Since I’d abandoned the beach, sufficient time had elapsed for night to fall, and for my fae healing to transform the pink of my skin into a tan.My skin wasn’t yet its usual warm, toasted-sugar tone, but it was closer than the alarming pale with which I’d emerged from the ocean.
The parvnit had secured us what resembled a horse—but wasn’t.Much of what I was seeing was close to the familiar, and yet disturbingly not the same.My unease was a constant, my desperation to discover whether there was any chance Teo still lived even more so.
Thedragortwe rode was built like a horse, moved like a horse, and smelled like a horse, but was covered in hard scales instead of a furry pelt.Its mane and tail were still hair.And really only I rode the dragort, since the parvnit had decided her place was upon my shoulder, where she was effectively ridingme.
That a princess of Zaraga would allow such an insignificant creature—anyone, really—torideme was absurd.But the parvnit was annoyingly bossy and only really shut up when I did what she wanted.Besides, the absurdity of our roles didn’t top my list of concerns.It didn’t even make the list.
As the parvnit, whose name was Cosette—named after her mother’s long-deceased great-aunt, a fact I certainly didn’t need but she volunteered just the same—led us along the road that hugged the coastline toward the palace, I had my first meaningful chance to process my circumstances—so long as she was quiet, which wasn’t often enough.She was eager to natter about everything I didn’t care about.When I pressed her on the important topics, she clammed up, and started darting looks all around us again when no one was approaching us.
We drew plenty of passing stares, however.Too much curiosity.I didn’t know what it meant, and Cosette insisted proudly it was because I was her prisoner—no matter how many timesIinsisted I was no such thing.
Now that I was free of the bloodlust andmerely famished, I couldn’t help but catalog the many differences that shouldn’t exist if I’d only been trapped underwater for a short time.The many details and complications I’d ignored during my frenzied grief, many of which I’d dealt with without conscious intention, came tumbling to the forefront.
My hair, which I’d always worn long to my waist, passed my knees.I’d secured it in a hasty braid.Even pulled back off my face, it was heavy and cumbersome.My nails, too, had been so unreasonably long they’d curled back on themselves.I’d broken or bitten them off before my escape.They were rough now, and snagged on the simple frock Cosette had secured for me when she commandeered the dragort.
My eyes … when I first popped up through the waves, it was as if I were a newborn, my eyes never having seen light before.With how unrelentingly the sun had glittered along the water’s surface, I’d had to swim with my eyes closed much of the time.
Then there was the state of my muscles.Since the time I was a simple fae, I’d honed my body as I would any other weapon in my arsenal.As a child, I’d done so for the pit fights.Later, as an assassin, my targets were the most elusive, most unreachable, most highly defended.No easy kills.Mine were the assignments that were supposed to come off as an accident, Death’s untimely intervention.
My muscles now were weak and limp, my body unnaturally thin.
My power, somewhat replenished after my feeding, was still lacking.I’d been so hungry, so very empty.How long would have to pass to suffer starvation like that?I’d drained two humans and could drain a dozen more and only then begin to truly sate the hunger gnawing at my insides.
Then there were the countless differences beyond my own self…
When Cosette startled me awake while I was sleeping off my bloodlust, I’d automatically responded in the language she used.As both a diplomat and assassin of my crown, I’d learned many languages, learned to adapt seamlessly to my surroundings—a skill often essential to my survival.When Cosette spoke Durron, I answered in kind.
But Zaraga had an official language, and it sure as shit wasn’t Durron, the language spoken only in Domdurro, which was an ocean away.
It lent a disturbing credence to Cosette’sEmperor of Domdurro, when Domdurro was no empire.It was a landmass less than a fifth the size of Zaraga.
Mother Queen Consort Rafaela forbade anyone outside court from speaking the languages of neighboring nations.Within court, she allowed it only with her express permission.Yet Cosette openly spoke Durron.So had the creature—for he’d been no kind of man I’d ever seen before—she’d dealt with to secure the dragort and my clothing.
Then there was the supposed prison at the palace.No such thing existed.Rafaela would not abide havingfilthy, lice-infested criminalsanywhere at her estate, never mind that was what her children had been before she’d plucked us from the streets of Montressón.
There was also my brother inexile, if not outright dead.
The village we were currently traversing.The moon and its pacing Fuerin Star were not yet high in the sky.The streets were bustling with fae, and a few scattered humans based on their scent, but also with myriad creatures I had no name for but that surprised only me.
Before my submerged sarcophagus, I’d spent most of my time at the palace, and if not the very one we were heading toward, then the winter palace or several of my family’s other, smaller retreats.But I’d known of the towns that dotted the continent, certainly any sizable one such as this.I’d especially been familiar with those nearest the palace, from which our feeders regularly hailed.
No towns this densely populated were supposed to be here.Blumsoon, I’d never heard of the place.
The main drag of Blumsoon was a riot of new spices and stunning color, bright even illuminated by the moon and orbs that put off light like flames, which Cosette calledlumoons.Instead of fire, they were fueled by faithum, what I’d always known as magic.They bobbed everywhere.
We passed a colorful, fragrant, beckoning bazaar, filled with all variety of food vendors, and lively, raucous taverns.Music thumped with low, deep beats, which higher, airy tones danced over, as if they barely alighted.
The homes, Cosette divulged, were set back behind the businesses along narrower roads.
Not much was clear, but some conclusions were becoming inescapable: more time had passed than I cared to consider.It was practically a new world, and I, who’d trained always to be prepared, was wholly unprepared for it.
My country, my home,my family—all that was most important to me—had seemingly been swallowed up by an empire that shouldn’t—couldn’t—exist.
Though I searched the entire route to the palace, I spotted not a single shrine to any of the demigods.Not along the roadside in quaint, small domes as used to be the case, dotting practically every street corner, alcove, and plaza.Not anywhere.
The demigods were still very much here though.They had to be.
I felt Heartbreak’s interference so acutely and without reprieve that it could only be her will.Death and Life toyed with me and my brother, apparently giving us no special treatment for sharing a similar sort of cherished bond.And Hope drove me onward, despite Heartbreak’s torment, and the looming uncertainty of Life and Death.
