“No!” Delphine shouts so loud, the nearest revelers turn to stare. She steps nearer and lowers her shaking voice. “You can’t leave your own coronation festivities. It would send the wrong message to thepeople. And if this is truly the end, I’d like it to be just the three of us—just family.” Delphine’s watery eyes find mine, and I feel my own eyes burning, with tears of empathy, of course. But also with gratitude—and love.
She considers me part of her family.
With Alaric’s blessing, we weave through the crowded courtyard and pound down the twisting streets to their damp little cottage that smells of mold and sickness.
Delphine drops to her knees at Cloudia’s bedside and strokes her sallow, sweaty face. The girl’s entire body writhes and jerks as unintelligible words dribble from her lips.
“I’ve tried everything,” Delphine says with a defeated sigh. “I used the rest of the medication you made, along with every other remedy the healers ever prescribed, but they only seem to weaken her. She’s slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Each of Delphine’s cries tears through my heart like a blade, but I force myself to remain calm. We can’t both fall apart.
“I’ll make a new batch of medication,” I say resolutely. “I’ll use twice as much bagrava as before. That has to strengthen her.”
It will also likely wreak havoc on her body and mind, since she isn’t an empty vessel like those affected by the memory sacrifices. But there’s no point worrying about long-term consequences when the next few minutes aren’t guaranteed.
I move to the other side of the bed, lean down close, and speak in a slow, soothing voice. “Stay strong, Cloudia. I’m going to help you,” I promise. But when I reach for her hand, she jerks violently. Her fingers close around my wrist, squeezing to the point of pain. I cry out and try to free myself, but Cloudia’s other hand joins the fight, crushing my fingers in her vise grip.
“What are you doing?” Delphine reaches across her sister. “Stop this! You’re hurting Indira.”
As she struggles to remove her sister’s clawlike fingers, I feel afamiliar pulse of vibrating energy.
“Wait!” I shout, and instead of trying to pull away from Cloudia, I place my hand on top of hers. The vibrations immediately intensify. “There’s something in her hand,” I tell Delphine. “Something that feels like the hum of a siphoned memory.”
Delphine’s eyes widen and dart down. “What’s in your hand, Cloudia? Show us.”
At last, Cloudia stops moaning and writhing and falls back to her pillow. She’s so stiff and still, I start to fear we’ve lost her to oblivion, but then, finger by finger, her left hand uncurls to reveal a length of broken chain—the kind Vanzadorian men wear to fasten their jackets. This one is platinum and inlaid with enormous obsidian jewels, but the final link is bent and wrenched open.
“Do you recognize this?” I ask Delphine. “Is it a family heirloom or something?”
Delphine shakes her head. “Our family has never owned anything so fine.”
“Then where did it come from? Could someone have given it to her?”
Again, Delphine shakes her head. “No one visits except me and the occasional friend who checks in when I’m working late. But none of us have riches like this.” She studies the chain and glances around the room, bewildered. “Unless…” Delphine’s gaze settles on a trunk in the corner. “That’s where Cloudia keeps her sewing kit and tools. She often did alterations and embroidery work for the nobles. Maybe this is from one of her projects. Maybe she retrieved it because she wants me to sell it to cover the cost of her funeral. It’s so like her to be thinking of me, even in her final moments,” Delphine says on a shaky whisper.
It’s a nice thought, but wholly improbable. “Won’t the damage diminish its value? And how did Cloudia retrieve it from her sewing trunk when she can’t rise from bed? What are the odds it would also contain a memory?”
Dread swells in my belly like black bloated roots in stagnant water as I point out each inconsistency. Something about Cloudia—and all of this—feels very, very wrong.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Delphine wrings her hands through the bedclothes. We both sit there, staring down at the foreboding chain. “Do you think we should try to view the memory?” she eventually asks. “It feels like Cloudia’s trying to tell us something.”
Heart pounding, I nod, free the chain from Cloudia’s slackened grip, and murmur the words Alaric taught me before I lose my nerve.
All at once, the room fills with glittering light, and I think I must be hallucinating because the swirls form a face I recognize. Eyes lips, freckles, and hair that could only belong to one person.
My sister.
Thirty-Nine
“Rowenna?” I croak, reaching for her even though I know it’s just a memory. But it’s the closest I’ve come to seeing my sister alive in over a year, and every part of me screams to grab her. Hold her.
Save her.
She’s running at full tilt, hair tangled across her face, features twisted with fury—or is that fear?—as she weaves through the darkened streets of the Fortress.
I dart a glance at Delphine. “What is this? Why would Cloudia have a memory of my sister? What is she running from?”
Delphine shakes her head, gaping at Rowenna’s apparition.
