I drink in my mother’s face. This could be the last time I see her alive. I’ve asked her not to come to the formal leave-taking at the city gates tomorrow. Neither of us would bear it.
We embrace, all further words superfluous.
Eventually, my mother breaks away. Leaning heavily on her walking staff, she stands, taking up her copy of the Book of Starlore from my nightstand.
She presses a kiss to my hair. ‘I don’t want you to worry while you’re gone. I’m in no immediate danger.’
She shuffles to the door, her parting lie lingering in the air like the wisp of a guttering candle.
As her footsteps echo in the hallway, I reach beneath my pillow, fingers closing around the hidden scrap of lavender silk. Impulse made me pocket the offcut of my mother’s gown when I happened upon one of her liegeladies taking it in for her, but I’m glad to have it now. Her scent, that delicate combination of candied peel and rime-rose, fills my nose. When I was little, on nights when my mother was absent from the palace or busy with court engagements, I’d creep into her chambers and curl in her skirts, breathing in this same scent. I might be grown now, but I still crave the comfort it brings. I bind it tightly around the end of my braid and repeat my vow.
I must find the Starlight Staff. And I must do it quickly.
Half a sunring – that’s how long I have to save her.
I’ve got what I thought I always wanted: my binding postponed, permission to leave Meissa, a chance to prove myself, a way to atone for the sins of my past. Why then does the victory feel so hollow? Maybe it’s the fear that even if I succeed, I’ll still never earn my father’s forgiveness. It’s too late, and I’m too far gone, too much a monster to be saved.
Or perhaps it’s the phantom whispers I can’t silence. That choking sense of dread.
Beware.
Forget. I must try to forget.
*
BUTICAN’Tforget. And sleep doesn’t claim me.
I toss and turn, unable to get comfortable, dark thoughts crowding my mind, blossoming there like fungus. The memory of Astrophel’s lips on mine; the taste of ash in my mouth; Elvi’s stricken expression as she fled the dance floor; Blayze’s maddening smirk as I rushed past him moments later. Mostly, I’m haunted by the image of my mother’s ravaged face.
Forgetting is impossible. I need something to take the edge off.
I slip from my chambers, creep along the darkened passageway and down the staircase, pushing gently against the door to the ballroom, so I don’t alert the Watchers. Candles still burn in the sconces closest to the window; rivulets of dribbling wax lend the stubs the macabre appearance of melting bones. The tables are stripped, most things tidied away. A ghost of the celebration all that remains. Would that the memories of the night were so easily razed.
Craving sweet oblivion, I search the sideboard, find a bottle of shimmerwine and pour myself a glassful. I drain it. Decant another. Gripping the crystal goblet in one hand, I walk over to extinguish the candles. Perhaps I’m imagining it, just as I’ve imagined that suffocating squeeze in my throat and lungs all night long, but the sputtering tapers seem to be smoking out the room. It was careless of the attendants to leave them lit.
I’m about to snuff out the last one, when something moves on the other side of the window. I cross towards it. For a brief moment, my eyes lock with someone else’s through the glass.
The stranger’s eyes flash amber.
The goblet slips through my fingers, splintering on the flagstones. I freeze, heart hammering. Then I turn, reach for the last lit candle, return with it to the window. My hand shakes as I wave it back and forth, mirrored flames multiplying and flickering in the darkness. But there’s no sign of life beyond the glass, nothing to indicate anyone was ever there. Just rolling night mist, dense as the smoke after the fire-flower display, and the bloody smear of that ill-starred comet staining the darkness.
I stay by the window for a few minutes, but everything is quiet. Gradually my heart slows to its normal rhythm.
Imagination. Hallucination. Nerves.
Too much wine. Not enough sleep.
Just a reflection of my own face.
I snuff out the candle and retreat from the room. It feels like I’m shutting the door on my childhood.
For better or worse, come dawnrise, everything is about to change.
*
LATER,ASIfinally lie sleeping, my brandsong adds the spectre at the window to its mounting list of evidence.
Something stirs.
