The crowd stirs, voices rising in confusion.
Basten tenses, his fingers coiling into a fist, and mutters low and angry, “You scheming bitch.”
I look around me, disoriented. As confused as the audience. Only gradually do I realize what’s happened. Kendan and the others have set me up. Thrust me on a stage and neglected to tell me I have the pivotal role.
The silver fey flares under my skin, demanding to be unleashed. To put this hateful woman in the grave for good this time.
“Show us!” Matron White beseeches. “Show us your power, O Immortal One!”
“You think I’ll perform for you?” I hiss at her, as if we’re the only people in the garden. “You locked me away. You made me beg for sunlight.”
She suddenly starts shaking as if seized by a holy spirit—never mind that I’ve seen this act a thousand times. Every Sunday in the convent’s nave, when she pretended to be moved by Iyre’s favor.
It takes me straight back there.
A little girl.
All alone.
Beaten and neglected for years.
Fey stutters in my veins, pushing and urging, until I can’t hold it back. I start to raise my hands.
“Sabine,” Basten whispers a low warning, but I ignore him.
“You want everyone to see what I can do?” I hiss to Matron White. “I’ll show them. I’ll finish what I started.”
My power aches to melt the smile from her face and reduce her, once and for all, to ashes.
Sparks crackle at my fingertips. The crowd gasps as my glamour falls away, revealing my shimmering fey lines.
“It’s true!” someone cries.
“She’s really her—look, she’s Solene!” another person calls.
I aim my fury at Matron White, ready to make brimfire erupt from the hem of her robes, when movement in the crowd catches my eye.
A few rows behind Matron White, a young maid, barely even twelve years old, lifts her hands. Her fingers are folded into the symbol of the Winged Lady. Her wide eyes brim with hope.
My fey stutters.
All of a sudden, my rage falls away, and I realize I’m about to kill a woman in front of the very people who are meant to follow me.
My chest heaves—I can’t kill her. Not here. Not like this. And, dammit,she knows it.
I force my attention off her smug hint of a smile and to the little maid. My rage softens at the edges, and I lift my hands skyward.
I shoot out fey toward the dark clouds. They part at my command, letting the sun pour down. From the trees come white doves, marigold petals clutched in their beaks. They scatter blossoms over the crowd like the day I got married.
The crowd gasps. Cheers swell.
My pulse hammers. I feel the weight of hundreds of eyes scrutinizing me, evaluating me, inspecting me, fearing me, adoring me.
This is exactly what I didn’t want.To lose control of my own story.
Kendan motions to the low benches on the dais expectantly.
I only stare, still flooded by so much attention and conflicting feelings, until Basten gently takes my hand.
