Alinore could not see the Princess’s expression, but she could hear the pity in her voice. It made the hot knot of shame and rage inside her snap.
‘It’s not true!’ she cried. ‘What he said isn’t true.’
The Princess did not reply.
‘I hate it here!’ Alinore buried her face in her hands. She could not hold back the tears any longer and broke into shuddering sobs. ‘I just want to go home.’
Except apparently her home was no longer her home. The thought made Alinore cry even harder.
‘Would you like to come to my bedchamber and sort my ribbons with me?’ asked the Princess in a tentative, consoling voice. ‘I’ve got one in every colour.’
‘I don’t like ribbons!’
‘Oh.’
Alinore rubbed her face with the back of her sleeve, snot and tears smearing across her cheeks.
She and the Princess stared at one another.
‘Why do they call you the Pet?’ asked Alinore finally.
She had once heard two ladies-in-waiting refer to the Princess in this way, though she had not understood why.
Pain flickered in Princess Cressyda’s expression. She gazed at Alinore uncertainly, something raw and vulnerable passing across her eyes. Then her delicate features settled and her spine straightened, as though she had decided something.
‘They’ve always called me the Pet,’ she replied. ‘Because I belong to the Queen.’
Alinore hesitated. She sensed something else unsaid lingering. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If you come to my chamber and help me sort through my ribbons then I’ll explain.’
Alinore sniffed and finally gave a shaky nod. ‘All right.’
Princess Cressyda hesitated, as though weighing some unspoken risk, then she reached out and curled her fingers around Alinore’s hand. The touch was feather-light and cautious. With a small tug, she looped their arms together.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’
They turned and walked down the passageway side by side, their footsteps soft on the worn rugs, the castle walls closing in around them.
And something shifted.
For the first time since arriving in the Kingdom of Calestra, Alinore felt a faint, fragile glimmer of warmth.
ONE WINTER LATER
Cressyda
CRESSYDA WATCHED THEpriests disappear one by one from the Sanctuary balconies, their purple robes fluttering as they melted into the darkness above. When the last priest had slipped from sight, she eased out of the shadow of the entrance, her gaze sweeping over the vast room. All was quiet. Only the faint rustle of the ceiling ribbons broke the silence, their silken ends swaying in an unseen breeze. She ducked beneath them and hurried to the back of the Sanctuary. She knew she did not have long before the priests returned to begin another set of prayers, and she needed to act fast.
Cressyda stopped before the floor-to-ceiling scroll racks set into the back wall. Dust motes shimmered in the pale, autumnal light from the diamond-shaped windows, drifting past the cubbyholes stuffed with tight cylinders of parchment bound in faded ties, their aged tags curling. Tugging at one of the rolling ladders, Cressyda chose a set of shelves she had not explored yet and hitched up her long skirts, climbing on to the rungs. She selected a shelf at random and began teasing out parchments, peering at their tags.
This was her fourth time searching through the Sanctuary’s ancient scrolls and she desperately hoped it would be more successful than her last attempts. The shadowed creatures had not gone away – she had seen one only last night while walking down a corridor on the west side of the castle. It had been a shuddering, hunched shape, blurred and undefined, scurrying about at the edges of her vision, and she had quickly turned her back before she could make out anything more. But she had heard the awful sound it made: a horrible, chilling whistle. No one else around her had reacted. No one else seemed able to see it or hear it, and she was still no closer to understanding why.
Night after night Cressyda had sneaked back to the castle’s library, flicking through page after page, but while she had read countless volumes in her relentless search, she had still not found what she was looking for. Her spirits had started to wane and so she had resolved to widen her search, deciding that the ancient scrolls in the Sanctuary might offer what the books in the library did not.
But the dusty parchments Cressyda now held in her hands appeared to be nothing more than records of battles with Journier from over one hundred winters ago. She pushed them back into their cubbyhole with a sigh. Turning to climb higher, a sudden wave of dizziness swept over her, and she stumbled. Cressyda lurched, clutching the edge of a shelf to steady herself. Bursts of light whooshed across her eyes and her heartbeat thumped in her ears. She waited, teetering, until the rung of the ladder seemed to settle beneath her and the ringing in her head dulled to a faint hum.
Queen Flavria had instructed her to fast in preparation for the upcoming Harvest Feast celebration because she had special outfits planned for them with tight, nipped waists. Cressyda had eaten nothing since the afternoon before, the Queen hovering over herat every mealtime with a grave expression. Now Cressyda’s body betrayed her: light-headed, hazy, her limbs trembling. She clenched her jaw, willing her hands to still. Then, drawing in a shaky breath, she dragged herself upwards, one rung at a time, determined to search the higher racks. She could not let herself stop.
