“What’s that ringing sound?”
The man frowns, looking at me even funnier than he was before. “There is no ringing sound, Orlaith.”
I don’t think that’s my name …
“Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei. Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei—”
The sound raises a pitch—or ten—and my vision goes wobbly, like something inside me is trying to shake loose. The pain in my ears grows until my right one feels hot, my eardrum swelling with a pulsing pressure that’sbuckling.Like my entire skeleton is trying to shuck its skin and worm through my right ear.
I rip my hand free and use it to cup the hurt, blocking the teeny, tiny exit, features twisting as the hazy fog draped across my brain seems to suction out of the hole like sand flowing through an hourglass. My earpops,like when I dive too deep without equalizing, and whatever was trying to worm out snaps back into place so hard and fast only the man holding onto my hand keeps me from whipping sideways.
“Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei. Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei—”
Things bead back to me like fat raindrops wetting the sun-scorched soil …
Coupling ceremony.
Promises.
“Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei. Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei—”
My mental focus sharpens the image of the man holding me steady, frowning. “Are you okay?”
Cainon.
Poisonous lips.
“Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei. Vliagh, ashten de na, malika nei—”
Him … gone.
The last one is not a drop at all, but a drenching.
Adrowning.
My squishy mind hardens to full, devastating focus, like I’ve just been picked up out of one place and dropped into another. I have no idea which way is north. How long it’s been since those doors closed on Kolden.
I have no idea where the girl went—the one I danced beneath the moon with.
But Cainon and I, we’re kneeling on a massive bed of white pillows and throws, and that can only mean one thing …
Panic riots through me as I check my dome, finding it strong and secure, relief almost crumbling me, though I paint another layer atop it just to be certain. “I’m fine,” I lie, giving him a sweet, poisonous smile.
The chanting stops.
An eerie silence befalls us. So quiet, I can hear the constant workings of my body: the snap of a blink; thewhooshof my heart squeezing; the way my lungs squish with every breath I pull.
Something cool I cannot see or smell brushes against my face, leaving a prickly trail that makes my heart skip a beat I’m certain everybody can hear.
I look up into Cainon’s eyes, a rumbling sound boiling in his chest like a greedy promise.
Poisonous lips.
My gaze is drawn sideways, to where the High Septum and each of the robed Shulák are filing out between two of the towers, disappearing through the curtain.
“Where are they going?” My voice is too loud,screamingeven though the words were whispered.
“The palace sky roof. They’ll bow before the moon until it sinks,” Cainon says, taking on that deeper tone he gets when he’s hungry.
