His eyes tightened, and his mouth pulled down at one corner. “Why?”
Nocturne breathed in deeply, her fingers grasping at the blankets. “All my life, I’ve watched the people around me die. Watched them hurt in ways I couldn’t even imagine.” Her voice began to shake. “And I’ve failed every time. Failed to save them, failed to bring their murderers to justice. And after what you did for me, after you saved me from those Crows… It was the least I could do to repay you.”
A heavy and suffocating silence settled over the room.
“Nocturne—,” The general took a deep breath. Nocturne waited, her heart pounding. The naked truth in her words hung in the air between them. She felt exposed, like a turtle stripped of its shell. Finally, he continued, “He’ll kill us both. We’re lucky we’re still alive. He wants no weakness in his leaders, least of all me.”
There was a stabbing sensation in her chest. “And I am a weakness,” she whispered in conclusion.
The look in his eyes was answer enough.
Nocturne stiffened. How had her confession led to this? She’d dared to carve out a window in that wall she’d built in front of her heart—and this was what she got in return.
“If he doesn’t kill us by dawn, he will eventually,” the general said. “Sooner than later.”
It might’ve been the fresh wounds reopening in her back with the smallest movement, or it might’ve been a fool’s hope she should’ve squashed when it had first begun to burn, but she whispered, “So we run.”
The general snorted. Nocturne’s eyes, now burning with tears, flashed up to meet his. There wasn’t a trace of humor in his expression, only indifference. Somehow, that was worse.
“Run?” he repeated. “Nocturne, I refuse to run from him. I keep him from hurting more people than he would if someone like Zenaide was in charge. As long as I am here, the North is free.” She had no idea what he meant, and it only made her more furious.
“No.” The one word was a barely audible croak. “As long as you’re here, we are all slaves. The moment we fight back is the moment we regain our freedom.” She got up and strode for the door, shoving past him. He didn’t even deign to look at her, not even when he spoke.
“I think it’s a good idea that we remain apart for a while,” he said. Nocturne paused, one hand on the door handle. “The last thing I want is for you to get hurt, any more than you already have, because of me.”
She couldn’t breathe. It felt like a hole had been punched through her chest. Her eyes were burning, and her throat was so tight, she couldn’t swallow.
“Keep letting fear drive you, General.” Nocturne’s tone was scathing. “One day you’ll learn it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
~
Kit followed Nocturne at a distance, out into the frozen courtyard, if only to keep her safe from whatever else might be waiting to hurt her. There was no way she would endure another hint of pain tonight—not if he could help it.
But as he rounded the corner and found Nocturne staring at the tree of ice gleaming in the center of the courtyard, he realized physical pain was his least concern tonight.
The wolf the king had kept as a pet for years was hanging from a branch by a length of rope. Her eyes were blind in death, her ribs showing through her skin.
Holy Skies—
Without turning around, Nocturne rasped, “It’s her, isn’t it?”
Kit cleared his throat, buying himself time as he struggled to find the right words. “Yes.” The wolf’s name was Annette Wycherley. She was Nocturne’s aunt; Kit had smelled the blood they shared the moment Nocturne had arrived here. Hoping she would simply never figure it out, he had opted not to tell her that her aunt was kept prisoner here. Now, it was only another thing to add to his endless list of regrets.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice hollow as a drum. “Why wait so many years to kill her? Why trap her with those shackles and keep her here like—like somedog?”The shackles on Annette’s paws were made of iron, the metal preventing her from shifting back into a Fey, though everything he’d heard of the woman suggested she’d perhaps lost the ability.
“For a statement,” said Kit, his throat tight. “A warning to not…help people.”To not help Killian and Sable,he corrected internally.
Nocturne continued to stare at the glistening branch from which her aunt hung as she spoke. “When I was six, or perhaps seven, I remember walking past the cornfield behind my house. I was fascinated by scents, and I’d followed a peculiar smell to the Tyrrhenia River, where I stumbled upon a wolf…and two barefoot children.”
“Killian and Sable,” the general whispered.
“The wolf was Annette,” Nocturne continued. “A few years before, she’d lost her husband. She was with child, and shortly after he passed away, she miscarried. She was so upset that she fled into the woods in her wolf skin, forsaking our village and the world of men.” She turned, her eyes finding his. They were moon-gray—the color of emptiness. “Even though I was too young to understand a lot of things, I knew who the children were—I knew they were Killian and Sable. They had a hefty price on their heads—enough to feed my family for the coming winter. But I knew…I knew what they symbolized for the world. I knew, for some people, they meanthope.”
There was a heavy pause, and the wind set the rope groaning. Nocturne’s bottom lip trembled as she watched the shadow of her aunt’s body sway across the snow. “I never spoke of that day in the woods—not to anyone. I refused to be the one who damned the world.”
The general remained silent. Even if he’d wanted to speak, he wasn’t certain he could find the words. Sometimes, silence was so much louder.
“It didn’t do much good in the end, but at least they had more time.” She turned again to face the tree. The moonlight had transformed the branches of ice into silver. “That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it? More time.”
