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My hand fell away. “Then I’ll show you.”
“Now,” he whispered as if stopping himself from shouting. “Don’t think to disappear again.”
I needed to earn back his trust, both so I could reveal the letter’s contents and because I could not bear adding to the sea of grief I knew he carried. Surely, he could not believe it all a lie.
“I’m at your service,” I said, trying to annoy him enough to break through the hard surface.
“You’re not mine at all. You never were,” he answered without a flicker of emotion. “I know your name, nothing more.”
Last time we touched, I shared not my body but my Spirit. He had seen all of me. If anyone knew who I was, it was him.
“You know me better than the foreign princess you were determined to marry to please your father.”
His body tensed. “And I thought she wanted so little to do with me that she tried to steal her own crown. Instead, her aunt hired a Lowtown look-alike, and I could not even tell the difference. Were they planning to reveal the ploy after the wedding and make me a laughingstock?” He glared down at me. “You were clearly sent toseduce me. I might have wanted you, Tempest, but I’m not letting my guard down again. You hold answers I need, nothing more.”
I swallowed past my longing to prove him wrong by reaching out, placing my hand on his cheek, and trying to kiss the hurt away. If anything more was to happen between us, he would have to make the first move. I was not trading affection for trust—if such a thing was even possible.
“You might not believe me, but I stayed in Tal to help.”
He raised an eyebrow. “With the missing food and hunting robbers?”
I nodded despite being caught off guard by his words. I was at least hunting one very specific rebel—hopefully he was not hunting the same.
My sister wanted him dead. Had told me to do it. I thought only of that, remembering the look in Lumi’s eyes, the drive for revenge in her heart.That’s what I’m talking about, I told the magic.I’m not telling secrets.
“There’s someone who wants to kill you.”
“I’m sure many want me dead.” He leaned down until his breath mingled with mine. “I even suspected you might, but you had too many chances. Watching me sleep, breaking into my chambers, finding me even in the furthest courtyard…”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, Tempest. If you’re trying to warn me of a threat, tell me plainly.”
The choking magic returned with force until I could only shake my head.Lumi, I’m only talking about Lumi. But no matter how many times I repeated the words, part of me tried to figure out a way to tell him everything.
“Tempest?” Dimitri said as if he was repeating himself. “Does it have anything to do with the Spirit of Lowtown?”
The words snapped me back and the magic let me go. “Spirit?”
He pointed at the human-sized drawing in what looked like blood on a wall we passed.
“You say you want to help. It’s everywhere we search. Riders return from abandoned but seemingly untouched farms, finding it in the barns. It’s known as the Spirit of Lowtown, but I don’t see what it has to do with anything outside the city. Alexei told me it symbolizes rebellion and the Goddess, death and anger.”
I no longer knew when I had spotted the first one. A bloody stick figure demanding the matching blood of our rulers. A foreigner would not know it, but I no longer had to pretend ignorance. This was not von Lemerch’s secret. As night settled and the first Spirits appeared above the streets, I talked.
“They’re death calling for death. The Goddess’s wrath on Tal. Or so people say. I think they first appeared here three or perhaps four years ago and then spread to the rest of the city. That’s how they got their name.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if asking me to continue. If this was how I regained some of his trust, I was happy to talk.
“All know death walks the streets of Tal. Only the palace remains untouched.” I swallowed, then pressed on. This was common bar talk, no secrets or conspiracies, but telling the Crown Prince of Tal, no matter how well I knew him, gave the words weight. “The plague came, and the dead were burned, forbidden the honor of the Bone Grove. Some whisper that when the Goddess walks with the lost, that soon blood will flow and the palace walls crack, because there is no stopping death. That’s what it means, but it’s just talk. A prayerto the Goddess from the poor desiring change.”Or those like my sister, willing to fight for it.
I could not say von Lemerch had collaborated with priestesses wearing the bloody stick figure, could only hope his questions would lead him to her.
He steered me down another street and though this was my Tal, I barely registered where we were going.
The ground was muddy and lanterns far between when he pushed me into a burned-out house and against the blackened remnants of a wall.
Near absolute darkness enveloped us. The sounds of people arguing and laughing in the surrounding buildings became distant parts of Lowtown’s song.
