Chapter 25 Sabine #2
She huffs up toward the air, pacing, and finally explains in a shaking voice, “He reminded me that I ‘owe him a kiss’ from when he saved me from Gaez’s attack.
It was ridiculous. I assumed he was joking.
But, I mean, you have to admit it, Sabby.
Even a Sister would find Rian Valvere handsome…
that’s just a fact. And I haven’t kissed anyone since Charlin…
” She trails off, fumbling with her lace collar.
“Lady Suri,” Basten prompts.
She hiccups. “He kissed me. Through the bars.” Her eyes drift off, growing hazy, as if she can still feel the ghost of his mouth on hers. She licks her lips—a tiny, unconscious motion—like she’s chasing the last of it. For a second, something bright flickers over her face—a kind of breathlessness.
Then it collapses.
Her shoulders fold in. She covers her face with both hands, voice muffled with shame.
“I can’t believe I fell for it. He was only distracting me so he could steal my keyring from my pocket and swap it out with a chunk of brick of the same weight.
He ended the kiss, and I was so…so overtaken, that I barely realized he’d unlocked his cell.
He pulled me in to take his place, then set himself free.
He did come back briefly to bring me a basket of snacks and some extra blankets, in case I got cold. ”
She motions to a small pile of supplies: cinnamon cookies, a bottle of sherry, warm slippers.
“I called and called for help,” she continues, “but this cell is four stories high. Plume finally came to that leak in the roof, and I managed to get a message across to her.” She points to a damp spot on the ceiling where a board has rotted out.
Basten whips his head around to the door. “You’re saying Rian escaped?”
Suri nods.
“Fuck!” Basten slams the handle of his knife against the bars, then takes a moment to steady himself, then races out of the attic.
His boots clomp heavy on the stairs.
For a moment, I’m so stunned I can’t move. I still can’t process Suri’s story.
A kiss? Rian and Suri?
I don’t even know how to begin to wrap my mind around that. I mean, yes, she’s inexperienced, but she isn’t a fool. She wouldn’t have fallen for just anyone’s pretty words. She must have actually seen something in Rian.
Didn’t you, once, Sabine?
I go rigid. But underneath the shock is something bitter—the ache of a wound I should’ve seen coming. After all we’ve been through—taking him prisoner, stopping the bloodshed in the city, even daring to share wine with him again—he still turned on us.
On me.
Gods help me, that’s what stings the most. A part of me wanted to forgive him—to trust him.
And he used that against us.
“I’ll send guards to unlock the cell,” I say to her in a rush, and then hurry after Basten, even as she’s calling back to me.
But adrenaline pushes me forward. I feel my human glamour fall away, being left behind as the fey lines blister free. My incisors sharpen against my bottom lip, my hunger snapping in my throat.
Now, I’m on the hunt.
I catch up with Basten at the bottom of the stairs, where he’s banging on doors to rouse the sleeping guards. “Up, soldiers! Swords at the ready, Rian Valvere is on the run!”
Night guards and sleepy-eyed maids all stop to stare at me as I race to the window; they aren’t used to seeing me in my fae appearance.
My blood races through my veins, sending my silver glow pulsing, as I scour the courtyard below for any sign of Rian. Knowing him, this is no random seized opportunity. He’s surely been planning this escape, possibly for a long time.
“Can we not have a crisis at midnight, for once? What’s wrong with noon?” Folke, still tugging on his pants, stumbles down the hallway as his jaw stretches in a yawn.
“Rian fucked us,” Basten spits, as a guard hastens to help him strap a sword around his waist. “He escaped. Folke, get to the gates, make sure they’re sealed—”
Commotion on the stairs makes us all turn to find the sentries from the castle entrance hustling up the stairs, out of breath in their clattering armor.
“About the gates, King Basten,” one of them says, pausing to brace his hands on his knees. His face is corpse-white beneath his helmet. “And you, Queen Sabine.” He glances at me, my silver sheen reflecting in his eyes, and he swallows hard. “You—you need to come see this for yourself, Majesties.”
Basten and I share a look—the kind that carries a dozen memories of what Rian has already proven himself capable of.
And then we run.
I follow the soldiers down the stairs to the first floor, my pulse running hot. I don’t feel like a princess now. Or a queen. I feel like a predator stalking the man who wounded her with far more than arrows.
We pass through Raven Hall and out into the front courtyard, shrouded by night, where a dozen soldiers are gathered with torches. They stand back from the gates, giving it a wide berth, almost stock-still.
“What are you doing?” I cry. “Your king gave the command, swords up!”
I grab Captain Fernsby, but as he turns toward me, I get a view of the gate. Of what they’re all staring at.
And my own feet drift to a stop.
“Oh, Rian,” I exclaim under my breath. “What have you done?”
There’s no sign of Rian, but one of the fugitives is here. The leader of the Cold Coins, the dissident group of Golden Sentinels who refused to surrender at Rian’s order.
The man is strung up outside the gates, his motionless arms splayed to the sides, hanging by ropes like a puppet.
A large battle axe, the same kind that Immortal Vale carries, is cleft deep into his skull.
Golden arrows stick out of his chest. The telltale black-purple mark of belladonna poison stains his lips.
Smoke still rises from his hollowed-out eyes, burned to nothing but ashes. Ivy vines wind around his neck.
Basten steps forward, breathing hard, and the soldiers fall back to give him room. “How did…?”
Even with the question unfinished, we all know what he’s asking, and no one has the answer.
“Look!” I grab Basten’s arm and point to the stone pavers outside the gate, where someone has scrawled in chalk:
WE COME NOT TO HARM, BUT PROTECT.
WE brING JUSTICE, NOT PAIN.
LAY DOWN OFFERINGS TO US, AND WE WILL LAY YOUR ENEMIES AT YOUR FEET.
SOON, WE WILL ARRIVE.
THE GAMES WILL BEGIN.
Despite the late hour, a crowd of onlookers has already gathered on the other side of the gate. Nighttime workers, drunks from the pubs, bakers getting an early start on their bread dough.
They point to the body, hushed voices rising and falling in a mix of fear and awe.
“That’s Gaez,” a tavernkeeper calls. “The leader of the Cold Coins.”
“It’s the work of the fae!” a busker adds, his lute dangling from his shoulder. “Those are Artain’s golden arrows! And Vale’s axe. And look—Thracia’s belladonna poison on his lips!” He suddenly locks eyes with me and starts. “Oh—Lady Solene! King Basten! Forgive me, I did not see you!”
Gasps ring out once they see us on the inside of the gate. One by one, everyone falls to their knee, head bowed.
“Is it true, Lady Solene?” a street sweeper asks, keeping his head lowered. “Did Vale himself bring Gaez to justice? Is this a fae miracle?”
An elderly lady bows before me. “Thank you, my lady, for this miracle! Our gratitude to all your kind!”
I gape, slowly looking between the ivy wrapped in a noose around Gaez’s neck and at my own glowing fey lines.
“I—” I start. “I didn’t—”
Basten jerks his head at me, a signal to stay quiet. I close my mouth. His jaw is rock-hard, anger simmering in his eyes, because he knows as well as I did that none of the fae had anything to do with this.
He steps close to me and murmurs low, what’s done is done—let them worship you.” He pauses. “You need the strength.”
“Rian did this,” I hiss.
“I know.”
Captain Fernsby turns to the soldiers and commands, “Cut down the body. Get these gates open!”
The soldiers finally snap to attention, though they look as shaken by the spectacle as the onlookers.
I spot one of them quietly making the maze gesture of Immortal Meric beneath his cloak.
Even the soldiers are believers in this so-called miracle. Well, why wouldn’t they be? Rian gift-wrapped a perfect miracle for them as only Rian could: bloody, violent, full of vindictive glee.
Give the people what they want, he said.
“Soldiers,” Captain Fernsby orders. “Scour the city for the fugitive, Rian Valvere!”
The royal soldiers pour through the gates and out into the dark streets, pushing through the rapidly growing crowd coming to stare at the fae miracle. It seems like more and more people appear by the second. Even at this late hour, word must be traveling lightning-quick through Old Coros.
A miracle?
No—call it by its real name. A betrayal.
I lurch toward the gates, fey already sparking at my fingertips, but Basten stops me with a touch on my wrist.
“Sabine, wait.” He drops his voice. “No—he’s here. He’s still in the castle. I know how he thinks.”
I pause. “He hid in the walls once, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that again.”
“He would,” Basten insists, “precisely because no one would expect him to.”
He jerks his head back toward the castle. In the chaos of soldiers rushing out the gates, the public growing in number by the minute to fawn all over the gods’ “gift” of vengeance, and lamps switching on all over the city, I barely know what to do.
But even with the distance between us, Basten has always been my North Star—and he knows Rian almost as well as he knows himself.
I nod.
The two of us run away from the crowd of soldiers, rushing into the castle as everyone else is pouring out.