Page 14 of The Heart Trials

I just have to get myself out of this mess.

When a guard pulls a slender yellow glass out of his pocket, I brace for the pinch of a Heartfiller at my chest.

“Bring her in clean,” their leader says.

Something hard strikes the back of my knees, and I hit the ground. I shove down the groan as pain stabs my legs. Then, I’m grabbed by the collar by two large men and dragged to the palace.

Like the trash they think I am.

When we reach the Citadel’s palace, I am covered in scrapes. A castle looms from jagged cliffs at the pinnacle of the island like the dregs of a bad dream. The Benevolent’s home is a palace of steel, gleaming coldly beneath a bright sky. Dark towering spires touch the clouds, sharp and angular, at dizzying heights. A river of fire surrounds the castle, fed by molten lava, pooling over the slick walls, green mist lurking on its surface. A bridge crossing the glowing moat extends before us, and my feet are lead. As if deep in my bones my body knows if I enter this place, I won’t come out.

Today was supposed to be a new beginning.

Mercyenforcers make me stand, and I roll my ankle, savoring the cold, sharp hope still securely hidden in my boot. When more arrive carrying Lucent’s body, palace servants—dressed in fabrics as fine as Lucent’s—race across the bridge toward us. One of them eyes me, then my clothes. She watches Lucent being carried behind us. Then she glares at me. Realizing I am gaping, I jerk my gaze to the ground, hoping I haven’t made it worse on myself.

“Why would you hurt Lucent?” the servant girl says, standing inches in front of me in fine silk shoes. “Lucent would never hurt anyone.”

“I didn’t hurt him.” The scorn in her tone doesn’t suggest she will believe me, but I give her the truth anyway, hoping foolishly that she sees something kindred in us. Her thick, curly hair may be tied up more elegantly than mine and the smell of her reminds me of the sickening scent in the park. But here, she’s a servant. She’s no better than I am. “He overdosed. I couldn’t stop him.”

There is silence for a moment.

“So he’s okay?” she asks, breathless. I look up, stealing a glimpse of her face, recklessly, wondering what it looks like to care. How it shows on the face freely. The glow of the fire below us gleams on the hardening angles of her smooth brown skin. I want good things for Serafina, Miss Omon, the others. Is that the same feeling she has for Lucent?

“You don’t even hide your defiance, looking at me right in the eye. You hurt him.” She looks me over. The color in her golden eyes darkens, but her expression shifts to confusion.

“Forgive me.” My gaze hits the ground. “And I didn’t hurt Lucent. I swear.”

“Then who did?”

When his body is carried past us, stretched out as still as death, inhuman sounds come from her like an animal dying a slow death. Suggesting she cares about Lucent in a way I don’t understand. A way that causes her pain. Like I care for Serafina, but different. Being in love, they call it. I slide a slight step back, putting more distance between us. There is a band of betrothal on her hand. She’s his fiancée. Engaged to a servant? A highborn servant, but still. How unusual.

“Wait, h-he’s—” Tears pour down her face, and I shift uncomfortably. She doesn’t wipe them away, and I find something else to look at. “They said he’d been hurt. They didn’t say he—” She struggles to stand. When she touches him, it breaks her. She weeps on her knees, shaking incessantly.

If this is what being in love with someone does to people, why would anyone choose it?

But watching her in such obvious pain makes me shift on my feet. Lucent wanted to help me or at least secure his end of the bargain. He was decent. For a Skyborn. And now he’s dead.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell her.

“You heartless witch,” another servant spits at me as she helps the grieving girl up. “Inside, Rhianne. Come on.”

The Mercyenforcers tug me along, led by their leader, who I’ve heard someone call Dreth, trailing the procession into the castle. We stop at the grand doors, where a pair of women with copper hair, sharp noses, skin like bronze sand, and eyes the color of moss after rain are waiting. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the younger one looking over the body before pulling her embroidered robe tightly around herself as she holds a tissue to her nose.

“She has the audacity to look at us,” the older one says as I pass, glaring at me with strained eyes, leaking with tears. I should look away, but I don’t. I stare at the tear dripping from her cheek, wondering what makes her more worthy of that feeling than me.

“What will happen to me?” I ask the Mercyenforcer holding my right arm once we’re inside.

But it’s Dreth that answers. “When the Benevolent is ready to hear from you, he will.”

The time to escape is slipping between my fingers.

The palace is unlike any building I’ve ever seen. In Skyhaven, everything is stone masonry, built of volcanic rock, with crevices that can be chipped at and worn down. Endless places to sneak in. But the Citadel and its palace are a fortress, built of slick steel.

Inside, time feels frozen. The air is too still. The windows in the Great Hall are high up, casting claws of shadows across sprawling, empty corridors. The placement of the views outside gives only a glimpse of cloudy sky. Not the bustling city outside. Not the people. Inside these walls, the rich ruler and his court are all that exist. In here, my district, my orphanage don’t exist. I don’t exist.

The craggy ceiling is held up by steel beams, towering higher than the largest stack of shacks in my district. Everything that isn’t dark is draped in deep-purple fabrics stitched with silver. The Skyborn crest is painted over archways, sewn into flags lining the corridors, and etched into the polished floor. The whole place feels rigid and impenetrable.

Framed on the wall is a portrait, taller than the palace doors, of the Benevolent, hard-mouthed and stoic.