I’d been rationing them. Hoarding the few that remained like a miser hoards gold coins against the coming winter.
But tonight was absolutely necessary.
Surrounded by monsters who could smell weakness. Watched by elders who already suspected something was wrong. Expected to eat, to drink, to dance. To perform all the functions of a living woman while the void in my chest gaped wider with every passing hour.
I’d thoughtI’d be able to fake it, like I did last night. But I couldn’t afford to be cold tonight. Couldn’t afford to be still and silent.
“Excuse me,” I murmured. “I need a moment.”
I slipped away before he could respond and wove through the crowd, ducking between clusters of laughing shifters, avoiding the grabbing hands of a drunk warrior who tried to pull me into a toast.
I found an alcove behind a pillar, half-hidden by a heavy velvet curtain, shadowed and private.
My fingers shook as I opened my pouch, slid out the thin bone box.
Four petals left after this.
I placed the dried flower on my tongue and let it dissolve.
The effect was immediate.
Violent.
Counterfeit warmth filled my veins. It was not the searing pain of true fire, but a manageable simmer.
My heart kicked against my ribs, sudden and brutal.
Blood rushed to places that had been cold and gray, flushing my skin with color, my fingers with feeling. Energy surged through limbs that had been heavy and still, flooding my muscles. I needed to move.
Almost like life.
Colors sharpened. The red of the wine became crimson. The gold of the candlelight became blinding.
Sounds amplified. The roar of conversation broke apart into individual voices: a woman complaining about her daughter-in-law, a man boasting about a hunt, two elders whispering about the human bride and her strange, cold ways.
The smells were sudden and overwhelming. Roasted meat and fresh bread and spilled wine and a hundred different perfumes, all of them cloying, all of them overwhelming.
My dead, useless stomach clenched with something that might have been hunger, might have been nausea, might have been both.
I stepped out from behind the curtain.
The world was too bright. Too loud. Too much.
The petal’s effects always hit like this: a rush of stolen sensation that bordered on overwhelming, a high that made me feel alive and terrified in equal measure.
My body didn’t know what to do with so much input. My mind couldn’t process it all.
I needed to move.
Needed to burn off this manic energy before it made me do something stupid.
The King still stood where I’d left him, a dark pillar skirting the crowd. He watched the room, cataloguing threats, perhaps, or simply observing his subjects.
His posture was relaxed, but I knew better now. Nothing about him was ever relaxed.
He turned when I approached.
His expression shifted. Surprise, maybe. Confusion.
