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The verse broke from my lips, sourced from a long-ago memory. A Spring night when two enemies met in a secluded castle hallway.
I thumbed the strip of red.“Alas, Princess,”I choked out.“You’re not alone.”
The torrent poured down my face. Even so, I felt the moment it happened, when the first tear surfaced.
My hand clenched the ribbon. His name fell from my lips. “Poet.”
12
Briar
My head snapped up. As rain battered my eyelashes, my gaze widened and leaped across the dark expanse. All the while, that single tear rolled down my cheek and blended with the downpour.
Alas, Princess. You’re not alone.
No, I was not alone. Because he was here.
My jester was here.
A suffocated noise clotted the back of my throat. Not a sob. Nor a cry. It was something deeper, wrenching from the pit of my stomach, long contained but now rising to the surface. My lips shook, and my chin wobbled.
Still holding the ribbon, I whirled on rickety limbs, swerving this way and that. My wild eyes jumped from a neighboring bridge to a firepit recess, then sprang across other levels. Beyond the immediate area, the deluge blurred most of the treehouses.
Poet.
Mouthing his name, I tore my gaze along the vista. No shadow. No outline. But I felt his presence as I felt the torrent—epic, all-consuming, washing over me.
Although my jester liked to make a spectacle, he held back rather than showing himself. Suddenly, I understood why. Glancing at the soaked ribbon in my grip, I knew. He had promised to find me. Now it was my turn to find him—if I wanted to. The jester had targeted me, but this ribbon wasn’t staking its claim. It was giving me a choice.
My heart rammed into my chest, my pulse beating so violently I thought it might snap me in half. He would break me all over again.
I squeezed the ribbon tighter. By Seasons, I had always sensed whenever he was near, could measure his breathing, feel the intensity of his stare. Now I followed that hyperawareness until my gaze landed on another red blot in the distance.
Pebbles danced across my flesh. I beheld the sight like an electric jolt.
Poet.
My fingers yanked, ripping the first ribbon from its post. And then I ran.
Breaking into a sprint, I surged back the way I’d come. Rounding a sharp corner, I flew along a walkway threaded in wet leaves and reached the next ribbon. This one entwined a drooping branch that bobbed under the tempest. I snatched the length of fabric and continued.
My bare feet splashed through puddles. The flimsy material of my nightgown clung to my upper body like an adhesive, but the drenched hem slapped my calves as I darted from one crossway to another. While the rain poured in thick sheets, I catapulted over bridges and past decks.
I pursued the trail, smashing my way through the storm and tracking down the ribbons, each one affixed to a different place. On a treehouse doorknob. On the hinge of a window sash. Around a railing bar. At the end of a bridge. At the beginning of a stairway. I seized every band in my fist, barely pausing for breath.
Here and there, I twisted my head and spun in full circles. My eyes skewered the landscape, searching desperately, hunting furiously.
I will find you.
The wind kicked up, flinging the rain sideways. Yet I did not feel cold. My body heated with exertion as I raced to a set of winding stairs, grasped the railing, and clambered to the next level.
Every part of me went up in flames.
My blood. My heart. My skin. My breath.
More hot tears stung my lashes, threatening to spill. Despite that, my teeth clenched. Damn this jester and his theatrics.
Joy. Anguish. Terror. Hunger.
