Chapter Twelve #3
“Would the High King execute me if I show up in leathers and my tunic?” At least I could fight freely in the clothes I’m used to when the noble girls come after me.
“Oh, you’ll look the part. Don’t worry.” Wolf’s mouth curves at one corner. “I’m not just here because I have a death wish. And neither are you.”
“Well aware. You made it clear everyone else is too valuable to risk.”
“That too.” Wolf’s eyes linger on mine the same way Prince Cashel’s did in the garden, a strange recognition mixed with a cunning that makes me lift my chin at him.
“But we could’ve planted you as a servant, or forced anyone else in our debt into the Assay.
Believe me, you’re far from the only one.
” He smirks. “You’re here”—he leans in another inch—“because you’re exactly his type. ”
My mouth goes dry. “Whose type?”
There’s a single moment where a flicker of something like sorrow seems to dance across his green eyes.
Wolf’s hand flexes before he clenches it tight at his side and whispers, “Cash’s.
Your eyes…” He bites at his lip. “They’re almost exactly the same color as the eyes of the only person he ever really loved. ”
The air between us is more charged than ever, and my every muscle turns to stone. “How the fuck would you know that?”
There’s a hard, assessing look in Wolf’s eyes, like he’s weighing whether or not to give me another meager scrap of insight. “Maybe I knew him, once.” He runs a finger along the scar at his temple—the scar from my knife. “Or maybe… I’m the liar.”
A fresh flush of anger heats my cheeks. “So, you’re dangling me as bait? For a prince just as brutal as the king you all want dead?”
Wolf pulls the hood of the black cloak up over his head and grabs the edge of the tapestry without hesitating. The brief look he shoots back at me over his shoulder is tense and tinged with a hue I might mistake for regret if I didn’t know better.
“I prefer the word… distraction,” he says through gritted teeth. “If he’s looking at you, he won’t be looking for me.”
“Why would he be looking for—”
Wolf lets the tapestry fall behind him.
I yank it back—I am not done with him—but somehow, he’s already gone.
Vanished.
There’s nothing but the stalking eyes of the portraits lining the hall and a faint echo I swear comes from deep within the walls.
Night casts its first shadows across the floor of my room.
My pulse is a drum as the serving girl Aoife sent over an hour ago, after she came back from the baths, works my hair into elaborate, tiny braids. Dozens of them, some framing the sides of my face, others adding a wild edge from where they peek out from under the long length.
Half of my hair is pulled back where it’s loose on one side, and the angle, combined with a faint brush of golden dust, sharpens my cheekbones.
A generous swipe of kohl around my lash lines turns my gray eyes to steel, hard and deadly, as the girl passes me a mirror.
I ignore the worn crimson dress trimmed in black and left lying on my bed that Aoife sent over with the serving girl.
Few of the peasants make it past this first ceremony, the note she sent with the dress warned, so the royals have never bothered to clothe the peasant girls they bring here to die.
Better crimson than a servant’s dress, she had added, as if she knew the color would turn my stomach.
What I wear now is a hundred times better.
I look like one of the goddesses I’ve seen stitched into old tapestries, with their wolves at their sides as guardians and the brutal curls of black and green mage-fire bursting from their hands.
Like I could channel the Seven Wells themselves, if anything was left in them, and set this place alight with a snap of my fingers.
Like I’m the kind of woman who could kill a tyrannical king.
My gown is midnight-black silk shot through with strands of silver that shimmer with every movement.
The serving girl gives a final check to the laces crisscrossing up my spine before slipping away, leaving me alone.
There’s no distracting sparkle, no bright glimmer from the silver threads.
The effect is more subtle, so close to the starlike shimmer of magic I’ve now seen that my breath catches at the sight of myself once I turn to face the tall mirror.
At the same time, black is one of the colors of the High King and his family, so the color could be seen as an ode to them.
I know better.
Oh, you’ll look the part. Don’t worry. I swear I can still taste the smoke and leather of Wolf’s scent in the charged alcove space between us.
My heart thrums at the memory of how that shield he keeps over his features wavered, just for a moment, in that dark alcove.
How his words had slipped through the shadows like a knife.
But something doesn’t fit.
Sure, the royals would watch for treason during a high-stakes contest like the Assay. But that doesn’t explain why Wolf thinks Prince Cashel would be looking for him.
A knock sounds at the door. I smooth both hands over the silk of my skirts and draw in a steady breath at the churn in my stomach.
I might die tonight.
No peasant brought into the Assay has ever survived, and there can only ever be one survivor.
This Crown has taken everything from me. My mother’s life. The very spirit of my father, after the uprising and her execution. This Crown banned and drained the magic that would’ve let me have a chance at saving my sister without bartering my life.
I’ve already survived the very worst the High King could do to us, and this will be no different.
I will do whatever it takes to survive long enough to kill the king and try to kill as many of the noble daughters who would betray Eireann as I can before I escape—either by finding my way out before the Assay ends or by winning and uncovering any kind of loophole in the rules that might let me out of marrying the prince.
Once I do, Finn and I can flee. We could go to a village where no one knows our names, maybe. Have a small farm, with goats for cheese and room to grow potatoes and herbs. Maybe a couple of cats, and an apple tree.
For some reason, I’ve always wanted an apple tree.
I slide the longer of the knives Wolf gave me when I arrived here into a band of leather fastened tight around the back of my thigh, so the thin blade hides in the curve behind my knee and well beneath the flow of the silk.
The other knife goes into a gauntlet sheath over my forearm that’s covered by the flowing sleeves of the darkly shimmering midnight fabric.
Wolf’s words stalk me in the shadows. You’re exactly his type.
He’s wrong.
I’m more than a piece to be moved around on the board of whatever game the Whisperers are playing here. I’m more than bait for a prince.
I am my own person.
And I will do whatever it takes to survive.
For the first time in years, I let the fierce, crackling embers I’ve buried in order to endure each day since my mother’s execution flare and smolder through my veins.
I embrace the fire in me and walk out the door.