So I screamed and screamed and, when I was done, when my face was wet with tears and my voice was hoarse and there was nothing else in me to break, that glass of water, the one that the King had told me to move, it shattered into a million pieces.
Chapter twenty
At Death's Door
Ihadnodesirefor the King to know about my newfound ability but I hadn’t been given the choice. Ursa had entered my room moments after my screaming had stopped to ensure I hadn’t attempted to end my life in some way or I hadn’t screamed myself into oblivion and fell unconscious. She’d found the glass shards dug deep into the plush carpets, so deep that they couldn’t be removed. I hadn’t just shattered the glass; I had turned it into a million tiny projectiles. They had shredded the carpets so thoroughly that servants were now cutting it away for replacement. I watched them work, numb, tired, too exhausted and emotionally spent to do much of anything else.
I stood by my bed, arms crossed, and stared at a male servant I had never seen before as he used a blade to cut a circle around the coffee table, extricating the shredded fabric and carefully placing it into a nearby bin. Another servant paced around with a dustpan, cleaning up all the smaller fragments her companion missed, the ones she could remove, at least.
“Remarkable,” the King was muttering from where he stood in the threshold.
Ursa was by my side, watching me from the corner of her eye as though afraid I might shatter the entire room and take us all down with it at any moment.
“I told you to move it,” he told me, finally looking away from the mess to the one who had caused it.
“And I told you I didn’t know how,” I snarled.
But he only grinned.
“How?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“You must know something. What were you doing when it happened?”
I didn’t answer so Ursa did for me.
“Screaming,” Ursa told him. “She was screaming at the top of her lungs.”
The King’s gaze snapped to me.
“Emotion,” he said, thoughtfully. “Your power is tied to emotion. How interesting.”
“Don’t you have a son to execute?” I snapped.
The servants stopped. Even Ursa tensed. The King’s gaze narrowed to a glare. He pursed his lips, clenched his jaw, then snapped his fingers. All the tiny shards of glass that the servants hadn’t finished cleaning up rose as one from the ground, hovering in the air like some strange hesitating rain, glimmering in the light from the chandelier above.
“Control,” he said, striding toward me, “is power.”
I tensed as he drew nearer, those tiny puncturing projectiles still hovering in the air behind him.
“Simple control will always defeat raw power used recklessly. No matter how great that raw power might be. You made this mess. Now, clean it up.”
He snapped and all the glittering shards of glass fell back to the floor below. The servants turned away to avoid being struck by the deadly rain.
The King turned on his heel and stormed from the room, Ursa following in his wake. The servants exchanged wide-eyed glances before scurrying away themselves, leaving me to clean my own mess as the King had ordered. I let out a roar of frustration and kicked a nearby pillow that had been removed from the couch area while they cleaned. Then I threw myself onto the bed.
I didn’t clean up my mess. I didn’t even look at the little shards of glass for the rest of the night. I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to even sleep.
I turned toward the window beside me and stared outside at the moon and stars, at the dark night sky that grew lighter and lighter as the day approached. I wondered if Lark had slept or if he had waited for the sun as well. If he had stared outside and thought about his exceedingly long life and his ultimate demise. I wondered if he had regrets and I wondered if I was one of them.
Before the sun crested the horizon, Ursa came to fetch me. There was no servant to dress me, no gown hung in the closet, no one to fashion my hair. Just a soft brown coat and matching pleated pants, just a quick brush through my tangled knots and simple brown flats. No glitz, no glamour. This was an execution, not a ball, not court.
I tried not to look at myself in the mirror, at the red rings under my eyes from a night spent without sleep, at the puffiness of my cheeks from the tears I shed all alone. My hands were shaking so I put them in my pockets as Ursa and I left my room and headed down the hall toward the courtyard.
I had never been outside at the Court of Blood and Bone. When we had arrived, Cass had shadowstepped us right into the royal dining room and I hadn’t been allowed the freedom to venture beyond the palace walls. So when we stepped outside, it was a shock to see a vast tundra set out before me. Snowcapped mountains in the distance, fresh billowing snow blowing around our ankles, frigid air freezing my face as I blinked against the rising sun. I took a deep breath and saw my exhale in the air before me.
“Are you ready?” Ursa asked quietly beside me as we stood in the threshold.
