She let me go. She laughed as she fell back against the pillows, and the sound sprayed blood and bile down her chin.
“Don’t listen.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “It doesn’t matter to me now. Finally, I’m free.”
I backed away as my sister died. Her chest heaved. Once. Twice. Her fingers played out a rhythm against the bedspread, and her lips moved once more. Finally, she lay still.
I choked on a traitor sob as illicit hope fell away. My hands fumbled toward my chest, but the ancient comfort of my sunburst Relic was gone. I found its light, gleaming from the hilt of the sword. But it looked suddenly treacherous, covetous, craven.
Meridian’s gifts all have teeth.
I reached toward the bed, reluctant but morbidly intrigued. The diamond gleamed from the bedspread. I plucked it up, wiping it free of blood and saliva. It nestled in my palm.
Beautiful. Scion, but I didn’t know if I’d ever seen something so exquisite. Its facets caught the low red glare and transformed it into moonlight. It glittered against my palm like it belonged there, and I could almost imagine it as part of myself. An extension of my own person, my ownsoul—
The edges of my skin curled up, lifting over the rim of the diamond Relic.
I threw it to the ground. It bounced, once, then rolled beneath the edge of the bed. Slowly, I bent. I rolled the edge of my sleeve over my hand and lifted it gingerly off the cold floor. I dropped it in my pocket. With shaking hands, I gathered up the Relic sword and backed out of the room.
I turned, before I left. Severine lay prone against the headboard, her mouth slack and her eyes glazed. Hatred pushed out of me like a tide. When it ebbed back in, I felt only pity. Pity for the sister I never had. Pity for the girl who’d lost everything. Pity for the woman who’d fought for all the wrong things, who had taken what didn’t belong to her, who had stolen too much.
And as I backed out of the room, I knew.
My last sister was free. And I was finally alone with my burden.
Istood on the roof of Coeur d’Or and let the world fall away around me.
It had not been so long ago—bare spans, no more—when I stood on this rooftop as a provisional courtier and practiced surrendering to my legacy, reveling in a power that had seemed to workwithme for the first time, instead of against me. I’d conjured brilliant, exquisite illusions: milk-white plains beneath sharp blue peaks; sand-pale dunes rippling liquid beneath a sea of sky; wings like blades that cut the world into pieces. But mostly, I’d dreamed of a perfect city, built from the brittle glass of ancient dreams. A city lingering sharp as an unspoken wish.
I’d been so sure it existed, because I’d been so certain of my place in it. But that impossible world where I belonged by virtue of my exceptional blood? That world was dead, scorched in fire and drenched in blood. Yet I had survived, reshaped and remolded, and I knew that dream had transformed with me.
The past weeks had been their own transformation. After Gavin’s death and Arsenault’s exile, both Barthet and Lady Marta had rejoined my Congrès. I knew I’d need them in the coming months. Dowser had too, but recently he’d been focused on his new pet project—a school for young legacies who couldn’t control their abilities. It was apparently more common than I knew.
I’d quietly stripped Lullaby’s mother of her holdings in the Sousine—one château in particular, with a long sloping lawn and caves down by the sea, I was particularly keen to gift to someone else. I smiled when I thought of Lullaby there, and Thibo with her—eating candy on the beach, wine in hand, while arguing about something unimportant.
I wished I could join them.
“Demoiselle?” The voice pulled me away from the edge of the roof and my impossible daydreams.
Sunder climbed up onto the sloping tiles, tall and lean and achingly handsome. The wind caught the edge of his white-gold hair and flung it off his forehead. He was dressed the way I remembered him best; not in the gilded fashions of court, nor the stark regalia of the Loup-Garou, but in the simple angular polish of Belsyre—boots for riding and a doublet for fighting and a thick black fur cloak to stave off the chill.
“You’re going home,” I said.
“I think I must.” He stood close. A dull, fevered glow painted his skin shiny. “The mine at Wolf’s Mouth runs deeper than we thought. Besides, our lands have been too long without their lord and lady.”
His dristic-and-pine eyes swiftly tallied me up: my gown—moonlight and the edge of night, too fine to be standing on this roof; the trio of Relics hanging too heavy from my belt, the lump of cloth I held awkwardly in my palm. He looked like he almost wanted to smile. “But you didn’t summon me here just to say goodbye.”
“No.” This close, I could see the livid lines climbing his throat—red shot through with black. “It’s still getting worse?”
“It’s killing me,” he said, expressionless. “But it’ll be better in Belsyre. I think the chill helps.”
The wind sang between us.
“What would you risk,” I asked, because I had to know for sure, “to take it all away?”
“All of it?” He did smile then, his gaze going wide and deep. I thought, perhaps, he dreamed of it often. “I’d risk everything.”
Wordlessly, I handed him the bundle of cloth. He frowned, and unfolded the fabric with deft fingers. A circular diamond stared up at him, pristine and shining with a faint glow. He lifted his eyes to mine, confusion blurring his features.
“What is this?”
