She felt Lirabel frown. “What? I’m not—”
“If you needed help—any kind of help—you would come to me, wouldn’t you?”
Lirabel fell silent.
“Yes,” she said after a long time. “If I need help, I’ll come to you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
Roa’s grip on her friend loosened—just a little.
“No matter what happens,” she whispered, thinking of the baby in Lirabel’s belly. Thinking of Theo and what they were planning to do. “I’ll keep you safe.”Both of you.
Lirabel wrapped her arms around Roa’s waist, squeezing her tight.
They fell asleep like that. Holding on to each other.
Sisterless
On the night they burned her, the girl couldn’t look away.
The wind howled with sorrow as she watched them wrap her sister’s body in cotton and lay her on the pyre. She saw them strike the flint, again and again, until the sparks caught the tinder and the fire blazed, devouring the one she loved best.
She’d seen her sister fall. Heard the sickening crack when her body hit the ground, four stories below. Felt the hum roar in her ears, louder and fiercer than ever.
But she never felt her sister’s life wink out. Instead, she felt the bond glow brighter and stronger between them.
It was glowing even now.
Maybe that was why she didn’t cry. Why she turned away when the messenger came and whispered something to her father.
“Amina—the queen—is dead. Killed by the king.”
The girl saw her father’s wet eyes go wide. He turned back, away from the pyre, looking over the fields and down the dirt road, all the way back to the House of Song.
Where a mob was gathering.
The sight of their torches made the girl’s breath catch.
The son of the king was inside that house. Alone and unprotected.
“They intend to strike at the king by striking his son,” her father realized aloud.
“Perhaps you should let them,” said the messenger. “That son isresponsible for the death of your own daughter. How many more horrors will he be responsible for once he’s grown?”
Her father was no longer listening. He was grabbing his horse. He mounted, kicked the mare, and was gone.
The girl looked back to the funeral. To the mourners who’d smeared their foreheads with ash. To her wailing mother and her weeping brother and that raging blaze.
Her sister wasn’t on that pyre.
Her sister wasn’t here at all.
So the girl went after her father.
When she arrived at the House of Song, the mob had reached the doors. The girl pressed her horse on, pushing her way up to the house. Men and women wept and shouted. Some wielded weapons and scythes, while others brought only their fists.
