Chapter 31
y chamber makes an effective cell. The door bolts from the outside, and the window opens up to a sheer two-hundred-foot drop. I add this to today’s long list of discoveries of my own stupidity. This was always a cell. It was naivety that made me see it as anything less.
After a full sweep to confirm there’s no way out, I crawl on top of my bed and curl into the fetal position.
Then I start sobbing. Once the tears come, they can’t be tempered.
The past few months slam into me full force: every mistake, every betrayal, every dead end on this ridiculous fool’s errand.
I don’t know what my next move is. I don’t know how I’m going to get out, or if I ever will.
I’ve never longed for the Ironwoods more.
In my heart, I travel there: I smell the cedar and clay, I hear wind rustling in the aspens, I feel the warm earth underneath me. I should never have left home.
My pity party gets interrupted by a knock at the door. I clamber to my feet and wipe the tears away fast as the door swings open.
“Are you all right?” Finn rushes toward me.
I back toward the wall as he approaches, keeping my distance. “Get out.”
“Lyria, I am so sorry—”
“Why are you here?”
Finn stops abruptly, taking notice of my retreat. He looks confused. “So that we can figure out a plan. We’ve got to figure out how to defuse the situation before it’s unsalvageable.”
I’m actually speechless, torn between hysterical laughter and tears. “Look around you! What’s left to defuse?!”
His determined expression doesn’t change. “We can figure something out.”
The hysterical laughter wins out. “Finn, I just murdered someone! The whole world knows I’ve got a Talent. You really think we’re coming back from this?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll find a way to get us out of Verdinae. We could hide in the Phantom Isles, or charter a ship and head south—”
“I DON’T WANT TO GO ANYWHERE WITH YOU!”
Finn’s eyes widen at my sudden outburst, and he swallows. “Because of…”
“All of it!” I shout. “You lied to me about everything! You used me! You—” And then my body betrays me; shaking morphs into sobs. I abruptly turn away from him, covering my face as it flames with humiliation.
“I wanted to tell you the truth from the beginning,” Finn implores. “I tried to convince my parents that it would be better to just come clean about our plans, but they were convinced you’d refuse to help us if you knew what the the omnidraught was really for.”
“They were exactly right!”
“I’m sorry! I just thought—”
“What? You thought I wouldn’t mind being manipulated? Or maybe you thought I’d be so thrilled that you chose me, I’d overlook the fact that you’re a piece of shit?”
“I THOUGHT THAT WE COULD BE TOGETHER!” Finn roars.
He grinds his palms against his forehead, and I wonder if he’s about to start crying, too.
“The omnidraught was supposed to mean that we could have it all! We could end the war, and take the throne together. We could craft a new world. We could bring the Elves out of the shadows—”
“By killing our magic?”
“By making everyone equal!”
I take a step back. “Can you even hear yourself right now?”
“You’re really telling me your life wouldn’t have been better if you weren’t born with a Talent?” Finn challenges.
His words fall like hot rain. Of course I can’t. Normalcy is my daydream. It’s the fantasy I’ve fallen asleep to a thousand times: the world where my Talent never manifested, and we never needed to stay hidden in the Ironwoods, the world where Mother clipped my ears and raised me inwall instead.
In that world, I could have had a childhood. I could have a future. I could have him.
Marking my hesitation, Finn reaches into his tunic and withdraws a small vial of golden liquid.
The sight of the omnidraught makes my stomach turn, but I’m not sure he notices my discomfort.
Finn holds it out to me. “If you drink this tonight, I guarantee that everything else will be forgiven. What happened in the garden won’t matter.
We’ll just say you were panicking, and overwhelmed… .”
“I was.”
“Right. My parents would be willing to overlook it. I know they would.”
“Why, because I’m the Heir of Evermore?”
Now it’s Finn’s turn to be floored. He snaps his mouth shut, but the expression of shock remains. “I need you to understand, it was never my intention to hurt you. All I ever wanted—”
“Stop.” I snarl the word with so much venom I hardly recognize my own voice. “Stop talking.”
His eyes widen, questioning.
“I know what you’re doing,” I continue. “And you think it’s going to work because it has worked.
Because I was naive and clueless and so fucking in love with you.
” My eyes burn. “You have been telling me who you are this entire time. Everyone has been telling me, and I was just the last person to believe it because for some reason, I thought there was something in you worth saving.”
“Lyria—”
“NO. That is not working on me!” I shout. “I know what you really think.”
He reels back, his brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“What was it you called me? ‘Grotesquely starved for affection’?”
Finn shakes his head furiously. “No, I would never say that! Lyria, you’ve got it all wrong. I—”
“I saw it! Okay? I saw it with magic! So you can keep lying to me and digging yourself a deeper hole, or you can just tell me the Gods-damn truth for once. If you’re even capable of that.”
His shoulders slump in surrender. And finally, finally, it all tumbles out.
“The truth is…the plague was a hoax. We planted the rumor as a tactic to lure Elven apothecaries out of hiding. My father has been working toward achieving the omnidraught for decades. Ragglestaff was one in a line of potioneers we’ve employed. ”
“There was no fyrehound,” I say slowly.
Finn shakes his head, his eyes dropping to the floor. “When Damien and my father argued about the heirship, he did storm off to go hunting. But not for a fyrehound. He was trying to find the Heir of Evermore.”
“And?” I ask quietly.
Finn exhales. Then he lifts his gaze back to me. “And…I think I found her instead.”
We appraise each other in silence for a long time.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” I ask.
He blinks. “Because I fell in love with you.”
I have to look away. “And yet you still sold me out to your father.”
“I—” His face crumples. “That is the single greatest regret of my life.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I convinced myself it would be selfish to leave you in the Ironwoods. I told myself I had a duty to the Crown, and to my family…and that if we didn’t intervene, the next time I’d see you would be on a battlefield.
So I proposed that I could persuade you instead.
But after you got here, it didn’t take me long to realize what a terrible thing I’d done.
And then I was at war with myself constantly.
Half of me thought I should stay as far away from you as possible so that I wouldn’t inflict any more damage.
But the other half…just…couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough.
And I’m sorry for that. I will always be sorry that I was too weak to stay out of your life. ”
“How much of it was real?” I ask softly.
“All of it,” Finn answers immediately. “All my feelings were real. They still are.”
The words are an arrow straight through my heart. Poisoned by everything that might have been.
He steps toward me, as if to offer an embrace. “Lyria—”
“No.” I pull back, retreating against the wall. “Don’t.”
I will never let him touch me again.
Finn draws a ragged breath. Whatever he plans to say next, I am positive that I don’t want to hear it. The haze has lifted. It’s not a hero or liberator or prince standing in front of me. It’s King Rodrick’s son.
And right now he looks just like his father.
“You need to leave,” I say, in the same unfamiliar, venomous voice.
“Wait—”
“NOW!”
Finn doesn’t move. But I’m done asking.
I surge forward and shove his chest, hard, screaming, “I said get OUT!”
Finn’s never felt the full extent of my strength before, and fear flashes across his face as he crashes back into the door. I feel like a wild thing.
And he’s still not leaving.
So I summon the foulest thing I can think of to push him away. The truth. And I look Finn straight in the eyes as I spit out the words: “I should have left you for dead.”
His eyes are sunken with sorrow as he finally heads out the door.
I’m caged again.
I sit in the tower for a very long time, while the sun sets and the room gets much colder. The next interruption comes when I hear the guard bark from the hall, “Five minutes.”
“Go away!” I say, ready for another fight if it’s Finn on the other side of that door.
But it’s not Finn. Instead, it’s the last person I expected to see.
The princess of Ursandor steps into the chamber.
Sandria and I stare at each other for a long moment as the door swings shut behind her.“Wow,” she says. “You look like shit.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Charity work.” Sandria sweeps past me, moving in to examine the windowsill.
She checks it, then switches to investigating the doorframe while I rub tears furiously from my eyes.
She looks like she’s appraising a country inn rather than someone’s cell.
“You should probably start packing, by the way.”
“What?” I ask.
“I said, you should start packing. Y’know? Clothes? Books? More of those kerchiefs you’re so keen on?” she says. I watch in confusion as she picks up a book, frowns, and chucks it onto the bed. “You’re fleeing to Ruin, yes?”
She knows about Ruin?
“I…” I make a choked noise.
Sandria drawls, “You’re not the only one at court with secrets, Lyria.” She leans back against a wall to evaluate me. “They say you’re the Heir of Evermore. Are you aware of that?”
My stomach roils.
“As of…very recently, yes,” I admit, feeling stupid. All at once, the ulterior motive of her invitation to Sebastian’s name day is painfully obvious. Did Sandria know then? Was she testing me?
Is every so-called friend in this palace an utter fraud?
The princess cocks her head. “And…?”
“And what?”
“And what do you think? Are you up for it?”
I draw a long breath. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
Her smile thins. “What a stirring battle cry.”
Irritation rushes through me. “Well, I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” I say sarcastically. “I haven’t had much time to think about it! In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a bit of a complicated situation.”
“None of this is that complicated.” Sandria’s eyes harden.
“Don’t let them delude you into thinking it is.
They want you scared. They want you questioning yourself.
It’s the only way they win. If you play their game, they will destroy everything you love while you’re twisting yourself into knots. Don’t let them.”
I gaze back at her, heart pounding.
“Can you do that?” she demands. “Can you trust yourself?”
The truth is all I can manage. “I can try.”
She sighs. “Gods, you better muster more conviction than that. If we’re winning this war, it’s together. I can’t afford for you to be scared. No one can.”
I steady myself.
“Now, I need you to listen very carefully and follow my instructions,” says Sandria.
“I’m going to get you out of here, but all holy hell is going to break loose the second I do.
You’re only going to have a few minutes to get to safety, and during that time you cannot hold back. Do you understand me?”
I nod.
She flicks her glossy hair over her shoulder.
“The Verdish are prepared to kill you before letting you leave. Every fight from now until you reach Ruin will be a fight to the death. This is not the time for squeamishness and mercy. I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me that if I give you a chance to run, you’re going to use it. ”
I swallow and nod. “I understand.” This is not a chance I’ll get again.
“Tell me that you’re willing to fight,” she demands.
“I’m willing to fight.”
“Tell me you’re willing to kill.”
“I—I’m willing to kill.”
Though my voice shakes, I force myself to believe it. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. For my people, for my future, for our freedom, for Evermore, I will fight. And I won’t hold back. This isn’t a fable of heroes and villains. This is war—the wretched in-between.
Sandria searches my expression and finally nods in approval. “Good. Now get your things.”
I retrieve the satchel I arrived with, then glance around the chamber for Dante, find him snoozing on the bed, and scoop him into my arms. For once, he holds still as I hug him close to my chest, breathing in the smell of his fur.
“That’s it?”
I nod. “It’s all I need.”
“If you run, will the fox follow?”
“Yes.” I hope.
Sandria looks like she wants to argue but ultimately shrugs. “Just one more thing.” She rummages in her skirts and, to my astonishment, withdraws Elowyn’s crown. “You’re going to need this.”
I blink down at it, overflowing with questions. The only one I can manage is “How?”
Sandria smirks. “I have my methods.”
I gape as I take it. Stealing the crown off the king’s head was an impulse, and I am not sure why Sandria went through the trouble of stealing it again for me. But as I’ve learned, every move she makes has a purpose. If she wants me to take it with me, then it must be important.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why are you helping me?”
She answers without hesitation. “For Ursandor.” Then Sandria gives me another one of her blistering once-overs. “I hope you’re all they think you are. Because if you live to make me regret this, I will kill you myself. Is that understood?”
I nod numbly. I’m about to ask her the plan when Sandria wheels around.
“Get behind me,” she orders.
I step back, confused, as the princess of Ursandor sinks into a fighting stance with her hands outstretched. Her palms aim for the door.
I know that stance. Because I’ve used it. But I still almost can’t believe what I’m seeing when flames explode from her hands.
The raw force of her magic nearly knocks me to the ground. These violet flames are hotter than any natural fire—this is wildfyre, magic flames. Is Sandria a half-Elf, an Elf with docked ears, or a Talented human?
My jaw drops.
I do not have time to fully comprehend what I’ve just witnessed—and how it potentially shatters everything I thought I knew about Talents—before Sandria’s head snaps back toward me, and she bellows, “GO!”
I obey, leaping through the open door and past the guards, who have been knocked off their feet.
As I hightail it down the stairs, I hear Sandria screaming.
“HELP! HEEEEELLLLP! She attacked me, she’s getting away!”
And as I sprint from the tower, with my heart swelling with affection toward the princess of Ursandor, I vow that she will not regret her faith in me.