by Sara Wolf
“Do you remember,” he interrupts me, “the night we stopped Gavik’s raid, and you protected those people?”
Of course I remember. I remember every inch of the terrified screams, of Gavik’s cruelty. I snort. “A hollow sacrifice, considering I wouldn’t have died if I’d been shot.”
He pulls me closer then, our chests flush now in a way totally inappropriate for the court. His mouth is dangerously close and above my ear.
“I am beginning to tire of the way you belittle the selfless things you do.”
A sharp pain runs through my unheart.
selfless? The hunger finally breaks through to me, growling. we are incapable of selflessness.
“Whether you had died or not, you were willing to take the pain for them,” Lucien continues. “For once, Lady Zera, I ask of you: be as merciful with yourself as you are with everyone else.”
The dance demands a turn, but it’s abruptly and incredibly difficult to breathe deep. Lucien whirls me, and I woodenly move with the motion, returning to his arms.
“Lady Tarroux”—I make my voice strong—“is a lovely girl. I don’t usually say anything positive about nobles at all, for the obvious reasons, but she’s very different from them. And I know how much you appreciate difference. She’s honest, and sweet, and not at all hard to look at—”
“I won’t let Varia hurt you anymore,” he says, ignoring me bluntly.
“Miss Tarroux has never murdered anyone,” I say, soft and yet still loud enough for him to hear it. “She’s too upfront to ever lie to you. And best of all, I’m fairly certain she’d never try to kill you and take your heart for her own selfish needs—”
We stop. In the middle of the whirling ballroom, every color imaginable flitting by us, he tilts his head, his sharp jawline illuminated by the candlelight. I know what’s coming, as a hunting hound knows a foxhole, as the rooster knows the sun is coming, as a fish knows the tides. Some deep, old part of me—older than nineteen years by far—knows he is going to kiss me.
Lightning draws our bodies together—invisible fingers of lightning entwining around each other and locking us in place, hips to hips, chest to chest. The warmth of his lips, the soft insistence of his hands as they hold my waist—I can feel a strange fever building in me as his lips press to mine. He moves to my ear, the hollow beneath it, and kisses it gently, and I know then this is not the kiss from the Hunt. That kiss was a moon, longing and sweet. This kiss is the sun, blazing hot and brighter than the apex of sunrise, prickling my skin with sweat, nothing sweet or subtle about it. The heat wave nearly buckles my knees, and I hold fast to his coat to keep standing.
Half of me is screaming to pull away—this sunfire kiss will keep him running after me, not moving on. Half of me wants nothing more than to stay here, in this moment, embraced and wanted, the doubt and loneliness in my soul burning away.
He parts from me first, his dark eyes piercing down at me. “I will not kiss you a third time, Lady Zera, without you kissing me back. My pride will not allow it.”
A bittersweet taste lingers in my mouth, and the heated curtain lifts from my body. I can see—out of the corners of my eyes—people watching. Fione, Varia, Lady Tarroux, the furious king and shocked queen.
He isn’t giving up. Godsdamn him, he isn’t giving up! Have I not been obvious enough? What will it take for him to realize he’s better off without me? He is a prince; I am a Heartless. He has the world waiting for him, and I have only my regrets waiting for me. I will only pull him down.
It dawns on me slowly—I know exactly what I have to do.
unless you show him the darkness, he will never understand, he will never fear, he will never run.
The sound of the slap reverberating is the only thing that makes me realize I’ve actually done it. The numbness in my hand stings, and I clutch it. Lucien’s head rotates slowly back to me, the red handprint bright against his cheek, but his dark eyes gleam brighter than ever in the candlelight. His expression is set, unmoving.
It’s then I realize the windlutes and firehorns have stopped playing. The dance floor has stopped moving, the nobles staring in half-drunk horror at Lucien’s face. The whole of the ballroom is looking our way, but I don’t stop to see any expressions. My feet, wiser and less flustered than I, take me out of the grand ballroom as fast as they can.
Varia’s room is, in some sick way, becoming the only safe place for me in the palace. My hands are shaking wildly as I walk in, shed the valkerax-bone jewelry, and throw it aside.
Anger simmers beneath my surface. What kind of person kisses someone who’s lied to them and murdered people in front of their very eyes? What about me is so worth ignoring these things?
For once, Lady Zera, I ask of you: be as merciful with yourself as you are with everyone else.
“Shut up!” I snarl at the echo. “Shut up, shut up!”
who does he think he is, telling us who we are? telling us what to think of ourselves? arrogant!
I can feel my teeth starting to grow long and sharp and hear my breath as panting, blood rushing through my ears. The urge to reach for the wine decanter hits me, but I pull myself away. That won’t help. It’s never really helped. I can feel some horrific pain welling up in my chest, building like a bubble of gas below a marsh, pressure crushing my lungs. The hunger pounces on it as an opportunity.
he is ruining his life with his sister because of you. he is ruining his future because of you.
I collapse on the couch, my head in my hands. The hunger’s words are crystal clarity—pure, logical, and undeniable. There’s a sudden knock at the doors that has me standing. One of the guards comes in, holding a piece of parchment in his hand.
“Ah, pardon me, milady, I thought Her Highness had returned as well,” he says. “She’s received a letter marked extremely urgent.”
An urgent message? Something so normal and routine breaks through my spiraling mind.
“I can bring it to her,” I say.
“Thank you, milady.” The guard bows and hands me the parchment. I take it, and he sees himself out. When I’m sure he’s gone, I flip the parchment over—it’s a letter with no wax seal. Not from another noble, then. Curiosity is a welcome distraction, and so I open the letter carefully.
The handwriting is instantly recognizable—I see it every day. Or the shadows of it, at least. Yorl’s. It’s thin and small, every letter perfect.
Varia, it reads. There’s been a breach near the dog’s kennel. Your presence is required.
The dog—he means Evlorasin, obviously. But what kind of breach? I thought Yorl had the valkerax contained? There’s another letter within that letter—the watertell must’ve sent both of them, one after the other in quick succession.
The next one reads simply: The dog has escaped. Bring help.
My eyes bug out. Escaped? Evlorasin has escaped?
My insides drop with a sickening velocity. Is it digging below the city even now? It could collapse the city in on itself. People could die. And every chance of getting my heart back resides with Evlorasin. If it escapes back to the Dark Below…my deal with Varia won’t be called off, but who knows how long it’ll be before she finds another valkerax for me to teach?
At the same time, part of me thinks, quietly, that it would be better if Evlorasin did escape. If Varia never finds the Bone Tree and never dies for it.
But I know she’ll never stop. Letting Evlorasin escape now would only slow her down.
I bolt up from the couch. Bring help, the letter said. Apparently Yorl thinks one witch won’t be enough. Which means one Heartless won’t be enough, either. Varia is entrenched with her father and mother—pulling her away from the queen and king discreetly won’t be easy, especially considering I slapped the prince. And by the time I bring her the letter and she manages to get away from them, Evlorasin could already be gone for good.
I need someone who c
an help, and fast.
There’s only one other person in the city who knows valkerax better than Varia does, better than Yorl even, and certainly better than I do.
I lunge out of the door and look at the guards. “Where’s Malachite?”
“The prince’s guard said he would be patrolling outside the Moonskemp party, milady.”
I dash back to the last place I want to be, hiking my skirts up to run. Sure enough, I find Malachite walking outside the ballroom with his usual lazily striding alertness.
When he sees me running toward him, he narrows his bloodred eyes. “Not you. Not tonight.”
“Me,” I assert. “Definitely tonight. I need your help. And quickly.”
His white brows knit. “Why would I help you? You just slapped Luc; I could hear it all the way out here, for spirit’s sake.”
“You’re the only one I can think of who can stop a valkerax.”
Malachite’s expression detonates, his anger blown to smithereens by shock. “A valkerax? Lying once spectacularly wasn’t enough for you?”
There’s no time to argue with him. “There’s a valkerax below this city. Are you going to help me stop it or not?”
There’s a long beat of silence. Malachite frowns. “You’re serious?”
“Not often. But right now? Yes.”
The beneather darts his eyes over to the dim candlelit party. He looks back to me and nods. “Fine. But if this is some trick, I’m arresting you.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very important.” I grab his cool, marble-white hand and pull him down the hall, out of the palace, and into a carriage. I pound on the carriage roof the whole way, demanding the driver go faster, and thankfully he obliges, the wheels screeching over the cobblestones and the cobblestones themselves bouncing Malachite and me violently around.
“A valkerax was kept beneath South Gate,” I shakily admit to Malachite, the bumpiness of the ride making my teeth bite my tongue. It heals too quickly to be of consequence. “But it’s escaped. We have to get it back.”
“Dark Below,” he swears, voice chopped by the vibrations. “Now’s probably not the best time to admit I never completed my culling practice, then?”
“It’s fine—you did it, at least, right?”
“Enough to tell the mane from the tail,” he asserts.
“You’re the direst threat in the city I can think of besides myself,” I say. “It’ll be fine. It has to be fine.” He scoffs, and I ask, “What? What is it?”
“You’ve got so much faith in me, and none in Luc.”
Lucien. Godsdamnit—he’s going to know there’s a valkerax below the city once Malachite helps me. His best friend will surely tell him. They’ll inevitably start to suspect what I’m doing for Varia involves the valkerax, and with Fione’s talent for acquiring information—and all of Gavik’s research at her fingertips—they’ll certainly find out she wants the Bone Tree, and what that means.
But no, it doesn’t matter right now. The first priority is to stop Evlorasin running before it hurts anyone, no matter who learns of its existence.
South Gate comes into view sooner than I ever thought possible, and I leap out of the carriage before it even begins to slow down alongside the curb. Malachite tumbles out after me, regaining his footing far faster. I point to the door in the high white wall, and together we dash for it. The guards are still here, but they look rattled, their gazes needling out from beneath their helmets, and even when I give the password, they don’t relax a single inch. Yorl is waiting for us inside by the door down to the arena, his claws clicking over the grating as he paces anxiously, his tail thrashing. He glances up when he hears us coming, his green eyes going from frantic and searching to flat and annoyed.
“Where is Varia?” he snaps.
“Held up.” I waste no time offering my hand to Malachite. “This is Malachite. Where did Evlorasin run off to?”
Yorl looks Malachite up and down, and, obviously realizing he’s a beneather, the displeased thrash of his tail dies down slightly. But only slightly. Malachite just gives Yorl a cheeky wink as the celeon stares at him, and I press past the two boys and head for the door.
“Are you going to make a lady capture an escaped valkerax all by herself?” I call. Yorl and Malachite follow quickly and easily, their dark-vision impeccable. Yorl offers me his hand, and I take it. I can practically feel Malachite staring at it.
“Gave up on your friends up above and made some down here in the dark, huh?” the beneather scoffs. I flinch, my hand squeezing Yorl’s harder.
Surprisingly, the celeon snarls. “You talk exceedingly much for one whose job is only to guard.”
“And you use too many big words for somebody who smells like cat piss,” Malachite fires back.
“You can be nasty to each other when the valkerax is secure. Yorl,” I insist, “what happened? How did it get out? I thought you had this place under control?”
“I did,” Yorl argues. “But a few minutes ago, there was a localized quake—it cracked all the beneather runes on the walls of the arena.”
Malachite whistles. “And cracked runes can’t hold a valkerax in, or out, anymore.”
Yorl presses on. “The valkerax sensed a fissure made by the quake behind the arena wall and burst through.”
“Sounds like your security stinks,” Malachite drawls. “I offer my consultations for free, you know.”
“I checked with the Crimson Lady.” Yorl ignores him with a snarl in his voice. “And the readings confirm it—there was suspicious magical activity the very moment before the tremor struck.”
“A witch?” I ask.
I feel Yorl nod next to me. “I assumed as much the moment I went to the surface. The quake was enough to fracture only the arena walls, and it touched none of the city. If I was to guess, whoever cast the spell was attempting to flush us out knowing roughly where we are, but knowing nothing about what’s actually down here.”
“So it wasn’t Varia?”
Yorl answers my question with silence, and then, “No.”
“Something wrong, celeon?” Malachite chirps. “You sound suspicious.”
“It’s just…” Yorl exhales. “The data on the spell we collected from the Crimson Lady—it wasn’t intentional.”
“What are you talking about?” I frown.
“Magic has a pattern,” Yorl says. “And that pattern can be detected by the Crimson Lady. I’ve seen many such patterns. But this one wasn’t tight. It wasn’t well-constructed. It’s almost as if it was…unintentionally done. Instinctually. Fueled by emotion, not by concentration.”
“So your rogue witch can fly off the handle,” Malachite scoffs. “So what? We still have to clean up their mess.”
Reminded of the immediate valkerax emergency once more, we take the steps as fast as possible, but about halfway down, we hear the clash of armor and the horrible cacophony of dozens of celeon roaring in pain and anger.
The deep, loud breathing—I notice chillingly—is gone.
Yorl starts walking faster, dragging me along by the hand with his urgency. We reach the bottom of the stairs, and I’m shocked to see actual oil lanterns lit along the walls. The lights illuminate something far more sinister—blood smearing in vivid crimson banners for far longer than blood has any right to. The smell of burned fur singes the air, blackened scorch marks enveloping what looks like the smoldering skeletons of celeon. My stomach revolts, and I grip the hilt of my father’s sword hard enough to bite skin.
Malachite’s irritated expression instantly dissolves as he turns to Yorl. “How many have we lost already?”
“Six.” Yorl’s flinch is so well disguised by his picking up of a nearby lantern that I almost don’t see it. A true professional—or a young man barely managing to hold on to his failure. He hands it to me. “The breach is obvious. I want you two to follow it and stop
that thing.”
He pulls a heavy brass weapon off his back, handing it to me. It’s a spring-loaded crossbow of some sort, loaded not with bolts but with glass phials that glimmer with a clear substance, their tips ending in sharp needles.
“Get these shots in as close to the throat as you can. Not the chest or the spine—the bone is too thick there. The throat. Inside, if you can somehow manage it, is the most effective. Five should be enough to knock it out cold.”
I nod and turn to see Malachite already jogging toward the massive arena door, raised and waiting. I start to follow after him when I feel claws nip at my hand. Yorl holds me back, the pupils of his green eyes slit by the bright lamplight. There’s something soft in his features, a new and strange thing coming from the cold polymath.
“Please,” he pleads. “Don’t let anyone else die.”
I see myself in him, standing there, pale and reflected in his orb-like eyes. I see the girl who can’t bear to think of fourteen men, or any more dead because of her. The guilt has him. But it’s not his fault—how could wanting to make his beloved grandfather’s name known be his fault? How could he be expected to keep perfect control over one of the most ruthless, powerful beasts in the world?
I squeeze his paw and smile reassuringly at him. “I’ll be only a sec, honey. Get my tea ready.”
I sprint to catch up to Malachite, seeing the arena with clear vision for the first time: deep scratch marks littering the floor, old bloodstains and decaying animal carcasses scattered around and piled high. Dull, chipped teeth long shed and great clumps of stringy ivory fur. The localized quake Yorl talked about is clear on the walls—little fissures pulling the iron apart, insinuating themselves between the carved words of familiar beneather runes and rendering them inert. There are impact craters in the walls of the arena from the valkerax’s thrashing, so deep I can see where the very earth of the ceiling strained to stay together.
How could I be expected to keep perfect control over a relentless, bloodthirsty hunger that preyed on my every weakness? That knew me better than I knew myself?
