“That’s—Oleander, this is amazing!”
“I know.” She preened.
“Did you know some people consider modesty a virtue?” Lullaby asked.
“Really?” Oleander looked genuinely surprised. “Who?”
“Let’s get you to the Oubliettes.” Lullaby looped her arm through mine and tugged me toward the door, whispering, “While you still have any goodwill at all left toward Oleander.”
I let my friend lead me out. Sunder and Oleander trailed us through the palais toward the courtyards and the dungeon beyond. I stopped at the door, extracting my arm from Lullaby’s.
“You all go on without me.” Sudden gravity hammered down. “I’m supposed to meet Gavin here. We’re going in together.”
Lullaby gave me a sudden, fierce hug.“Win.”
“Please do.” Oleander inspected one of the leather straps on my armor, and I chose to read affection into the cursory gesture. “Don’t let that bastard steal any more of what doesn’t belong to him.”
And then I was alone with Sunder. He reached for my hand, and swiftly brought it to his mouth. His lips slid along my knuckles, cool and sharp—a kiss of hesitation, a wasteland of yearning. I tightened my fingers on his—I reached for him—but he’d already let my hand drop.
“Sunder.” I couldn’t let him go. He was the only person who knew my fears. He was the only person who told me the truth. “Sunder, I’m afraid.”
His green eyes flickered, gathering shadows.
“There was one Belsyre seneschal when Oleander and I were young.” His voice was a coil of smoke, dark as Dominion and bad dreams. “He had a taste for wicked things. He used to corner me in hallways and stairwells, touching my arms without asking and demanding things I didn’t want to give him. I was terrified of him. I begged one of the butlers, Bertan, to put locks on all my doors, but it wasn’t good enough. He just went to the chambers beside mine, to Oleander’s rooms. I was too afraid to stop him, to confront him, even though it was me he was after. I listened, mute and powerless, as she yelled at him to leave her alone, to stop watching her sleep, to stop touching her hair.”
I bit my lip. A tear slid down my cheek.
“The next day I went to the blacksmith’s forge and gathered all the scrap metal I could find. I borrowed a whetstone and sharpened the dristic until my fingers bled. Oleander helped me sew each piece into my jacket, on the inside where it couldn’t be seen. I wore that jacket for days, even though the metal cut through my shirts until my arms bled. But it was worth it—the next time that man touched me without asking, he nearly lost his fingers. Scion, I can still hear his screams, the blood running down his arms and painting the floor red. But he never came near me or my sister again.”
“Are you saying,” I whispered, “that I shouldn’t be afraid?”
“Demoiselle, you should be very afraid.” He reached out and softly brushed a tear off my cheek. “But you can choose to let your fear ride you until you’re so weak you loathe yourself. Or you can choose to turn it into a weapon.”
He disappeared into the dungeon stairwell, his pale kembric hair a torch against the dim.
I waited beneath a sky etched with bloody tears for my rival to appear. And when at last Gavin strode through the Échelles gate, I was glad to have accepted Oleander’s gift. Because Gavin had come dressed as the Sun Heir—a blazing silhouette of a man, armored in kembric and haloed in amber light from the sun at his back. And for a moment, as I watched him approach, Ilovedhim—I loved the honesty shining on his face, I loved the strong lines of his powerful shoulders, I loved the light that poured off him like the Scion’s blessing. Then I saw Arsenault stalking beside him, a frown on his hatchet face and the kembric Relic held before him like a prize to be won.
And Gavin’s glamour slipped away like water down a drain.
I squared my shoulders, shaking off the lingering effects of his legacy.
“Ready?” I put on a brilliant smile. Gavin wasn’t the only one who could create an illusion.
“Are you?” asked Gavin, with a flash of the young man I’d first met.
“Depends.” I nodded at Arsenault. “Is he going to make me do long division? Because I’m terrible at math.”
“I won’t have anything to do with it,” Arsenault growled, with a glimmer of something like disgust in his eyes. “But let’s get on with it, shall we?”
With one last glance at the Coeur d’Or, gilded in kembric and domed in ambric, a dristic promise at the heart of everything I’d ever fought for—I descended into the waiting darkness of the Oubliettes.
I just wished I knew whether I would find destiny or doom.
The main cavern of the Oubliettes blared with unnatural light—hundreds of firelit torches ringed the massive chamber. The spectator seating had shouldered an air of grim revelry—I glimpsed livid leering faces in those high tiers, and heard the echoing chink of bottles being passed mouth to mouth, livres and écu passing hand to hand.
My giddy, glossy calm frayed at the edges, leaving me jittering with nerves.
The moment Gavin, Arsenault, and I passed into the Relic arena, the crowd surged to its feet and roared. There was something barbaric in the sound—as though the moment we stepped into this chamber we went from powerful nobles toprey.As though this had been the spectacle they wanted all along—danger and mayhem, dueling crowns and the prospect of death. The thunder of their chanting—Sun Heir, Sun Heir, Sun Heir—wormed its way between my ears and ate into my heart.
