26. Sabine
Chapter 26
Sabine
I pace so long in front of my bedroom fireplace that the thick rug looks more like a game trail. All night, I’ve thought of nothing but Basten’s face when he saw me reveling with the fae…reveling with that ass , Artain.
It…wasn’t my finest moment.
Basten’s anger at me was palpable. The metallic rattle from when he jerked his shackles still echoes between my ears. Those terrible words aimed at me: You ruined my life. I can only imagine the nightmare that the Valveres have spun me into, filling his missing memories with poison about the traitorous princess.
And what did I do?
Prove those vipers right at first glance.
He must hate me.
If only I’d been free to explain to Basten that the Meden Cup was just a game. I was pretending. The way to stay safe here is to play along, make them trust me.
I flop onto the battered rug and sink my face into my hands. Oh, but who am I kidding? It wasn’t pretend. No matter how badly I wish it were.
Ever since I arrived in Norhelm, it’s been like a lantern switched on. Something about Volkany sings to me. For the first time in my life, my every move hasn’t been watched. Judged. No one cares what I wear or how I style my hair. I can drink two bottles of plum wine and be cheered on for it instead of reprimanded.
Is it only about the freedom to sin? Hell, I was locked in a convent for twelve years, so I’m due a chance to blow off a little steam. But, no. If it was only debauchery I was after, I could have gotten my fill of that in Duren. The same goes for luxuries: for all his faults, Rian was beyond generous. Likewise, the riches my father lavishes on me are only baubles.
I think…it’s the taste of power that bewitches me.
The raw potential.
Here, I’m brushing shoulders with the gods. Ancient beings who—let’s face it, are far from perfect—but can bring death upon a room, trap a memory, and turn day to night.
Sighing, I slide off Basten’s twine ring and hold it up to the moonlight, twirling it slowly.
Tattered. Misshapen. Perfect .
“I never took it off,” I whisper.
Is Basten perfect? No, but he’s perfect for me. And I won’t let him go.
Slipping the ring back on my finger, I call softly, Are you there, friend?
It isn’t long before a pink nose pokes out from the loose chimney bricks. The forest mouse emerges and scampers onto my knee. You did not sleep all night. Though it is still dark, my stomach tells me it is breakfast time .
That’s Samaur’s doing, I explain. The sun won’t rise all day. The darkness may help me, though—I need you to tell me how many guards are stationed in the hallway.
The mouse trains her beady eyes on me like a disapproving governess. What are you planning?
Please, do this favor for me. I wrinkle my nose and hope it looks endearing. And also pick the lock while you’re at it?
She puffs out an exasperated burst of air but climbs down my leg, tackles the tasks, and returns promptly.
Two guards at the door , she reports. Two more at the end of the hallway.
Thank you—now get some sleep yourself, my friend. I push to my feet determinedly and drag my desk’s wooden stool to the tall armoire.
The armoire's top is adorned with detailed wooden carvings resembling vines. The maids are diligent in dusting, but they tend to overlook this spot, which is clotted with spiderwebs.
“Tck-sssSSS-Tck ,” I sing softly aloud, cooing to the mother Barkcreeper spider who nests here with her downy egg sack.
Soon, a button-sized gray spider emerges from the shadows, wiggling her front two legs in greeting. I lower my hand for her to crawl onto my palm, then carefully descend the stool.
As a rule, spiders are hard to communicate with, but not impossible. You just have to understand how they sing. Spider songs communicate by pitch and modulation: For example, low and rounded notes mean “sleep,” staccato ones mean “help,” and a piercing warble means “danger.”
I carry her to the door, where I lay on my belly in front of the narrow gap. I softly sing a staccato trill, and she bounces up and down to say she understands while trilling back my melody.
Then, I hold up two fingers to mean the closest guards, then two more fingers with my other hand to indicate the ones down the hall. I don’t know the exact pitch to convey “venom,” but I do know the note for “bite.”
I quietly sing a shrill aria that repeats three times.
She bounces up and down faster, her front two legs waving excitedly in the air.
“Go, then, little friend,” I whisper as I lower my hand for her to crawl under the door.
For the next few minutes, my nerves rattle. I gnaw on my thumbnail, waiting.
The desk clock keeps ticking, ticking, ticking.
Is something wrong?
Nearly ten minutes pass before the spider returns, resolutely making a bee-line onto my hand.
“SSSsss-tck-tck-SSSsss ,” she sings with such urgency that her melody stumbles over itself. “ Tck-tck-tck!”
“I don’t know what you mean. Slow down. sssSSS sssSSS .”
She continues to wave her front legs and sing emphatically, and I shake my head in frustration.
All I can think to do is give a high warble to clarify: Danger?
She immediately stills, then carefully repeats my warble backward. “ SSSsss SSSsss.” In the language of spider songs, a backward melody means the negative of whatever the previous speaker said.
So, she means: No danger.
It eases my anxiety, but now my curiosity is hooked. I lift the spider back to her egg sack on top of the armoire, then tiptoe to the door and press my ear against it. Silence meets me from the other side. Not so much as a guard’s sigh.
Well, spiders have never failed me before…
I crack open the door, ready to plead ignorance to the guards about how the lock possibly opened. My heart hammers hard enough to crack a rib. The first thing I see is a guard slumped against the wall, his head slack, drool sliding out of his mouth.
My hand tightens on the doorknob.
That isn’t the reaction from a Barkcreeper spider bite, which leaves a victim’s face bright red.
If it wasn’t the spider, how did ? —
Movement from the other side of the hall sends my heart shooting into my throat—as I look up to find Basten.
He presses a rag reeking of chloroform to the struggling second guard’s mouth and nose. Locking eyes with me, he continues to silently wrestle the second guard until that one also slumps to the floor.
The two at the end of the hall? Already knocked out.
The second guard’s unconscious body sits like a boulder between Basten and me as we stare at one another, a million and one questions perched like daggers over our heads.
“I—was going to do that,” I blurt out.
Without missing a beat, he deadpans, “You were going to drug a pair of two-hundred-fifty-pound guards?”
I shake my head quickly, my thoughts a jumble. “No, I mean that I had an arrangement with a spider, and…”
I take a deep breath, fingers tensing around the brass doorknob.
Start over, Sabine.
One month apart, and I’ve never been so nervous around him .
His gaze cuts to the twine ring, the symbol of love he gave me, but his face shows no recognition.
For the agonizing span of one heartbeat to the next, we stare at one another.
“Did you come here to put a knife in my chest?” I ask bluntly.
His eyebrows twitch. “What?”
“I don’t know what the Valveres told you.”
He rests one hand in the doorway, leaning over me. “They told me plenty, but I can make up my own mind about things that matter.”
With him towering over me, my thighs go a little weak. In a whisper, I ask, “Do—do you remember me?”
This time, the dark pools of his eyes deepen. A long second passes. Soft, he says, “No.”
No word has ever felt so heavy. My breath falters, but I try not to show the crushing weight of disappointment. I glance down at my hands, still fiddling nervously with his ring.
But there’s no time for grief. Not here. Not like this.
With a deep breath, I gather the broken pieces of my nerves and thrust my hand out.
“Then I suppose it’s time for introductions. Sabine Darrow. Err—well, not Darrow anymore.”
I was almost Sabine Valvere.
Then Sabine Bowborn.
And now? Her Highness, Princess Sabine of Volkany?
I stammer, cheeks blazing, “I guess I don’t know what I am.”
He stares long and hard at my extended hand, his loose hair shadowing his expression, as my heart screams like a tea kettle gone dry .
Slowly, he lifts his eyes, his calloused hand sliding into mine. “Little violet—that’s what you are.”
A jagged inhale cuts across my lips. My heart freefalls into a bottomless cavern, pinwheeling with a belly-tightening yearning until I’m sure I’ll never breathe again. He remembers. He does. If he wasn’t holding my hand, the next speck of dust might topple me over.
“You…do remember?” I breathe.
Haltingly, he admits, “Like I said, I’ve been told a lot about you. About us.”
I try to stop the crashing freefall of my heart before it slams against rock bottom. Slowly, I pull my trembling hand back.
You idiot, Sabine. Of course he doesn’t remember.
“Don’t believe a word the Valveres said about me being a traitor,” I say in a rush. “They can’t be trusted. Rian most of all. I tried to leave here. To warn you. I know you have a long history with him, but he’s a traitor. He—he was the one who sold me out.”
His eyes simmer. “I know.”
“You…know?”
He reaches into his pocket and takes out Rian’s Golath dime. I pull in a gasp—it’s Rian’s lucky token that he’s never without.
Basten turns the coin from one side to the other. Serpent and Scepter. His knuckles are blanched as he holds it—the only sign of his tightly coiled anger. “When I found out, I left him with a black eye that will be hard to explain to the King’s Council.”
I give a grim, mirthless smile. “I’m impressed you left him alive at all. I wouldn’t have.”
“Believe me, I was tempted. Never been so hard to pull my punches.” He slides the coin back into his pocket, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “But if I’d left the throne vacant, Astagnon would have fallen into deeper chaos.”
I pause. “Right.” I hate this. The distance between us. The strange formality. I find myself having to keep from drifting closer to him, pulled like the moon to earth.
“How did you manage to travel with Tòrr and keep your head?”
This rewards me with a gruff laugh that’s so familiar, so Basten , that it makes my heart weep. “That murder horse and I share an enemy, just like you and I do. Rian caged him. He was only too happy to flee.”
He suddenly glances down the hallway, that specific head jerk that means he’s heard something.
“Come into my room,” I breathe. “Before you’re seen.”
I step back, quickly combing my fingers through my hair as I hold open the door. There’s still the danger that he’s here to slit my throat. Still, all things considered, a knife is the least of my fears. One cruel word from him could end my heart as surely.
He closes the door behind him, trapping us in misplaced moonlight. His eyes don’t give anything away.
Whether he means to kill me or kiss me?—
“I assume the fae haven’t harmed you,” he says slowly, “from what I witnessed.”
My eyes widen. Dear gods, could I get more mortified?
I blurt out, “What you saw…Artain on the banquet table…the Meden Cup…I was only trying to win their trust.” My throat constricts.
He prowls forward, his face unreadable, and instinct drives me to retreat a step. I croak, “Artain is an ass. There’s nothing between us. ”
“I know,” he murmurs softly.
“You—you do?” The backs of my knees bump against the bed, and with a nervous flutter of moth wings in my stomach, I realize I’m cornered. “But you were so angry.”
“At Iyre, little violet. Not you.”
The moths in my stomach float away. My shoulders relax, and I blink a few times, rethinking everything. When he said I ruined his life? When he rattled his chains in anger? Iyre was standing right beside me.
“O—oh,” I breathe.
He continues to stalk forward. “As far as Artain, I know how to read lust. Widening pupils. The tang of sweat. The scent of—” His eyes fall briefly to the junction of my thighs before lifting back to my face. “Well, you didn’t show any of those signs.”
“Right.” My voice lilts when, inside, I want to shriek with hope.
He steals another step closer, close enough that I can feel his radiated body heat. He braces his arm on the bedpost at my side, and his sleeve rides up over his forearm. He’s all raw power. Dangerous. Territorial. All I can think about are the beautiful things his cruel lips have done to me.
I realize I’m trailing my fingers over my neckline, practically drooling. Get it together, Sabine—remember, he can sense lust.
Embarrassment tunnels into me until I’m squirming. Normally, the darkness would hide my blazing cheeks, but this man can see in the dark.
Scars on his forearm catch my eye. Squinting in the low light, I read what looks like letters.
I gasp. “My name. That’s my name on your arm!”
He straightens, dropping his hand, slowly running his fingers over the scars. A slight growl rumbles in his chest. “I couldn’t remember your name. I needed it—needed it close. At least until I could get my memories back. I vowed to myself that I would find a way to wrench them from Iyre’s hands.”
I nod eagerly. “The day she took your memories, I saw her with a small, round, yellow bottle. She keeps it in the highest room in Aurora Tower. I haven’t been able to get it—the doors and windows are warded to only let in fae, and the cabinet is locked.”
A light flares in his eyes. He immediately stalks to the window, studying the spire of the Aurora Tower over the rooftops. For a few moments, I can see the gears turning in his head.
Then, he stalks back to the bed, that light in his irises blazing brighter. “I can get them.”
My lips part. “You think so?”
His hand lifts as though to reassure me by cupping my cheek, but then he hesitates. His fingers fold in. “I didn’t come all this way to fail. After I confront Iyre, we’ll get out of here. You and me. We’ll return to Old Coros and make Rian pay for what he’s done.”
His voice breaks with a rare note of hope.
I tug at a loose thread on my dress, looking down. “You promised me once that you’d cut out your beating heart if I asked you to. You said you’d crawl across kingdoms for me on hands and knees. You can’t…possibly still feel like that? Since I’m a stranger now?”
“Sabine,” he says slowly, tipping my chin up with one finger. “Cut out my heart? Little violet, I’d cut out a thousand hearts.”
The space between us is so tight. So tense. My arms ache to feel him. It’s a visceral need, as necessary as water. But he’s holding back—literally. An agonizing inch separates our bodies.
To kiss him, I’d simply have to tilt my chin up.
But I pace away, heat burning on my cheeks.
“It isn’t that simple. My father will never agree to let me leave. And—I’m not sure I want to. I know it sounds crazy, but something about this place calls to me.” I pivot sharply, facing him again. “Don’t misunderstand me. I know the fae are dangerous—I’m not blind. I’d like to get my hands around Iyre’s throat as much as you would. But it’s complicated. Their reign isn’t completely without merit. I see a glimmer of potential in them. In some of them. In my father, most of all.”
Basten’s eyes narrow a hair. I can feel the questions, the doubts.
“Besides,” I blurt out, pivoting sharply again, “They have a massive army. Goldenclaws. Tòrr, now. Grand Cleric Beneveto is ready to throw the full weight of the Red Church behind them. That means thousands of churches in Astagnon will preach the fae’s side—priests will even take up arms if necessary. If war breaks out, Volkany will decimate Astagnon. Millions, dead in a snap.” I wet my dry lips. “But my father? He might listen to me. There’s a chance we can avoid war.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “I trust you, Sabine. I do. I want to trust you.”
I stop at the bed, inches from him. My fingers close around the bedpost behind my back, locking me here, to keep my wayward body from rolling the teensiest bit to brush my chest against his.
I whisper, “Why did you come to Volkany? Really? ”
His full lips twitch, and my stomach keels. There’s such brokenness in his eyes that every fiber of my body screams at me to go to him.
A catch pulls in his throat. “I dream about you. Every night. I think about you. Every day. For weeks, I pretended I could let you go, but all the while was looking for clues. Talismans. Mementos. Anything that could trigger a memory.” His voice grows gravely. “I came because I couldn’t not come.”
My fingers squeeze the bedpost harder to keep myself from falling.
“For a month,” he continues, leaning over me, “The world has tried to turn me against you. The Durish people blacked out your mural. Street criers preached of the traitorous Volkish princess. I had Runa Valvere in one ear telling me that you were poison, and Rian in the other ear professing your cunning.”
I breathe, “And the voice in your own head?”
He shakes his head. “What voice? There was no voice. No reason. No plan. Only my damn heart that said I had to fight a king, steal a monoceros, cross two kingdoms, and get myself captured so that I could stand here to look you in the eye and tell you that I’ve never believed in anything in my life—but I believe in you.”
My skin aches for him, goosebumps cropping up along my bare arms as I squeeze the bedpost harder. I’ve never felt such a raw, frenzied need before.
Basten believes me . Despite his erased memories, he didn’t doubt my heart for a second, even with the world trying to drive us apart.
Not. One. Doubt.
He’s so beautiful in the dark light that it makes my heart weep. At some point tonight, he bathed. His raven hair is now down and soft, still damp. The ghost of a beard hugs his jaw. He smells delicious .
My hips roll, knocking my knee against his. My face tips up so I can gaze at him through my lashes.
His lips are so damn close.
“Do I feel like a stranger to you?” I whisper.
“No, little violet.” His answer is immediate.
His hand quirks, involuntarily reaching for my hair, and a tiny whimper burrows out of me. I need this. His touch. His lips. I’m so starved for him that all the air feels sucked out of the room.
My eyes sink halfway, waiting.
His hand pauses a hair away from my temple, and he’s all around me, above and below and on all sides—and he finally lowers his hand.
I lean into his hold.
“Basten.” My whisper is desperate, yearning. I can’t stop myself from gripping his shirt in my fists, fingers coiled in the cotton fabric, silently urging him closer. “I missed you—gods, I missed you so much.”
He rasps, “I want this moment with you, Sabine. You have no idea how much I want it. From now until the damn sun sets over this earth for the last time. But I need more than just this, right now, with you. I need…our past . I need to know more than your name, and how gods-damned perfect your lips are, and how I would raze villages to have them on me now. Like they were on him .”
My gaze skips between his eyes, not certain what exactly I’m searching for. Jealousy? Over Artain? Yes—there’s that. But the burn in his gaze goes beyond possessiveness. It goes to a place so deep I’ve never been there. It damn near reaches to hell and back.
My gaze drops to his lips, and my toes curl, poised to lift me up to close the distance?—
He pulls me infinitesimally closer. Our bodies press together?—
His head jerks toward the door. A beat passes. “Someone is coming.”
I cling to him harder. “Wait. Don’t go.”
“It doesn’t matter if I try to run—they’ll catch me either way. I drugged every guard from the holding cells to your door. Wouldn’t take a genius to figure out it was me. And your father? He’s going to be furious.”
“Wait. Let me explain to him.”
He grips my upper arm, such a meager drop of the fathomless pool of touch I crave. “Whatever happens, it was worth it. Just for this moment with you. Do what you must to stay in the fae’s good graces. I’ll find a way for us to speak again.”
He starts to pull away, and my bones scream at me to grab him, to keep him here, to wrestle him to the damn ground if I have to.
It takes the last drop of my strength to keep my hold on the bedpost.
“Basten?” I breathe.
“Little violet?”
“You will always be worth it. Worth the damn world.”