Alinore swallowed back a wave of nausea. ‘It must be,’ she whispered.
Prince Ottone shook his head, his face aghast. ‘I don’t understand,’ he whispered. ‘This can’t be happening.’
Alinore nodded, but she understood with disturbing certainty that thiswashappening.
‘She’s my sister,’ Prince Ottone continued. ‘She can’t be the Maiden Sacrifice. She’s the Princess!’ He shook Alinore’s shoulders, as if desperate for her to believe him. ‘She’s my sister!’
Rage bloomed in Alinore’s chest, red and blinding. She clenched her jaw, forcing down the scream building in her throat. ‘I leftCress,’ she choked out, guilt hitting her gut, hot and burning. ‘I abandoned her. I shouldn’t have left her.’
Prince Ottone was barely listening. ‘I know Samsel has always been cruel butthis? How could he do this? How could anyone let this happen?’
They looked at one another.
A long, breathless moment passed between them.
Then Alinore spun around and began gathering Flint’s reins. Thrusting her foot into the stirrup, she hauled herself back into the saddle. ‘We have to stop it.’
Prince Ottone stepped back, also reaching instinctively for his own mount. ‘But they’ll hold the ceremony this afternoon,’ he said. ‘We won’t reach Tormale in time.’
‘Then we’ll go straight to the mountains.’ Alinore turned Flint’s head in the direction of the main road, eyes narrowed against the sunlight. ‘You showed me the Maiden’s Path once. Do you still remember where it is?’
Prince Ottone nodded.
Alinore’s fingers tightened around the reins, her body thrumming with adrenaline and a rising, helpless grief. She could already picture Cressyda adorned in the fiery red robes, surrounded by stone-faced attendants, walking a trail of smoking flames through the main square and towards the mountains. Her friend would be alone and terrified, waiting to die in the name of hideous tradition.
‘We must go,’ she said, her voice breaking into a sob. ‘We have to stop them.’
Cressyda
THE INTENSE HEATof the torches burned Cressyda’s cheeks red raw. Their flames danced, licking and spitting as they swung in rusted sconces suspended from the canopy of her carriage. The smoke coiled upwards, tendrils twisting into the bright blaze of the afternoon sunshine, where it vanished into the pale blue sky. All around her, the crowd surged like a tide, pressing against the barricades that barely held them back. Faces warped in rage and fervour, eyes wild with hatred, mouths stretched open in furious exultation.
‘Send her to the Great Dragon!’
‘Let her burn!’
‘She must die!’
Spittle flew from shouting mouths, flecking the cobblestones and the armour of the nearby guards. The cries of the crowd mingled with the roaring of the bonfires blazing at the corners of Tormale’s main square, columns of black smoke rising like towers, casting long, shuddering shadows.
Cressyda had watched plenty of Maiden Sacrifices parade towards the royal dais. She knew what she looked like: a slight figure decked in blood-red robes, face painted in flames that curled over her cheeks and brows, her hair woven tightly into braids that coiled atop her head like a black crown. The sight of the maiden was a familiar one that Cressyda had always observed from the safety of the royal party – she had never imagined that she would be here. She had never imagined what it would feel like to be the maiden, with the weight of robes tugging on her shoulders, and the itch of paint drying and cracking across her skin. Just another girl about to die like the many who had gone before her. Another name that would vanish like smoke, swallowed by legend and fire.
Ahead of her, Samsel waited, smiling.
He stood on the royal platform at the centre of the square, Calestran flags fluttering from its canopy and sconces burning at its corners. Swathed in purple robes emblazoned with leaping, golden dragons, he cut a tall, imposing figure against the coppery buildings around him. To his left, lingering at his shoulder, was Pataso, the new Royal Master. Cressyda wondered if Pataso had readily agreed to all of this or if he had tried to resist at all. She doubted the latter. There were not many who would dare to oppose a new king.
Her gaze drifted behind Samsel and the Royal Master, to the favoured councilmen and highborn courtiers in silken robes who flanked the royal dais. Theirs were the practised faces of men and women accustomed to the theatre of ceremony, schooled in watching without blinking. Their expressions were attentive, their complexions flushed from the roaring flames or perhaps from excitement. No one appeared concerned or remorseful on her behalf. Eyes darted towards her occasionally: curious, impersonaland cold. Her death was the price of peace, they would say. The necessary offering to keep the Great Dragon sated.
She looked from one courtier to the next, holding her breath for the figure that she did not think she could bear to see – but the Queen was not there. She scanned again, behind the courtiers, behind the guards, as if Queen Flavria might be tucked away in shadow. But no. The seat reserved for her at the edge of the platform sat empty, its cushion untouched.
Cressyda breathed out in relief.
She hoped the woman she had called ‘Mother’ these past eighteen winters knew nothing about what was happening. She hoped that Queen Flavria had been kept away from talk of the ceremony, that she had been shielded from the brutal truth of what was to come. Because if the Queen had known and done nothing – if she had allowed this to happen – then Cressyda would not be able to bear it.
The burning carriage juddered to a halt in front of the royal platform. Smoke billowed from its corners, curling up around the bars, clinging to Cressyda’s robes, her skin, her throat. The crowd had fallen into a tense silence. Then, with a sudden, coordinated fury, the drums that encircled the main square began to thunder. The cadence grew faster, harder. Cressyda could feel it reverberating through her, rattling her ribs and chattering her teeth. A final, shattering crescendo rang out, then it stopped.
Pataso stepped forward into the quiet. The sun caught the gold rings that adorned his hands and arms, flashing like sparks as he raised them skywards. His voice was low at first, nearly lost to the crackle of the torches, but it rose quickly, shaped by ancient syllables that carried power. The language of magic. His eyes grew wide and bright, and the spell unfurled from his mouth.
The air seemed to shift, as if inhaling in anticipation. Then a sudden gust surged through the square: something thick and charged. Magic. It crackled, rippling through the banners and shaking the cobblestones. Fires exploded into the sky in a blast of searing white, and heat swept through the crowd, forcing gasps. The very air screamed with brightness.
