CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Your Highness.” The wakeup call was followed by a brisk knock on my door. “Your Highness?”
Bright sunlight streamed through the windows as I struggled to open my eyes. With a groan, I pulled my pillow over my face, trying to orient myself. I hadn’t gone to bed that late, but my muscles felt sore and I was still so tired. I felt as if I’d stayed up for the entire night …
I hunched the blankets back up my shoulders, burrowing deeper into my sheets. I just needed some more rest. A little more sleep.
“Princess Olivay?”
I bolted upright in a panic, finally remembering where I was, and more importantly, who I was supposed to be.
I'd spent the last three nights dancing. After the engagement ball, there’d been another ball thrown in our honor at Lord Dovan’s estate, and then another last night at the home of Lady Alena, the Almost-Queen.
The last night had been particularly exhausting.
We had been in Jaron’s familial home, with symbols of House Bathiner everywhere we looked.
There were more nobles in attendance who belonged to the bloodline, or seemed inclined to support them, than I had realized existed.
The entire time it felt as if we’d been taken into enemy territory.
Not only did I have to maintain my glamour as Olivay, but I also had to show a united front with my new family, House Lafir.
It had been draining. Brennan had been stiff the entire time, and King Tirian was snapping at every word spoken to him.
I’d barely undressed before falling into bed when it was over.
Though my dreams were full of Brennan, the small moments we’d shared, the way his eyes hooded with desire when our bodies pressed together for a dance, the way he watched me, his gaze intense and focused from across the room, or how, when we were seated at dinner, he reached beneath the table to hold my hand, slowly stroking his thumb in a circular motion that made me press my legs together.
I was simultaneously dreaming of our wedding night, of finally taking him inside me.
And waking in cold sweats, terrified I’d taken too much. Hearing the words of the Hermit’s prophecy again and again. The end of House Lafir as they knew it, the prophecy fulfilled, Brennan dead.
Reality was beginning to feel like a distant concept.
Every night I was dressed in a gown more fine than I’d ever imagined, seeing more food served than I’d ever had in Azeal, all while dancing, feasting, drinking, and holding hands with a man who I was being drawn to more and more every day.
Who was drawn to me, hinting at more. But who had no idea who I actually was, who still, after all this time, would feel guilty when we got too close, our lips too near, our bodies too warm.
Because he was still thinking of the girl in the tavern. Of the real me.
We hadn’t kissed since the moon garden, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about how much I wanted him, how much I wanted to kiss him again. And yet, it was a relief that there’d been no time, no privacy, no opportunities for more. No garden to steal away to.
I groaned as I stretched my legs, every muscle in my body aching. I was used to back-to-back nights of dancing at the tavern, as Samara. Olivay’s body, however, was not.
And I was paying for it, dearly, as I stumbled into my slippers. I blindly reached for my silk robe, tugging it over my shoulders. The knocking persisted.
“One moment,” I called out.
I pushed my hair back from my face. I’d slept in the braid Abigail had constructed for me, but several pieces had gone rogue and stuck out around my forehead and ears.
Pieces that looked far too straight to be Olivay’s. I stared down. My hands were wrong, too. The color of my skin wasn’t right. It was far too pale for someone from Spartva. Even my fingernail beds had shifted into a slightly different shape, my actual nails shorter than Olivay’s appeared.
Fuck! I was losing hold of my glamour. This had never happened before.
Never before had I been this drained this quickly, or unable to hold onto the form I’d designed.
I hadn’t fed in two nights, only small sips, but I’d gone far longer without touch at the tavern, and never once woke up appearing any way other than how I’d intended.
I had known Olivay’s form would be more difficult to maintain.
But nearly a week of being her made me realize just how wholly unprepared for the reality I’d been.
It was getting harder to draw energy toward me.
Not when I couldn’t seduce, not when I was unwilling to break character, even as I handed jewelry each day to fucking Geoffrey.
There was an ache low in my belly, a kind of dull, stabbing-like pain. Hunger. Hunger that went far beyond what food could do. I was starving myself. Starving the Azete.
I needed to feed. And I needed to do it soon.
“King Tirian wishes to leave immediately after breakfast, Your Highness,” Abigail called out. Already, without my permission, she was coming inside.
I rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me, grasping the sink as I stared at my reflection in the mirror until my fingers whitened from the strain.
I was pale all over. I had held onto most of Olivay’s features, but my Samara form, the face of Princess Shamhira, was clearly showing through.
“Your Highness?” Abigail called again.
“Just a moment,” I said, trying to breathe.
My hair was still dark, thank the Gods, but it was the texture I’d been born with, thinner and straighter than I’d had to wear since the cave.
Upon closer inspection, I discovered my eyes had lost all of Olivay’s depth and darkness. My ice-blue irises blinked back at me.
My heart thundered as I pictured Olivay in my mind, bringing up the image of her I’d memorized in the cave, the way my face looked in the mirror when right next to hers.
Her dark features, the way everything about her had been so beautifully and delicately designed.
I needed to conjure it, conjure her. I needed a picture of her.
It seemed as if there was art of every form I didn’t need to take: Brennan’s rendering of Samara the dancer, and Jaron’s art of Alyra—Gods, even in the vase where I’d hidden my mother’s locket was a rendering of the form I never needed a reminder of—my original Shamhira face and body.
And yet there was not one of the art I did need.
Had no artist been commissioned to paint Olivay’s likeness?
I glanced at the vase, as if willing another picture to appear, as if Orsete herself might conjure art of Olivay for me to reference.
But the only images hiding in there were me in my mother’s locket, and Alyra, though I’d ripped that parchment to pieces before hiding it inside.
I was going to have to rely completely on my mind and muscle memory.
“I can draw your bath,” Abigail said, knocking on the bathroom door.
“I just need one minute,” I shouted back. Sweat beaded at the nape of my neck, dampening hair that was too straight and thin to be Olivay’s.
“I’m sorry,” Abigail said, “but the King insisted—” The doorknob turned.
Panic twisted inside of me.
“I said,” I shouted, throwing as much venom into my voice as I could, “That I need a minute!” Then I slammed the door back on her face.
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
My shoulders shook, and my chest heaved as I let my head fall back against the wooden frame, my body sinking to the ground. I barely had the energy to pick my head back up or sit up on my own now that I was on the ground.
Gods, I’d never woken like this before. Not in all the seven years I’d spent shifting into my various forms. It wasn’t just Olivay’s lack of athleticism that had worn me out.
It was keeping up the complete, intricate details of her form.
These weren’t just tweaks to who I was, to the features I’d been born with—this was everything—every inch of me.
Even sitting there, drained, barely holding onto my shift, I could feel myself pulling from the energy that lived deep inside of me.
I was digging into the parts of myself I rarely had to call on, using more than just the magic I possessed.
I was calling on parts of my soul. Every second I did, every second I maintained my shift, every second I didn’t feed, I was growing and more depleted.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my head beginning to ache with the effort.
I was going to have to fix this fast. Or I’d ruin everything, revealing my identity—or worse, end up in a box.
And if I didn’t, the Azete was going to strike at the wrong time, hurt the wrong person, exposing me.
And Abigail was in my Godsdamned room trying to get me ready to leave for the tour of Eskalon, the next Godsdamned event in our betrothal circus.
Panting, I reached for the doorknob, grabbing hold of it and using its leverage to help pull me back up. When I’d climbed back to my feet and stood on my own, shock washed over me at just how winded I felt.
I braced my hands on the sink and looked into the mirror, not even sure where to start. It had been so much easier when Olivay was in front of me, easier when I’d taken a full meal of her fear.
But I had no choice. I had to fix this. I sent a burst of magic to my eyes, painting them black.
Then clenched my stomach as I poured a fresh burst of energy into my hair, thickening it, adding back Olivay’s texture and shine.
Closing my eyes and gripping the basin, my chest heaved as more magic rushed through my body, its power dancing against every inch of my skin.
I was tingling all over, my cheeks flushed from exertion, but as I looked in the mirror, I was once more Olivay’s color.
Checking my hands and seeing they were hers, even down to the shape of her fingernails, I exhaled.
The transformation was complete. Not one detail out of place.
Except for how I felt. Weak, and dizzy.