Chapter 3
Normally, when I had occasion to visit the capital city of Fairhaven, it was cause for celebration, for a visit there meant I would see Yvaine Ballantere, queen of our world of Edyn and one of my dearest friends. Between her and Gareth, I was spoiled rotten with friendship, both of them good and kind and beautiful, both with rascally senses of humor and excellent taste in food. But on this particular day in Fairhaven, at the Citadel in the city’s center, with everything done up gloriously in blue and charcoal and silver, in green and ivory and gold, I entered the Pearl of the Sea Ballroom feeling cold with dread from head to toe.
Gareth and I had hardly spoken since that day at Ivyhill a week prior. He’d kept mostly to the library, poring through our collections for information about the ytheliad —the curse that had bound Talan to the creature Kilraith. Gemma had kept him company, equally curious about the ytheliad , I suppose, though I was too busy to ask her about it, or else used that as an excuse to avoid both of them.
And besides Gareth, there was the matter of my father.
Nothing out of the ordinary had happened since the day we had argued; it was as though the two strangers he’d met with had never existed. In fact, he had spent the week leading up to the ball more engaged in the estate than he’d been in some time. He’d visited the tenant farmers, worked alongside Mr. Carbreigh in the gardens, even taken every last one of our horses out for a long ride about the grounds.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. A kernel of worry turned over and over in my stomach—a small thing, and yet it sent uneasy ripples all through me.
“What’s wrong with you?” Gemma whispered at my side. “You look like you’re about to be walked over the edge of a cliff.”
I glanced at my sister. She, of course, was resplendent, wearing a diaphanous gown the color of pink rose petals, the entire thing overlaid with delicate, diamond-spangled lace. Her golden curls were piled on top of her head. Shimmering peach powder dusted her cheeks, lips, and collarbones. And she wore gloves, of course—intricate lace, with coy ribbons winding up her forearms. She wasn’t yet comfortable baring her net of lightning-white scars to the world.
I didn’t blame her. Lovely as they were, and as proud of her as I was for what she’d endured to get them, it didn’t feel safe to have anyone’s eyes upon them but ours.
Nothing felt safe at the moment.
“I feel unhinged,” I muttered to her. “Father’s been strange all day. Too cheerful. Even rosy . There are so many people here. And I hate this dress.”
“Rubbish. You look marvelous.”
“A subjective assessment that doesn’t change my hatred.”
Gemma sighed, placed a hand on my lower back, and guided me to a small, curtained anteroom on the ballroom’s perimeter. I was so grateful to be led away from the crush of people crowding the dance floor, the feast tables, and the wide veranda with its doors flung open to the evening that I didn’t even protest her bossing me around without explanation. Inside the anteroom were two low, tufted benches and, hanging on the wall, a tall mirror in a gilded frame.
I immediately tried to turn away from the thing, but Gemma stopped me, her grip surprisingly firm on my shoulders. “We’re going to stand here,” she said, “until you can look at yourself and tell me how beautiful you are.”
I glanced at the mirror and then away. “Gracious me,” I said flatly, “I’m so beautiful. Can I go find Yvaine now?”
Gemma’s mouth quirked. “First of all, no, because you’re one of the guests of honor and need to show your face for longer than two minutes, and so does she. And second of all, what you did just then most certainly does not count. When I say tell me how beautiful you are, I mean really tell me, and believe it. I will accept nothing less.” She waved her arm at the mirror. “Even you cannot argue with this .”
I stared at the floor until Gemma said blithely, “We can stand here all night, you know. It will just be a bit awkward when everyone comes to find us and has to crowd in here for our speech. I suppose you and Ryder and Alastrina and I will have to climb up onto these benches, all pressed together, and—”
“Oh, fine ,” I snapped, and then, reluctantly, looked up at the mirror.
I knew, of course, that Gemma was right. Even looking at myself with cold irritation, I had to admit that the result of her handiwork was impressive and that even underneath all the finery, I was pleasant to look at.
The gown we’d chosen was a compromise. It was from my wardrobe, yes, but from the section I hardly touched and Gemma preferred, comprised of gifts, mostly—from Father, from admirers, from Gemma herself. Not even I could bear to discard such pretty garments. This one was a muted gray blue, plain at first glance, but when you looked harder, you saw that the fabric was fine, rich, iridescent in the light. The neckline dipped too low for my liking, but the way the fabric fell against my upper chest was flattering, offset by the ribboned high collar that tied at my throat. Alluring yet demure , Gemma had declared upon seeing me in it for the first time, a satisfied sparkle in her eye. There were matching velvet slippers and loose sleeves that gathered at my wrists with rows of delicate gold buttons, each shaped like a swallow in flight. Earlier that afternoon, as we had prepared in the Green House—an airy cottage that sat on the edge of town, a gift to our family from Yvaine—Gemma had plopped me down in front of her stylist, Kerrish, and I couldn’t decipher what she’d done to my hair. It shone like satin, and she’d woven pieces of it together in a confusing mass of crisscrosses and tiny braids. My skin glowed; I looked rested, radiant, even happy, my scowl notwithstanding.
“Aren’t these the most darling earrings?” Gemma asked quietly, touching the pearls of pale coral that hung from my ears. “They complement the gown so well.”
I couldn’t answer her. My cheeks were on fire. I hated that she was doing this to me.
And yet only when I’d submitted to my sister’s ministrations did I ever feel as pretty as this.
“I’m beautiful,” I said thickly.
Gemma’s reflection beamed at me. “That’s better. And yes, my dear Farrin, you are.”
The sound of Father’s roaring laughter came to us then, barreling through the ballroom. My stomach dropped. I’d taken my eyes off of him for too long.
I darted over to the curtain to see what the fuss was about, but Father was merely standing beside a feast table, talking with a small crowd of courtiers—Anointed lords and ladies in gowns of Bask blue and sashes of Ashbourne green. Someone had just made a joke; Father was raising a glass in appreciation.
I retreated behind the curtain, feeling faint with relief.
Gemma frowned at me. “You really are worried about Father.”
I hesitated, a confession balanced on the tip of my tongue, but then decided against saying anything. Gemma didn’t need to know about Father’s mysterious guests or the true wrath he’d thrown at me. Someone in our family needed to face the night with no distractions.
“Farrin?” Gemma looked serious, the glow of the party fading from her face. “What’s happened?”
“Not a thing,” I said quickly. “I don’t worry lightly, but I do worry a lot, and nine times out of ten, it’s for no reason other than whatever nonsense I’ve conjured in my head.”
Gemma didn’t look convinced, but suddenly the curtain swished open, and there was Illaria Farrow, Gemma’s dear friend and a low-magic perfumier—one of the most talented in the country, surpassing even her parents. Her warm brown skin glowed from exertion, her shining dark hair hung in coils down her back, and she wore a gown of rich emerald-green satin in support of my family. Her only concession to the Basks was a tiny jewel of dark blue on her left middle finger.
“I just asked the concertmaster to play ‘Fair Sword, Fair Lady,’” Illaria said breathlessly, “so if you don’t come dance with me right this minute, I’ll be positively beside myself.”
Then she stopped and looked between us. “What is it? Is it the Basks? Did they do something boorish already? Did they insult you?” She bristled, squaring her shoulders. “I’m not yet drunk enough to punch anyone on your behalf, but I think I could be in roughly ten minutes.”
I seized the opportunity and gently pushed Gemma toward her. “Go on, dance. There’s no reason for both of us to worry about nothing.”
Gemma hesitated, but then the orchestra began playing a new song, a rousing reel that made the crowd send up a cheer.
“If nothing’s wrong, then let’s go ,” Illaria insisted, grabbing Gemma’s hand, and with one last concerned look back at me, Gemma was gone.
I stepped into the shadows, ignoring the mirror behind me, and let myself wallow in the relative quiet for a few seconds before bracing myself and pushing back into the candlelit ballroom. Gemma was right; we were guests of honor and needed to be visible. And if I hid in the anteroom all night, I would neither see Yvaine nor be able to watch over my father.
For what felt like hours I floated about the room, trying not to stay too long in any one place for fear that someone might start talking to me. They would see me and my dress—its blue fabric a respectful nod to the Basks, an acknowledgment of peace—and that would have to be enough until our speech at eleven o’clock forced me to present myself formally to these hundreds of horrible people.
I wondered how many of them had been in this very room the night Alastrina Bask had deceived Father into thinking our mother had returned at last. I wondered how many of them had laughed to see the mighty Gideon Ashbourne made a fool. These terrible thoughts did nothing for my nerves.
I found Father halfway across the ballroom in a fine suit of dark gray and a green vest with delicate ivory embroidery. I began shadowing him as closely as I could without arousing suspicion. He loitered by the feast tables for a time, deep in conversation with Willem Boyde, Ava Gettering, and Janeth Kass—three senior officers in the Upper Army. An elemental, an alchemist, and a beholder; one who could manipulate a natural element, one who could transform one element into another, and one who could see through magical disguises. All of them were Anointed—their magic gifted to their ancestors by the gods—and all had been guests of my father this past summer. I didn’t think they would risk any mischief on such a night, in such a crowd.
I dearly hoped I was right.
Father and his company drifted away. I crept after them between the feast tables, nibbling here and there at a pepper-stuffed mushroom, a spicy potato croquette, a date piled high with goat cheese and ham and drizzled with honey. All of it tasted like paper to me. I kept my eyes trained on Father’s golden-brown head; Kerrish had wrangled his hair into neat oiled waves. We wove through a maze of antechambers and sitting rooms that abutted the main ballroom, every room choked with feasters, talkers, drinkers, and gamblers, every table laden with dripping wax candles. At some point in the midst of all those roaring, genial shadows, the officers drifted away, and my father was alone. He grabbed a glazed pastry from a servant’s offered tray, popped it in his mouth. He was moving more quickly now.
The bells of the Citadel’s five clock towers began to chime. Deep, resonant tones bloomed through the air with a supple physicality, as if they were not sounds but breezes, cool and tender, utterly at odds with my rising panic. Flustered, I counted the chimes: ten, eleven.
“Shit,” I muttered, feeling sick at the back of my throat. We were meant to begin our speech now—Gemma, Ryder, Alastrina, and I. At Yvaine’s request, we would be the ones to speak to the crowd about how hopeful we were now that our families’ long feud was over, how eager we were for this new era of peace. Ryder had sent a brusque note about what he and Alastrina intended to say—a letter I had actually deigned to read—and Gemma and I had engineered our own words to echo theirs. The great evils of misunderstanding, prejudice, and distrust slain by a new generation of Ashbournes and Basks. Enemies no longer, but allies. Peace and hope.
It was all utter nonsense, the sort of thing that would please Yvaine, satisfy at least some people’s curiosity, and pique the interest of others. The great evil of misunderstanding? I could hear the onlookers now, whispering it to each other behind their gloved hands and over the rims of their glasses. They finally killed that demon, didn’t they? How do you suppose they did it? The legends that already existed about our families would grow wings and take soaring flight. Everyone would look at us with new interest, new respect.
Never mind that we’d done this thing without the help of any of our parents and that the act had nearly killed us all and Talan too. Never mind that the very idea of me standing on a dais beside the Basks was enough to make my own father nearly crush my wrist.
Distantly, I heard a royal herald inviting the crowd to gather at the platform near the grand staircase. “And now,” boomed his clarion voice, “we welcome Lord Alaster and Lady Enid of the House of Bask and their children, Lord Ciaran and Lady Alastrina…”
Ciaran. Of course—Ryder’s true name, which he hated for reasons I didn’t know and didn’t care to.
Distracted, desperate, unable to shake the feeling that something terrible was approaching, I followed Father toward the ballroom’s eastern veranda, where guests could dine and drink out of doors. Pale curtains tied with green and blue tassels hung at each polished wooden tentpole. The tables were piled high with arrangements of black feathers, sprigs of ivy, tiny glass lights spellcrafted by the royal beguilers to float in the air like fireflies.
Ryder stood there, his back to us and his arm outstretched. He was gently petting the round breast of a fat little sparrow perched on a low-hanging branch. He looked absurd, really, huge and hulking in his finery, the tiny sparrow a mere speck of fluff at his fingers. Alastrina stood at Ryder’s side, as pale and dark-haired as her brother, her posture dripping with boredom. Both of them were clad in black and blue, dashes of silver at their waists and hems, feathered epaulets giving them the look of brooding vultures. The herald in the ballroom announced them once more; neither Bask sibling made a move to go to him.
I saw my father stride toward them and raise his arms.
“So, here we all are,” he said, his voice booming across the stone veranda, “being feted like any other family would dream of. And yet you two seem as interested in being here as I am.”
His voice was light, jovial even. Startled, I watched as if through the haze of a dream. Ryder turned to greet my father, his gaze dark, his smile strained. Beside him, Alastrina bristled with sudden alertness. The crowd nearby tittered, practically salivating, their drinks forgotten. Here are the Ashbournes and Basks, and they all look ready to pounce!
And then came a shadow, darting through the floating lights and tinkling glasses. A blurred outline of a man, a flash of silver.
My vision sharpened with horror. The flash was a knife, and the shadow holding it was racing straight toward Ryder.
I ran for him, not thinking anything but go . I knocked over a chair, shoved past some faceless spluttering man whose chest glittered with diamonds.
The darting shadow lunged, his blade gleaming—but I got there first, a frightened cry bursting out of me as I leaped in front of Ryder.
Something hard rammed into my stomach, throwing me back against a wall of stone. My fevered mind imagined the knife’s blade sinking into my belly, how my blood might spew. In my shock, the world ringing in my ears, I registered only distant echoes and hands firm around my arms, holding me up. My father shouting furiously, the sounds of a fight. The fall of fists, the thud of a body.
“Farrin,” said a low voice at my temple, warming my skin. “Farrin, breathe. You’re all right.”
Shaking, I looked down. The voice was right. There was no knife sticking out of me, no blood. Only a slight tear in my dress, baring a sliver of my stomach, and a pink scrape below my navel from where the blade had hit me. Alastrina bent to retrieve the fallen knife, examined it, then pressed it gently against her thigh. The blade retracted, spring-loaded. A false blade. Harmless.
On the ground near my feet, a pale man with fair hair, dressed all in black, cackled madly. His nose was broken; blood poured down his lips.
“You should see your faces!” he howled, his eyes mad and white. “It was a joke, it was only a joke!”
“Let go of me!” Father was bellowing. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him! ” He lunged for the man, swinging his deadly fists, his face a murderous red, but ten other men held him back, straining to contain him. Royal guards flooded out of the ballroom to apprehend the man, and beyond them I saw a rush of white and splendid color. It was Yvaine, high queen of Edyn.
My breath caught as I beheld her. No matter how often I looked upon my friend, the sight of her stunned me every time. She was a slight thing, her frame delicate, but her presence was like that of a mountain: fearsome and eternal, unmovable. When the gods had chosen her to be our queen on the day of their Unmaking centuries ago, she had been a simple human girl—a shepherdess, maybe, or a bookkeeper, or a weaver. No one knew; not even I knew. Yvaine would not tell me, and every time the topic arose in conversation, her eyes clouded over, and some distant loneliness came over her.
So I did not ask, and whatever she had been, she was something else now, something more. The gods had shocked her skin and hair white, left a pink star-shaped scar on her brow, and frozen her in a youthful body. Her eyes gave her away. One iris was a deep violet color, the other pale gold. Both crackled with power, years upon years held inside them.
Tonight she wore a long gown of shimmering turquoise—cerulean one moment, emerald the next—a perfect blend of our two families’ colors. Girlish sleeves fluttered at her shoulders. Her hair streamed behind her like sea foam, unadorned and unbound.
She paid no mind to the royal guards apprehending the hooting madman and instead came right to me, her swift steps like the fall of rain on glass.
“Farrin,” she breathed, and took my hands gently in hers. After a moment, she relaxed, the lines of fear on her face smoothing out. “You’re all right. Thank the gods.”
Then she glanced behind me, and up, and I turned and realized that the solid wall behind me was the body of Ryder Bask. The voice at my temple, the hands that held me, the chest pressed against my back, holding me up, were his.
I ripped myself away from him. “Don’t you—” I stopped myself from scolding him. Don’t you touch me , I wanted to say, and yet the loss of his presence left me cold. There were far too many people watching us, hundreds of faces crowded at the ballroom windows. I swallowed my indignation, my heart pounding with lingering fear.
Ryder met my gaze with blazing blue eyes. A small, hard smile curved his mouth. “And I thought we were friends, Ashbourne,” he said quietly. “Did fighting monsters together do nothing to elevate your opinion of me?”
I didn’t answer him, too shaken for words, and turned to find Gemma flying toward us, Illaria just behind her.
“What in the name of the gods,” she began. She took in the scene—Ryder, Alastrina, me, the discarded trick knife, Father still yelling in fury, the cackling man being dragged away by the royal guards. Yvaine, standing a little apart from us now, gazed distractedly into the starlit gardens.
The confused expression on Yvaine’s face gave me pause. What was she thinking?
Gemma pulled me into her arms and held me fast. “A prank?” she said, angrily. “Some sort of sick joke?”
“One of many we’ll have to deal with from now on, I’m sure,” Alastrina said, looking around us with barely veiled contempt. Her black hair was slicked back into a tight bun, making her look even more severe and formidable than usual. “Look at them all,” she muttered, jerking her chin at the whispering crowd. “That worthless shit of a man, whoever he is, will be famous for the rest of his life. And here we are, being stared at like an exhibition at a museum.”
“You do look marvelous though,” blurted Illaria, clearly more than a bit tipsy, but Alastrina didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her expression brightened, and she took in the sight of Illaria in her gorgeous green dress with obvious delight.
“The famous Illaria Farrow,” Alastrina said, with no trace of irony whatsoever. She moved as if to rush over to her, then hesitated, looking bashful , of all things, which was not a word I’d ever assigned to Alastrina Bask.
Suddenly, as if he’d swept everyone aside like toys, Father was there in front of me, bigger than anyone watching, bigger than all of us.
“You’re unhurt?” he whispered. “Dear heart, he didn’t hurt you?”
He cupped my face in his hands and stared down at me. His palms were blazing hot; his body shook with restrained sentinel magic.
I shrank back from him and said nothing. My wrist twinged with phantom pain, and the ground seemed to tilt back and forth under my feet.
“We have a speech to make” was all I could say. My eyes stung at the sight of him standing there, dismayed and bewildered, looking from me to Ryder to the abandoned knife. What if all these people hadn’t been here to stop him? Would he have pulverized that man right before my eyes?
I strode across the veranda and into the ballroom, praying I wouldn’t fall on my face and gratified to hear Gemma, Ryder, and Alastrina right on my heels. The buzzing crowd parted before us. Distantly, I felt a kiss of cold air against my abdomen and remembered that my dress was torn. If I left to change, I’d never come back. I kept my fists clenched at my sides, determined not to fiddle with the ripped fabric.
At the dais stood a man and woman, tall and dour, as pale and dark-haired as their children. Both of them stared at me with such scowling confusion that I, still reeling and unsteady, nearly laughed in their faces.
“What happened?” Lord Alaster Bask, patriarch of his house, hissed at Alastrina.
“Later,” Alastrina replied quietly, looking around the room with a sharp wariness I felt myself. What if the next blade was real?
“Lord Bask,” I said smoothly, curtsying before Alaster, and then before his wife, Enid, who looked at me with eyes as cold and distant as stars. “Lady Bask.”
I moved past them to the beguiled receiver hanging from the ceiling, a ball of tightly wound gold mesh that could have fit in the palm of my hand. As I approached, it buzzed quietly with magic, making my lips tingle.
Ryder cut in front of me and wrapped a hand around the receiver. He looked at me hard over his black-feathered sleeve. I noticed with irritated distraction the long dark lashes framing his eyes.
“We can do this later, or another day entirely,” he said quietly. “You were just stabbed, Ashbourne.”
I pushed past him as politely as I could manage. “I didn’t realize a prank as inconsequential as that one could frighten the fearsome Ryder Bask.”
He glowered at me—I could feel his gaze burning into my shoulder—but I ignored him and began to speak. “Friends old and new, citizens of this continent and of those beyond, we—the children of the Houses of Ashbourne and Bask—thank you for being here tonight. On behalf of my sister, Lady Imogen, and Lord Ryder and Lady Alastrina, and my father, Lord Gideon”—I gestured at my father, who stood uncomfortably halfway up the platform’s stairs, seeming distracted, much like the queen had been—“and on behalf of Lord Alaster Bask and Lady Enid Bask, I must tell you how honored we all are that High Queen Yvaine, the gods’ own chosen one, has opened her home to us tonight to commemorate the past and celebrate the future.”
Remarkable, how the words spilled out of me so easily. The slightly frantic thought occurred to me that perhaps I ought to be stabbed by a trick weapon before every public event. Apparently it did wonders for the nerves.
Then Alastrina stepped forward and began the next section of our address. “As you well know, our two families—Anointed long ago by the gods—have for too many long years been at war. A needless war, its origins lost to the dust of time.” She paused, solemn, the look on her face comically reverent. I knew very well how deeply everyone on this stage wished they were somewhere else, anywhere else.
“When the gods Anointed our ancestors,” she continued, “they intended for their descendants to forever serve the world of Edyn by protecting it, cultivating it, and serving its citizens and its queen…”
“But in that,” Ryder said, stepping forward, “we have failed.”
And so they went on, and Gemma too. I didn’t have to speak again until the end and waited, swaying a little, then suddenly swaying more than a little. Everyone’s words turned to mush in my head; the sea of faces watching us became a swirl of muddy color.
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision, but that only made things worse. And then a blazing pain erupted in my abdomen—red hot, violent—and the fiery tendrils of it shot up my arms and down my legs.
I stumbled. A strong hand fell to the small of my back, steadying me, but it did nothing for the sudden rush of sickness surging through me, building fast at the back of my throat. I needed air. I sucked in a breath, then managed another, and a weak third, before I discovered that I couldn’t breathe any longer, not more than a thin rasp of air. My throat felt thick and close, and the pain in my stomach kept shooting outward over and over, like the waves of some wicked hot sea.
A faint noise like distant thunder met my ears. Parts of my mind were still working—little corners, diamond-bright and spinning. I saw the gathered crowd applauding us, heard pleased cheers. Someone was helping me walk. The world dipped and darkened, and I fell forward, whacked my shin on a marble ledge.
“What’s wrong with her?” came a voice, familiar and frightened and far away. Gemma. Angry voices buzzed behind hers, a backdrop of fury. I heard my father among them.
Something—someone—was rending the fabric of my gown, exposing my midriff to the air, which was agonizingly cold. I would freeze like this, prickling all over; my skin would crack into pieces.
I tried to curl my body against it, instinct making me jerk about and scream. I would fight this cold thing attacking me with my very last breath, and then I would burst into flames, or perhaps my stomach would twist around on itself, wringing me out, turning all my bones to powder.
I cried out, no longer knowing words. The pain was terrible, shooting out my fingernails and eyes and digging into my marrow.
“My gods,” someone murmured, and then there were gentle fingers on my stomach, gentle but terrible, like being pierced by true blades, and I looked down to see my bare stomach, my torn dress—and right where the trick blade had stabbed me, where the slight abrasion from the man slamming into me had left a pink mark on my skin, an ugly black bruise had formed, with skinny arms branching out in every direction. They stretched across my skin and disappeared under my dress, tiny dark rivers of evil. I heaved at the sight, clawed at myself. My nails broke skin, tearing open the scrape and drawing blood. A pale steaming liquid seeped out of the wound and dribbled down my dress; seeing it, I was suddenly, violently sick.
There was a confusing clamor all around me. “She’s been poisoned,” someone cried.
Then another voice, deep and furious, said, “That damned blade must have been laced with something. Bring every healer you can find! And if that man escapes this place before I can get to him, I swear to the gods, I will make every one of you regret it until the end of your days.”
The same voice gentled, very close now. “Farrin. Farrin, hold on to me.”
I tried to obey. The last thing I saw was a warm white light coming toward me. Someone said tonelessly, “No healer can stop this. The venom is Olden.”
Then a hot angry mouth opened inside me, black fire flooding out of its throat, and swallowed me whole.