LATERTHATNIGHT, I’m woken by muffled sobs leaking through the walls of my tent. There’s a moment before I’m fully awake when I fancy I’m a boy again, back at the palace. But then the whimpers turn shrill. A single word repeated.
‘Fire.’
Leilani never cried out intelligible words in her sleep before. Not that I remember.
Did Arcuri forget to damp-down the campfire before he turned in for the night? I get to my feet, drag on my boots. Not stopping to lace my nightshirt, I push open the tent flap. There’s no evidence of burning when I sniff the air, and the moonslight reveals the fire’s been properly doused, but the horses – five beautiful greys loaned to us by one of the plantation masters – are spooked, pawing the ground beneath the trees they’re tethered to, ears flattened. Could disgruntled plantation-workers be smoking us out of their woods, fearing another fever outbreak?
I cross to Leilani’s tent, wrench it open. But there are no flames, no intruders, only a girl in the grips of a night terror. Hair snarled, limbs jerking, face scrunched. I bend close and shake her gently awake. Her limbs relax and her expression smooths as she escapes the clutches of her dream, but I regret rousing her the moment her eyes flicker open, widening in shock to find me leaning over her. Regret it still more as those eyes travel over me. She’s only clad in a perilously bunched nightshift, and I’m… I hastily fasten my laces, averting my gaze from the slender range of her bare thighs.
‘Forgive me, you were having a nightmare. I was just ensuring…’
Cheeks blanching, she gathers her furs about her. ‘I’m fine,’ she lies.
She’s pale and her eyes have a wild, haunted quality I’ve never seen in them before. Not even after the hoarclaw attack. ‘Is it… Have you recovered from before?’ I look away, unsure how to broach the subject of her magic, the toll summoning starshine might have taken.
‘I’m fine,’ she says again. But her shoulders are trembling. ‘Just a dream,’ she whispers, biting her lip. ‘Flames. A woman. Her face… her face was…’ She presses her eyes shut. ‘Don’t worry, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep.’
I hesitate. Her chest is rising, falling, too fast.
‘Get out,’ she says, drawing the furs to her chin.
I consider staying, but her rebukes over my lack of propriety at the Thawtide celebrations loom large, and Orthriel might materialise at any moment; I don’t want to contend with their disapproval too. I mutter something about hoping she sleeps soundly and back away.
Spits of rain spatter cold on my neck as I step into the darkness. I look to the heavens. The start of the Thaw storms is the last thing we need. Something moves in my periphery. I spin round, hand drifting towards my sword, my body still primed, on high alert, after the hoarclaw. But it’s only the Clanschief, rubbing a hand through sleep-tousled hair.
‘Everything all right?’ He jerks his head towards Leilani’s tent. ‘I heard screaming.’ Taking in my clothes – or lack thereof – his brow lifts. ‘You two made up then, eh?’
‘Oh, drag your thoughts out of the gutter. Leilani’s had a nightmare, that’s all. She’s suffered with them since she was a child.’
He takes a step forwards, frowning. ‘And you’re leaving her alone? Again? After what happened with that bear…’
‘I’m respecting her privacy.’
‘Like you did at Thawtide?’
‘Leave me alone, Arcuri. Leilani’s none of your concern.’
His raises his hands, backs towards his tent. But not before hurling his parting blow. ‘Should’ve known you’ve not got it in you to make a woman scream, Peacock.’
Back on my bedroll, furs drawn close to guard against the chill, the tortured expression in Leilani’s eyes, that shrill cry of ‘fire’, echoes my mind, reverberating like the raindrops now battering my tent.
She’s a Seer. Visions can present as dreams.
There are things you can’t unsee. Isn’t that what she said?
What is it the Princess dreamt? What horrors might she have seen?
A WOMAN POSSESSED
LEILANI
IT’SBEENRAININGfor the past three moonsrisings, ever since that dreadful night in the remembrance garden, the night of the hoarclaw attack, the night I first dreamt of the Faceless Woman and Astrophel burst into my tent, chasing away the vision of that mutilated figure ringed by reaching flames, clawing her throat, as the fire’s fierce burn consumed us both. The downpour has thawed the frost but turned the ground to slough.
Astrophel calls out, his voice half-swallowed by the driving wind. I only catch a few words – something about making camp. I pull on my reins, numb fingers slipping against sodden leather, and slow my horse to a walk. Fat raindrops slice my cheeks and pearl my lashes. Damp wool hangs heavy about me like a shroud.
‘The horses,’ Astrophel calls again, drawing closer to me. ‘They’re exhausted. And the mud – if we’re not careful, they’ll break their legs.’
I look to the labouring chest of my own mount, swelling and collapsing like a pair of leaking bellows, its spittle-flecked muzzle and flattened ears. Astrophel’s right, they’re struggling. And not only because of the sheeting rain and marshy ground. The air’s noticeably thinner now we’ve entered the High Hills, and there’s a taint in the back of my throat.
