I wept for my mother, who had loved me until the moment she had been crushed inside her home. Finally, weeks later, I wept for her. Because I had loved her, too, and she had been killed by the creatures I’d thought were monsters.
And I was one of those monsters.
All along, I had been one of those monsters. I had been the creature I stood on the wall to keep out.
I dropped onto my side and lay curled up like that for countless minutes—or hours. My eyes were puffyand my head ached from dehydration, and I told myself I deserved both things. A penance dealt by the priests of the wall god, Arxius.
I deserved to be in a cell. Deserved the cold earth and the stink of worms. In some way I didn’t fully understand, I sensed it was because of me my mother had died. And I deserved to suffer for it.
The ground was damp, leeching warmth from my bones; I deserved that too. A shiver ran through me, and when I tugged my cloak tighter, my hand brushed Thalassa’s pouch, still hooked on my belt.
My fingers closed over it, and my eyes opened.
I had never opened her gift to me.
I sat up, crossed my legs, and unhooked the pouch. I set it on the ground in front of me and untied the twine. The linen fell apart to reveal something I couldn’t properly see. I picked up the small crystal and held it close to the object.
Metal gleamed.
A pin.
I picked it up between two fingers and brought it closer to my eyes, turning it over. It was circular, with two smaller circles inside the largest one?—
With a start, I dropped it in the dirt.
That wasn’t fucking possible. There was no way Thalassa, an elder fae in Feyreign, could have such a thing. Unless… unless she had stolen mine.
I scrabbled for it in the dirt, my fingers searching and sifting. Finally, I found it again and lifted it face-up to inspect.
This wasn’t my pin. It was a different shape, heavier, made of a different type of metal. Where mine was dulled by years of wear, this was untarnished, a brilliant ebony even in this almost-lightless cell. Ebony iron so cold that within seconds of touching it, my fingers went numb.
But the symbol was the same:
Three circles to represent three walls.
This was a guard’s pin. It belonged to the Kingdom of Storms.
I losttrack of time in that cell. Hours or days, I couldn’t say, before they retrieved me.
However much time had passed, it was enough.
My grief had congealed into a hardened mass inside my chest. My longing had solidified into intent. My rage burned high and hot.
When the two handmaidens opened the root-wall to my cell and beckoned me through, I made them wait. I stood and gathered my belongings. I clipped them to my belt and slipped my mother’s journal back inside my jerkin. I flicked the dirt from my hair and banded it in a high ponytail.
Last of all, I clasped my cloak at my neck and folded the sides back over my shoulders.
Then I went with them, one handmaiden ahead of me and one flanking me.
Climbing out of the dungeon was slow. My hands went out to the dirt walls for balance, and when finally I came into real light, I stopped and covered my eyes with my hand. The two handmaidens waited for me in silence. Wherever their patience sprang from, I was grateful for it.
When the stone walls and floors of the citadel appeared around me, it felt like stepping through a portal. I had been inside the citadel all this time, but not really. I had been apart, in a world as enclosed as a womb.
We climbed what felt like endless stairs, until finally we emerged into a corridor I recognized. That was when I knew where we were going.
Of course.
This was the corridor beneath the grand staircase—one of the staircases, at least. We came out a side door—the door usedby the servants—and into the throne room from under the leftmost staircase.
