After a long pause he quietly says, “There was an accident in Vanzador… Rowenna is gone.”
The words chop my legs out from under me, and I fall, narrowly missing the box.
Thebody-sized box.
I glare at the rough-hewn wood, willing it to disappear. When it doesn’t, I curl into myself, shaking and shivering. Feverishly wishing the Marauders were invading Tashir. Wishing the bagrava fields were burning. Even wishing it was Mother who lay dying, as I initially feared—as wicked as that sounds. But Mother continues wailing. And the Vanzadorians continue staring with thinly veiled contempt. And the long wooden box, with its thick padlock, looms larger than ever behind me.
I pray there’s room inside for me as well.
Rowenna has finally returned from Vanzador—just as I wished.
Wearing very different sorts of chains.
Two
I sit there, staring, as Father’s terrible declaration pounds into my chestlike a stake. The pain is so sharp and splintering, I can’t breathe. Can’t possibly survive this.
I grip my forehead and try to imagine a world without my sister, but it’s impossible. Unfathomable. Memories pummel me like a midsummer downpour. Rowenna, crawling into my bed every time I had a nightmare and whispering stories that featuredmeas the fearless heroine; Rowenna, insisting I be included when Haddesh and the other boys played cabbage ball; Rowenna, splashing pomegranate wine down her finest breeches the first time my monthly courses came so no one would mock me.
Even though she was across the Tomb Flats in Vanzador, at least I knew she was out there, living and breathing, waking to the same golden sun and dreaming beneath the same blazing stars. I can’t accept that we’ll never share another joke, just by locking eyes. Or run barefoot through the dewy grass beneath a harvest moon.
I reach out and run a shaky finger along the box, refusing to believe Ro lies within. She’s too vibrant and clever andaliveto fit in such a sad,cramped space. And I would have known. I would havefelther passing. I would have charged across the Tomb Flats to stop it.
I push up to my elbows and look to Father. “Tell me you’re lying,” I beg. But he chokes back a sob and stares down at his feet. I drag myself closer to Mother, fisting her skirt. “Tell me it isn’t true.” But fresh tears spill down her cheeks, and she gently rests her head against the box.
Coffin, I correct myself. That crude pinewood abomination is Rowenna’s final resting place. The Vanzadorians couldn’t even be bothered to make her comfortable or show her proper respect.
King Soren and Prince Alaric regard us with cruel impatience, drumming their gloved fingers and shifting from foot to foot—as if they can’t wait to leave. As if my sister’s death, ontheirwatch, is an irksome inconvenience.
Rowenna would be mortified. Not to mention furious.
Do something, Indira, she says.
Her voice in my head is as loud and commanding as ever, which shouldn’t be possible if she’s dead. And what does she expect me to do, other than lie here like a gutted pig and beg her to take me with her? I have no desire to spend another day on this earth without her, and I haven’t a seeds-forsaken clue how to fix any of this.
We are shackled to the Vanzadorians. If King Soren stops feeding his magic into the ground, the mountain range protecting our border will crumble, leaving us exposed to the Marauders. Which means I can’t be hurling accusations. We can’t even demand answers or accountability. We just have to accept this blow like all the rest and swallow yet another bitter pill every time the price of Soren’s protection grows steeper. And it’s always getting steeper. First, he demanded twenty percent of our bagrava. Then thirty. Then my sister’s freedom. Now her death.
It will never end.
The Vanzadorians have us trapped, like a rabbit in a snare, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’m wriggling and spinning. Waiting for a blade to plunge into my side. I almost wish they’d hurryup and put us out of our misery, but they just stand there, looking down with false pity.
The gawking servants and courtiers are hardly better, buzzing about like hungry flies, transfixed by our pain.
I want them all gone.
I have never been one to shout commands. I’ve never even raised my voice to the staff or publicly argued with our parents. Rowenna is the one who strode around the palace, going toe to toe with Father’s ministers and navigating courtly politics. But I can’t stand this torture for another second, so I force myself to my knees and take a deep breath.
“Leave us to grieve in peace,” I cry, hating how my voice cracks and catches. It was supposed to roar and rumble—as loud as the storm raging in my heart—but no one even looks my way. They’ve all turned toward a different frantic shout, rising from the rear of the courtyard.
“Let me through! Where is she?” Haddesh’s hysterical voice blasts above the commotion—the way mine should have—and he cuts through the crowd like the swords he’s learning to forge.
He must have come directly straight from the blacksmith’s shop the moment he heard the news, because he’s still wearing his leather apron and streaks of soot darken his cheeks, making the whites of his eyes look even wider. Wilder. He clutches a poker in one hand, the tip still smoldering red, and after he takes in the scene—Mother and me on the ground beside the coffin, and Father bent over like a wilted flower—he levels the molten steel at King Soren and Prince Alaric.
“What did you do to Rowenna?” Haddesh roars.
Five Vanzadorian guards leap between him and King Soren, even though Soren is more than capable of defending himself. With a snap of his fingers, he could snatch the ground out from under Haddesh. Or carve a section of earth from the hillock palace and drop it on our heads.
Instead, Soren watches Haddesh from behind his guards, a smile inhis eyes. “Who are you, boy? And what business do you have approaching me?”
