Chapter 4 Silver
Silver
The collar is itchy.”
“Tell me about it.”
Seeing how wrong the servant’s uniform looks on Ruin’s lanky frame makes me wonder if it ever looked right on me. Taking him in feels like slipping through time to the moment when all this started. When a street kid in a new, starchy collar was transplanted from the Outskirts into a palace.
At least he doesn’t have to use a fake name.
Or, well, I guess. At least he’s up-front about the fact that it’s fake.
I thought about going back to my real name after Mance became Prime, but it didn’t feel right. I’m not that kid anymore. But it’s nice to have the option anyway.
“That’s some kind of room for sitting in,” I tell him, continuing the tour.
“And that’s some kind of room for eating in.
They’re allowed to both sit and eat in any room in the castle should they so choose, but they nonetheless feel the need to designate specific rooms for each task. Several of them, actually.”
“This is a weird tour,” Ruin says under his breath.
“I’m sure the Head of Staff will give you a proper one later. This is the fun one.”
He gives me a look like he might disagree with that description but nods at another door anyway. “What’s that one?”
I glance over my shoulder as we pass. “That’s the entrance to the dungeons.”
He perks up at that, craning his neck back around like he might suddenly be able to see through walls. “Are there actual prisoners down there?” he asks with a conspiratorial whisper.
“Just one,” I say, a surge of anger lacing through me at the thought of the former Prime. Even now, defeated as he is, some feelings are hard to let go of. “As far as I know. But anyway, you don’t need to worry about him. Kitchens are next. They’re great because—”
But when we turn the corner we bump into Mance, and the sight of her derails whatever I was about to say. Ruin has a strong reaction, too, his back suddenly ramrod straight and his attention sharpening.
Mance keeps her different forms a secret from most people, but she’s told me, and I like to think I’m an expert at figuring out which part of Mance I’m talking to.
The easiest thing is to look at the hair.
Presently it’s up in a ponytail—not an elaborate updo, a practical bun, or a free-flowing mass—so this is probably the “core” Mance.
But I always look at the eyes to make sure, because they’re more honest. Hair can be changed, but the different sides of Mance have different ways of holding their emotions.
This one looks tired. Drained. Which both confirms that I’m talking to the core Mance and also tells me that all her forms are currently out. It’s not exactly like she’s empty without them, just . . . a little dimmer. Almost a little lonely.
When she notices us, she smiles vaguely in my direction, like her thoughts are too heavy and a small curling of her lips is all she can muster for me.
Without thinking, and heedless of the fact that we’re not alone, I reach out and wrap her in my arms, tucking her head under my chin. She returns the embrace, laying her cheek on my chest with a sigh and sagging against me.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in days,” she mumbles into my shirt.
“I saw you yesterday,” I remind her. “But I agree that it wasn’t for long enough.” Behind me, Ruin makes some sort of noise, possibly startled or embarrassed by our affection, but I ignore him. “Seems like you’ve been . . . dealing with something?”
I don’t know if prompting her again to share with me is a good idea with her looking as exhausted as she does, but I can’t pretend it hasn’t been bothering me.
I know she has a lot going on. She’s running a whole Realm right now.
Trying to uproot all the poison that her father and grandfather planted.
It’s hard, and it’s impor-tant, and it’s time-consuming.
But it hurts when she doesn’t let me be a part of it, even if my part is just this. Holding her and listening to her problems. It worries me that she thinks there’s something she can’t share.
She must feel it, because she pulls away and takes my face in her hands, her eyes searching.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “For being distant. You’re right, there’s something that we should . . . that we need to talk about. If you have a minute now, maybe we could go—”
She’s in the middle of gesturing at one of the sitting-type rooms when all of a sudden, midsentence, she inhales sharply. My eyes cut to her face.
Without any further warning, her whole body seizes up, contorted and tense.
It’s so abrupt that I almost don’t catch her as she pitches forward, twitching unnaturally.
“Mance?” I yell. “Mance!”
But she’s not responding. Or maybe she can’t. Her eyes go blank and roll into the back of her head as her body slumps in my arms. I stagger against the wall, trying to hold her up, and when we hit the stone she emits a moan that gives me goose bumps.
“Get a healer,” I tell Ruin. “Now!”
I don’t look up, but I hear his rapid footsteps retreating down the hall. I’m overwhelmingly relieved that we already covered the healers’ wing on our tour. Hopefully it’s one of the ones I actually described accurately.
Scooping Mance into my arms, I stumble into the nearest room, which turns out to be the larder.
Rows and rows of wine greet us, and there’s nowhere comfortable to set Mance down, so I lean against a cask and cradle her in my lap, the smell of sour fermentation making my head swim.
It only compounds the sick feeling in my stomach.
“Mance, what’s happening?” I ask desperately, combing her hair away from her face. “Talk to me.”
She doesn’t respond.
I slide my fingers against her jaw in a reflexive move to feel for a pulse.
Only to come up short when . . .
There isn’t one.
My heart lurches and time seems to stop.
No. “Mance!”
I shake her and then immediately stop. That might not be a good idea. I might jostle something that shouldn’t be jostled. What do I do, though? Where’s that healer? This can’t be the end, there must be something that can be done.
Something—
Suddenly, her eyes roll forward again and she gasps. Not like she’s surprised, but like she’s straining for air. I feel like I am, too. I’m not sure I’ve actually taken a breath since the moment I felt her throat.
It’s thrumming now, racing beneath my fingers, reassuring me that she is alive.
But alive doesn’t mean okay.
As her mouth gapes, sucking in oxygen by the lungful, she starts shivering, whimpering, swatting at places on her body like she’s attacking phantoms. I barely duck one swinging arm and catch the other just before it slams into a spigot, folding my fingers over hers and pressing them into my lips.
“Mance, please . . . ,” I moan. I’m doing my best to stay outwardly calm, but inside I’m absolutely losing it. What is happening to her?
She twitches again and then goes abruptly, unnaturally still. “I . . .” The muscles of her jaw flex, like speaking is difficult. “I died, Silver.”
“You—” The feeling of her flesh with no pulse surges to the front of my mind, and I press my fingertips lightly into the space below her jaw to feel it again, to find the reassuring rhythm that denies the awful thing she’s just said.
None of this makes sense. She clearly hasn’t died, because she’s right here in my arms, curled against me. I’m not losing her. Not today.
But then I realize what she must mean and the breath dries up in my throat as my fingers freeze in place. “Who?” I croak. “Which one?”
She swallows, then whispers brokenly, “Heart.”
It feels like my own heart has been torn from my chest at the word. “No . . .”
I sag against the wood cask, winded. Wounded.
Not Heart. That can’t be true. She’s the sweetest of them.
The one who always looks at me like she can see everything I’m meant to be and has no doubt at all that I’ll live up to it.
Even if I don’t always believe that look, I need it sometimes.
The idea of not having it, the thought of her being gone, cuts through me like a knife.
“No,” I say again, louder. Mance came back to me. I refuse to accept that Heart won’t. “When your animals die, you can still summon them. Right? What if it’s the same? Do you think . . . Can you still summon her?”
“I don’t know.”
“. . . Try?” Even as I say it, I almost choke on the word, terrified to know for sure.
She looks sick at the suggestion, like she’s just as afraid of the answer as I am. But after a couple seconds, her gaze goes unfocused.
And . . . nothing happens.
My throat gets tight.
Usually, her splits are fairly instantaneous. She only needs to think it and it happens, like moving your arm.
But a full second goes by, and she’s just lying there, staring at nothing.
Then another second passes, one of the slowest of my life.
By the end of the third second, tears begin to gather in the corners of her eyes, and an anguished sob starts to work its way up from the center of my chest.
But then, just before the cry leaves my lips, her body finally splits, one version peeling off the other like a mist that rises on a lake at dawn.
And then Heart is there. Standing right in front of us.
My first emotion is relief, and it’s heady enough to make my head swim. A flood of tension releases from my shoulders, and Mance collapses against the cask as well, clearly feeling the same.
But then I really look at Heart, and it feels like I’ve been punched in the gut all over again.
There’s dirt on her face, and it’s tracked with tears, forming crusty paths down her cheeks. Her hair is in a ponytail like Mance’s, but it looks considerably more unkempt, and she doesn’t shake it out immediately like she usually would. Her mouth isn’t smiling. Her eyes are wide and blank.
Worst of all, her entire body is covered with dark purple bruises. They look like . . . handprints.
Including one wrapped around her neck.