Chapter 17
invite Daisy to join me in Easton. My invitation has two purposes.
One, to make up for being a bad friend—I am very aware that between the time I’ve spent working on the omnidraught and searching for an answer for the first gate, I haven’t had much time to hang out with her.
Two, to provide a barrier between Sandria and me for the weekend.
Daisy is elated to be invited. Apparently, Sebastian’s name day is known to be quite the event, and all the court is expected to attend.
Her agreeability helps temper some of my dread.
I don’t know how I am going to face Finn, who I am sure will be there.
Much less Odessa or the Ursandorn princess.
I expect Sandria to be joined by a host of ladies-in-waiting, but when Daisy and I arrive at the forecourt, it’s just her and two young cousins, who are apparently visiting for the weekend.
The girls look about ten and share her thick black hair.
All three are in traveling dresses with long, billowing sleeves and the open necklines I’ve come to expect from Ursandorn fashion.
Sandria introduces them with their titles, and I immediately forget both names.
We board the carriage, which could easily accommodate twice as many ladies. Sandria orders the footmen to open the curtains so we get a cool cross-breeze and can see the landscape as we pass on our rumbling journey eastward.
As we travel, Daisy interrogates the princess.
She wants to know everything about her life: the courtiers, the fashions, the cuisines.
“Is it true that the princess of Dasken only eats green or purple food? Is Codswallow as nice as they say it is this time of year? Do you have any dresses from the West? How many?”
Sandria humors her, while I tune out the conversation.
I commend Daisy’s enthusiasm. Small talk is beyond me at the moment.
Like the younger girls, I gaze out the window toward the verdant landscape rolling past, thinking about locks and gates.
My emotions are a tangled mess, with Finn at the center.
Tonight will bring me face-to-face with him for the first time since the incident with Cygnus.
I thought space would help me sort out my feelings, but I still have no idea what to expect from our reunion.
He might give me the cold shoulder again.
I might not want to speak to him at all.
I keep mentally writing and rewriting speeches, but no words seem sufficient for the complexity I’m navigating.
Here are the facts I cannot escape: Finn fights for Verdinae.
His father’s empire seeks to obliterate Elves and magic from this world, and that very same magic is inexorably bound to my blood.
Only one of those facts is mutable. I can’t reverse the proliferation of Verdish ideology any more than I can split my Talent from my soul.
The only thing I might be able to change is Finn’s heart.
But is that a lost cause already? He told me that he doesn’t subscribe to Verdish ideology about magic and Elves.
How can that be true if he’s actively working for the Frumentari?
The idea of Finn raising a blade toward my people should curdle any foolish feelings I’ve been harboring toward the prince.
I don’t know why it doesn’t. I can’t fathom why, deep down, I’m still fighting for us.
With duty and blood and propriety stacked against us, is there any future to fight for?
I thought I knew him. In the Ironwoods, I saw Finn as brave and compassionate—someone who’d act fearlessly to protect me, someone who spoke openly of his hatred toward Rodrick.
Somewhere between the cottage and the castle, I convinced myself we shared a disdain for imperialism, that Finn was my ally, not my enemy.
But everything since has painted the opposite picture.
Despite what he claims his personal beliefs to be, he enforces his father’s will without question.
Rodrick dangles the heirship like a bone before a hungry dog, and that’s exactly what Finn has become: Verdinae’s bloodhound.
Someone who would idly stand witness to harm, who has to be convinced of his power to enact change.
Each time “duties” draw him away from the castle, is he really just killing on the empire’s behalf?
How much Elven blood is on his hands? And if he knew what I was, would he kill me?
I can’t picture him as a ruthless imperial soldier.
When I try, the only image I can summon is of him sleeping in the cottage.
Peaceful and innocent. The stranger I rescued. The boy who saved me from isolation.
There’s one detail of his story I keep returning to now that I know about the Frumentari, a barbed and persistent thought. Finn said they were looking for a source in Belrick, someone with information about the Elven strongholds. Belrick isn’t far from the location of the quarantine zone.
Mother never shared all the details of her work on the road.
I always thought it was because she found it monotonous, working booths at market, hauling bottles of all’s-cure and grizzlefoot, meeting patients in run-down outwall cottages like ours.
It must be lowly work for someone of her skill set who stood shoulder to shoulder with the greatest scholars in the Midlands.
She’d share stories if they were interesting and of course taught me about her history, but she was quiet about her trips.
But I’ve started to wonder, Could Mother be assisting the rebellion?
I know her heart. Her whole life is devoted to the service of others.
She gives and gives until she runs empty; she can’t stand to see anything in pain.
If there were people in the insurgency who needed her help, any families that needed care, she’d feel duty bound to intervene.
Maybe that’s the great tie that binds us.
When I heard Finn screaming in the forest, I couldn’t stop myself from running.
In a way, that’s what she’s been doing all her life: rescuing people who need help.
Didn’t she constantly deride the empire?
Didn’t she pray steadfastly for the resurrection of Evermore?
Endless talks about the great future I need to strive toward—one I sullenly refused to believe existed.
She fits the profile of a rebel. Verdinae took everything from her.
She is part of the last, most-robbed generation, the one whose lives were shattered in their youth, right at the turn of her adulthood.
Mother watched her home burn. She saw her people exiled, scattered, driven to their knees.
Wouldn’t she seek to fight back, with her bleeding heart?
Her faithful dream of Evermore arisen…isn’t that worth fighting for?
But that also doesn’t make sense. If the Elven rebellion is tied to the plague Ursandor is orchestrating, Mother would never help them.
Would she?
I’m drawn to reconsider her lack of communication since my departure. Is Mother too distracted to make contact with me? Or have I taken a step too far? What secrets does she hold?
The carriage hits a bump in the road that jolts me back to the conversation. Daisy and Sandria are discussing fashion.
“For the best silk, you’ve got to go to Sontaag,” Sandria says. “There’s this one little shop I love in Cinnamon City, and they’ve got a patio in the back overlooking the coast. It’s gorgeous.”
“What about fur?” Daisy asks eagerly. “Where do you get your fur?”
“Oh, all the best fur is from Sulnik,” Sandria says idly. “But nobody’s buying there these days.”
Now she has my attention. I scrutinize the princess’s face—she looks placid as ever. An act?
“What do you mean, nobody’s buying from Sulnik?” Daisy presses.
“They’ve closed the border.” Sandria picks at her fingernails, and I wonder if she’s deliberately avoiding my gaze.
“As of four weeks ago, the king of Sulnik stopped all trade. Nothing’s getting shipped out, but everything’s getting shipped in.
Apparently, the Sulish Crown is ordering weapons as fast as they can ship them.
Plenty of Ursandorn merchants are making a fortune. Blacksmiths, too.”
My brow furrows as I absorb this. Sulnik wouldn’t pick a fight with Verdinae, even if they want to, because of their prince’s engagement. So who is Sulnik arming against?
“Why? What are they preparing for?” I speak up.
Everyone looks at me.
Sandria’s eyes flicker. “That’s the mystery, isn’t it?”
My chest tightens. Elves seem an unfathomable enemy for Sulnik. Has Verdish ideology taken root in the frigid north, as it has here?
Daisy looks terrified by something that I haven’t grasped. “You don’t mean…”
Sandria nods. I see a crack in her courtier’s mask, a slip in that careful nonchalance. It conceals a very real fear. “There are some in Sulnik, the king’s advisors among them, who believe that the Four Wars Prophecy is coming to pass.”
Daisy emits a strange little squeak, like she’s choking. I glance at her in confusion. I’ve got no context for any of this.
“Have they been seeing the signs?” Daisy asks breathlessly.
“The Demeridian is receding,” Sandria says mildly, like she’s recalling the weather.
“Last fall, a plague swept through most of Sulnik and a good portion of Ursandor, killing birds by the thousands. Songbirds mostly, but some big birds, too. In Sulnik, they use icehounds to send letters. But we use ravens in Ursandor, and people certainly took note when our whole ravenry dropped dead.”
At the word plague, my blood runs cold.
Should I have been studying birds this whole time?
I turn backward through memories, reviewing conversations. I can’t remember either Davina or Mother mentioning an avian strain of the plague. Was the queen unaware? Did it slip her mind? Is Sandria confiding a secret I need to protect?
Birds. What do I know about birds?