Chapter 9
make it to the bushes before losing my dinner.
Out. I need out.
The last few weeks of my life come hurtling back with the contents of my stomach, just as bitter and foul in retrospect.
The wall. The plague. The nightmare I’m living.
I cling to a tree as my body spasms. Everything burns.
I drop to my knees through the worst of it, until it’s over and I’m hacking and spluttering, clawing the grass.
“Lyria?”
Someone’s calling for me. I look back toward the castle and the terrace I sprinted through. The doors to the Great Hall cast long, flickering reflections on its marble.
I rise quickly, shoving myself to my feet, then almost collapse again as I realize what I’ve done.
Everything in a five-foot radius of me is dead. The grass I collapsed in looks like it’s been burned to ash. The tree I braced against has turned shriveled and gray. When I reach out to touch the hedges, dust crumbles in my fingers.
I stumble back, overcome by the carnage of my Talent.
“Lyria!” It’s Finn.
I’ve never been less happy to see him. My hands fly protectively to my ears, finding that the charm has reverted after my outburst. I work to calm my racing lungs, murmuring the spell under my breath as I hurry away from the crater.
“Over here!” I croak, panting, once I’ve managed to change my ears back.
“Are you all right?” Finn jogs closer, coming into view. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea Damien was going to do that.”
My gaze drifts back toward the castle, where music has resumed in the Great Hall. Through the glowing windows, I see the party has picked back up like nothing has happened. Servants are already mopping the floor.
I feel hollow.
“Finn, I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I finally admit quietly.
“Sure you do,” he insists. “What are you talking about? You’re my guest.”
I shake my head, not meeting his eye. The sound of Fergustan’s head as it tumbled echoes again and again. Damien claimed the Elf was abusing his magic but didn’t even let him speak. Did Fergustan really use his Talent to harm others? Or is he just a casualty of Verdish ignorance?
I will never know, because Fergustan didn’t have a chance to defend himself.
If it had been me in those shackles, would Finn have done anything different?
“Could we take a walk together?” Finn offers, his voice drawing me back from my inner turmoil. “And I can try to explain?”
Take me home, I want to say. Instead, I mumble, “Sure.”
He grasps my hand and steers me through the moonlit garden, far from the music and the patch I obliterated. My thoughts are a world away. I’m planning my escape route: the horse I’ll need, the path I’ll take out of Crown City…
Finn leads us out of the hedge maze, over a lawn, and through the swaying rose gardens.
We pass between twin statues of dragons and through an ivy-covered door before arriving at a secluded lake.
At the water’s edge is a massive willow tree with gold blossoms decorating the sweeping branches.
It’s breathtaking, almost otherworldly. If I weren’t so distraught, I would ask about it.
“My brothers and I used to call this place the swan garden,” he explains. “We liked to hide here from our parents.”
I say nothing back.
Finn sprawls out near the water’s edge. It’s an uncanny re-creation of our trip to the waterfall that makes my guts twist. I gingerly sit down beside him, making sure we don’t touch. I wrap my arms around my shoulders and gaze at the wobbling reflection of the stars.
“Where were you?” I ask. My Talent is still fighting for control, so I am desperate for something else, anything else, to focus on. “What was so important that it drew you away?”
Finn looks guilty. “I got orders to ride east practically the second I got home. My job, it’s…it’s special. I can’t say much about it, but it required me to go to Sulnik. I couldn’t refuse.”
“Sulnik?”
“We’re on thin ice with them. No pun intended. Sebastian is engaged to their crown prince, which should go a long way toward mending fences. But the Sulish king hates my father, and he’s closely allied with the king of Ursandor. Neither of them wants a united Midlands.”
“What do you want?” All my muscles tighten, waiting for his answer.
“Peace,” Finn says simply. “I want peace, and I want everyone I love to be safe.”
“You call what just happened peace?” There’s venom in my tone, and it makes Finn frown.
“Have you ever actually set foot in the Republic of Sontaag?” he asks.
“Because I have, and they’re a mess. They call themselves free cities, but there’s nothing free about them.
The magistrates like Fergustan live in opulence while their people starve in the slums. I’m the first to criticize my father’s tactics, but when I look around Crown City, I don’t see people suffering. ”
“Then maybe you’re not looking closely enough,” I snarl back. “Or maybe you just don’t consider everyone people.”
A cold, heavy space widens between us. I think back to the cottage and all the conversations we shared. We touched very little on politics, and what I’ve just implied might be considered treason.
“I’ve told you from the very beginning that I don’t see eye to eye with my father,” Finn says slowly, breaking the long silence.
“I don’t think being Elven makes someone evil.
I don’t think being Verdish does, either.
And using magic doesn’t make you a bad person any more than sitting in a chapel makes you a good one.
I didn’t start this war. It’s bigger and older than either of us, and all we can do is our best at the role we’ve been given. ”
I feel a little relief hearing confirmation that Finn doesn’t share his family’s prejudices. But his words are far from satisfying. “You could change things,” I argue. “If you don’t agree with the war, you should advocate to end it. That’s your duty. You’re the prince!”
“I’m a prince,” he corrects me. “One of three. And in case you’ve missed it, none of us have crowns on our heads.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.
“My father hasn’t chosen an heir. And until he does, if I want to have any shot at any power to make any changes, I need to convince him I don’t actually have dog shit for brains.”
I blink. “But isn’t Sebastian the heir?”
“No,” he huffs. “It’s supposed to be confirmed at sixteen. He’s twenty-two now. When my father didn’t crown him, everyone said it was going to be me, and like an idiot, I believed them.”
All at once, his story about the fyrehound finally makes sense. “That’s why Damien freaked out after his name day,” I deduce, almost whispering. “It wasn’t about a portion of the inheritance…. He thought he was going to be named heir.”
Finn nods, looking agonized. “You see why I’m on such a short leash?”
I fall quiet, trying to process this. Anger and disgust fights against the all-too-familiar reality of a soul-crushing pursuit of parental approval. It’s hard not to see fragments of myself reflected in Finn.
In the end I can’t reconcile my empathy with the rage and confusion swirling within. “So, you’ll do whatever he orders you to, if that means becoming king?” I finally ask.
“No! No,” Finn says quickly. “But I need to play the long game. If I were to end up on the throne, my rule would be dedicated to ending this war. I’d swear that on my life, Lyria.
But there’s no world in which I can do that alone.
To broker peace, I need the support of the noble families, the VIA, our allies abroad, not to mention my brothers and cousins.
I need people to believe that a different future is possible.
I need to convince them to believe in me. Because right now…nobody does.”
His voice trembles on those last words, which makes my chest ache like there’s too much emotion trapped inside it: mistrust and longing and shame, all mingled. I understand his single-minded devotion because I’ve lived it.
Who am I except my mother’s daughter? I never questioned the cage she trapped me in. Why would Finn question his?
“Why couldn’t you have told me all this sooner?” I ask. “Why not tell me who you really were at the cottage?”
He draws a deep breath. “If you’d known the truth, could you honestly tell me things would have been the same?”
I chew over my answer. “No,” I admit.
“No,” he repeats. “I didn’t think so. And…I wouldn’t have wanted anything to have gone differently, in terms of you and me.”
His words heat my cheeks. I know I should continue to press him, but I can’t help but smile a little as I say, “Except for the whole tying-you-up bit?”
“That was my favorite part, actually.”
I laugh and look out toward the city. My thoughts swim for a while in the soup of revelations I’m processing—all the ways my world has wobbled, tightened, and expanded.
I’m highly aware of the distance between us, and that it’s our first time alone together, apart from the Ironwoods.
Those stolen weeks feel like a lifetime ago.
“I told you my father has an outsize degree of influence over my life,” Finn continues. “I didn’t tell you about my family and all this because…I don’t know. That time in the cottage, it felt special, like we were just on an island somewhere. Like none of the rest of it mattered.”
Something blooms in my chest.
“I didn’t just invite you here to be our apothecary,” Finn says, reaching for my hand again. “I invited you here because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
My stomach lurches. There it is—the option I’m not prepared for. The words I’ve been aching to hear. Since Finn left the cottage, I’ve been internally at war, torn between my heart and the cooler rationale of my head. Am I delusional? Does he feel the same way?
Or am I just another toy to be discarded?
I’m steeling my courage to ask when suddenly I hear a distant crying. It’s high and reedy—almost catlike, or like a small child. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” Finn looks at me blankly, but I’m already clambering to my feet.
The noise emanates from the distant trees.
It’s farther away than I thought, probably farther than Finn’s human ears can hear.
I hurry toward it, peering into the darkness.
There. Amid the ferns. It’s the size of a small dog, with dainty paws and a pointed muzzle.
A fox, a very young male one. It has a large gash along its side, and its front paw is mangled.
I crouch, extending a hand. “You’re all right,” I whisper. The fox sniffs my fingertips and looks up at me, and my heart swells. “What happened?”
He looks pitifully out of place—a wild thing among the perfect manicured gardens, entirely alone. That is a feeling I am far too familiar with.
Tentatively, I stroke his head, and he leans in to the touch. Finn runs up behind me. “What happened?” His footsteps slow when he catches sight of the fox.
Gingerly, I scoop the creature into my arms. “He’s hurt. I need to help him.”
Finn’s eyes widen, and for a split second I think he might protest. But after a beat he nods. “My mom wouldn’t like it. But she doesn’t have to know. Should we take him to your room?”
He helps me smuggle the fox inside, reassuring me along the way.
“You’re sure he’ll be safe here?” I ask.
“Considering Damien hid a ten-foot python in his bathtub for years when he was a kid, a fox should be fine.”
I make a nest for my new guest out of cushions and blankets, and Finn dashes down to the kitchen for some food.
While Finn’s gone, I slip the fox some of the nocturn to induce sleep.
Then I use my Talent to heal the worst of his wounds.
When I’m done, I bandage the fox’s side wound for show.
I don’t want Finn asking questions. The front paw is an older injury, so I can’t mend it completely.
It still twists at an unnatural angle—and always will—but the pain should be gone.
Finn is breathless when he returns. “How’s he doing?”
“Sleeping,” I say as he sets down some minced meat and bread in a saucer.
“Is he tame?”
“I suppose we’ll find out when he wakes up.” I meet his eye. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Of course.” He smiles and reaches out to stroke the sleeping fox along his protruding ribs.
“For a split second I thought you might say no.”
He huffs through his nose. A quick breath. “I wasn’t going to stand in the way of you helping an innocent animal. If it wasn’t clear, I’m not actually the worst person ever.”
His eyes flit from the fox to my face. They’re very intense as he asks, “What are you going to name him?”
I consider a moment. “Dante.” Then I wait with a little apprehension to see if Finn will recognize it. Dante, the name of Elowyn’s fyrehound in legends, who supposedly chased the moon across the sky. Mother taught me how to find him in constellations.
If Finn understands its Elven significance, he gives no sign. He just smiles, settling beside me. Our knees touch, and I shiver.
“For the record…I don’t think you’re the worst person ever,” I say.
He chuckles. “I appreciate that.” Then his voice lowers to a hush.
“I don’t want to be like my father. I know more than anyone that he’s done terrible, terrible things.
But I want to be different, and better.…
I will be better. I promise. And I promise to be honest with you.
I’m just asking for you to give me that chance. ”
I lie awake for a long while after he leaves.
I can’t stop seeing the horrible scene in the Great Hall: the mix of apathy and enjoyment on the faces around me while they watched.
I’ve heard the stories; I’ve seen the heads on the wall.
I thought I understood Verdish prejudice, in theory.
However, seeing their hatred—feeling it—is different.
For the first time, I realize why Mother was so afraid to let me escape our cottage.
Even with these revelations and a mounting awareness of the very real danger I’m in, I can’t find it in me to go.
Maybe it’s foolhardy. But as I listen to the crest and fall of Dante’s breathing, I’m reminded of what brought me here: the last beautiful creature I couldn’t resist saving.
Deep inside, I feel some small, blazing kernel of satisfaction, like I’m on the right path somehow, even if I can’t see it all clearly.
I did something good today. Maybe, if I finish the omnidraught, I could do something great. Finn wants to see the world shaped differently, as I do. Maybe I could be a part of that, too.
I can’t give up this life. For the first time, I have a purpose. I have friends.
I have him.
After a lifetime alone, the prospect of surrendering any of that outweighs all other fears.