“I’ve got to go now. I—I’ve got to summon the council and see how quickly we can put together our army. We’ll have to resume training despite the quarantine. I have to ask Devran if he can convince his people to fight for me when we haven’t even reached an agreement. I...” Valoria swallows, wearing an expression I’ve rarely seen on her: uncertainty. “I’ve got to protect my people, even the ones who are trying so hard to kill me.”
Before she can go anywhere, I grip her shoulders and hold her gaze for a long moment. “I’d saybe careful, but there’s no point pretending we’re not terrible at that.” Right now, with the new scar on her neck and her skin so pale she almost glows, she doesn’t look like a queen. She looks like a beautiful, breakable creature, and I’m afraid to let her go when it seems danger lurks down every corridor in this place lately.
“I will be,” she assures me as Bryn and Sarika hurry to her side. “I may not be Karthia’s favorite leader, but I’m our only leader. I have no intention of coming that close to a spear ever again.” She steps back, squaring her shoulders and looking regal once more, all traces of vulnerability hidden behind her sharp gaze.
When I first met them, I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m glad Valoria found Bryn and Sarika. With their newly acquired swords drawn, they lead her ever-growing escort down the hallway, and I find I can breathe easier knowing they’re beside her.
As Valoria leaves, I sneak another glance at Meredy while she checks Lysander and Nipper over for any signs of injury. She’s so tender with them. Getting over her seems impossible to contemplate, as impossible as a spirit somehow entering our world.
***
Standing in front of a floor-length mirror in Valoria’s rarely used formal suite of rooms, I hold up a red gown while she and Meredy look on.
Meredy shakes her head. After frowning thoughtfully at a rainbow of gowns spread across her enormous bed, Valoria passes me another, this one in shades of blue. Meredy’s eyes light up as I hold it against myself.
I wish she wouldn’t look at me like that. Not anymore. It makes being around her that much harder, especially when we’ve hardly spoken since the breakup.
Still, Simeon and Danial’s wedding is tomorrow, and Valoria insisted that we all take a quick break from training with the volunteers so the two of them can help me choose the right gown for my first time serving as Witness in a wedding ceremony. “You’ve got to help me keep an eye on her, no matter how much you two would rather avoid each other,” a grim-but-determined Valoria reminded me when she showed up at my door earlier.
Ever since Meredy moved to another wing of the palace, Valoria and I have taken turns randomly passing outside her room. We haven’t heard any voices from within, even when we stop by in the middle of the night. Still, until I know the crystal has been destroyed, I’ll find it hard to believe Meredy is herself again. All we can do for now is watch her closely.
Three days have passed since Valoria began sending word of the Ezorans’ impending attack to other parts of Karthia, and weofficially resumed our training with the volunteers despite the threat of the black fever; three days since the intruders were locked in the dungeons; three days since their companions, still free, retaliated by burning one of the still-boarded-up Temples of Change, destroying precious knowledge that might have been inside.
Three days since my heart was shattered.
As I hold up a peacock-green confection of a gown with a feathered skirt, Valoria grimaces. “Definitely not that one.”
I reach for the one in shades of blue again, this time to properly try it on. Valoriaoohs and Meredy nods stiffly in approval. At that, Bryn and Sarika peer into the room from their posts outside the door and flash smiles of approval as they inspect the gown.
“See any new colors you’d like for your hair, Sarika?” I tease, mostly to take my mind off of Meredy.
The deepest of the hues in the gown’s full skirt reminds me of the Deadlands’ icy lakes, a sight I never expected to see again after we put the Dead to rest. Jax, Simeon, and I have been tempted to go back every day since we saw the frozen spirits, but with the Ezorans on their way, we have other, more pressing issues to attend to—like training the new volunteers arriving from the farthest reaches of Karthia.
“I hear Kasmira wrote to Simeon this morning,” Valoria says, grabbing a strand of pearls from one of her dressers and slipping it over my head. After scrutinizing them from a distance, she frowns and declares, “You need more sparkle. How about—?”
“What about Kasmira?” I demand. From the letters she’s written me and the things I’ve gleaned from writing to Meredy’s sister, Elibeth, Kasmira is slowly making a full recovery. Still, having seen the vicious effects of the black fever, my heartbeat quickens every time I hear her name.
“She might come to the wedding!” Valoria gushes, tossing a cluster of sapphire and diamond pendants over my head. She seems extra determined to make conversation since Meredy and I are barely capable of exchanging two words these days. “Now if Elibeth is well enough, and we can just pull Zee away from her research, we’ll have everyone together to celebrate!”
“What research?” I pull the heavy gemstones from around my neck and pile them on Valoria’s instead, to everyone’s amusement, as I wait for her answer.
“I’m not sure yet. She won’t say.” Valoria’s lips twitch in a rare grin. “But researching something, whether you’re an inventor or not, is a touchy business. We tend to build up the reveal in our minds, so...” She shrugs. “I haven’t pushed her. She only told me about it because I caught her snooping in one of the healer’s storerooms, taking a pinch of this and that.” Winking, she adds, “Knowing her, she’s probably concocting some potion for growing giant vegetables or making flowers sing.”
“She hasn’t seen a single Karthian festival since she got here, thanks to the black fever,” Meredy adds thoughtfully. “Tell her she can’t miss this.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along,” Valoria says. “I don’t see how anyone could refuse an invitation to eat cream swans and drink until there are too many moons in the sky.”
I laugh, but the sound quickly dies. Evander loved cream swans. So does Meredy, when they’re served floating in a sea of berry sauce. Of course, we won’t be sharing any dessert at tomorrow’s wedding like I’d hoped. No dances. No laughter. No long conversations that last until even the stars are tired.
More than anything, more even than her words, I miss her presence. Her soft touch on my shoulder, the scent of vanilla in myroom, the warm feeling that let me know she was nearby. I miss being close to the one who made me want to be a better version of myself—who knows what I’ll become now?
At least I have training to keep my mind off my misery. It’s been taking up every hour lately, so much that my body has begun to protest it. Valoria seems to enjoy the near-constant time on the grounds instead of being cooped up in the throne room, too—she’s become quite skilled in wielding her cane like a weapon thanks to Jax, which makes sparring against her a real pain.
With Meredy and Valoria nodding their approval, I decide on the blue gown and add enough strands of sparkling necklaces and bangles to rival the stars. Maybe all the glitter will keep anyone from noticing there’s no light in my eyes anymore.
Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate Simeon and Danial’s love while I mourn for mine—the old and the new, the never-to-be.
XXVI
