Page 56 of Bride of Ash & Dust

But now, the truth of what I’ve done hits me in a way it never did before.

My brother sent Anura with me because he didn’t trust Vsenrog, she said. Or was it because he knew what I’d done?

I remember Zarek telling me he’d heard the rumors, and suddenly, the back of my throat tastes bitter.

“Did you have a plan?” I whisper. My voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. “On the wedding night. If things— If they didn’t go well?”

Anura’s hand squeezes my arm. “Of course,” she says.

I force myself to swallow. “What was it?”

Anura shifts on the bench. I straighten, turning toward her as she looks away.

“What was it?” I ask again.

Anura waves her hand in the dark, like it doesn’t matter.

“I had some ox blood,” she admits. “I came into the room after he left. You were asleep. But I could tell I didn’t need it.”

She sounds relieved. I feel like I’m going to throw up. Did the entire godsdamned castle know about Blayne and me? Is that why she gave me the painkilling drugs? So I’d be unconscious if she needed to spill ox blood on the sheets?

“What if that…hadn’t been enough?” I ask.

Anura sighs. She looks up at the lonely stars dancing in the sky, then back at me.

“Do you remember the hunting cabin?” she asks. “The one that was a wedding present for your mother?”

My eyes sting, and I blink. Of course I remember that cabin. It’s near the new mine, but that’s not why thinking about it makes my chest ache.

I used to love going there, to the retreat tucked into the western mountains just above the headwaters of the Marion River. Elrick, Anura, and I would run through the woods like wild animals when we visited that cabin, drinking from mountain streams, eating wild berries, and collapsing in a pile on the wooden bunks at night.

The last time we went, we discovered clay in the riverbed and spent all day making little pots. I’d been old enough to know the mud on my clothes would be a problem, and I hid behind the woodpile when it was time for dinner.

They found me, of course. Elrick tried to stop my father. One of the guards held him back as my father took off his belt to hit me.

We didn’t go back to the cabin after that. I thought it was abandoned.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I remember.”

“That’s our meeting place,” Anura says. “If things go wrong.”

She falls silent. The sound of music drifts out of some secret place in the palace, weaving with the gentle splash of the fountain and the rustle of fresh leaves.

If things go wrong, she said. Not if they went wrong on my wedding night. If they still go wrong.

I tilt my head to stare at the stars. The castle of Marion was never this beautiful. Half of it was closed off, the rooms filled with moldering furniture, wind whistling through the windows’ empty panes. Even the parts we lived in were cold and quiet. I remember feeling jealous of Anura and the cozy room she shared with her mother in the servants’ quarters.

Still, I felt safe in Marion.

I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe here.

Chapter 31

Zarek

THE MAN IN WHITE

The new clothes are a bad sign.