Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
ALLERIA
The Sluagh disappears just before dawn, the same way it has for the past four nights, and I can finally breathe again. Each time it’s appeared, I think it can’t be worse than the first … and then it is.
The first night it was Merina, the second my father, the third it mimicked Brennan, and the things it said … the images it painted … Serath found me curled up on the bathing chamber floor vomiting into a bowl when she arrived the next morning. But even that pales beside what it did last night.
Last night it came to me as my mother.
I thought my heart broke when my father sentenced me to death, but that was nothing compared to lying in the dark and listening to a voice I barely remember telling me things I have no way of knowing are true or not.
My pillow is still damp from the tears I cried when I had my face buried in it, trying desperately not to make any sound the Sluagh might hear, while I counted down the time until morning.
Dawn—can it truly be called dawn when there is no visible sun?
—doesn’t bring relief. It just swaps the night terrors for whatever discomfort the day will bring.
It’s not that the Guard are treating me badly.
If anything, they’re far more patient than they were when we were in Shentari.
Well, all but Riahn. I have only seen her once since we arrived, and she turned and walked away without speaking to me.
Serath comes every morning, and spends time with me.
Sometimes we walk through the keep, answering any questions I have.
Caelum joined us yesterday afternoon and offered to show me the library.
He became so absorbed in whatever he was reading, he forgot I was there for two hours.
It was the most relaxed I’ve felt in a long time.
I’m learning things daily. I think I could find my way from my rooms to the great hall and back without company, if it was safe to do so.
I recognize the change in the sound of the sea when the tide turns.
And I know that the Sluagh arrives when the moon rises and leaves as it sets.
But there are more things I still don’t know.
I don’t know why there is a moon but no sun. Or what makes the keep unsafe for me to walk alone during the day. And I don’t know when Cairn is going to arrive.
I’ve tried feeling for the bonds that tie us together, sending thoughts out into the world, but there has been no brush of his mind against mine, no voice in my head, and I don’t know if that’s because I’m doing it wrong or if it’s something else.
What if something happened to him and Therin after we left? What if soldiers found them? What if he’s back in an iron collar?
But Serath and the others don’t seem to be concerned. Surely they’d know if something had happened to him?
I throw back the sheets and climb out of bed. I can’t lie here all day worrying about things I can’t control, and Serath will be here soon.
There’s a robe draped across the end of the bed, and I pull it on, tie it at the waist, then walk through to the sitting room.
The brownies have already left breakfast for me—a pot of the tea that was here the first day I arrived, toast with thickly spread butter, and a bowl of fruit.
I pick up something that looks similar to a strawberry but is purple and twice the size.
Taking a bite, I pour tea into the cup, and walk across to the window seat. The curtains are already open, and the window frames the cloudless violet sky and the dark, turbulent waves crashing against the rocks.
I’m debating whether to step out onto the balcony when the door opens behind me. I turn as Serath steps through, and I’m talking before she can even say good morning.
“What if they found them? What if my father’s soldiers caught up to Cairn and Therin? What if they’re back in collars?” Each question comes out shriller than the one before.
Serath pauses in the doorway, her eyebrows rising, then she crosses the room and stops in front of me. Reaching out, she covers my hand with hers.
“Alleria, breathe.” Her voice is firm. “We would know if something happened. If he were dead, the thread would snap and a new Eldráfn would rise. If iron has been locked around his throat again, the connection would go dark and silent. But it hasn’t done either of those things.
The threads linking us to him and to Therin are bright. He is alive.”
“But what if—”
“Stop. Don’t borrow thorns from tomorrow’s hedge.”
“I—what?”
“You are worrying about things that have not happened.” She pats my hand. “Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll explore the Westwatch Tower today. It holds Wildmere, which I think you might like.”
“Wildmere? What’s that?”
She smiles. “If you get dressed, you’ll find out.”
That’s when it registers what Serath is wearing.
She isn’t in leathers today. She’s wearing layers of rust and shadow-black fabric, so fine they move around her with every breath she takes. The gown leaves her shoulders bare, the sleeves hanging low from her upper arms, and the skirt falls in overlapping panels that part when she moves.
In my father’s court, a woman dressed like that would be whispered about. Yet Serath stands there completely unbothered by how much of her skin is exposed.
Serath follows my horrified gaze. “Ahh, I see.”
“What?”
“With the changes to how you look, I almost forgot you were raised in the human world.” She gestures down at herself. “You mortals have so many feelings about skin.”
“It’s not feelings, it’s just …” My gaze drops to the sheer fabric again. “It’s very thin.”
“It’s very comfortable.”
“You aren’t cold?”
She laughs. “No.”
“Of course you’re not,” I mutter.
“Go and get dressed, Alleria.”
I set down my tea and pick up a slice of toast on my way past the table, eating it as I walk through to the bedchamber. The toast freezes halfway to my mouth when I see what the brownies have left for me.
For the past four days, they’ve given me variations of the same things. Woolen pants, tunics, and sturdy boots. But today, there’s something different draped across the bed.
The dress lies across the bed in a sweep of dark fabric, the color of crushed charcoal until I step closer and the light from the window touches it. Then the gray bleeds away, transforming into the impossible, vibrant violet of the sky outside.
I put the toast down without finishing it.
The fabric looks like silk, but it feels like no silk I’ve ever felt.
When I touch it, it’s finer and warmer than it should be.
It slips through my fingers with barely any friction at all.
There are several layers, each one almost sheer on its own, but darker where they overlap.
Sheer sleeves fall from the sides, wrist-length, and loose fitting, with silver thread worked into the cuffs.
Along the hems, the stitching tangles into thorned vines and small closed buds.
It is beautiful.
And terrifying.
When I lift it, I find the front plunges lower than anything I have ever worn, and the back is barely there. The sides are split high, the panels arranged to fall closed when standing still and open with movement.
I drop it back onto the bed.
I can’t wear this. I want wool. Leather. Something heavy enough to make a barrier between my skin and the rest of the world.
My breathing quickens, my ribs aching with the remembered pain of Brennan’s boots, the sound of fabric tearing, the helpless, sickening knowledge that I couldn’t stop him.
“No,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
“Alleria.” Serath’s voice cuts through my building panic.
I whip around, wrapping my arms across my stomach. Serath is standing in the doorway, watching me. She doesn’t move. And that helps. A little. I think.
“It barely covers anything,” I whisper. “Everyone will think—”
“Only someone who thinks your body belongs to everyone who sees it.”
I look away. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I know.” Her gaze drops to the gown, then returns to me. “But bare skin does not mean unprotected. Not here.” She steps into the room slowly. “Close your eyes and hold out your arms. Feel the dress instead of seeing it.”
I hesitate.
“You need to learn to trust us at some point, Alleria. Your introduction to our kind might not have been something either of us wanted, but you’re part of the Nightwild Guard now.
You’re connected to Cairn in ways we’re still learning.
We didn’t expend all that energy to rescue and heal you, only to kill you now we have you in Underhill. ”
My teeth sink into my bottom lip. Everything she’s saying is true, I know that. Serath, especially, has never given me any reason to believe I can’t trust her.
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and lift my arms. She drapes the dress across them.
Instead of the cool feel of silk that I’m expecting, a fierce, banked heat radiates from the fabric.
It sinks into my aching muscles, chasing away the shivering cold and exhaustion the Sluagh left behind in the night.
The clean scent of crushed leaves and rain rises to my nose.
My eyes open and I look down. Where the stitched cuffs rest against my skin, the tiny buds are slowly opening.
“I don’t … It’s not … I can’t wear this.”
“Why don’t you try it on before saying no? If you truly don’t like it, then the brownies will bring you something else.” She lifts the dress. “But the brownies felt this was right for you today, and they are rarely wrong.”
I stare at her, then at the dress.
If I try it on, then no one can say I refused, and call it an insult. And if I hate it, I can take it off again.
I nod slowly. “All right … but if I don’t like it—”
“Then something else will be brought to you.”
I untie my robe and let it drop to the floor, then pull my nightdress over my head before I can change my mind. Serath lifts the gown and slips it over my head.
“Wait? Are there no undergarments?”
“There is no need for them.”
I stare at her. She smiles.
“Trust me, Alleria.”