2. Sabine
Chapter 2
Sabine
“ B asten!”
It’s the last thing I yell before Iyre pulls me through the portal cut in the forest air, her strength as much as three grown men’s. My heart thrashes like a cornered beast, ready to strike with its last ounce of life. As I struggle against her, the invisible portal door fades away.
My final glimpse at Basten in the sun-kissed glen, breathless and confused, vanishes. I hurtle myself at his fading image, fingernails clawing at the air.
“No!”
But it’s too late. The glen is gone. Basten is gone.
Now, I’m staring at a different forest. This one is filled with sky-high evergreens that cloak the world in shadows. Strangely colored light comes from the forest’s dark recesses. In a way, it’s beautiful. But it’s a dangerous, intimidating kind of beauty. There’s something eerie about this place. It’s too dark. Too cold. The chilling mist brushes like ghostly fingers around my ankles.
I touch Basten’s twine ring on my fourth finger, working it anxiously.
This cold place is my ancestral home?
Iyre releases me without warning, and I tumble forward toward where the portal was, but my hands swipe through empty air now.
I crash to my hands and knees, ripping my wine-red gown with the golden chain straps. A rock slices through the fabric into my left knee. Blood spills out, but I only stare at it in a daze.
I should feel the pain, but I’m numb.
The real pain is in my side, a phantom ache that feels like Iyre tore out one of my organs when she cut me off from Basten.
Basten is my other half. Since the day we met, I’ve been connected to him on a cosmic level. He hurts, I hurt. He suffers, I do, too. How can I function without being whole? Scholars say an invisible pull binds the Earth and moon, and that if that bind were ever severed, the moon would freefall into the black void of night.
That’s exactly how I feel. Freefall .
I thrust my fingers into the soil to root myself in the here and now, letting the loamy, cool earth bring me back from the edge of panic.
“He didn’t know who I was,” I spit between clenched teeth. “You stole his memories of me—give them back!”
“They’re gone,” Iyre says flatly, slipping a small, round yellow bottle into her gown’s pocket.
With a cry, I fling a fistful of soil at her face. In a second, I’m on my feet in my tattered gown, lunging with claws bared, ready to shred her pale fae skin down to the bone. “You lie! I’ve read the Tale of Iyre’s Memory Bottles a thousand times. I know you keep your stolen memories bottled up—are those his? In that yellow bottle?”
I lunge for her pocket, but Iyre moves a step to the right with preternatural speed, causing me to crash down to the ground again.
A branch scratches my arm.
I cry as I push to my feet again to attack from behind. Iyre’s face remains passive as I rush at her. The only emotion she shows is a slight flicker of annoyance as she again steps to the side, evading me, and this time catches me by the upper arm.
She tugs me close.
“Do you wish me to take your memories, too?” she threatens, pointed incisors flashing, as she digs her fingers against my temple. “I can make you forget all about that man in the same way. I can make you forget everything .”
My temple tingles under her fingertips. My breath huffs out of my lungs in tight bursts.
I go perfectly still. A caught rabbit. I’ve already lost Basten—I can’t lose my memories of him, too.
“That’s a good little human.” With one hand coiled in my hair, she shoves me to my knees in front of her. She hikes up her skirt to show the tip of her white leather boots. “Now, make a sacrifice to your goddess to prove your obedience.” She wiggles the tip of her boot. “A kiss will do.”
My body bristles under her hold as a wave of revulsion leaves me shaking from fingertips to toes.
This is too familiar. I’ve done this before.
A memory rushes back to me out of the deepest recess of my mind :
I am ten years old. Standing outside the imposing wooden gate to the Convent of Immortal Iyre. My white dress is freshly pressed. My long hair in an immortal crown that took my maid all morning to braid.
My little heart beats fast. More hopeful than anything—because this could be a fresh start.
The gates creak open.
“Keep your eyes lowered,” Charlin Darrow barks. “And your mouth shut.”
“Yes, Father.”
He delivers a slap to the back of my head as the gates fully open to reveal an elderly woman with a long coil of gray hair that falls down the back of her red robe.
I dare a slight glance up at her through my lashes.
She saw my father hit me, didn’t she? Is she going to say anything? She’s a devotee to the Goddess of Virtue, after all, and beating one’s children can’t possibly be condoned.
But she only frowns.
“Matron White.” My father shoves me forward. “Here’s the girl. You’ll get your payment the first of every month.”
Matron White pokes at my little arms. “You said she could help in the fields. She’s all skin and bones.”
“And?”
Matron White cranes her neck to look at the carriage behind us. “And throw in that horse of yours, too, or else we don’t have a deal. I need something that can pull a plow.”
My father grumbles, but after the Matron sweetens the deal with a barrel of cider from the convent’s orchard, he’s all smiles again. After a promise to send Myst back with one of the servants, he leaves without saying goodbye, more concerned with ordering the footman to load his cider in the trunk.
The gates close .
My heart hammers as I dare to gaze up at my new guardian with hopeful eyes.
She grabs me by my immortal crown. Pain digs into my scalp as she leads me, wincing and stumbling beside her, to the statue of Immortal Iyre in the center of the cloistered courtyard.
She shoves me to my knees in front of the statue. The vines growing up the statue ruffle, strangely, as there’s little breeze.
“Kiss Iyre’s toes, girl. Swear fealty to her. And maybe she’ll bless you with an ounce of usefulness because, right now, you’re nothing but a burden.”
I curl my hands into tight fists, nails cutting into my palms so that the bite of pain pulls me away from the memory.
Adrenaline floods me as Iyre twists her fingers harder in my hair, forcing my head closer to her real-life toes.
My stomach seizes as panic inches closer…
But then, something rustles in the tattered velvet fabric around my knees, and I hear a small squeak.
Mouse-talker? a gentle voice whispers in my head. I’m here. I’m with you. You aren’t alone.
The forest mouse!
My limbs go weak with relief, and I briefly close my eyes. The mouse might be small, but her soft, warm little presence gives me courage.
I inhale, then look up at Iyre. “No.”
“No?” A flicker of amusement crosses Iyre’s face. “You think you have a choice?”
Her hand twists harder in my braid. Wetting my dry lips, I scan the forest. All around, towering trees box me in. I can’t even see the sun overhead to know which direction is south, back toward Astagnon .
Let me run , the mouse says. There are beasts in these woods. They will chase me and give you a chance to escape.
I don’t dare glance down at the mouse to give away her presence.
I won’t let you risk yourself, little friend , I answer. Back into my dress. Hide. It is my duty to protect you, not the other way around.
The mouse squeaks in concern but does as I say.
Still, her suggestion gives me an idea.
Extending my godkiss, I whisper in the back of my mind, Creatures of these woods, make yourself known.
It takes a few moments before the animals, curious and brave, begin to respond.
A snake hisses, Meeee .
A barred owl overhead lets out a hoot.
A community of voles under the ground says in unison, Lady needs help?
A grasshopper on a nearby leaf chirps, Who are you?
Other voices come, too. Voices with a strange reverberation. They are the voices of unseen fae beasts, deep in the woods, watching.
A stranger who can speak to us.
The king’s blood in her veins.
A lost girlie.
Iyre loses her patience and shoves my head down toward her boot. “Do it, Lady Sabine. Show your obedience to your gods.”
My vole friends, dig! I cry out in my head. Dig hard! Now!
At first, the soil underfoot vibrates so minimally that it would be almost undetectable unless you knew what to feel for. I fight against Iyre’s hold, clawing at her grip on my hair.
The ground beneath her feet gives way. The dirt cracks and crumbles into loamy crevasses. She stumbles back a step, which causes a cave-in that has her pinwheeling her arms as she crashes to the ground.
Cupping a protective hand over the mouse in my skirt, I hoist up my mud-stained hem, scramble to my feet, and run into the woods as fast as my feet can carry me.
Thank you, little helpers ! I call back to the colony of voles.
I plunge into the darkest part of the forest, swallowed by a cool mist that hovers knee-high, hiding all paths from view.
Behind me, Iyre starts laughing. “Where do you think you’ll run to, little princess?”