Chapter 16 #2
Canvas and dark cloth stretched between silverwood frames in uneven slum rows, packed closely enough that ropes crossed overhead and narrow passages twisted between them.
Moon Fae sat beneath the makeshift roofs with blankets wrapped around their shoulders, while others lay directly against the smooth stone as if they no longer had the strength to care where they slept.
An overturned cart rested beside one shelter with its shelves picked completely bare.
Three children crawled out from beneath it as we passed, and the constellations dusting their cheeks and hands were so faint that I might have mistaken them for scars if I had not spent days watching the brighter markings beneath Xandros' skin.
Faces turned toward us from bowls, blankets, bandages, and empty crates until nearly everyone along the road was watching Xandros. Some struggled upright when they recognized him, while others remained where they sat and followed him with exhausted silver eyes.
The hope in their faces made my stomach twist.
Xandros kept walking beside me, though each new sight seemed to pull at him.
His attention caught on a male propped against a shelter with blood soaking through a bandage around his head, then moved to a female holding a sleeping child while another crouched beside her, holding up an empty bowl and crying.
His jaw tightened, though his stride never faltered.
A line curled around a stone basin farther ahead, where two soldiers worked a rope over the edge of a failing well.
Moon Fae waited with clay cups, cracked jars, bowls, and anything else capable of holding water, watching as the bucket slowly rose between them.
When it cleared the rim, barely enough water covered the bottom to wet the stone, yet no one stepped away.
Past the well, shelters stretched farther than I could count.
Some shops stood open with bare shelves visible through their doors; others had been boarded shut entirely.
At one empty threshold, a female swept silver dust into the street while two children beside her divided something small enough to disappear between their fingers, cramming the morsel of hopefully unrotten food into their mouths.
Everywhere I looked, the gold was fading.
Across Xandros' skin, the constellations burned bright enough to catch my eye whenever he moved. On his people, those same patterns had dwindled to scattered points of light, with indigo threading through some of them in narrow veins like rot spreading beneath bark.
He noticed every one.
His grip around my hand changed whenever someone else drew his attention, tightening for a heartbeat before easing again. The strain showed in the way he held himself, even as he kept moving, and I understood why.
If he stopped for one person, how could he keep walking past the next?
The thought settled painfully beneath my ribs.
Whenever danger reached the Deepwood, every frightened family beneath the Mother Tree became part of my responsibility, whether I knew their names or not.
I guarded the boundaries for all of them, knowing that anything I failed to stop would eventually reach someone who had trusted us to keep the forest safe.
The people lining this road looked at Xandros with that same trust.
But the difference was that I had always had something left to give mine. The Deepwood still held clean water, food, shelter, and the Wild moving beneath our feet. Even after corruption reached us, life remained everywhere around it.
Here, Xandros walked through ash, empty shelves, failing wells, and people whose own light was dying inside them.
Some bowed as he passed, while others whispered his title or simply watched him with an expectation he could not possibly satisfy.
With every hopeful face, another measure of tension seemed to gather through his shoulders until I wondered how long anyone could carry that kind of weight without breaking beneath it.
My world still answered when I reached for it, but Asterra was dying beneath his very feet.
The shelters gradually gave way to permanent buildings of gleaming pale stone, though the suffering followed us there.
Cracks split walls and climbed around broken windows covered with cloth, while lamps burned only at the larger intersections and left long stretches of street swallowed in darkness.
The road continued upward until the buildings opened around a broad stone square where the palace rose above it.
I had seen the towers through the rupture and again from the forest, but neither glimpse had prepared me for the scale of the palace waiting at the top of the stairs.
White stone climbed the mountainside in broad terraces and narrow spires, with high bridges stretching between the upper towers against the dark sky.
Golden light burned behind tall arched windows, brighter here than anywhere else in the city, spilling across the mountainside like a beacon. From below, the palace looked as though it held one of Asterra’s last surviving stars inside its walls.
The four soldiers escorting us led the way through the main doors, and cool air settled over my skin as we entered a hall large enough to make my steps slow despite myself.
Dark-veined stone gleamed beneath our feet, polished smooth enough to reflect the amber light burning behind blue glass sconces.
Heavy midnight curtains framed the tall windows, breaking up the endless white of the walls, while silver branches carved into the supporting columns climbed toward a high ceiling threaded with tiny golden stars.
Several of those stars had gone dark, leaving empty spaces inside patterns that must once have been whole.
Even the palace carried signs of what was happening outside its walls.
Servants and guards moved through the hall, and more than one paused when they recognized Xandros. Their attention shifted quickly to me, taking in my loose braid, earth-dark leathers, and the warm skin that marked me as something other than Moon Fae, before dropping toward our joined hands.
I felt the difference between us more sharply beneath the palace lights. Beside Xandros, pale and polished like the stone around us, I must have looked exactly like the half-feral forest creature I was.
He ignored their staring and kept us moving.
We crossed another hall before climbing a broad staircase toward the upper levels of the palace. The soldiers remained around us until we reached a narrower corridor guarded by two males in darker armor edged with silver, both of whom straightened the moment Xandros approached.
“Your Highness.”
The change in him was slight enough that I might have missed it if his hand had not still been wrapped around mine. His shoulders lowered by a fraction, and the next breath he drew seemed to reach deeper into his lungs.
These soldiers belonged to him.
One of them glanced toward our escorts before stepping across the entrance to the corridor. “This wing remains under the prince’s guard.”
The male with the midnight hair stiffened. “The king ordered us to remain with?—”
“You have brought him to his quarters,” the prince’s guard cut him off.
“We were ordered to bring both of them directly before the king.”
Xandros stopped, and for the first time since we had entered the palace, he released my hand. The sudden loss of his warmth left my palm cold enough that my fingers curled against it.
“You have delivered the king’s message and brought us safely to the palace.” Xandros faced the male without raising his voice. “Now you will give us a moment to make ourselves presentable.”
“Your Highness, the king expects you immediately.”
“I am aware.”
The soldier held his stare, but Xandros neither moved nor offered anything more. Whatever passed between them lasted only several breaths before the other male finally stepped back, reluctance still visible in the tight line of his mouth.
“We will wait here.”
Xandros' expression didn’t change. “Wait farther away.”
One of Xandros' guards lowered his gaze quickly, though not before I caught the beginning of a smile.
Xandros turned toward his own soldiers. “Give us the corridor, please.”
They obeyed without question, moving toward the opposite end while the royal escorts remained behind the threshold.
Only then did Xandros gesture for me to follow.
Bramble shifted against my ribs as I stepped into the quieter passage, and the constant movement and staring of the palace faded behind us until only the muted sound of our footsteps followed us toward a set of dark doors at the end.
Xandros opened one and waited for me to enter.
His rooms were large without feeling overly grand like the rest of the palace thus far.
Polished bog-oak furniture stood against the pale walls, the nearly black wood edged with restrained gold detailing, while shelves held books, rolled maps, and stacks of loose papers rather than ornaments.
A sword rack occupied one wall beside a scarred wooden table, and a low fire burned in a white stone hearth, casting a softer glow across the room than the brilliant gold lights outside.
The windows drew me farther inside.
They stretched nearly from floor to ceiling, opening across the capital below, and from this height, I could see the shelters spreading beyond the permanent streets in uneven rows.
Thousands of small lights burned beneath the thorn-crowned moon, many of them so faint that they seemed ready to disappear altogether.
My stomach tightened as Xandros closed the door behind us.
The quiet that followed felt heavier than the silence in the corridor.
He crossed to the table and planted both hands against its edge, keeping his back to me long enough that the tension gathering between my shoulders sharpened.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I lowered Bramble carefully onto a cushioned chair near the hearth. He curled tightly against himself while I straightened and looked toward Xandros.
“You knew this was what I would see.”