Chapter Nine
NINE
I fall into bed hours later, exhaustion like an anchor on every one of my muscles.
Still, sleep won’t claim me.
My limbs, despite the aching, won’t settle. They tremble, and a familiar twinge of panic jolts through me at the uncanny feeling of someone lurking just out of sight. The same feeling I told myself to ignore in Quayside when I carried the magic in my pocket.
Sweat rises in an instant. But the harder I fight to tear the blankets off me, the more they tangle. A single pounding need drives me up and out of bed—
Run.
The door of my room opens with barely a creak, and my racing heart soars. Stone blurs into more stone. Cold air snaps at my bare feet. Not even the servants are up this late. Talon must trust me enough to let me sleep without waiting for me outside.
Or they know these castle walls are impossible to escape.
It’s not escape I crave now, though.
Violet night slashes in from the windows lining the hall at the bottom of the stairs, and I run until the tile turns to dirt beneath my feet.
My muscles scream with the need to move and ache to burn away every single thought fizzing inside my skull until the panic releases me and I can just breathe.
I don’t stop until the skies open up above me.
Clouds sweep savage streaks across the darkness. The castle glowers at my back, under starlight and mist. Massive stone walls ring the grounds and the sprawling gardens stretching between me and the towering stone.
Castle Mount is so high that from here, I can see for miles beyond the walls.
At the top of the sloping hill of the grounds, I can make out the lights of the merchant district down the mountain, and far in the distance, curling around the seaside, the faint orange flickers of Quayside.
Beyond, the sweeping hills past the city walls stretch out into endless darkness.
To the south, jagged sea cliffs form a natural defense around the royal grounds.
I suck in the clean air, gasp after gasp, as if the crisp chill of the night can wash away every thought that churns in my head. All the unanswered questions, all the gut-wrenching doubt about whether I’m strong enough to do this, and the bitter sting of hurt running under it all.
I try to shove the hurt away. I try to rationalize it.
And it’s not because I understand or accept what my sister did, getting involved with the Whisperers, but because keeping the hurt at a distance is easier than reckoning with the truth that maybe I don’t know my sister as well as I always thought I did.
Keeva’s words come barreling back to me. You don’t remember what it was like.
She isn’t wrong. I wasn’t there that day five years ago when the gardai took our mother to the Black Quay. Our father had somehow left me down the lane with a neighbor who needed help tending to her sick children, but I heard the screams.
Finn was there, though.
Finn watched.
Did witnessing our mother’s execution break something in my sister? Force her onto a path I never even thought to imagine, until the Whisperers crashed into my path too?
My eyes close against the fierce burn of hot tears.
I want to run, and to keep running. All the way out of here, to find my sister again. I need her now more than ever. I need to understand how we both got here, and how we get out.
But if I flee before I do what the Whisperers want—they’ll go after her.
My chest heaves, but the cold helps calm me. With each breath, my racing heart slows a little bit more.
There’s no one here.
There’s no one chasing after me. No sign of the Lady of Shadows coming to cart me down to the Black Quay. And as far as the High Queen knows, as far as any of them know, I’m here to die. To die and to send a message.
That power is not for the likes of us.
That hope is not for people like me.
But maybe…
Again, that rustle of stubborn hope hardens my spine.
We might never be able to restore magic, not with the Seven Wells drained dry.
But my mother was willing to die for the dream that any magic was worth fighting for.
That maybe, a future without a ban on magic would mean the mages could bring it back to Eireann from other lands.
From the Málmar Islands, if we could find a way to navigate the deadly sea between us, or from the lands breaking free from Cymrea’s empire to form their own small republics.
Finn must feel the same, to be working with the Whisperers. And that has to be what she’s doing, surely, if Keeva knew where to find the Whisperers and Wolf knew enough to threaten Finn by name that first time I found him in my room here.
Wolf might hold my life in his hands, because of our bargain. He might think I’m nothing but a coward. But he doesn’t know the first thing about me. And he has no idea what I’ll sacrifice to survive.
To keep the people I love safe.
If we have a chance to destroy the man standing between us and magic, then I’ll do whatever I have to do.
Resolution sparks an ember in my chest, hardening me to the facts of the path laid out before me now.
As much as I want to escape, there’s every chance doing that will put both Finn and me in even more danger than if I stay here…
and if I stay, I have to be willing to become who I need to be to survive not just this place but this entire mission—and the Assay itself.
There’s only one survivor of the Assay. That’s how it’s always been.
I’ll have to be every bit as ruthless, every bit as hard and cruel as the noble daughters who’ve trained their whole lives for this moment—and who will also do whatever it takes to survive.
There must be a way to both win the Assay, so I can live, and not have to marry the Bloody Prince. Rules always have loopholes. I just have to find one. The Eireician nobles want a peasant queen just as much as I want that throne. Which is to say, not at all.
The night breeze washes over me, cooling my blood.
There’s no one out here. I might not be safe, but at least I’m alone.
And rather than turn back for my room, I take a tentative step forward across the dirt to where a strange tangle of thorned rosebushes clusters along the far defensive walls, then shudder at the brightness of the petals—pure white, not the crimson of the royal family.
My hands brush the cold stone of the wall on one side and the rows of bushes turning into a maze of heady sweetness on the other. The dirt beneath my toes turns to soft grass, damp with beads of night dew and mist.
Deeper and deeper I go, the quiet stillness soothing the edginess that always follows panic, until the climbing roses rise all around me.
I let out a breath and soak in the silence.
A branch somewhere near rustles, and I startle, bracing for danger.
I’m not alone.
Even dark night does nothing to dull the cold glow of his starlit skin.
The boy—man—standing in front of me is barely older than I am. His form is cut like moonstone, all hard angles and long, lean lines. Sandy hair sweeps back from the edges of his face, and dark blue eyes, made bright in starlight, hold me in place.
A shiver follows their path along my skin, and I don’t care that he sees it.
“Hello.”
His voice is light, and I don’t miss the way his fingers settle lightly on the hilt of the broadsword at his side.
Impractical for most close-combat situations, Finn always says, but still highly effective on a battlefield.
A short sword would be easier to wield, especially for someone without the bulk of heavy muscle, but they also look less impressive.
This sword could still slash through the space between us in a single blow.
It must have cost a fortune. Just the stone set into the hilt is big enough to cup in my palm.
Crimson, the color of fresh blood. The color of…
My chest tightens, ice flooding through me.
Of rubies.
He watches me in the shifting moonlight. Not quite circling, but he certainly isn’t still. Every move I make, from the twitch of my hand to the shifting of my feet in the grass, prompts some small mirror movement from him. He tilts his head slightly.
My senses scream—
This is the Bloody Prince.
Cold terror rushes through my veins. Old Ones, is this how I die?
“I didn’t think anyone else would be out at this hour.” Each of his words feels carefully weighed, as if he’s thought them through before he lets them slip from his tongue. Everything about him is too calm. Too… still.
I step back to keep a distance between us as his cool, piercing stare skates along my face, lingering on my eyes. “I… wasn’t expecting company either.”
As subtly as I can, I shift my stance to feel for the comforting weight of the blades at my side, only to remember that both are still on the table beside my bed.
A silky lock of golden hair falls into the prince’s face, and he brushes it back. “My father once told me that the only people up at this hour are adulterers and assassins.”
My heart thunders in my ears.
Running is out of the question.
If I run, he would call for the gardai.
If he calls for the gardai, I’m dead.
I have to keep him calm—keep him from thinking of me as any kind of threat.
Keeping my voice from shaking is a battle. “Which one are you?”
The waver of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth. He quickly tucks it away, like it’s a sweet I might be tempted to snatch. “If I were an adulterer or an assassin, do you really think I’d tell you?”
Gems drip from his fingers, even with no one around to see them.
Fat sapphires as blue as his dark eyes and rings of white gold and silver braided into bands on his thumbs and forefingers.
Strange, for someone wielding such a heavy sword.
He’d need both those fingers free to really grip the hilt well—unless it’s more for show than use.
The Bloody Prince’s sandy hair flutters in the cool air; the sweet smell of roses in bloom chills under something drier, like the bite of snow in the night.
He studies my face, navy eyes still on mine, as if I’m someone he’s seen before. “You know who I am.” There’s no question in the remark as he steps closer, putting the roses—and all their sharp thorns—at my back. “But I don’t know you. Hardly seems fair.”
I flinch. As if he knows the first thing about fair.
His eyes follow the movement. He stands so close that from here, I could kiss him or kill him.
I force myself to meet his midnight stare and shrug. “Life isn’t fair.”
The laugh bursts from him, hard and bitter. “Isn’t that the truth.” It doesn’t reach his eyes, and tension builds around my shoulders. “Should I, though?”
“Should you what?”
He steps forward another inch. “Know you.”
Old Ones, one snap of his arm and he could run me through with that broadsword. No one would care if I screamed. I doubt anyone would even find my body, if he wanted it hidden. Maybe he would bury me right here.
I don’t risk answering him.
The man’s navy eyes darken… and it’s a strange thing, the way he looks at me, bordering between interest and a haunted wariness. Like he’s trying to decide if I’m the rose or the thorn.
As if someone like me could ever hurt someone like him.
The muscles down the back of my neck and shoulders stiffen, and my heart refuses to slow as it thrums beneath the thin skin of my neck.
His navy eyes flicker there.
Probably wondering what my blood would look like sprayed across these roses.
“I should go,” I say, keeping my voice steady.
If I want to walk away from here, I can’t give him any reason to anger. We all know the stories—he had his best friend and his family killed over an insult. He helped his father raze the mages’ temples during the uprising. A girl he once loved ended up poisoned.
Reputations don’t just come from nowhere.
I nod toward the castle behind us but force my gaze to linger for a moment on his, making it seem as if I don’t really want to leave. Wounding a man’s ego can be just as dangerous as drawing a blade on him.
His hand comes out as I step past him, missing my skin by a hair. The coolness of his touch hovers above my hand, goose bumps prickling where his skin almost meets mine.
“Wait.” He snaps a rose from the bushes tangling around us. “For you.”
My eyes fall to the delicate cream petals just beginning to open. Thorns twine up the stem, each one sharp enough to draw blood.
His navy eyes shift in the shadows as clouds blot out the moonlight above.
The darkness casts vicious shadows down the lines of his cheekbones, hollowing his eyes into an empty, icy stare that instantly chills my blood.
“For luck,” he whispers.
I can’t tell if the words are a threat or a promise.
The last thing I should want is anything from him, but I won’t risk refusing.
Especially not without a weapon of my own.
I reach out for the rose. His soft touch grazes mine as I take the bloom from his hand, and though I don’t mean for them to, my fingers clench instinctively around the stem at the cold of his touch. The thorns bite into my palm, and pain shoots through my hand.
I drop the rose, beads of dark crimson blood rising from my skin.
Two droplets fall from my hand, staining the cream petals on the ground between us.
With a low curse, I wipe the blood on my nightdress.
It stains the linen as red as the ruby on the hilt of his sword, and the flare of piercing pain loosens my tongue. “I make my own luck.”
A flash of something assessing and hard fills his navy eyes.
My throat locks tight, and the breath slips from me. Could he kill me slowly for talking to him like that, or in a blur so fast I barely see it coming?
Neither of us reaches for the fallen rose. We leave it there, neither willing to be the one who bends first.
Another drop of my blood falls to the ground.
I squeeze my fists so hard that a warm trickle falls through my fingers.
After a long moment, the Bloody Prince tears his gaze from mine. He waves a hand toward the castle. “You should go.”
Taking my chance, I turn my back and leave him there.
His words play in my mind as the dew soaks my bare feet and I break into a swift run.
I’m no adulterer, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. Assassins can’t afford to be seen. Assassins can’t afford to be remembered. But that’s what I am now—an assassin.
Whether I’ve killed yet or not.