Chapter 33 Astrid
There’s a knock at the door.
Astrid closes her grimoire and drops her pen on the desk, wiping her inky hands on her leggings. The door creaks open and Jessa walks in, Quincy slinking in beside her, the giant fox giving Astrid something akin to puppy-dog eyes.
Jessa comes to stand behind Astrid. She watches Astrid in the mirror, taking in the mottled skin, the red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m not going to ask how you’re feeling. What Skylar did to Zryan, and your… reaction. Well.” She bites her cheek, says nothing more.
Well, indeed. Astrid hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The way Skylar’s power took hold of Zryan’s life force and clawed it from him haunted her dreams last night.
How can Astrid even combat it in a duel?
Skylar wasn’t touching her brother as she sucked the life from him.
And though Astrid’s casting has improved a thousand times over, she has no Gift, is nowhere near as powerful as Zryan—who barely survived.
“Seeing as how you didn’t ask, I won’t tell you I’m scared shitless and have been crying for the past hour.
” The intrusive thoughts have been relentless today, battering at her brain, reminding her she is useless, useless, useless.
She can’t take any more of her tonic, unless she wants to make herself sick.
Jessa squeezes onto the chair next to her and slides her arms around Astrid’s waist. Bastet mews from somewhere on the bed.
“That’s perfectly understandable. I’m here for the tears.”
“Don’t.” Astrid leans into her. “You’ll set me off again.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” She hesitates. “I’m also here if you want to talk to me about a certain prince.”
Astrid closes her eyes. Though she appreciates the offer, she really doesn’t want to talk about him because she’s afraid of what she might say.
Afraid of what she’ll admit to. Seeing Zryan on the floor like that, gasping, dying, had hit her like a trebuchet.
She hadn’t meant to scream, to throw herself between the siblings like that.
It had been something primal driving her, his pain so abhorrent she’d had to stop it. She shakes the image from her mind.
“I’m all done with the tears, I promise.”
“Good to get them all out now,” Jessa says, and Astrid is relieved she doesn’t push the Zryan point.
BETTER HERE THAN AT THE BALL, Quincy adds.
Goddess, she’s not in the mood for a party, but she’d rather keep busy than sit in her room, imagining the grotesque way she’s going to die at Skylar’s hands.
“I thought I was going to survive it. The duel,” she murmurs.
“I truly believed I was going to win, even if I hadn’t come to terms with what I’d have to do to achieve that.
” Because winning meant killing, and Astrid doesn’t know how she could bring herself to kill Skylar.
She looks over her shoulder at her familiar.
For him, she would try. Though now, with Skylar’s power, the whole thing is moot.
Astrid wouldn’t be able to kill her even if she didn’t find the thought so repulsive.
“I’m sorry, Bastet. For how things have turned out. ”
DO NOT BE SORRY, ASTRID. WE ARE ALL DESTINED TO DIE, he says so solemnly, Astrid almost laughs. WE WILL SIMPLY SAIL SOONER THAN MOST.
“Don’t do that, do you hear me?” Jessa grabs Astrid’s face.
“I’ve said it before: this isn’t over until it’s fucking over, and this kind of attitude is what will get you killed.
” She points at Bastet. “Will get you both killed, not some Vatran street performer with a Hel-damned power she can’t control.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourself—no one likes a pity party. ”
Astrid knows Jessa’s just trying to make her feel better. None of them in that training room—Jessa included—had ever seen anything like Skylar’s power: she could tell by their faces.
“Okay, pity party is officially over.” Astrid wipes her eyes.
“Good. Now we better sort your face out. It’s a mess.”
Astrid smiles, closes her eyes, and tilts her chin up. “Go on, then. Make me pretty.”
“I can’t work miracles, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, hilarious. Have you heard from Mum, by the way?” Gwen wrote to Astrid a couple of days ago, but she told Jessa things that she didn’t share with Astrid. Even now.
“This morning, saying sorry she can’t make it tonight and asking for an update on how everything’s going.
Asked about the little dragon’s growth rate, too.
” Jessa had written to Gwen about the dragon, though it’s not the dragon they should be worrying about.
Her mother will have a fit when she finds out about Skylar’s power.
“There’s drought affecting Esloe, would you fucking believe?
It’s like a cruel joke. Your mum is sending the Ulvene to help the councillors relocate their people to the Lofojen Basin, as there’s just no way of getting enough water to them where they are.
” Jessa exhales slowly. “She ended the letter saying how much she misses you.”
Astrid nods at that. “She doesn’t have to be sorry. I get it.”
Jessa strokes Astrid’s cheek. “I know you do, miracle girl. Now, sponge, please—let’s sort this mug out.”
An hour later, Astrid’s face painted and hair styled, she picks up the silver-and-white lace mask she’s wearing this evening.
The mask is a panther with intricately woven lace wings that extend back behind the ears and rest flush against her hair; she felt only a mask of their sigil, Artemia, would suffice this evening, and had made it before she’d left Isfjell.
Jessa’s mask, much to Quincy’s disgust, is a snow wolverine, a fabled Arturean mountain predator.
It’s the same color as Astrid’s mask, and with Jessa’s dyed navy hair and the similar silver jeweled skirt and crop top, they could almost pass for twins.
“Bastet, I had something made for you, too.” Astrid opens the top drawer of her desk, sweeping aside empty vials, and pulls out a miniature pair of blue-black wings attached to a harness.
I WOULD RATHER PARTAKE IN THE DUEL RIGHT NOW THAN WEAR THE MONSTROSITY IN YOUR HAND.
Quincy yips a laugh and Bastet glares at him. In response, Quincy finishes the food in Bastet’s bowl.
“I don’t want to hear your ridiculous hyperbole. You’re going to wear the wings and get in the party spirit because, if I have to, I’m dragging you down with me.”
I. WILL. NOT. WEAR. THEM.
Astrid approaches him and plonks down on the bed. “Please?” she says, in her most pathetic voice. “Just for a little bit? You’ll look so adorable.”
He hisses at her yet to her surprise, sags and then nods stiffly.
I AM ONLY DOING THIS BECAUSE WE WILL BE DEAD SOON ENOUGH ANYWAY.
“Stars, Bastet, you’re as morbid as Astrid,” Jessa scolds, adjusting her whip around her skirt. “Are we ready?”
Astrid grins but is ushered out of the room while she’s still attaching her claws. No Brewer’s Belt tonight—it won’t match the outfit—but she does have a couple of vials tucked away in a garter. She links her arm in Jessa’s and leans in. “Do you think the baroness of Brithan will be at the ball?”
Jessa lowers her voice. “I already asked around. Our favorite baroness is notably absent from the castle.”
Damn. Astrid was hoping to ask her about the note—the first actual proof that the Blight was linked to the Heart and, what’s more, that the Vatran king knows there’s something wrong with it.
Not that this brings Astrid any comfort.
If the Vatrans are trying to fix the Heart and can’t, what does this mean for Arturea?
For both continents? That the Blight will rage on until there’s nothing and no one left? No. Astrid can’t allow that to happen.
“What about the other baronies? If Brithan is aware, perhaps they all are. I can try to speak with one of them instead.”
“Way ahead of you, sister.” Jessa pauses as a servant runs past with a tray of glasses. “But, again, I asked around. The barons and baronesses have all gone home, not due to return until the duel. Which is highly unusual.”
Astrid frowns, swallowing the disappointment. “Guessing the king had something to do with that. Didn’t want anyone else questioning him, maybe.”
“What a surprise,” Jessa says.
Outside the castle, the clamor of the party hits them, masked guests walking and dancing through the grounds toward the area on the east side toward the ball.
There’s the twang of a lyre welcoming them as they approach the entrance—an archway of sprawling white moonflowers, the petals of which will open at sunset—where guards are stationed, checking invitations.
“Surely they already checked invites at the gates?” Astrid says.
“They have, but they’re double- and triple-checking everyone, especially after one of their prisoners escaped.”
Astrid stops short. “What?”
“A rebel, a Shifter, apparently. Don’t worry.” Jessa misreads the stunned look on Astrid’s face. “I’ve been assured he had no intentions of regicide, and even if he did, soldiers have been drafted in tonight for extra security.”
But Astrid isn’t listening. What with everything that has happened, she’s forgotten about Mikhael.
Shame settles in her belly at the fact that she hasn’t given the rebel a second thought.
But Zryan did. Zryan helped that man escape, she’s sure of it.
He must have gone back to the cells and Teleported him out, taking a huge risk in defying his father.
Is that what he’d been doing the other night, when she’d seen him outside the Walled Gardens?
She wonders if Zryan found him the Curer he’d promised.
“Astrid, are you coming?” Jessa tugs at her arm. “Honestly, a Masked Ball is a bloody shocking idea given the assassination attempts—”
“The assassin was caught, remember?”