Steam curled across my skin as the tub filled on its own, scented faintly with flowers. After stripping and unbinding my hair, I sank into the water, letting the heat unknot my muscles and ease the last of my earlier frustration. For a few blissful moments, nothing but the sound of the water shifted around me. I found the weightless drift of my hair soothing.
My arm wound had scabbed over and my back no longer ached, though I still sported some impressive bruising.
I bathed, scrubbing until my skin and hair squeaked, then leaned back again, savoring the way my body floated in the water.
When the water cooled, I climbed out, drying myself before tugging on my nightshirt. The cool air raised goosebumps on my damp skin. I padded barefoot back into the main room, stopping in the doorway, frowning.
Something caught the light on the floor, glinting from a shadowed corner, beyond the narrow chest I’d shoved aside earlier to practice forms. A speck of blue, as deep and pure as a summer sky over snowfields.
I strode over and crouched, reaching for it, my pulse tripping into a strange, uneven rhythm.
Smooth and cold in my palm, it was no bigger than a pinky nail, but the shade was unmistakable—the same rare, icy blue of my sister Addie’s eyes. My eyes. The same as our mother’s.
My breath caught as I yanked my pendant from beneath my nightshirt. The filigree setting was still empty at the top, the spot where one of the stones should’ve been gaping like a missing tooth.
I pressed the stone into the spot, and it slid in perfectly, fitting with a finality that made my throat ache.
I sank onto the floor, leaning against the wall, the room tilting around me.
Addie had been here.
Not just inside the castle, buthere.
In this very room.
31
ISI
Heat and ice rippled through me all at once.
I could almost hear her laugh, quick and bright, the way it had been before court life dulled its edges. I could see our mother’s hands braiding our hair by the hearth, the same blue eyes glancing down at me. Those memories pressed in so close it felt like my sister was going to step out of the shadows. I’d see her again if only I could turn around fast enough.
The pendant felt too heavy in my palm, the gleam of the stone pulling at me, shouting out questions I couldn’t answer.
Had she slept in the bed and looked out of this same window? Walked these floors in bare feet?
And if she had…
She could’ve been a warrior like me.
A survivor of the Rite of Bonds.
A recruit who’d bonded with a magical creature.
If my sister had slept in this room… If she was a warrior…
I couldn’t believe it was true. But the stone fit the pendant, and…
I needed to look into this. Since I was allowed to move about thecastle freely, I would just need to make sure no one snuck up on me. Two attempts on my life were too many.
After dressing in a tunic and pants, I shoved my feet into my boots, and fastened them with more force than necessary.
The corridors were dim at this hour, lit only by scattered faelights that floated like lazy fireflies. My shadow stretched and swayed across the stone as I made my way down to the first floor, the hush broken only by the occasional murmur from a servant or the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen.
I paused in the wide arch of the kitchen, the air thick with the scent of baking bread and onions sizzling in fat. A lone cook bent over a steaming pot, stirring slowly, but I didn’t see anyone else about. No Betina, either.
Striding inside, I walked right up to the woman I didn’t remember from the last time I was here.
