And I don’t care at all.
This Grace is useless. Absolutely useless if it can’t bring Amriel back to me. Which it can’t, so I rub at my sternum, as if I can physically push down the ache there.
Right now, I need to feel nothing. Dead. Numb. Blank. I won’t survive until tomorrow, otherwise.
“Excuse me,” I say, “but I don’t feel well. I think I need to go to bed.”
My father’s frown deepens, but to my surprise, he doesn’t fight. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. At the treasury. Be there at noon.”
It’s not a question. I’m not being asked.
I’m being directed. Pointed. Utilized.
How strange to think that this was all I ever wanted. But my mind was so small then, so inexperienced. I had no idea what life could truly consist of, how many colors exist in this world beyond the drab grays and browns of Aethrolia.
Now they’re colors I’ll never see again. Because even if I could return to Velindra, I don’t know that I could stand it. Every room and hallway, every firefly wandering past…they would only remind me ofhim. Each one would be another crack driven through my heart, another knife jabbed into my guts.
With a heavy sigh, I push back my chair. Evelyn glances up, her brow crooking in concern, but I wave off her attempts to stand. I just want to be alone. At least in the darkness of my own bedroom, I can close my eyes and pretend that Amriel is sleeping beside me. That we’ll wake up together in the morning and this will all be okay.
Upstairs, I slide into bed without bothering to take my dress off. My descent is more of a collapse than anything else, and I end up on my side, my cheek mashed against the rough-spun sheets, my arm wedged awkwardly beneath me. My hand deadens in moments, but I don’t bother to rearrange myself.
I sleep.
Dreams don’t touch me, but disembodied sounds invade my rest—bones breaking, limbs cracking. A body hitting the earth.
The sounds of the end of the world.
When I wake, my eyes are puffy slits, my cheeks wet. A moment of panic overtakes me as emotion bubbles to the surface, but I stuff it back down—the grief, the ache, the raw, consuming rage. It all ends up in a lockbox that I lash shut and stash in my deepest recesses.
I know I’ll have to feel everything, eventually. But right now, all at once…I don’t trust it not to kill me.
Dawn buds outside. I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, forcing myself to think of something else. Mostly my Grace, because I don’t understand why I’ve earned it now, after renouncing Ishanna. Does that mean the goddess is real? Does she grant each Vandenore magic, after all? Or is my Grace simply in my blood, an inevitability that comes from being born into the royal family? Maybe our magic manifests at whatever time it likes, regardless of what we’ve done, what rules we’ve obeyed. Or maybe, if Ishannadoes exist, this is my reward for finding my own truth. Maybe she never intended me to belong to her at all.
I think until my brain spins in circles, then I give up.
At the end of the day, I don’t actually care anymore.
I only care about escaping this room. I can’t keep lying here atop this tear-stained pillow, breathing this stale air, so I drag myself from bed and into the hall. The castle is quiet, most everyone still at morning prayer.
My absence there will have been noticed, but oh, well. I’m not setting foot in that temple again.
I shuffle down the corridor, then to the floor below, making my way to the castle library more by accident than by choice.
But once I find myself staring at the rows of leather-bound spines, an idea hits. I make for the far wall and locate the Registry of Graces. The book is heavy, enough to make my arms ache as I lower it to the floor and pry back the cover. I sift through dusty pages until I land on Alanna’s.
Cursecraft, her entry says.
I sit back on my heels. I knew that, and I never doubted Amriel’s story—I saw the truth in his mind. Still, anger creeps through me as I contemplate the ancient ink. Did Aethrolia know what their queen had done? What truly started the war?
Maybe. Or maybe not. I’ll probably never actually know.
I turn a few more pages, eventually landing on mine.Sariah Vandenore, age 28, it says. And beside that,duplication. Whoever inked the entry has underlinedduplication, as if marking my Grace as noteworthy.Which it is. I can create an unlimited supply of money, or valuables, or whatever strikes my father’s fancy.
I don’t even know the name of the last Vandenore who could.
Easy enough to find out, though. I flip backward and eventually land on someone named Elyria, who was apparently Graced with duplication three hundred and twenty-six years ago.
Her entry is underlined, too.
