Chapter 24
Ididn’t want to go back to the apartments. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there alone surrounded by Dannis’s books, The Little Moon Boat still abandoned on the dining table, torn and broken.
So I wandered the halls instead.
Where were Levinica’s chambers? What was she doing right now? Had she resurfaced at all? Was she sleeping? Crying?
I chewed absently at my thumbnail as I walked, lost in the churn of my thoughts.
What would she have thought if she'd known what had happened during training? That I'd hurt Segolayne? That I'd lost control of my magic?
The thought troubled me, filled me with shame.
No. Levinica would’ve understood. She would’ve known Segolayne had pushed and pushed until something inside me finally snapped. She would’ve known I hadn’t meant to hurt her.
The brisk sea wind struck me as I wandered onto the terrace, down the winding stairs toward the secluded beach.
I tugged my boots off when I reached the sand and walked toward the waterline, sinking down near the edge of the tide.
I drew my knees to my chest and stared out across the gray sweep of the bay.
I’d been angry. So impossibly angry.
And for what?
A bow and arrow.
That was all it had taken to push me over the edge. To send the magic inside me spiraling violently out of control again.
A damned bow.
But it all came back to that, didn’t it? The beginning of whatever doomed path my life had turned down.
The night Midland fell, my magic had burned through the darkness like a signal flare, calling the Infected from miles around. And when it had mattered most—when my father’s life had depended on it—I’d missed.
Which was… unthinkable. Because I was good with a bow. I always had been.
How proud he’d been each time I hit my target.
I pressed my forehead hard against my knees, fighting the sob tearing its way up my throat.
I’d missed.
He was dead. Gone. Snuffed out so completely it was as though he’d never existed at all. As though he’d never mattered to anyone. As though he hadn’t once been an entire world to a little girl.
My fault. My fault. My fault.
The words pounded through my skull in time with the waves crashing against the shore.
Would the torment ever end? Would there ever come a day when I stopped seeing the faces of everyone I’d failed each time I closed my eyes? My hands trembled, my body aching for the numbness only wine could give me, and I fought the craving with everything I had.
I’d been doing so well…
But the memories were relentless now, sweeping over me in a flood of grief and regret I couldn’t hold back. And worse still, I didn’t think I was strong enough to face them head-on. To sit with that pain without trying to drown it.
A sudden touch brushed against my hand.
I jumped, sucking in a sudden breath as I whipped around. Something small darted backward across the sand, scrambling awkwardly behind a piece of bleached driftwood half-buried near the shore line.
A rat? I jerked back, heart still pounding from the fright, before a little head cautiously poked out from behind the driftwood.
A kitten.
Tiny enough that it couldn’t have been more than a few months old, all black, sea-damp fur sticking out in uneven tufts. One ear looked nicked at the tip, and enormous green eyes blinked at me warily from its shelter.
I stared at it. It stared back. It let out a raspy meow.
“What are you looking at?” I muttered hoarsely.
The kitten crept out a hesitant step. Its paws barely sank into the sand as it approached me with surprising boldness, stopping just close enough to sniff curiously at my bare feet before rubbing its face against my toes.
“Absolutely not.” I folded my legs to the side. The last thing I needed was fleas.
The kitten mewed pitifully.
Then, brave as can be, it climbed directly into my lap.
I stared down at it in disbelief as the creature kneaded clumsily at my thighs, paws flexing insistently as though trying to soften them into a proper bed before finally collapsing heavily and shutting its eyes.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I tried to shove it off my lap, but the little menace dug in its claws, and I hissed at the sharp sting. Immediately, the claws retracted again as if it understood me. One tiny paw flexed once against my leg, almost apologetically, the pad beneath it smooth and absurdly pink.
My hand hesitated before betraying me entirely and drifting over its scrawny body. At once, a deep rumbling purr rose from its small chest, rich and powerful enough that I felt the vibration against my thighs. It sounded entirely too large for such a scraggly creature.
Its thinness was almost alarming. Under the scruffy, matted fur, I could feel every ridge of its ribs, every notch of its spine.
It smelled unpleasantly of seaweed and wet animal.
Something wrenched inside me at the sorry state of it.
Where did this thing come from? I lifted my head and scanned the shoreline.
Nothing. No mother cat picking her way across the rocks. No movement among the driftwood higher up the beach. No other kittens tucked into the dunes or cliffs.
All around me, waves rushed endlessly against the shore, battering the cliffs of Noctharis in a frenzied, foaming assault. Yet here, sitting on the cold beach with the ratty kitten curled in my lap, the noise inside my head quieted for the first time all morning.
It finally rose onto shaky little legs and stretched, arching its back with ridiculous satisfaction before turning in a small circle and attempting—very determinedly—to burrow beneath the hem of my loose untucked shirt.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly, catching it before its claws could latch onto me again. “You are not moving into my clothes.”
I scooped it up beneath its front legs and deposited it firmly back onto the ground.
“There,” I said, brushing sand from my clothes as I pushed myself to my feet. “Go find your mother.”
The kitten simply looked up at me.
I pointed vaguely down the beach. “Shoo.” I turned and started trudging back toward the stairs leading to the castle.
I’d only made it a few steps before something brushed against my ankle. I looked down. The kitten was weaving determinedly around my legs as it followed me through the sand, its spindly legs working almost comically hard to keep pace beside me.
“No.”
It mewed loudly in response. I picked it up again—trying not to think about how shockingly little it weighed—and set it several feet away facing the opposite direction.
“Go.”
I turned and kept walking. Behind me came the frantic sound of tiny paws scrambling through sand. Then another insistent meow.
I closed my eyes briefly.
When I looked down again, the kitten had returned to wind stubbornly around my feet, staring up at me with those luminous eyes as though deeply offended by my attempts to abandon it.
“Go away.”
I tried walking again. It followed. Again.
An impatient breath escaped through my nose.
“Fine.” I bent and scooped the creature into my arms, and instantly that loud rattling purr erupted again, like I was carrying a swarming beehive against my chest.
When I reached the place I’d abandoned my boots, I awkwardly shoved them back on.
The kitten continued purring contentedly as I started back toward the castle.
I’d never seen cats as anything but pests.
In Midland, there were strays everywhere, and no one minded them so long as they hunted the rats that swarmed the settlement and spread disease.
But they were never tame. They certainly weren’t pets.
I wondered what my father would’ve thought of me carrying one of the mangy creatures into my chambers now.
I noticed immediately upon entering that the little stack of books Levinica had brought yesterday—including The Little Moon Boat—was gone.
The servants had undoubtedly moved them while cleaning and laying out breakfast, as they had every morning since I’d been brought to Rìan’s old rooms. The meal now stretched neatly across the far end of the dining table beneath polished silver lids.
The kitten still tucked awkwardly in the crook of my arm, I poured cream into a saucer and set it on the floor before depositing the little beast beside it. Instantly, it buried its face in the dish.
I lifted a few of the shining domes covering the breakfast spread and stole pieces of smoked fish from one of the platters, setting them onto a plate beside the saucer on the floor.
The kitten attacked the food with such frantic enthusiasm that it kept bouncing between the fish and the cream as though terrified one might vanish before it could finish both.
All the while, that purr rumbled steadily from its chest.
“Slow down before you make yourself sick.”
I sank into a chair and poured myself tea with milk and honey, sipping it while I watched the creature inhale enough food for three cats its size.
I managed a few bites of scrambled eggs myself while it ignored me completely.
Once it finished, it sat back on its haunches and let out a long plaintive yowl in my direction.
I leaned forward, bracing my elbows against my knees.
“Now, if you’re going to stay here, you need to look less horrifying.
Do you understand me?” I pointed accusingly at it.
“At present, you could easily be mistaken for an oversized rat, and I wouldn’t put it past Veylan or Segolayne to put you down without hesitation. ”
The kitten blinked at me.
“So prepare yourself,” I said grimly, lifting it back into my arms as I headed for the bathing chamber. “Because you are absolutely not going to enjoy this.”
I filled the sink with warm water and plugged the drain.
The moment I lowered the kitten into it, the little thing reacted as though I’d attempted murder.
It hissed and spat viciously, claws flying as it thrashed in the high-sided bowl trying to escape.
After several scratches across my wrists that made me curse aloud, I finally lost patience and grabbed it firmly by the scruff.
Instantly, it went limp. One moment it had been a tiny demon trying to shred me alive; the next it hung there boneless and compliant, exactly like a kitten being carried by its mother.
“Well,” I muttered. “That’s useful.”
I scrubbed it mercilessly. The kitten yowled in outrage the entire time while I ignored its complaints and worked soap through the filthy mats in its fur. Wet, it looked even more pitiful than before—all ribs and oversized ears and dripping whiskers.
When I finally finished, I bundled it in a towel and rubbed it dry before carefully trimming the mats from its fur. Then I worked a comb through the rest. I found several fleas, which I immediately crushed between my nails, but thankfully the infestation wasn't too bad.
When I finally released it, the creature trotted after me all the way back to the dining room.
I spent the rest of the day curled up on the sofa with my books. As I did each afternoon, I traced the alphabet first, carefully working through each letter before practicing aloud, sounding out the words beneath my breath.
Even the cat eventually grew tired of it. After an hour or so, it rose from its place beside me, stretched dramatically, then wandered to the glass doors leading into the enclosed courtyard. It sat there meowing incessantly until, with mounting irritation, I finally got up and let it outside.
The creature paced the courtyard with great self-importance for several minutes before crouching low to stalk a pair of finches that landed beside the birdbath.
The attempt ended in complete failure. The birds scattered immediately while the kitten nearly launched itself face-first into the stone edge trying to lunge after them.
“Deadly hunter,” I muttered dryly from the doorway where I watched with my arms crossed.
Eventually it gave up entirely and collapsed in a narrow beam of late-afternoon sunlight, sprawled on its side with its pupils reduced to thin slits.
It didn’t come back inside until after dinnertime, when the daylight had begun to thin and shadows gathered in the corners of the courtyard.
The kitten blended almost perfectly into the darkness, only its bright emerald eyes giving it away.
I slid the glass doors shut behind it and returned to my place at the table, where I’d been nursing a final cup of tea with a book open before me.
“Well,” I finally said around a yawn once night had truly fallen. I flipped the book shut and stood, stretching as I rolled the stiffness from my shoulders. “Goodnight.”
I headed toward the bedroom. Immediately, the kitten darted after me.
Before I could close the door, it squeezed through the gap and launched itself onto the bed, marching straight across the blankets to my pillow where it began circling and kneading industriously.
“You are absolutely not sleeping in my bed.” I reached to shove it off, but it smacked my hand with one tiny paw, claws flashing out in warning.
I stared at it.
The kitten stared right back.
“You don’t scare me,” I informed it, planting my hands on my hips. “Either you get off the bed willingly, or I dump you back on the beach where I found you.”
I could have sworn the creature narrowed its eyes at me. But after a long moment, it rose with visible reluctance and stalked down to the far bottom corner of the mattress before curling into a ball there instead.
A long breath escaped me. “Fine.”
I climbed beneath the covers and deliberately turned my back toward it. As I settled in, my mind strayed to Segolayne.
I hadn’t thought of her for hours. Somewhere between finding the kitten and bathing it and spending the afternoon reading, I’d managed to shove the entire incident from my mind. But now, lying there in the dark, it suddenly struck me that she hadn’t returned.
I hadn’t seen her since our fight.
I lay awake staring into the darkness, listening for the sound of the apartment doors slamming open and Segolayne stalking angrily inside. Anxiety pulled tighter and tighter through me with every passing minute.
Would she burst into my bedroom? Would she confront me about what had happened?
How badly had I hurt her?
Sometime later—in that hazy place between waking and dreaming—I vaguely became aware of a slight weight carefully stepping over my legs before curling into the hollow behind my knees.
“Vermin,” I mumbled drowsily into the darkness.
Sleep finally claimed me completely.