by Sara Wolf
The dust swirls in the light, like thousands of miniature fireflies. I understand something then. “And you— So when she died, you went looking for it. You used the annual prince’s Hunts to search the woods, thinking you could find this Tree. You thought—”
“I thought it had something to do with her death,” he agrees, eyes focusing on me again. “That it lured her somewhere. That sounds equally mad, I know. Part of me was using it as an excuse. But another part of me was—is—still suspicious. The polymaths said her symptoms weren’t magical. But I’ve seen it happen too much to think it’s just a human symptom, either.”
He breathes out, heavy and long, looking up at the blue summer sky through the shards of roof. “She was gone for five years. And she came back. And still, still she dreams of that godsdamned Tree. I’d hoped she’d gotten better. Fione and I—after we got over the joy of having her back—we both dared to hope, but…”
For a moment, I admire the way the shafts of sunlight illuminate his proud nose, his thick brows. Prince Lucien flits his eyes to me.
“There was one polymath,” he says. “One, out of the thousands, who didn’t think Varia was mad.”
“Just one?” I quirk a brow.
“He wasn’t an official polymath,” the prince says. “But Mother and Father were so desperate to find someone who knew something, they called for anyone who could pass a basic test. He was an old celeon. I’ve always remembered his name—he was the first person who dressed in polymath robes and smiled at me kindly at the same time. Farspear-Ashwalker. Muro Farspear-Ashwalker.”
My blood goes cold. That name is chillingly familiar—it’s Yorl’s last name. Yorl’s father? No—his grandfather? The one who did all that polymath research and got no credit for it? The one who all but made the serum that lets me talk to valkerax? The one Yorl is working so hard to vindicate with the valkerax—with Varia?
“What did he say about Varia’s nightmares?” I blurt.
Lucien sighs. “I don’t know. I was young. I was playing with some toy at Mother’s side while they talked. I assure you, over the past decade, I’ve tried to remember. It all blends together. But one thing did stand out.”
My feet take me to him, burning with curiosity. “What is it?”
Lucien looks up at me slowly. “A song. I don’t remember what they were talking about, but I remember at one point this old celeon just started singing.”
A song. It can’t be—this can’t be a coincidence.
“What were the words?” I demand.
“I don’t—” Lucien runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t remember. If I could, I’m sure it would make more sense. I just remember he started singing—”
“The tree of bone and the tree of glass will sit together as family at last.” I let the words tumble from my mouth, my voice shaky and the notes a bare skeleton of what I can remember Gavik singing.
Lucien’s face lights up instantly. “You know it?” He grabs my shoulders. “Kavar’s eye—how in the afterlife do you know it?”
I look up, my eyes sparking into his, both of us flushed with discovery. The facade of his lofty effortlessness is gone now. He’s treating me like someone he genuinely likes again. It’s then I realize just how close we are. Just how high my words could stoke him. He can’t know what I know. The valkerax is dangerous.
“Zera,” he insists, fingers trembling on my shoulders. “You’re hoarding all this information—why? Varia can’t do everything herself. I know she’s trying to. I know she’ll kill herself doing it. Please—you have to help me help my sister, before she hurts herself.”
Varia’s words, her recitation of the Midnight Gifter, ring in my head. My flesh will feed its furnace. He’s right to be worried. She’ll do anything for her people, just like him. The care in his voice is a velvet knife plunged into my chest. His love for her is so obvious and untethered by guilt or complicated emotions. It’s so strong it even glows through his disdain for me, forces him to ask for help from someone he holds his pride like a shield against.
“If you tell me what’s going on,” he presses, “Fione and I can help you—”
“Why would you?” I laugh. “We’re not friends anymore. I’m a monster, not your Spring Bride. You have no obligation to me. In fact, you hate me.”
Lucien inhales, this time sharp as a spear. “Zera—”
I start moving to leave the ruined building, the sun shafting through my eyes.
“If I could convince my sister to free you—” the prince’s voice suddenly calls.
“No. I won’t be freed by your hand.” My voice is sleek steel.
“Why not?” he presses. “I could free you—”
“I’ll free myself.”
The silence lingers, my body on the edge of collapsing if I don’t get out from under his gaze. My boots take one step over the dusty floor, and Lucien’s words this time aren’t soft at all—they’re strong and clear to my back.
“I don’t hate you. I can’t hate you.”
My chest caves. To turn and face him right now, to talk through our problems and mistrust, to try to heal the wounds I’ve made—I want that.
he’s manipulating you. The hunger sneers. reeling you in with bait to help the sister he cares so much more for.
I speak without turning to look at him. “It’s better if you do.”
Every cobblestone I walk over and put between him and me, the easier it is to breathe. The pressure on my chest is crushing, but the emptiness in my unheart is cold and hollow. He will not stand between my heart and me. Not again. Not this time. I will not be weak anymore.
My feet take me back, determined, to South Gate, but when I emerge into the sunlight of the main road, my ears catch the sound of lawguard footsteps approaching. They pause just behind me, and a lawguard calls out, “Lady Zera?”
Did Lucien order them down on me? No. He’s fast but not that fast, and he wouldn’t risk revealing his identity as Whisper. I turn to face the lawguards—an astonishing number of them, at least a dozen, and six of them in the back are royal celeon lawguards.
“Yes?” I ask innocently.
“His Majesty the king has requested your presence in the throne room.”
Gooseflesh crawls across my arms. It’s time, then, for the inquiry into Gavik’s murder.
The sick feeling in my stomach intensifies, but I keep my posture tall as I sigh. “Very well. Lead the way, gentlemen.”
To my surprise, the lawguards flank me, separate, and then close in, the two halves compressing around me in a protective—and inescapable—formation. As they march collectively forward and I walk in the center of the iron flower, we pass Lucien’s shadowed lurking place near the hat shop.
I can feel eyes following me, two obsidian needles prickling into my skin, the air ringing with the words I can’t say to him.
I’ve learned, Your Highness, that it is easier to hate than it is to love.
12
A Fire
made Real
The throne room isn’t nearly as intimidating as it used to be.
This, I presume, is what it means to grow up, to stop being afraid of things that used to terrify you.
As the lawguards lead me through the stained glass beauty of the Hall of Time, my body starts to tingle with the familiar court-related anxiety, but I breathe deep and let it pass me by. I have nothing to lose anymore. I’ve pushed Lucien away. Fione and Malachite’s friendship is long buried. All I have is my heart to hold on to, and that makes everything so much simpler.
lonelier than ever.
The rainbow glisten of the Hall of Time, being beneath it—I used to be in awe of it, but now, all I can think about is my nightmare. Varia has nightmares about a Tree. And I had a nightmare in which this hall collapsed, and I had to wade through the glass shards as they cut me to reach two Old God rosar
ies with naked trees on them. I watched the glass shards of this hall arrange themselves on the bark of a tree, becoming it. Unease crawls through me as the summer sunlight glitters into my eyes, throwing crimson and azure shadows over my skin.
In comparison, the small stone hallway that opens into the throne room, and the throne room itself, feels like a lifting of a thousand pounds off my chest. The grand stone cavern that houses the throne makes me feel at peace. Perhaps because of the Hall of Time nightmare, but also because the place is nearly empty of people.
The vaulted ceilings of the cavern are held up by polished stone pillars, everything illuminated by the glass circles etched high above that let in several concentrated beams of searing white sunlight from outside. The light catches on the gold braziers but sprawls itself over the crystal throne at the back and center of the room. The lawguards march me up the long carpet walk and stop me in the very middle of a large beam of sunlight.
My eyes adjust, sunlit dust swirling around me as I capture each face—King Sref, relaxed and handsome on the shining throne, his hulking celeon royal guards at his side, and then scattered around the throne in smaller chairs are the three Ministers of Cavanos. I recognize them all from the banquets and Y’shennria’s training—the Ministers of the Blood, Brick, and Coin. The Minister of the Sword’s chair is empty—the space where Gavik should be sitting somehow seems to grow larger with each passing second.
I thought I wouldn’t be nervous. But King Sref is still a king. He carries himself like a true ruler, a true d’Malvane, and his sharp gray gaze on me has my palms sweating. I slowly make a kingworthy bow to the floor and lift my head only when his voice rumbles out, “Rise.”
“Lady Zera Y’shennria—” The Minister of the Blood, a short mustached man stands from his chair, his voice far louder than his stature betrays. “Niece of Quinn Y’shennria, you come before us as the secondary witness to the murder of Archduke Gavik Himintell. The evidence you provide here will be used in the investigation of unearthing his killer. Under the New God’s many watchful eyes, you are beholden to speak only truth. If this you do not do, the court of Vetris will be compelled to move rightly. Do you understand?”
Secondary witness. That means Lucien’s already spoken to them. Did he tell them the truth? No—if he did, I would already be in chains. So he must’ve lied. But if I don’t tell them the same story, then I’ll suddenly become a magnet for suspicion. And if the ministers dig into my story, they’ll surely find who—what—I really am. And I can’t afford to be thrown in the dungeon and tortured. Not while the valkerax is on such a short lease of life.
I focus my eyes on the throne, on King’s Sref’s still, expressionless face. Lucien learned that particular move from his father, not Varia. The other ministers watch me with judgmental eyes. The Minister of the Blood was the one who sneaked me into the Vetrisian court with some bribes on Y’shennria’s part, undoubtedly not knowing I was truly a Heartless, but he’s definitely not on my side anymore. At this moment, I have no allies at all.
you have me and only me.
Even though Varia has returned, even though the king is happier now, he still retains that persistent air of perfect calm. His mask is, and always has been, impeccable. He knows I’m a Heartless, a creature he’s spent his whole life fighting and killing, and yet nothing betrays on his face. Varia told him I was benign, and it shows. He trusts Varia wholly. How can any father not want to trust his child?
“I understand,” I say quietly. The Minister of the Blood sits back down in his chair and motions to the king.
“Your Majesty, we may begin with the inquiry.”
The king’s gray eyes move over my face as he straightens in his throne. His voice is quiet, somehow downtrodden despite the fact that he’s been so happy lately. Is this because of Gavik, perhaps? In the king’s eyes, Gavik was someone for him to rely on. My mind flashes to Varia. How much self-control must she have had, after being forced to hide for five years, to not tell her father who forced her to hide in the first place?
My lips open, and for a moment I think the barest thought of telling the king Varia is a witch. It rests ready and willing in the fibers of my tongue: Varia is a witch. It sears through my blood and surfaces into my throat, but as quickly as it rises, the heavy, total iron block of the thought of getting my heart back snuffs it out.
“Lady Zera,” the king says slowly. “I will ask only once. In that clearing, did you see who murdered the archduke?”
I have to lie to the king. Anything less and he’ll have me arrested, tortured, used as a wartime test subject for the polymaths within Vetris.
I inhale, pause, and then, “No, Your Majesty. Everything was a blur.”
My answer rings in the high cavern and between the carved stone pillars ominously. The Minister of the Coin is the only one who dares to make noise—his snort soft.
“By all accounts, Your Majesty, she has been revealed of late to be less than a reliable source,” the Minister of the Coin says. “She consorts with commoners in her leisure time.”
“Walking around the common quarter does not inhibit one’s ability to tell the truth, Sarcomel,” the king responds dully. The Ministers of the Brick and Blood shift in their seats, and Sarcomel shrinks in his. I let out the tiniest of breaths. King Sref turns back to me, his long salt-and-pepper hair waterfalling over his shoulder.
“You will tell us what you did see, then,” he says. “As best you can.”
I nod, even though my insides are scrambling. He knows I’m Heartless, but I can’t make up any witch or magic things in front of the other three Ministers.
arrogant! the hunger squeals.
“I…I invited Lucien to walk with me in the forest.” I try to make my voice as steady as I can. “When the hunting party was bathing, I saw a beautiful yew tree and thought it would be nice to look at in the moonlight.”
Sarcomel scoffs, this time with a toxicity to his words. “Your Majesty, I have no idea why we’re entertaining an Y’shennria’s word. They are Old God traitors, and the temple says—”
“I will not be bothered by what the temple says in an independent investigation pursuing the truth of the murder of one of my ministers.” King Sref raises his voice a hair, and the ministers fall silent again.
The Minister of the Brick speaks up. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, Minister Sarcomel has a point. Lady Quinn Y’shennria has been missing from the capital for six days now. The timing of her absence is undeniably questionable. We should be focusing less on interrogating the hazy witnesses—both of whom are children incapable of much—and more on bringing her back to Vetris.”
I nearly take a step back. The gall of this moldy old skunk! The self-assured certainty with which he views Lucien and me as “incapable” has me reeling. It staggers me again and again with how little Vetrisian nobles care for their children.
“Are you insinuating my son the prince is not capable, Minister Polsk?” the king asks coolly, and I celebrate vicariously through his words for a moment.
“N-Not in the slightest, Your Majesty,” Minister Polsk’s ancient, liver-spotted face sours with a faint greenish hue. I can only watch as the power balances tip back and forth. As Minister Polsk stumbles over his next words, Minister Sarcomel stands from his chair and points at me furiously.
“Did you or did you not see Archduke Gavik murdered, Lady Zera?” he shouts. “If someone managed to get to Gavik and kill him, we could be next! Don’t you see? No one is safe! This is a deep-set plot by the witches to destabilize the power within Vetris and crumble us from the inside! And you’re all sitting here entertaining the actuality of talking to one of their sympathizers as if it’s logical, as if she poses no threat at all!”
The king’s gray eyes meet mine for a brief second, and the truth circuits between us. Sarcomel is a fearful little horseshit, but he’s partially right. I do pose a threat, far more of one
than he could ever dream of. A Heartless being tolerated in the Vetrisian court? Outlandish. Impossible. But I’ve always been a bit of an impossibility; impossibly good-looking, impossibly well dressed. Impossible girl stands here in front of a Cavanosian king, existing exactly where she shouldn’t, when she shouldn’t.
The ministers quickly devolve to arguing, Sarcomel the loudest of them all. I knit my fists in my skirt, nerves buzzing through me. Whatever they decide, I am at their mercy. Varia said it herself—she can do only so much for me. Their voices ricochet among the stone walls, the lawguards surrounding them unmoving. With the display the ministers are putting on, I’m almost certain Gavik was the faux leader of them, and now without their head, they’re rudderless, flailing.
Sarcomel breaks out of the argument and points at me wildly. “Your Majesty, she is a threat until Lady Y’shennria can be found and cleared. I demand under the Sunless Concordat that you arrest her as an enemy of the kingdom!”
No—not the dungeon. They’d find out I’m a Heartless eventually, if I was caught in a cell, healing quickly and growing hungrier and more mad as they insist I eat their human food instead of organs. The king leans forward, and just as I open my mouth to defend myself, the door to the throne room bursts open. The clap echoes in the cavern and sends Sarcomel yelping.
Four lawguards come rushing into the throne room, led by a winded-looking Malachite, his white brows drawn tightly. He strides by me without so much as an angry glance in my direction—and that’s how I know something’s very, very wrong.
“Your Majesty,” Malachite says, and it’s the first time I’ve heard him willingly use an honorific, but he doesn’t bend the knee. “There’s a witchfire in the common quarter, near South Gate.”
Witchfire? Real witchfire? The air grows so thick, it feels choking. Sarcomel starts to exclaim something, but King Sref stands from the throne, descending the stairs and drawing level to Malachite quickly.
