Chapter 10
Ipush open the door to my chambers, the weight of loneliness clinging to me like wet, heavy mud. It drags at my steps, coats my thoughts. I imagine myself collapsing the moment the door clicks shut behind me.
If this is how I feel after just the first Challenge—wrung dry, scraped hollow—how am I supposed to survive the next three?
How could I have been so reckless, so arrogant, to ever believe I would?
“Raylane!” Eva’s voice cuts through the spiral of my thoughts.
I freeze in the entryway of the receiving room, a space still too beautiful for what I’ve become—velvet drapes spilling down the tall windows, golden accents catching the flicker of firelight from the ornate fireplace. The glow casts everything in warmth except me.
Eva springs to her feet from a plush armchair that once belonged to Eleanor. A moment of concern for my duenna rises, then crumbles before it can take shape. My mind is already too full. Eva wears an elegant gray gown, her expression carved from worry.
Peonica paces near the window, her pale braid swinging like a metronome. I hesitate mid-step, caught off guard by the sight of her.
It’s not her first time in the Palace. I’ve brought her before under the guise of a card-reader—not the heretical, divine-predicting kind, but the sort of whimsical nonsense nobles indulge in when they’re bored enough to call it entertainment.
With her white hair and unmarked fingertips, there’s nothing to reveal she’s one of the Rust Hollow women. When asked, I simply said I was consulting her for amusement, and the guards, now used to her eccentric visits, stopped questioning it.
I gave her a deck of cards once, just to make the act more convincing, and she ran with it. Only a select few know the truth of who she really is—Ryker, Mael, Eva, and my former duenna.
But this time, she came with Eva. Not summoned by me. The thought wedges itself beneath my exhaustion and makes my heart swell.
Peonica’s wearing a black satin gown. Eva must have forced her to wear it before bringing her into my rooms. It’s fine, expensive, out of place on her thin frame.
She would never choose it, could never afford it.
The dark fabric makes the hollows of her cheeks seem deeper, and her sharp collarbones exposed by the neckline seem more pronounced than ever.
It instantly reminds me of the first time we met, when she wore another ill-fitting, patched-up dress and pretended to be an injured child, just so she could snatch my purse the moment I bent down to help her.
What she didn’t realize was that the purse was the only thing I had left of my mother, and I’d have sooner let her tear off my arm than take it.
We ended up wrestling for it in the mud until Eleanor’s vines came alive and dragged us apart, nearly choking Peonica in the process.
But instead of turning her in, I offered to buy her a honey bun. She accepted—graciously, of course—on the condition that I buy her ten. Then she wrapped them all in a dusty scrap of cloth like they were gold bars and took them back to Rust Hollow, not eating even one.
Guilt stabs me, just another weight for the pile.
I’ve given her coin after that. I’ve sent food, but she always gives it all away.
Clutched in her hands is her worn leather notebook, the diary she always carries, though I’ve never seen her write in it. She holds it like a lifeline, as if having it near matters more than anything it might someday say.
Normally, it’s tucked away in the waistband of her pants or hidden in an inside pocket, but this dress likely has neither. So she chose to carry it rather than leave it behind. And somehow, that makes me more curious than ever to know what’s inside.
My gaze drifts downward. Beneath the silk hem of her borrowed finery, her usual overworn boots peek out.
“There she is,” I murmur, a weary smile tugging at the edge of my mouth.
Peonica never exactly blends in. From the moment I first invited her, she’s treated the Palace like an open-air market—loud, nosy, and completely unbothered by protocol.
She’s slipped into restricted rooms, interrogated kitchen staff about their spice blends, and once nearly got herself banned for sneaking into the royal library, filled with centuries-old books, just to satisfy her curiosity about the origins of the gods.
We’re still trying to curb her more... investigative tendencies.
Eva rushes toward me and throws a dramatic wave at Peonica’s boots. “Getting your little shadow to follow etiquette was like herding cats in the alley. But at least she let me shove her into one of my dresses.”
She moves closer, her arms outstretched, then halts as her gaze drops to my gloveless hands.
Peonica, of course, has no such restraint. She drops her notebook on the chair, darts behind me and throws her arms around my middle, pressing her cheek against my shoulder blade with a theatrical groan.
Sometimes I wonder if she was born without the part of the brain that registers fear. Or maybe it’s something more dangerous. Maybe she trusts me that completely.
“Are you okay?” she whispers. “After…” She doesn’t finish.
I don’t answer, I can’t. Because how could I possibly answer, when I don’t even know which ‘after’ she means?
After I got so drunk, I don’t remember kissing a man?
After I was nearly trapped into a marriage with the man that I kissed?
After I gave my blood to a forgotten goddess and my magic destroyed so many lives?
Peonica’s embrace shouldn’t hold me together, but somehow, it does. Her small frame, her familiar stubbornness, they’re a thread pulling me back from the edge.
“It’s Calcatra’s loss, Ray,” she mutters into my back.
“What is?” I ask, lifting my hands like a prisoner surrendering, careful to keep every inch of my blackened fingers away from her.
“To lose you as their queen,” she says, matter of fact, as if it’s the most obvious truth in the world.
The words are simple, but they strike hard, knocking the breath from my lungs with their finality.
Because until now, I haven’t truly let myself face it. I’ve only circled the edges of that truth, brushing against it like something too dangerous to touch. The idea that I won’t wear the crown.
It was that dream that lit my path through every humiliation. It was only when Ryker and I grew close that my father began to look at me again. Only then did he start saying my name like it didn’t shame him to speak it.
My hand twitches upward, instinctively reaching for the scar bisecting my brow, but I stop it, freezing mid-motion. I won’t let these cursed fingers drop any closer. Not while Peonica’s arms are still wrapped tightly around my waist.
But before I can scramble for a response that doesn’t reveal the full extent of my devastation, Peonica releases me just as abruptly and strides toward the table piled with food.
“Just so you know, Brienne’s safe in the Hollow,” she says, grabbing her notebook as she drops into a chair with absolutely no regard for decorum.
“We got her settled in one of the empty houses. She wanted me to thank you for standing up for her.” She plucks a berry from a silver dish and tosses it into her mouth.
“I told her I guilted you into it, but I don’t think she bought it. ”
She shrugs like the whole thing weighs nothing at all, even as the words settle like cold wax hardening around my heart.
Because beneath the teasing, she’s right.
It was her voice echoing in my head that morning, needling at my conscience, stirring guilt that festered quietly on that cursed ride.
The ride where I first saw the bone blooming with fiery-red flowers.
My gaze shifts toward the corner of the receiving room. There it is still. The ribcage half-swallowed by already wilting petals. Forgotten on a low stand.
“We watched most of the Challenge with the rest of the court through the Divinity Gaze here at the Palace,” Eva says, pulling me from my thoughts.
Then, before I can ask, she adds, “I found Peonica outside the gates, cursing out the guards for not letting her in because her customer”—she shoots me a pointed look, unimpressed by my claim to be a loyal patron— “wasn’t inside. ”
Peonica huffs, and Eva rolls her eyes, the weight of Peonica’s audacity apparently still giving her a headache. This time, I can’t help it. A full, unguarded grin spreads across my face.
At seventeen, Peonica possesses an unshakable belief that the world will bend the moment she sets her sights on something. And sometimes, despite everything, I admire her for it.
“We had some food brought up,” Eva says, gesturing toward a small table laid with charred fish and an array of side dishes. It’s the we that catches me. So casual, as if Peonica had helped arrange everything, as if her word carried weight within these walls.
We both know it doesn’t. But Eva includes her anyway, so she won’t feel small. So she won’t feel less. I love her for that. “And the bath is ready for you,” Eva adds gently. “Whichever you want first.”
The room, bathed in the fireplace’s glow and filled with the comforting presence of my friends, feels like a sanctuary.
I’m still stunned, my chest swelling with emotion, at finding the two of them here together, waiting.
The sight of their concern and support is almost overwhelming.
The tight knot in my chest loosens, replaced by a profound sense of relief.
I’m not alone, I have them. And what felt like weight sucking at my feet just moments ago now feels like solid earth beneath me.
Maybe that’s what healing is: not scraping the pain away but learning to stand on it.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice trembling as the tears begin to fall.
Before I can bathe, eat, or rest, Peonica insists I put on my gloves so we can properly hug. I don’t argue. I slip them on without a word, but the moment her thin arms wrap around me, more sudden tears come.