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The flower storm buckles, and the white petals flutter to the ground like snowflakes. They melt off Vallda’s face. She stays on her side, curled up. Red scrapes fill her cheeks and around her lips from where she’d fought to save herself.
Heaving breaths wrack her body, but she breathes.
“Papa!” Still bleary-eyed and sniffling, I fling myself into his arms.
My father tucks me against his side and spins toward Vallda, dropping at once to his knees beside her. He pulls her close with his other arm and bows his head over her trembling form. I can’t hear his whispers, but her gasps gradually subside. She sinks against his chest. A shaking hand grasps at his pale tunic.
I peek past his arm at the tree. The rot still spikes up its trunk. The white petals spilled around its base form a halo. The smells of moldering wood and flowers overwhelm me.
Papa lets out a slow, even breath. “What happened?”
Vallda looks between us. Her chin trembles. Then, with a wail, she lurches out of his embrace. “She tried to kill me! With the flowers!”
Papa’s searing green eyes lock on me. “You did this?”
Stinging overtakes my nose, my throat, and I bow my head. “I-I don’t know — I don’t…”
“Alia.” His voice sharpens. “Did…” The words trail into a huff. “Vallda, sweetheart, are you all right?”
A sniff. I glance over and shrink at the terror still glinting in Vallda’s amber eyes.
“I’m fine. Just — just keep her away from me!” With that, she spins on her heel and takes off.
“Vallda!” Papa stands us up and takes a step after her, then sighs and looks down at me. “Are you all right?”
More tears fill my eyes. “I-I didn’t mean to —”
“I know, love. I know.” He scoops me into his arms and presses my cheek to his chest. “It’s all right.”
The memory crumples, and through a mist, Sovanna stares at me. Her eyes narrow in thought. She touches another spot on my forehead. Her whisper eludes me. Perhaps she speaks to Vallda, not me.
Beside her, even harder to see with the mist, Vallda’s brows draw together. She snaps her gaze away. One hand drifts toward her mouth.
A cold, unfamiliar female voice tinges the air. “Do it.”
Sovanna’s touch shifts. The room tilts sideways. Sovanna now grips my head between her hands and murmurs something about time. From behind me, another touch comes. Slender fingers stretch over my skull. The same sensation of cold and hot streaks through me. But as if my bones have turned brittle, I can’t make myself move away from it.
A groan slips out of me. Then a whimper.
The images in my head sparkle, distort. And once again clear.
I stand alone in the halls just beyond our quarters. The heels of my glass slippers clink on the stone as I hurry toward the ballroom. As I hurry to meet Kirran. Down halls I know, though I don’t pass anyone I recognize. Or really anyone at all.
Just before I reach the ballroom, a figure appears in the corridor ahead of me. Tall, dark, and dressed in fine golds and reds. The crown glitters atop his head.
My steps slow as he shifts to face me.
The king —
“Wait!” My voice cracks from somewhere outside of me, and I try again. “Wait, this isn’t what you said —”
Fingers dig against my head from every side, voices rise in an unintelligible flurry, and I sense myself falling backward. Sunlight flashes. Brown and red all around me. All of me straining, struggling to break free of iron holds. Ripping fabric as the dress Kirran gave me catches on one of the branches of the chair. Words I can’t make out. Something about fixing the dress.
My own voice, begging them not to do this. To please let me go.
And then everything fades beneath the sound of the king’s voice as the world darkens around me.
* * *
