The Midnight Lie

by Marie Rutkoski

  When I flung open the door, I heard an argument in another language: Sid’s voice anxious in a way that pierced through me, and the man’s voice alternately insinuating and forceful. It wasn’t a language I recognized. It didn’t sound like Herrani, with its rounded vowels and similarity to my own tongue. It had clusters of hard and harsh sounds. Sid said something that ended with a hiss.

  I strode into the sitting room, where I expected to see Sid bound, or with her dagger drawn, threatened by the man who had stolen her. Instead, I found her impeccably dressed, drinking a green liqueur, and gazing up in worried affection at a tall man with no face.

  At least, that was my instant impression of him. I immediately recoiled, sucking in my breath. His face had been mutilated. He had no nose and no ears. He looked like he had been made to pay a horrific tithe. He turned and took my measure, black eyes raking me caustically from head to toe with the gaze of someone who makes short work of assessing people. I felt summarized and quickly dismissed. He was old enough to be Sid’s father, with gray in his closely cut black hair. His skin was far darker than mine, a rich brown. If Sid looked foreign, he looked more so: his cheekbones broad, his mouth very full, his liquid black eyes rimmed with green paint.

  But most startling were his mutilations. The scar tissue was old, a lighter shade than the rest of his skin. I couldn’t help staring. His mouth curled into a hard smile.

  “Nirrim.” Sid’s grip on her glass slackened, her expression relieved yet still apprehensive.

  The man spoke to her in a cool, amused, slightly mocking tone.

  “Yes.” Sid frowned at him. “She is.”

  “What is going on?” I said. “What did he say? Who is he?”

  “A family friend.”

  “Why is he here?”

  “His ship docked in your city’s harbor today.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Hesitantly, she said, “I know.”

  I cut a glance at him. “Is he … safe?”

  “Me?” he said in my tongue, his accent heavy. He laughed. “No.”

  I flinched in surprise. I had assumed he didn’t know my language. I was growing angry at Sid for her silence. I said, “You are making me feel as though I know nothing.”

  In a slow, droll tone with the edge of command, the man spoke to Sid in the language they shared. She snapped at him. He shrugged.

  Sid glanced at me but wouldn’t hold my gaze. “Earlier, he asked if you were my lover. Now he says I owe you my honesty. Nirrim, there is something I need to explain.”

  “Swiftly, Princess,” the man said to her in Herrath.

  “Princess?” I echoed, sounding exactly like the stupid ithya bird Raven had claimed I was. “Princess?”

  Sid closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in frustration and anger, and said something to the man that sounded like a terrible plea, a grieved accusation. Finally she told him, “Just go. Leave me, please.”

  I was flooded with relief, which made me realize how afraid I had been that sending him away was something she wasn’t able to do, and that he was here to take her away.

  “You have had your fun.” He said the words to Sid, but they were meant for me to understand. “Now it’s time to come home.” With a scant glance at me, he left.

  “What did he mean, princess?” I asked. “Was he teasing you? Was that a joke?”

  Miserably, she shook her head.

  “Who are you?”

  “His name is Roshar,” she said. “He is a prince of Dacra, the eastern land, and I have known him all my life.”

  “I didn’t ask about him!”

  She set the glass of green liqueur down on a small table with slow precision, like it was an act of utmost importance, her last act. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. This is difficult to explain. Roshar—my parents—no one knew where I was for a long time, but he found out I was on this island after I made the prison officials contact his ambassador here to secure our release. He has always understood me in ways my parents don’t, and I hoped he would keep what he knew to himself. Even if he chose not to, I accepted the risk because it didn’t matter so much that he could track me down here. I planned to be gone long before he received word from his ambassador and his ship was able to arrive. But”—she twisted her fingers together—“I stayed.”

  “You’re not a princess. You said you were the Herrani queen’s spy.”

  “I was her spy.” Quietly, she added, “I still am. I am also her daughter.”

  My throat was tight. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “In some ways, I did.”

  I thought of the sigil on her dagger that matched the one on the queen’s card, the symbol of the Herrani family, and how she hadn’t fully answered when I asked whether she stole it, which made me assume that she had. I remembered how when the blue-haired man at the party had suggested she was cousin to the Herrani king, she had denied it … which wasn’t a lie, if she was the king’s daughter. I remembered how she had described the queen, and how she had described her mother. Both women had seemed similar: intimidating, and alike in the power they had over Sid. Yet there had been no reason for me to guess that they were the same person.

  “I was truthful about why I left home,” she said. “I hated being a princess. I don’t even like the title. Princess Sidarine.” She cringed in disgust. “So … dainty. And so heavy. I don’t think you can know what a burden it is, how hopeful my parents are that I will marry into Roshar’s family, how my mother seeks to make me into herself. My father says nothing, and just lets it happen.”

  “You’re right,” I said coldly. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a princess. I don’t know what it’s like to have parents.”

  “Please let me explain.”

  “You tricked me.”

  She roughed up her hair, nervously, then jammed her hands into her pockets. “I had to,” she said. “I didn’t want city officials getting wind of the Herrani monarchy’s interest in this island.”

  “I wouldn’t have told anyone,” I said, insulted.

  “I believe you, but I didn’t at first. Even after I trusted you, I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to look at me like you are looking at me now. It was already hard enough, wondering what you thought. If I could … attract you. If I could make you want me.”

  “Of course,” I said bitterly. “What would be the point in telling yet one more conquest?”

  “You were never a conquest.”

  “You would think that a liar, caught lying, would be wise enough to stop.”

  “Nirrim,” she said, “I love you.”

  My breath caught. My eyes stung. And then I couldn’t look at her. I swore I would never look at her again, at her beautiful, worried face. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I love you because you are true and kind, and curious, and clever. I love you because of how you kiss me.”

  “Stop it.” My throat closed.

  “The letter I wrote in the tavern was to you. I was trying to explain.”

  “In a language I couldn’t read. On a page you never planned to give to me.”

  “I never actually told you a lie.”

  “What you just now said is a lie. You are lying to yourself about what a lie is. You deceived me. Playing games with words doesn’t make you less a liar.”

  “You’re right,” she said miserably. “I’m so sorry. Ask me anything you want. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  I refused to look at her face. I looked at her hands, which she had pulled from her pockets. She was rubbing one thumb against the palm of her other hand, her fingers nervous in a way I had never seen—not when she spread jam on a pancake or played a piano’s keys. Not when she had touched me so deftly.

  I didn’t want the anger boiling in my chest. I didn’t want my eyes to sting. I didn’t want to have been made a fool, so easily deceived by her. I wanted to be a wall, to be stone and mortar. I wanted to clear t
he burn from my eyes. So I focused on that long, thin scar on her hand. It is ugly, I thought.

  And dear. I loved its ragged line.

  I asked, “Where did you get that scar?”

  “From a tiger.”

  Which was what she had said before, though I had dismissed it as a joke. “Really?”

  “Yes. I mean, I have other scars from weapons training with my father. But the big scar, the one you noticed, is from Roshar’s pet tiger. It’s mostly tame. Roshar brought it to a state function when I was twelve…” She drifted off, maybe because of the fresh anger that must have been plain on my face. I hated to hear the hope in her voice, as if she believed that she could distract me from her deceit by telling me a tale about a tiger among royalty, in a country I had never seen.

  “Nirrim, please look at me.”

  I shook my head, my eyes brimming.

  “Ask me what I thought when I first met you,” she said. “Ask me how I felt when I first saw your face. Ask me how it is to stand in front of you and know how angry you are, how much I deserve it, how awful it is to have hurt you when I have only ever wanted your happiness.”

  I couldn’t help it. I looked up. Her face was pale, stricken.

  “You have my heart,” she said. “I never knew I could feel for anyone what I feel for you.”

  She looked lonely. It hurt me to see her unsmiling mouth, how her body had lost its easy confidence. Sid hated to be serious but was so serious now, and so sad. My anger slipped away. I said, “I believe you.”

  The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile, but her eyes were still hesitant. She waited, but I couldn’t say to her what she had said to me, even as I loved her bravery for saying it. I loved the freckle beneath her eye, the throat I still wanted to press my face against, how she loved her parents even when they failed her. How gently she sought my thoughts. How hard she held me when I asked her to. Her sly glances. Her laugh. I was a coward for saying none of this, but my throat closed over. My anger was gone, but I wished it weren’t. Anger would armor me against the answer to the question I had to ask. “Will Roshar force you to return home?”

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. But her face was unhappy.

  “Are you going to do it anyway?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “But”—I desperately cast about for the words that would make her stay—“we had a plan. You said a month.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You promised. You swore on your life.”

  “I must ask you to release me from that promise.”

  “You said you wanted to bring the secret of magic back to your parents.”

  “That’s not important now.”

  “You always change your mind,” I accused. “You never want anything for long.”

  “Roshar says that my mother is very sick. No one knows why. It’s a sudden illness and unlike anything anyone has ever seen. My father needs me. I don’t even know if she will still be alive when I reach home.”

  Sid suddenly looked so small. I saw how utterly defenseless she was against this looming, enormous loss. I wanted to touch her cheek, to pull her into my arms, but if I did, I would never be able to let her go.

  She asked, “Would you force me to stay?”

  I bit my lip. I thought about what I had done to the councilman, how I had forged a fake memory in his mind.

  I could do that to Sid, if I wanted.

  Make her forget her parents. Make her stay in Ethin.

  Maybe it would be a kindness. After all, if she couldn’t remember her mother, Sid would never grieve her loss.

  “No.” I shook my head, horrified at my temptation, at how easily I could dupe her. I could force her to remember me as the only one she would ever love. I could make her always mine. “I would never do that.” My eyes were wet. “Go, you should go. I will miss you so much.”

  Her expression changed, losing its hesitation. She reached for me, her lips touching my tears. “Don’t cry,” she said. “Come with me.”

  I went still. I drew slightly back.

  “Won’t you?” she said.

  “What would I be there? A servant to the princess?”

  “No,” she said with a flash of frustration. “Have I ever treated you like one?”

  “Then what?”

  “My…” Her frustration grew as I saw that she didn’t have any ready words to answer me. “My honored guest.”

  “Everyone will know exactly what we are.”

  “Let them. I want them to.”

  “So I would be there as your lover.”

  “Yes.” Her voice was firm.

  “In a country I have never seen.”

  “Herran is beautiful. You will love it as I do.”

  “I don’t know the language.”

  “Your memory will help you. You will learn quickly.”

  “Your parents want you to marry a man. They won’t want me there.”

  “I want you.”

  “I will have no place. I will know no one and nothing. I will have nothing to call mine.”

  “You will have me.”

  My eyes were dry now. They ached. I stepped away. Her hands fell from me, and she lifted her stubborn chin. She said, “You owe me a yes.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “You have been treated terribly here. One way or another, you have lived your life imprisoned. The people who should protect and care for you have failed you. I will never do that.”

  “Won’t you? What will you do when your parents pressure you to marry?”

  She hesitated, then said, “I will refuse.”

  She had reckoned with the lies she had told me, but even now I am not sure if she recognized the lies she told herself. You will change your mind, I thought. You have other loyalties.

  As I do, I thought reluctantly.

  “I think all the magic is coming from the Ward,” I said. “I think the Council milks Half-Kith bodies of powers people don’t even know they have. The children who have gone missing, where are they? Dead? Kept like calves in stalls, forced to give their blood? I told you I would find a way to give magic back to the Ward. I am going to keep my promise.”

  Helplessly, she said, “It’s not your duty to change the world. It’s dangerous to try.”

  You are dangerous.

  “Be with me,” she said.

  Slowly, I shook my head at the impossibility of it, at the sure future I had seen written on the tree bark’s inner skin. I saw how alone and friendless I would be in Sid’s country. I would be her novelty. She loved me now. How long would it be before she grew tired of me, before she left me like she had left her own country, like she was leaving mine now, like she had left the Ward after one day when she had said she would stay three? I saw myself: abandoned in a land with unfamiliar birdsong, whose city never became suddenly encased in ice, where they did not salt bread, where I would never taste honey made by sea bees. I would hear the alien tones of a language I didn’t know, and miss Morah’s wisdom, Annin’s hope, my only sisters. I would know no one there except Sid. I would depend on her for everything.

  Her voice small, she asked, “Do you not love me like I love you? Won’t you come with me?”

  Yes, I thought. I love my blithe scoundrel. I love your good heart.

  “No,” I said. “I can’t come with you.”

  “Oh,” she said, the sound low and blunt. I realized I had unintentionally done to her what she had done to me so many times, which was to tell a misleading truth. She had asked two questions, I had answered one, and she thought my answer served for both.

  “I see,” she said.

  “Sid,” I said, and would have explained, but she lifted a hand to stop me.

  She said, “An apology will make it worse.”

  “I don’t want to apologize.”

  “Good. There is no need.”

  Then she left, quickly, even as I called her name, then stopped calling. I d
id not, in the end, want to share the truth, because the words of love inside me felt like the only part of her that could ever remain mine.

  * * *

  Night fell. There was no moon. The stars were painfully bright.

  I stood on the balcony, looking at the harbor, the sea.

  It was too dark to see her ship set sail.

  50

  MADAME MERE SHOWED DISCOMFORT at my request, but she was tempted when I promised her a rare elixir. “I haven’t seen it used at any party.” I offered the dressmaker the little stoppered vial I had won at Pantheon. This time, it was filled with my own watered-down blood. I’d had to guess at the ratio of blood to water. “I don’t know how strong it is.”

  “What will it do?”

  “It will make you remember something you have forgotten.”

  She gave the vial a wary glance, but curiosity eventually stole over her features. “Indeed, I have never heard of such an elixir,” she said. “Fascinating.” Her hand claimed the vial. She gave me the address, then said, “Councilmen have been asking about a girl who looks like you.”

  “Oh?” I kept my voice careful.

  “Why don’t you let me freshen your look? That black hair has a nice wave and shine, but really, my dear: it’s far too natural. Even, I would say, noticeable.”

  “I can’t pay you.”

  She waved an impatient hand. She led me into a back room, where she painted my hair with stripes of blue and green and purple. She dyed my eyelashes a shocking teal and patterned my cheeks with swirls of gold that she swore would last for days.

  “There,” she said. “No one will know you.”

  I was touched by her kindness. “Why would you help me?”

  “Maybe it helps me, to help you.” She smiled gently. “The gossip in the High quarter is that Lady Sidarine has left the city.”

  I bit my lip. I looked at the panoply of fabrics stacked along the walls, the brightly wrapped bolts, and tried not to think about her. I thought: Azure. Canary. Persimmon dotted with pink. Violet. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  The dressmaker patted my hand. “The first heartbreak hurts the most. Every day it will be easier, and soon you will forget her.”