dead heart,” he said darkly.
She’d seen Quin morose before. But even in the forest, there were still flickers of feeling—when they’d fought, or when she kneaded his shoulders, or when he talked about the violin. The boy sitting beside her now reminded her of the pendant: the bright heart had been pounded out.
This was her fault. He had begged her to show mercy and she’d showed none. All she’d wanted was to punish him for hurting her.
But hadn’t she hurt him first?
You have no idea what I’ve lost. All the people I cared about.
She’d killed his sister. Killed Mia Rose.
Quin believed the world needed gentleness. But Pilar hadn’t been gentle. She’d cared only about herself. Her pain. Her suffering.
The epiphany landed like a punch to the gut.
She was just like her mother.
Pilar stared hard at Quin’s empty glass. The pleasant heat she’d felt from her own dose of death had faded. She wasn’t sure she deserved to have it back.
She cleared her throat. Took a breath.
“Listen. I . . .” She unclenched her fists. Stared at the lines in her palms. “I want to . . .”
Why was apologizing so hard? She could never find the right words.
“No need to say you’re sorry. I’m just a liar, right? Weak. A coward.” He angled his body toward her. “You want to know the truth?”
“Always.”
“It was cruel, what you did.”
Her stomach twisted. “I know. That’s what I’m—”
“Let me finish. It was cruel, but I understand why you did it. You were right. I’d been lying to you since the moment you charged into that copse of swyn trees to save my skin. Every time I didn’t tell you about the moonstone, I knew it was wrong. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t have the power to stop. So I’m not angry at you.”
Quin stared at his hands. “I’m angry at everyone else. Angry at the way this world works, how it holds us hostage. I cared about a boy and was punished for it. I cared about a girl, and I lost her, too. First my father was the villain, then Angelyne. Now I’m at the whim of some Luumi bastard barking orders in a giant pit. Someone else always decides who I get to be. I’m angry I haven’t had a choice—a real choice—my entire life.”
He looked up at her. “I did want to save Domeniq. I still do. Of course I want to go back and protect all the innocent Glasddirans from the horrors they’re facing. It’s what my sister would have done. But even when I told you why I was going to Luumia, I knew I’d been stripped of all my power to actually do it.”
Quin’s smile was bitter.
“You know what kills me most? I’m angry that I can’t feel angry. Because every time I try to feel that rage, to let it live inside me, all I feel is shame.”
Shame was the air Pilar breathed. She’d tried to fight it with her fists, to choke it out. But the shame was always just beneath the surface. Like sweat. Like blood.
For the first time, she understood something. The world had held them both hostage in different ways. Pilar had spent her life stuck on an island full of women who were supposed to be her sisters. But when she needed them most, they had betrayed her.
And yet there she was, still trying to win them over. She so desperately wanted them to forgive her. Which meant she still believed she had every reason to be ashamed.
Maybe they were right. Maybe what happened in the cottage was her fault. Maybe she deserved it.
Pilar felt suddenly desperate.
“We could leave,” she said. “Break you out of the mines. Go somewhere together. Anywhere. Pick a kingdom.”
He shot her a dubious look. “What happened to finding your father and claiming your bloody revenge?”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter.”
“That’s all you wanted, Pilar. It’s what you’ve been living for.”
“It isn’t all I want. I want other things, too.”
She realized that was true. What if her mother didn’t have to die for Pilar to choose a different ending? What if she could make a choice now?
“The Snow Wolf isn’t here.” She set her jaw. “And I don’t care. I should never have left you behind.”
She reached out. Lifted his chin until his eyes met hers.
“I’m sorry, Quin. Sorry for all of it. I’m sorry I left you. And I’m sorry I killed your sister. I could never be sorry enough for that.”
“I don’t blame you for the people I lost. It wasn’t your fault.”
Tears pounded at her eyes. “I’m sorry for Mia, too.”
Pilar could never be Mia Rose. Nor did she want to. But she refused to punish Quin for feelings he had every right to feel. It was time to put her own complicated emotions aside.
“I know you loved her. And I want you to know it’s all right.”
She placed her hand over his. “You were right, too. I don’t want to be alone. I’ve been lying to myself about what I wanted. I thought, if I found my father . . . if I could make him believe me . . .”
“Believe you about what?”
The warmth of Quin’s skin warmed her own. “The world has tried to break us both. But we won’t let it. You get to make a choice.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if I even know how.”
“Of course you do. You can always make a choice. No one can take that away from you. What is it you want?”
He stood from the stool, leaned down—and kissed her.
His lips tasted like licorice. She expected to feel fear, her body freezing, retreating into itself. Instead she felt a softening.
She pulled back. “Quin? Is this really what you want?”
“Yes.” He kissed her jawbone, then the soft place where it met her neck. “You, Pilar Zorastín d’Aqila, are fierce and lovely and impossible.”
Heat pulsed through her as he murmured in her ear: “Is this what you want?”
She raked her hands through his curls. Drew him toward her.
“Yes.”
This time when he kissed her, she kissed back.
Chapter 31
Thick With Pleasure
IN THE SMALL ROOM above the tavern, their clothes didn’t come off easily. Quin’s shirt got stuck around his neck. Pilar’s socks snagged around her ankles. She laughed at how clumsy they were.
“I’m sorry,” Quin said, fumbling with her trousers. “I’m not very—”
She put her hands over his and guided the button through the hole. He eased the fabric down over
her hips until the trousers fell in a clump to the floor. She sat on the bed as he knelt between her legs, planting kisses on her stomach, her hipbone.
“You have beautiful breasts.”
“They’re small.”
“Small and beautiful.”
Quin peeled off her undergarments, inching them down her thighs and knees. He was being so gentle. She wanted to put her arms around him and never let go.
“I want you,” she said.
“You have me.”
He tugged a sheepskin sheath out of his pocket. Pilar watched him put it on, her desire growing. When she leaned back onto the bed, she banged her head on the wooden headboard and swore.
“Are you all right?” he said.
Pilar laughed.
She wrapped her arms around him, his long lean body pressed into hers. He looked just as good unclothed as she’d imagined. And she had imagined it many times, ever since the prince arrived in Refúj all those months ago, handsome and terrified. His stomach was lean and taut. His arms hard without being over muscled. His skin smooth and warm.
But as they tried to get the angle right, something wasn’t quite connecting. Skin slapped against skin.
“Not comfortable,” she said.
“Sorry! I’m sorry. I think . . .” He buried his face in her hair. “I think I’m exhausted. And a little nervous.”
“But this isn’t your first time! I’ve seen your Reflections, remember? I saw you in the river with Mia Rose.”
He blushed fiercely. “Do we have to talk about Mia?”
“Fair. I don’t really want to be thinking of you and another girl while you’re in bed with me.”
“Though since you brought it up . . .” His cheeks were still bright pink. “You know when you had your bow and arrow in the Royal Chapel, but then your arrow didn’t quite go where you wanted it to?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a metaphor?”
“It’s a good one!”
“You must not want me very much.”
“My gods.” He looked stricken. “Are you joking? You are driving me wild.”
She kissed his nose and nudged him off her. He plopped onto his back. Groaned.
“How mortifying,” he said.
“It’s all right.”
Pilar hooked her leg around his leg. Laced their fingers together and brought his hand to her mouth.
