Chapter 1
One moment it feels like everything you’ve ever wanted is within reach. The future you hoped for. The love you never believed was possible. The life you fought for, there at the edge of your fingertips. And then you reach out, certain it’s finally yours. You grasp hold, only to open your clenched hand and find there is nothing left in your palm but dust and ash.
I can’t go back into the ball – the ball held in my honour as the gifted.
I survived the Retterheld. More – I fuckingwonit.
Me. Rose Kultavaris.LadyRose Kultavaris.
I’ve been given a divine gift from the Great Goddess Etta herself, and I have never felt more ruined. My magic is restored, my title, my wealth … but what of my happiness?
Kay is furious with me. Kyor has walked away from me. Llin is dead. I am cripplingly alone.
I dreamed of this moment so many times. In the deprivation of the slums, I fantasised about this very heartbeat pulsing with magic. Yet now that it is here, I realise the depth of my foolishness. Wealth and magic may keep your stomach full and your skin warm, but they do nothing for your heart.
And mine is broken. Shattered beyond repair.
Kyor chose his crown over me – over us. The love I believed we shared was nothing more than an illusion. A twisted game from a twisted prince.
Snow drifts around me as I stumble away from the palace, only half-aware of the direction I am heading in – towards the courtiers’ arc. It’s where my family home once stood. It must be there still, and if so, then it should be mine now.Everythingtaken from me was to be returned. That was what I asked the Goddess for, and as she made good on my magic, I have no reason to doubt she will fulfil my wish.
Shuddering against the icy winds that bite at my skin, I stride through the High Hold, keeping my head low as occasional stragglers make their way to the ball. Once I am there, once I am home, I will let myself feel the magnitude of the betrayals that have torn my heart to shreds.
‘Lady Rose,’ an uncertain voice calls after me. ‘Lady Rose, may I speak with you for a moment?’
I pause but don’t turn around. Gods, I’m done for tonight. So done. I cannot bear to hear more false words of congratulations at my astounding feat, all while the wealthy wolves of Wrohelm share surreptitious looks, trying to work out whyIam the one Etta chose.
But the young woman speaks again. ‘Lady Rose, you are going home, are you not? I’m here to accompany you, m’lady.’
The deference in her tone and the way she says ‘m’lady’ tells me this isn’t a member of the court, so I turn.
The woman is of a similar age to me but dressed in the plain black-and-white smock of the palace housemaids, with the addition of a large rucksack on her back.
My breath quickens. Someone in the same uniform spoke to me at length earlier this evening, and the drawing she showed me was only the start of the heartache I’ve endured during what should have been my celebration. And I refuse to endure more. ‘If you’re here for Thea—’ I begin.
‘Thea? No,’ the maid interrupts, shaking her head. ‘I … I know nobody of that name, m’lady. No, no, I’m here because the priestesses sent me. I carry your possessions from the Retterheld as well.’ She gestures to the bag on her back. ‘I am yours.’
‘Mine?’ I question, only for her to dip into a curtsey.
‘Your housemaid.’
‘You mean you’re to work for me?’ I say, finally making sense of what she is telling me.
‘If it is agreeable to you?’ Her teeth worry her lower lip as though she is concerned I will send her back to tell the priestesses she failed to do as they requested of her. And part of me is tempted to. My life is ashes on the wind, a few smouldering embers in the grey that may well catch and burn anything they drift too close to. I do not need anyone to bear witness to that. But this young woman doesn’t know that. She has merely been tasked with a job. Possibly even chosen by the Goddess herself.
‘What is your name?’ I ask her.
‘Summer, m’lady.’ She curtseys again as she speaks.
I will need someone to help me with the house, even if I am to live there alone. The thought causes a deep throb to burn behind my ribs, and tears I refuse to shed in public threaten to show again.
‘Call me Rose,’ I reply, the decision as quick as the turn of my heel. ‘Come, we will go there now.’
We continue through the courtiers’ arc in silence. Every step is a trial in its own right, one in which I am forced to smother this searing emptiness that fills me. This isn’t what the return to my family home was supposed to be like. Me, alone with a maid about whom I know nothing but her name.
I dreamed that Kay would be by my side, as well as my friends. That there would be drinks, dancing, and laughter filling the air. I imagined a feeling like everything had suddenly fallen into place.
Victory was never about erasing the losses I had endured. I knew before I entered the Retterheld that even the Goddess couldn’t bring my murdered baby brother, Florian, back to me. Couldn’t bring my parents back. But it was meant to feel different from this. It was meant to feel like life could finally begin.
