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I was not surprised she had refused to listen when I defended Dimitri, but I would never fall in line if that meant he would die. I was trapped between the two people who meant the most to me, and neither wanted to see me.
Dimitri had pushed me. Our conversations were like throwing myself off a building, never knowing where I would land. Living a lie, I had realized I always played a role. The meaning of freedom had changed, but not my longing.
I wanted to know who I could be. Where I belonged, just as I was.
I would find that place after I figured out a way to warn Dimitri and told the whole truth. Flora had echoed von Lemerch’s threat—the crown prince would not survive his weddingnight—and I had no idea if him marrying the real Helia instead of me would change anything.
His kisses burned in my mind. If I had said nothing, undressed, and shared my body instead, would I still be sitting here alone under the stars?
Was he thinking of me while breaking his fast with Helia? Or had I already been dismissed as a distraction, or worse, added to his list of revenge?
I had led him on, taken liberties without ever thinking I could hurt his feelings. That he could fall for someone like me had been too preposterous to consider.
I recognized it now. How I had avoided romantic entanglements for years only to throw myself at the one man I could never have. If he hated me, it was only right. He had thought me his bride when I had only been a thief in the night, stealing crowns and kisses. I had never tried to take his heart, but the whispered confessions showed he might have given me a part regardless.
My stomach rolled and temples throbbed with tears I could not let out. Never mine. Nothing was.Yet.
Chapter three
Vanya
After two more nights of searching through Tal, I’d found no flowers matching the drawing, no trace of my sister, and certainly no answers. Instead, each street held dissatisfied crowds shouting their displeasure and brandishing improvised weapons. Curfew was over, the fire burned out, fewer plague victims were carted off to the fire outside the city wall each day, but Tal was not the same place I left at the start of summer.
The pilgrims coming from all over the world to honor their ancestors in the City of the Dead eyed each other suspiciously, more people arrived daily from the steppe seeking work only to find none, and a bun cost as much as a whole loaf had a year ago. Below it all lay the common understanding that the king and nobility were to blame for the state of things. That change was needed, no matter the cost.
Despite the summer heat, many of the people I passed in the richer neighborhoods had cowls drawn up over their nose and glove-covered hands. The plague might no longer halt business, but it hovered in everyone’s mind.
I saw Lumi’s conviction mirrored in old and young. The red stick figure calling for blood was everywhere.
Walking from one drinking hall to the next between Lowtown and Rivertown, places neither Lumi nor I had visited, I grew more desperate in my questioning. At least I did not have to rely on descriptions, I just pointed to myself and asked if they had seen my short-haired twin.
Two blocks away from the Dragon Bridge stood the Drunken Dead, a drinking hall with neither music nor lorists telling tales. It was a place to drown your sorrows and gain a few more. The blood-red drawing stared down at the crowd from above the nicked bar, hopefully a sign that those less than satisfied with our rulers came here.
Despite the desperation and dissatisfaction hanging in the air, I smiled at the older man behind the bar.
“What’ll it be?” he asked, turning to me.
I placed a copper on the counter, keeping my fingers on it, but before I could even ask for Lumi, surprise raced through him as his eyes locked on my face. He knew me.He knew Lumi.
“You’ve seen her? My sister?”
“Sister? You look just like the painting.”
I blinked. “Painting?” I had only seen one picture carrying our likeness.
He snatched the coin from between my limp fingers. “Sorry love, he offered a lot more than copper and, well, I did owe his friend. He said he needs to return a lost shoe.”
I turned as the barkeep whistled and waved his arms at a patron leaning against the back wall.
My calves contracted. My breath stuttered. Every instinct screamed to run—forward and away—as I met his cold blue eye, the other hidden under an eyepatch and the brim of ahat. The short coat emphasized his broad shoulders and the muscles I knew hid underneath. Dark stubble shadowed his sharp jaw. Watching him was a dangerous addiction, longing for more a sure way to irreparably break my already fractured heart.
Unmoving, I straightened my back, ready for a battle or beating. Whatever he had to say, rejection or recrimination, there was more at stake than my fragile emotions.
As our gazes locked, the music inside me quieted.
His presence was impossible. The crown prince did not come to a place like the Drunken Dead. Did not dress like a commoner and consume the piss they served in this hole.
The magic whispered of his burning anger and rock-hard resolution, sweet longing, and piercing shock.
