Daphne
and the others begin the journey back to Eldevale the morning after spoke with Violie, and the trip seems to pass quicker than it did on the way out. As rides through the woods, she realizes that she’s actually enjoyed her time away from the castle far more than she believed she would, and as she looks around the barren trees with their branches draped in glittering snow, the Tack Mountains on the northern horizon, the way the stars are so much brighter out here, with so many more of them visible, she realizes that she no longer thinks of Friv as the ugly, frigid wasteland she believed it to be when she arrived here from Bessemia.
She thinks it might actually be beautiful, in its own way. She thinks she might be sad when the day comes for her to leave.
The thought catches her by surprise. The future has always been set in stone for her, but that’s no longer the case. It occurs to her suddenly that her future might not lie in Bessemia at all, tucked back safely beneath her mother’s wing. Her future could take her anywhere. It could even keep her here, in Friv.
Once, that idea would have horrified her.
Now, looking around not just at the winter wonderland of a forest but at Bairre, Cliona, and the others, she doesn’t feel horrified. She still feels homesick for Bessemia, for her sisters, even for her mother, despite everything, but she thinks that if she were back in Bessemia now, she might just feel even more homesick for Friv.
—
At the inn they stop at midway between Lake Olveen and Eldevale, takes the liberty of going to Bairre’s room instead of her own, sitting at the foot of his bed and waiting for him to arrive after he tends to the horses and makes sure that everyone else is settled. When he eventually walks through the door, he stops short at the sight of her. The moment hangs tense between them and expects that if she lets him, he’ll turn around and walk out that door again, preferring to sleep in the stable rather than speak with her after she went behind his back with Cliona.
She decides not to let him.
“My mother raised my sisters and me to marry the princes of Vesteria, but that wasn’t our only goal,” she blurts out.
Bairre hesitates a second longer. This isn’t anything he doesn’t already know, but hearing the words from her mouth seems to stun him. Finally, he closes the door and steps into the room, waiting for her to continue.
In her mind, she hears her mother call her a fool, feels her disappointment all the way from Bessemia. She wishes it didn’t still steal her breath, the knowledge that she is letting her mother down, but it does. It doesn’t, however, last.
“We were instructed not just in diplomacy and the language and culture of our future countries but in the princes we would marry themselves, and in skills that would help us bring them and their countries to ruin so that our mother could claim them for her own.”
That shocks him. She can practically see his mind whirling, putting together everything he knows about what happened in Temarin, squaring it with everything he knows about her, everything he knows she’s done since arriving in Friv. He drops his gaze from hers, but instead of walking out, he moves farther into the room, sitting in the worn armchair near the fire. He doesn’t look at her, but she knows he’s listening.
“I knew all about Cillian,” she continues, the words coming quick now, like the rush of a river when a dam is broken. “I learned archery because I knew he liked archery, I read poetry because he liked poetry—much as I hated it myself. You said once that he was mad about me, just through the letters I sent him. That wasn’t an accident, Bairre. My mother had spies in your court, telling me everything I needed to know to make him mad about me. I knew he was a kind person, and I knew just how to use that kindness against him.”
She hates saying the words, as much as she hates the flash of disgust on Bairre’s face when she says them, but she feels freer, too, laying her secrets out before him.
“And then I came here and you…you made everything more complicated because you weren’t Cillian, and I had no idea how to control you, how to destroy you. And, on top of that, the wedding kept getting— keeps getting postponed. All my mother’s plans, seventeen years in the making, and I keep failing.”
“Did you fail?” he asks, the first words he’s spoken since he entered the room. “My father’s seal—you did steal it somehow.”
nods. “He has a duplicate, made with stardust Cliona gave me,” she says. “I sent the real one to Temarin, to Sophie, who was supposed to use it to forge a letter from your father, offering his support to Leopold in a war between Temarin and Cellaria.”
More gears turn in Bairre’s mind. “That forgery never happened,” he says.
’s throat tightens, but she doesn’t let herself cry. Not because she’s afraid to or embarrassed to but because she knows if she does, Bairre will comfort her, and she doesn’t want that. This isn’t about her comfort. She swallows and forces herself to continue.
“Sophie changed her mind,” she says. “She wrote a letter to me, telling me as much, begging me to stand with her because our mother’s plan was wrong. I couldn’t hear it, didn’t believe it. I was so angry with her, Bairre, for not being able to do the one thing she’d been born to do, the one thing we needed her to do. I didn’t…” She breaks off, tears blurring her vision, but she blinks them away. “I didn’t know where that would lead.”
Bairre is quiet for a moment. “You said that Leopold believed your mother was responsible for Sophronia’s death,” he says. “Did she kill Sophronia for disobeying her?”
laughs, but there is no mirth in the sound. “No, as it turns out,” she says. “My mother orchestrated her death because that was always her plan. To kill Sophronia in order to claim Temarin, to kill Beatriz in order to claim Cellaria…”
“To kill you in order to claim Friv,” he finishes.
manages a jerky nod.
“The assassins,” he says slowly. “Was your mother behind that?”
It isn’t until he says the words that considers that idea. Could her mother have hired them? hadn’t had much of a chance to do anything in Friv yet, but maybe Cillian’s death had made the empress skittish. Maybe she already counted as a failure by then, and it was easier to kill her quickly and take Friv by force as retribution.
“I don’t know,” admits. “But it’s certainly possible.”
“Why are you telling me this now, ?” Bairre asks, and the way he says her name revives just a small spark of hope. He can’t hate her and say her name that way, but then, she isn’t done yet.
“I insisted on coming on this trip because my mother sent me a letter—well, two letters. The first was vague, but her meaning was clear to me: that if Leopold found his way to me, I would kill him. His being alive is a threat to her rule, after all. Keeping him alive was Sophronia’s final strike against her, and a good one. I didn’t know where he was exactly, but I knew he was near—Violie had visited me, and she told me as much, though she was wise enough not to trust me with more information. The second letter came after the princes had been kidnapped. She said she had reason to believe they were near Lake Olveen, and that I should find them and…well, the words she used were that the only way to protect myself, Beatriz, and her was for the princes to disappear altogether. She told me to leave nothing to chance, that I should take care of them how I saw fit, though she recommended a poison that would be ‘merciful.’?”
“Stars above, !” he exclaims, raking a hand through his hair. “You insisted on coming on Cillian’s starjourn for the opportunity to murder children?”
“I didn’t do it,” she replies, though to her own ears it’s a hollow defense. “Obviously. I changed my mind.”
“The fact that your mind needed changing—”
“I know,” interrupts, wincing. “I won’t defend it, I can’t. And I can’t tell you that if things had unfolded differently, I wouldn’t have done it. I wish I could, Bairre. But my mother…I’ve never known how to say no to her. She’s never presented it as an option.”
“Your sister did,” he points out.
“Both my sisters did,” corrects, thinking about Beatriz, the last letter she sent, warning her as plainly as she could, though had dismissed her as being dramatic. “And I should have much earlier, but I am now. It’s why I sent Gideon and Reid to safety, where I don’t even know their location. It’s why Leopold is still alive and well, though I’ve had plenty of opportunities to fix that. I don’t want to follow her orders anymore, Bairre.”
Bairre finally looks at her, but his expression is inscrutable. He’s still here, though, which is more than dared to hope for. He’s still listening to her.
“Then what do you want?” he asks.
A handful of answers flit through her mind. I want you. I want to see Beatriz again. I want vengeance for Sophronia’s death. All of them are true, but none of them are the whole truth. She settles on the truest answer she can give him.
“I don’t know.” The words come out quiet, barely audible even in the otherwise silent room.
Bairre nods slowly before finally getting to his feet and crossing to the door. He opens it. “Get some sleep, . We’re leaving at first light.”
stares at him for a moment, unsure what to make of her dismissal, though his use of we makes her feel slightly optimistic. He isn’t tossing her out now, banishing her from Friv or having her arrested on any number of charges. But when she gets to her feet and walks past him out the door, he takes a step back to avoid even brushing against her, as if she is poison personified, and somehow that one small gesture hurts her worse than any angry words could have.
—
Despite Bairre’s advice, when returns to her room, she can’t sleep. Cliona’s bed is empty—a fact that doesn’t quite surprise . She’d wager she’s with Haimish, which is grateful for because she doesn’t know how to be around another person just now.
Instead of sleeping, she finds a blank piece of parchment and a quill and inkpot in her trunk, bringing them to the desk and sitting down. She stares at the blank sheet of paper for what feels like eons, Bairre’s words echoing in her head. Then what do you want?
It isn’t quite midnight, and the voices of other patrons still filter up the stairs to her, but she tries to ignore them and focus on what to say to Beatriz. She picks up her quill, dips it into the inkwell, hovers it over the paper for a moment, then sets it down again. The process repeats more times than she can count, but even as the voices downstairs quiet and the inn around her falls asleep, words still don’t come.
It isn’t that there is a lack of things she should say to her sister, but putting them on paper feels like an impossible task. She closes her eyes and drops her head into her hands. After a long moment, she straightens up. There are indeed many things she should say to her sister, but she sets them aside. What does she want to say to Beatriz?
Dear Triz,
Do you remember our tenth birthday? We were dressed in those hideous matching dresses with the enormous blue bows at the backs? We were arguing, of course, though I don’t remember what that particular quarrel was about. Something ridiculous, I’m sure, though at the time I know it seemed of dire importance.
We were standing there, at that elaborate ball Mama threw for us, standing side by side and pointedly not speaking. Neither of us noticed Sophronia, tying the bows of our dresses together, until we tried to move and fell on top of each other into a pile of white chiffon. I can still hear Sophronia’s laughter, and still see Mama’s furious expression. Her face turned puce underneath all of her creams and powders.
You and I laughed too. It was impossible not to, with Sophie there.
Sophie was always the ribbon that tied us together—sometimes it felt like she was the only tie we had. I know a part of you must hate me for failing her, but please know that is not a mistake I intend to make twice.
There is another ribbon tying us together, though. Mama. Though now I believe—like you and Sophie—that ribbon is a noose. In Sophie’s last letter to me, she said that if the three of us went against Mama together, we could stand a chance of outsmarting her. I’m sorry that we’ll never know if there was truth to that, but I am by your side now, and the stars themselves couldn’t move me.
Come to Friv. Please.