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Memories rise: the prince running through the Moon District marketplace. Me, pulling him away from the crush of a horse-cart. We were barely more than children then. Felicita was still alive. It was long ago. “I don’t understand.” Every vein in my body pulses, aware of a danger I can’t place. “Is this a threat?”
There is always a price for defying destiny.
One life owed.
The boy must die
before summer’s end,
or you will burn.
“Why? But I didn’t—” My grip on the brush’s wooden handle shakes, the only tether I have to anything solid. My feet have gone numb.
The boy must die
for all tales must END.
Wind rushes through the room—or did I imagine it? Is this how Felicita went mad? I can’t really be talking to the gods. This is impossible.
The voices surge, deafening, solid enough to fill the dark:
IT IS TIME,
AT LAST, AT LAST,
BLOOD AND ROSES AND WAR.
I slam the end of the brush into the statuette. The top half of its body smashes to the ground. Black tendrils erupt from the marble stump, spiderwebbing down the fountain. A cackle bounces off the walls. I clutch my head, keening.
I’m going mad. This is mad. I scrabble around on the floor for anything to make the laughter stop, and I slice my hand on broken marble. I cry out at the bright pain. Lightning flashes. The room shudders, as if divinely struck.
YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF ANY LOVE THAT WILL SAVE YOU.
I breathe in smoke.
The tower bursts into flames.
I wake gasping from a memory of ash, hands curled around my throat, legs twisted in the sheets. Fire sears my skin for a white-hot second. Another blink, and the night is dark and cold. Above me, the gems studded into the tower’s ceiling wink, unburnt, as if they know what I saw.
Slowly, I unclench my hands from my neck.
Was it a prophecy or—? What else could it have been? A hallucination? It was so vivid.
It didn’t feel like any prophecy I’ve had. None have spoken directly to me before.
None havethreatenedme before.
Kicking off my covers, I crawl out of bed and put on my robe with trembling hands. A chilled wind rushes up my knees as I push through the balcony doors and press myself against the railing. Dawn is brightening. The scaly rooftops of the Sun Capital glimmer below. Beyond the city walls, the land dips into shadowed valleys.
“What do you want?” I say to the sky.
Nothing speaks back. Maybe because I don’t believe in the Fates’ influence, not truly, and what do gods do all day besides find the barest reason to be insulted?
Fog curls from my breath like smoke. The reminder of Felicita’s prophecy unsteadies me most:blood and roses and war.If the prophecy is true—if it’shere—
Why would it be because I saved Cyrus seven years ago?
Why would the Fates have wanted him to die?
