by Sara Wolf
Dying hurts much less than lying.
The sunset is a brilliant orange gem against a sky banded with gold and platinum. I meander through a Vetris preparing for dinnertime—the smell of roasting fish and barley ale on the air as crowds of bedraggled workers shuffle toward home. Meat has been scarce lately, with most game hunters unwilling to make the long, dangerous journey to Vetris, and the caravans slowing due to avoiding the forested roads—any chance of encountering a witch and their Heartless a constant fear. All that means the meat vendors sell scraps of hare and not much else, while the vegetable vendors flourish—selling cheaper heads of crisp sugarleaf and great bouquets of red summer mushrooms. The fish vendors are even better off, fat perch and oily flatfish from the rivers within the city piled high.
For a second, I worry Varia won’t be able to get the raw organs I require, but then I remember she’s a princess. Anything she wants is hers, even with wartime looming. And while fish organs don’t satiate me much, they would do in a pinch. Still, I can’t help but read far ahead and between the lines—if a war does break out, it won’t be long before Vetris’s native supply of fish is used up. And that’s when the real horror begins. War is terrifying. But I know better than anyone that hunger is the true thing to fear.
Despite my dark thoughts, delicate gouts of white summer pollen float heavy on the wind, mixing with the great plumes of white mercury smoke to envelop the city in a murky haze. I had my leg torn off by a valkerax barely a half ago. I’m still alive, despite the fact I deceived the royal court that lords over these people. Nothing feels quite real, as if I’m swimming in a dream.
A familiar face grounds me back down to the earth. There, on a stone wall covered in wanted posters, is a long row of posters lined up beside each other with Y’shennria’s face painted on them. Her strict eyes and puffy hair glare out at me, the scar on her neck so well drawn I feel a twist of nostalgia. It’s like ten of her are here, each staring me down, each disappointed in me for how badly I botched all her desperate efforts to stop the war. Bounty hunters linger in front of her posters, armed to the teeth with swords and knives and crossbows. She’s safe, I hope—from them, and from the war. She has to be.
“If you could see me now,” I mutter to her, and catch a glimpse of my stained self in a passing window. “You’d…well, I’d rather you not see me right now, actually.”
I smooth my hair flat in a pallid attempt to make myself look Y’shennria-presentable. The bounty hunters leave, eventually, heading to taverns and inns for the night. I look over my shoulder this way and that, and when I’m sure there are no lawguards about, I tear at all of Y’shennria’s posters, quick and furious. Parchment fragments rain down like ragged snowflakes. My boots pause before the last poster of her. This one I peel off as carefully as I can. I open Lucien’s kerchief, and fold them both together away in my pocket.
Now hyperaware of the people around me, someone in a simple gray robe catches my eye. They’d been watching me tear the posters, I’m sure of it. I glimpse white hair in the hood, a familiar cruel mouth, but when I turn on them they start off, disappearing around a corner.
That isn’t… That can’t possibly be…
Before my mind can make a better decision, my body slinks after the gray robe’s trail. They carry a huge basket on their arm filled with what looks like loaves of bread, and I watch as the gray robe stops near every huddled vagrant and urchin child and offers the basket to them. They dive hungrily for the bread, looking up as if unsure it comes without cost, but the gray robe simply offers.
I follow them until the basket is almost empty, through the poorest winding streets of Vetris, and after passing a ramshackle house of thin boards and cheesecloth windows, they freeze in a small thoroughfare, turning to face me. They don’t lower their hood, but they raise their head, and I can see their face clearly.
The cruel twisted mouth, the dignified nose, the watery eyes. His hair is silver-white and cropped short now, and his beard is even shorter on his wrinkled chin.
“Gavik?” I hiss through clenched teeth. “What are you—?”
“You have the wrong person. My name is Kreld,” Gavik says instantly, almost far too quickly, as if he’s been deflecting such a question frequently. He breathes in. “You. What do you want?”
He sounds irritated. Not furious, like I’d expect him to sound when facing down his murderer.
“Oh, nothing,” I cross my arms behind my back. “I’m just following a particularly charitable citizen of Vetris and watching him work.”
“You think I’d pass out food to these insignificant lowlifes of my own free will?” he snarls.
“Not by any stretch of the imagination.” I lilt.
Gavik’s face contorts, his glare aimed at the basket as if he wants nothing more than to burn the thing. “I could be doing so much more, but that…girl”—he spits the word like poison—“has commanded me to do this denigrating work, day and night without rest.”
Ah—that’s why he’s here. He’s been commanded. Power has been lorded over him like he lorded it over the entire city of Vetris. Fury is etched into every inch of his face, and I take a sick pride in knowing there’s nothing he can do about it. He couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. The idea of a witch commanding a Heartless completely and totally still makes me nauseous, but this feels deserving.
“Is that why you aren’t trying to rip my throat out right now?” I ask. “Because she’s commanded you to play nice?”
Gavik just glowers, but it’s confirmation enough. Varia’s sentenced him for his crimes in a way no one ever could when he was a human. He was Archduke Gavik—the most powerful man in Cavanos, which is the most powerful country on the Mist Continent. He was above the law. The crown princess might be dangling my heart in front of me cruelly, but she’s also punishing someone who would’ve never been otherwise. Half of me is bitter at her, and yet the other half is utterly delighted.
“In all truth, Archduke…” I wield his old title like a razor as I smile at him. “If I were in your shoes, I would be grateful. Handing out bread is hardly taxing work. Publicly drowning innocent people takes much more effort.”
His face goes blank. “Drowning? What do you…?”
He trails off. He doesn’t remember his human life. He doesn’t remember why he’s being punished so. He’s been commanded into these streets without knowing how much damage he did to the people who live on them. I wish he remembered. I wish he knew what he’d done so he could learn. But people like him—people with hate deep in their veins—never really learn, do they?
“The hunger never leaves, you know,” I say. “It gets quieter, but it never, ever goes away.”
Gavik doesn’t speak for a moment, and the stares of a passing couple force him to warily draw his hood closer to his face.
“You don’t even remember drowning those people,” I continue. “But you did. I saw you do it the first time I came here. You kept this city under your thumb, terrified that one wrong word, one wrong move, would have them all killed. That’s the kind of person you were as a human. A tyrant. A mass murderer. And I’m never going to let you forget it.”
I walk away from him with grim satisfaction in my chest, but it fades when I pass the Temple of Kavar and see the ruined, blackened houses—still singed from the fake witchfire Gavik himself planted. His crimes are many, and even if he can’t remember them, punishing him for them is justice. But it will never bring back the people he killed.
I clench my fists. I’ve killed fourteen men. And they are never coming back, either.
so fearful they were, when they saw the end of their lives coming, the hunger oozes from between my ears. as fearful as these people were under the archduke’s rule. how can you hate him, when you have done much the same?
The dying sun shafts into my eyes, and I welcome the burn. My crimes are many, but there is no witch forcing me to atone.
>
If no one will punish me, then I must do it myself.
“Zera!”
That voice—never in a million years did I think I’d hear that voice call my name. I turn to see Gavik striding up to me, his hood still close but his basket now empty. Freed from his commanded duty, he no doubt was finally able to come after me. I wrinkle my nose in distaste at the mere sight of him.
“What do you want?”
He draws even with me, leaning in as I lean away, his breath smelling of rancid wine. No doubt he’s found that wine is one of the few human things we can consume without crying blood. Up close, he looks so haggard—the deep shadows beneath his eyes deeper, his beard tangled and smeared with dust and detritus, his watery blue eyes glaring out of mud-smeared skin. I’m not entirely sure Varia hasn’t commanded him to be unable to clean himself.
“I know,” he says, low and rapid. “The Bone Tree. I know of it. I know what she plans to do with it.”
“Did you learn about it after you lost your heart? Because you’re not supposed to remember anything of your old life.”
“I don’t—” He winces. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I remember it and nothing else. I remember the Bone Tree, yet everything else…it’s lost. But Varia told me some things. She told me I tried to kill her. And I’m certain it was because of the Bone Tree.”
I freeze down to the last twitch of my fingers. I know why he tried to kill Varia—Fione told me it was because he wanted Varia’s white mercury sword. And because Varia was always getting in the way of his plans to accrue more influence. But that doesn’t change the fact he shouldn’t remember anything.
“You knew about the Bone Tree in your human life?” I whisper, and he nods.
“Yes. I don’t know how or why. But I am certain I would’ve written it down. The urge to keep a diary has been coursing through me even now as I’m this bloodthirsty monster, stronger than a tobacco habit. All my memories—I must’ve written them down somewhere.”
“You tried to kill her,” I snarl, “because she had a sword you wanted. Because she opposed you.”
He barks an unpleasant laugh. “Do you really think I’d spent years trying to kill a little girl because I was annoyed with her? Because I wanted some trifling weapon from the Sunless War? I may have lost my memories, Zera, but I know what I would and would not do.”
I’m the same. I hate it in my bones to even admit it, but I’m the same as him. I have no memories of my old life, but I know what I’m capable of. Who I am has never changed, just what I remember.
I look around at the passing crowd, careful to mutter, “It’s hardly a trifling weapon when it can stop Heartless.”
“Many things can already stop Heartless, you pathetic dullard,” Gavik insists. “Fire. Killing their witch. Pure white mercury pumped into their veins acts nearly as well as any white mercury sword, or so I’ve heard the polymaths in the streets say. No—I didn’t try to kill her for the sword. I’m certain of that.”
Confusion roots me in place. “Then what—”
“The Bone Tree,” Gavik interrupts, his eyes snapping to mine. “Do you understand? It must’ve been for the Bone Tree. It must be important, if I can remember it even now.”
“Because you wanted it, too,” I snap. “You wanted its power—”
“No.” He shakes his head, his gaze now glazed and focused in the distance. “No, it’s not that.” He struggles, his face twisting with his efforts. “I can’t remember. Godsdamn it all, I can’t remember!”
His growl reverberates, and a passing mother pulls her child closer to her side. Gavik sneers at the child and looks back down at me.
“I can’t remember. But there’s some terrible feeling deep inside me. As if I’m missing something crucial. Something vital.”
I scoff. “Are you sure it’s not just indigestion, Your Grace?”
He spits then. Right in my face.
I wipe the wetness off with the collar of my tunic, and the look I throw him burns hotter than the sun and dirtier than a pile of refuse under said sun.
“Laugh all you want,” he says. “Laugh for what I’ve done, mock me as much as your unheart desires. But when Varia betrays you, you will come groveling to me. And I will give you nothing.”
Before I can retort, he turns and skulks away into a dark alley, his basket clutched in his white-knuckled hands.
I don’t let Gavik’s words haunt me any more than is necessary. The man can’t be trusted. Malachite’s name for him rings in my head—he’s a “genocidal old coot.” He hates Varia, and me, and every witch in Arathess. Anything he says is out of spite, not truth. Still, it is strange that he can remember the Bone Tree from his old life. Not only is it strange, but it’s impossible. Heartless don’t remember much, if anything at all. It’s usually just fuzzy scraps of memory—nothing solid. It’s far more likely Varia let something about the Bone Tree slip after he was changed.
There’s no banquet tonight at the palace, so the halls are not nearly as bustling. I make it one step into the front hall when Ulla the Headkeeper approaches me, her bun tight and her eyes downcast as she bows, her gold mantle around her shoulders that denotes her position glinting in the sunset.
“Lady Zera. Princess Varia has requested I offer you this outerwear when and if you returned through the main entrance.”
She holds open a dark blue robe, the few scattered nobles walking behind her and in the gardens downstairs sending glances my way. My tunic is streaked with mud and blood, and while that doesn’t catch much attention in the common quarter, it does here. Rumors could start quickly if I don’t cover up as fast as possible.
“Lady Zera, please,” Ulla insists, holding the robe higher. “You have a reputation to maintain.”
“Do I?” I smile at her.
“You are a Spring Bride, and Prince Lucien’s favorite besides.”
Her comment acts like a barbed arrow, settling deep in my flesh and refusing to be pulled out. No—I can pull this arrow out. By myself. I have to, or it will fester into love again.
“I was,” I agree, patting her on the shoulder and brushing past her. “Wasn’t I?”
I stride the halls with my besmirched tunic, ignoring the soft gasps of nobles as they see me. So shocked are they by the sight of blood that several of the women even collapse, one fainting cold on the carpet when I approach closely. Young gaggles of noble children stop and gape at me, pointing wildly. I am filthy among shining crystal. I am bloodstained among immaculate white marble.
“No better than a butcher’s daughter!”
“Does she think she’s fighting in the war or some such?”
“—a violent girl!”
“So ugly a thing for a Spring Bride—”
“A potential princess of the kingdom covered in blood?”
With every word of disgust, I can feel Lucien slipping away from me. It’s a tiny step. It’s small, but this moment, their disapproval—it will all circle back to the king. This is just the first incident, but when I am done, the court will riot at the mere thought of making me a part of the d’Malvane family. Whatever clout I have left as a Spring Bride, whatever delusions the nobles still hold with me as Lucien’s favorite—it will all dry up.
Y’shennria taught me the importance of small things, of appearances, of rumors, and now I’m using all her knowledge to do the exact opposite of what she taught me for: to remove Lucien from me, bit by inexorable bit. Every rumor will be a cage for him, and every scandalous thing I do will be the impenetrable lock over the door. I’ll seal him in the palace again, putting the entire court between him and me.
I will never touch him again. And neither will he touch me.
His days of weakening me are over.
I arrive at the Serpent Wing, and the guards graciously allow me to dramatically throw the doors open to Varia’s apartments. But the rooms
are empty. She’s gone.
A note rests where she left my dress earlier, in perfectly curled handwriting;
When you return, join me at the shooting range. I’ve planned a lovely picnic.
I snort. How noble of her—a picnic, while I was being eaten by a valkerax in the pitch dark. The Y’shennria in my head insists I change into a proper dress from Varia’s younger closet to look presentable, but I push the thought away. The last thing I want is to look presentable. The uglier and wilder, the better.
So I make it a point to smile and bow at every noble on my way down to the shooting range—the garden full of them at this beautiful time of twilit night. The nobles have the good sense to make sure their whispers don’t reach me, this time. This time, they have obviously been warned of me—peering over hedges and bushes to get a good look at the indignity I’m perpetrating on their grounds.
Because the gardens are so full, the shooting range is nearly abandoned. The groundskeeper circles around the range’s brightly colored targets far out in the field, adding fresh coats of paint with a horsehair brush. One can tell where the princess is by the entourage of guards—even being the crown princess can’t free her from the king’s worried order to protect his daughter lest she disappear again.
I follow the glint of armor faithfully. There, on the edge of the range where the woods begin, is Varia, seated on a striped blanket with a dizzying array of fruits and wines and pastries laid out before her. And, to my surprise, she has a guest.
I watch as the crown princess raises her hand, tucking a strand of stray mouse-curls behind Fione’s ear. I watch, too, as Fione’s face alights with a rosy blush, a smile pulling her face like the petals of a blooming flower. I’ve never—not once—seen her so honestly happy. She’s not giving the sardonic little kitten-smiles she used to give but truly, brilliantly happy ones.
“Zera,” Fione breathes out softly upon seeing me, her cornflower blue eyes widening at the state of my tunic, her rosy cheeks and smile vanishing all at once. I’ve done nothing but rob people of their smiles lately. It’s a shame she has to see me like this, all bloodied, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
