Chapter Forty
With Adria under the watch of no less than twelve guards in the dungeons, I’m more terrified than ever.
“She has to have a backup plan. There’s no way she’ll let this fail,” I tell Ronan when we’re safely back in his chambers. “She’s going to try to kill you. I don’t know how she’ll do it, but she’s going to try. You can’t go out there.”
The Festival of Night is tonight, and I know the chances of convincing Ronan not to participate are nonexistent, but I have to try to get him to see reason.
“Listen to her,” says Taran. They’re the same words he used when we were trying to convince Ronan to leave the griffin alone. I can picture him saying the same words under similar circumstances fifty years from now, assuming any of us survive that long.
“You both know what I’m going to say. Let’s just spare ourselves the argument, and you can both stay right next to me all night.”
I look at Taran. He doesn’t seem thrilled to have to stay with me all night, but he’ll do it, for Ronan’s sake.
“Fine,” I say. “But don’t you dare leave my sight.”
“I promise,” he says.
The pounding of the drums begins right at sunset.
The rituals of Vahlo, the God of the Moon, Shadow, and Death, are steeped in violence, the drumbeats meant to echo the heartbeats of the slain.
Animal sacrifices are made in hopes of appeasing the god and keeping him from coming for us early.
Flaming effigies are cast down the river, emulating the River of Fire on which souls are transported to Vahlo’s gates.
The people gather on the bridges and the riverside, dancing and chanting, begging Vahlo to have mercy on them.
To come for them late in life. To let them pass his judgment and be reborn.
My mother loved Vahlo’s worship. She had a morbid curiosity about the darker things in life, something I’d never quite understood in spite of the shadow-born nature I shared with her.
I had found comfort in the hidden spaces of the forest, the darkened coves where ancient secrets were kept.
She preferred the pitch black of the crypt, the burial grounds near our Temple of Vahlo, places where most feared to tread. Where shadowy dealings could be done.
She would have loved this festival.
I, on the other hand, am ready for it to be over. By the time Ronan and I are escorted from his rooms, the court has gathered along a grand balcony overlooking the river. The mood is still somber, but as the beer and wine start flowing and the sacrifices begin, it will rise to a fever pitch.
I shudder at the thought.
I hate this, and not just because of the festival. I hate being exposed here with so many people around. So many people wearing the black robes of Vahlo, blending together, nearly all of them armed, and the rest of them dangerous.
All I can think of is Ronan. How to protect him. How to keep him safe.
“It’s okay,” he says, wrapping his arm around me, rubbing the tension from my shoulders. “It’ll be over soon.”
I let him keep his arm around me. I don’t care who sees. I don’t care what they say. Let them see who stands between them and Ronan. Let them know that he’s protected.
When the bells ring midnight, the servants bring up a goat for the slaughter.
I don’t want to be near the sacrifice. I know it’s silly to be squeamish when I eat meat all the time, but I hate to hear the scream of the animal. I hate to watch its blood spill on the altar, to smell the burning of its flesh until only ash and bone remain for the ritual. It makes me sick.
Ronan lets go of my hand. He won’t make the sacrifice himself—a priest will do that—but, as the God-King, he must bless it.
I can’t back away from the altar. I can’t leave him there alone, but I can’t look either. The bells chime again. The beginning of the ritual.
I close my eyes and brace for the scream.
But it doesn’t come.
“What’s that?” someone yells.
“What’s going on?”
Cries are coming from the distance. The cries of the animals, I think at first. There are a hundred altars like this one on the banks of the river, a hundred goats being slaughtered at once.
But there are more than one hundred cries in the air. And they aren’t the cries of the goats.
They’re the cries of the people.
“Fire!” someone shouts. The bells begin to chime in alarm, a continuous ringing.
Something is wrong.
I meet Ronan’s eyes. It can’t be. It’s too soon.
But there’s no other explanation.
It’s the siege.
The crowd on the balcony is panicking. There’s fire down on the water, but it’s far bigger than any ritual altar.
It’s a ship. A ferry. And it’s burning down the river. Then another comes. And off to the east, there are more in the harbor.
Darkness falls around us, darker than the night.
The darkness of a shadow-born.
“Ronan!” I scream.
But I’m far from the only one screaming. There’s a clash of steel down in the courtyard.
I can still see him, but I can’t get to him. The balcony crowd is crushing blindly. It’s surging to the palace doors, carrying me off my feet with it.
I can’t breathe. I can’t turn around to see the doors behind me. I make room with my shadows, which thankfully come to me, shoving just enough space around me to take a breath.
Ronan’s light cuts through the shadow-born’s darkness, stronger than it. Taran is beside him, thank the gods. “Sylvie!” he shouts. “Go inside. I’ll find you!”
A door opens somewhere behind me, and the crowd rushes forward. I have no choice but to move with them or be trampled to the ground.
“Inside!” Cyrus yells. “Everyone inside!”
All that waits inside the palace hallways is more panic. There’s shouting from the stairs, doors swinging open and slamming shut as the smell of smoke fills the air. It’s happening all around us. Nowhere seems to be safe.
Someone in a black robe rushes to my side. “Sylvie,” he says. It’s Titus. I haven’t seen much of him since we danced at the ball. “You need to come quickly. It’s your Guardian. He told me to find you. Adria has escaped.”
Ice fills my veins. “What?”
“They were fighting in the throne room. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She’s in there with a dozen guards. You have to stop her. I’m sorry. I told her not to do this, I told her there had to be another way…”
Larus. She has Larus.
“What did you do?” I remember Titus walking with Adria once. I remember thinking I should have warned him about her.
The backup plan.
“I helped her escape. She told me to, if something happened to her. She told me Ronan was trying to have her killed. But we ran into your Guardian, and he told me she did this. All of this. I didn’t want any of this to happen. Please, you have to help me. Help us.”
I can’t leave Larus to her, but I can’t leave Ronan either.
And Adria would know that.
She would count on it.
Titus is part of the plan. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, drawing my dagger.
Titus lunges forward. I strike out at him, but my dagger hits chainmail. He came in armor.
He grabs my wrist and squeezes it hard, forcing the dagger from it.
“She told me you might say that,” he says as he grabs me, throwing me over his shoulders and carrying me kicking and screaming down the hall, towards the throne room.