Chapter Thirty
THIRTY
The whole castle falls into a silence that could pass as mourning.
I know better and use the time to train.
I run through all the drills I can remember from Finn—push-ups and sit-ups and twists, running up and down the stairs outside my room until I can’t breathe anymore. Anything that might give me an edge. Anything that might help me survive.
Because only one of the four of us remaining in the Assay will live through what comes next.
Oona. Aisling. Saraid.
And me.
The invitation arrives the morning after Eavan’s execution. A fucking ball, of all things, three days from now to celebrate the end of the Assay on the night before the final test. And yes, that’s the actual word the High Queen’s secretary scrawls on the neatly folded paper. Celebrate.
Muzzled fury fills the halls of the castle as word gets out.
There are no crowds in bright colors in the marble foyer, waiting at the gleaming doors of the throne room. I go with Talon to check the halls, to try to get a feel for the mood from the alcoves at the edges of various rooms, hood pulled up over my head to hide my face.
On the second day after the execution, one of the nobles attacks a Cymrean.
The nobleman’s fists slam into the Cymrean’s jaw with a crack that splits the air, and the man’s skull slams back on the marble outside the throne room as he falls. Bruises swell along his jaw, his cheeks, before the other nobles pull him off the Cymrean.
But the gardai don’t arrest him.
There’s no second traipse down to the Black Quay.
If the High Queen has the nobleman executed, she does it quietly.
And that alone tells me what I need to know and what makes Talon’s brown eyes glow with a quiet, lethal satisfaction as we spend hours together, trying to figure out who might know where the High King’s been moved, or where we could search for him ourselves.
Tensions are so taut, Talon passes on the order from Wolf that I’m not to go searching the halls on my own. I would defy him—if I didn’t value my own neck.
If Talon isn’t with me, I don’t leave my room.
I don’t even try to find Cash. The gardai are on alert, searching every bag and shipment that enters the castle and ordering nobles wearing hoods to pull them down while they study their faces.
On the third day—the day to celebrate nearing the end of the Assay—I wake with slivers burning in my palms. The pain seems to worsen at different times, the flares of stress definitely provoking the worst of it.
It’s worse when I train or use my hands all day, and a little better during the hours I spend reading through the book Wolf gave me on the Assay or talking with Talon.
But all day, I fight through the lingering damage of the poison.
By nightfall, I can barely see straight past the nerve pain, and the tiny vial of blue powder that helps stares at me from the table at the edge of my bed.
There’s only one pinch of the antidote left.
Talon is the one who walks in on me, wrestling with the bandages in a futile attempt to bind them tight enough to cut off the blistering needles stabbing through my hands and wrists.
“What would you tell Finn if she was the one hurting?” they ask softly, putting down the basket in their arms and taking the bandages from my hands.
I grimace, a sharp stab lancing down my fingers. I don’t answer, because I think they already know. I’d tell her to take whatever might give her an advantage in a fight.
Talon arches a brow knowingly and plucks the vial of blue powder from the table. They press the antidote right into my hands, fixing their eyes on mine. “Take your own advice.”
I don’t give myself a chance to doubt.
Yes, the pain might come back tomorrow for the Test of Strength. That won’t matter, though, if I’m not well enough to protect myself at the celebration tonight.
Every noble daughter will be out for me, especially after Cash had me on his arm the other night.
I tip the vial back into my mouth, grimacing at the bitter tingle of the blue powder, holding it under my tongue the way Wolf told me to in Saraid’s carriage.
The relief is almost instant. It starts to push back at the pain moments after it dissolves in my mouth, and I swallow it all down.
Only then does Talon toe the basket toward me with their boot. “For you.”
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling sentimental.” I lift my brow. “A parting gift?”
They scoff, but their eyes soften as they find mine. “Not quite. I’ll be waiting outside your door. We can head down after you…” They nod to the basket, then slip back out the door, closing it carefully behind them.
Flames snap and crackle in the hearth, throwing out a heat that sends my mind back to when Wolf stood right here with me, just feet away.
Get any closer, and that heat’s enough to burn.
The familiar scent of him fills my lungs at the memory.
This feeling flaring behind my ribs… it’s the sharp edge of wanting to know he’s okay.
Without a word, I pull back the dark cover of the basket Talon left on the ground and gasp. The covering isn’t a blanket but a gown. And inside…
Inside is a gleaming blue steel short sword, complete with a sheath of supple leather stitched with delicate triple knots all along the top of its rim.
Symbols of the Old Ones, the three ancient goddesses who gave their magic to the first mages, who created the Wells.
My fingers trail over the buttery leather up the hilt of the short sword.
It’s exactly like the one Finn wears, except with better steel.
The blue waves are the same as the swirls under the surface of every Málmar steel blade Wolf has given me, and exhilaration sings in my blood.
I draw the blade out, my breath catching.
The hilt fits my hand perfectly, and the sword is almost weightless.
My chest swells, a grin spreading over my face.
The sheath fits at the curve of my waist like it was made for me. And I should know better, but I can’t resist—I test the edge of the blade on my hand and hiss.
One featherlight touch and my blood stains the swirling blue steel.
I reach for the napkin to staunch the bleeding, and a scrap of paper flutters out. My blood races, and I slide the sword into the sheath as easily as I would loop a thumb into my pocket—that’s how right it feels on me.
The paper is folded in on itself multiple times, stamped with a green wax seal bearing the etched shape of a wolf’s snout, bared teeth and all.
My fingers shake, breaking the seal and unfolding the paper.
Scanning over the runes there, I realize—it’s a letter.
Written entirely in ogham, in two separate hands.
The style of the slashing markings is different between the two.
One, brutal and efficient, with sharp slashes where the lines mark the runes associated with each corresponding sound—the same hand that wrote the staves Wolf left for me before.
The other is a lighter press of the pen, the lines slightly longer and less harsh.
Finn.
Old Ones, I can hear her voice in the scant words the runes sound out. Every one of them is her, and damn, I’ve missed hearing her voice. I miss her so much it physically hurts.
My mind works, interpreting the slashes branching out from the central shaft as fast as I possibly can so her message comes together in my head. There are no names, nothing that could give us away if this fell into the wrong hands. But it’s her, all the same.
Knew telling you not to ask questions wouldn’t work.
A smile cracks along my lips. I can practically see her shaking head, the short auburn hair brushing her cheeks. Each of the lines is short, with multiple slashes needed for every runic marking and only so much space to work with.
Trust him. Trust them. Will explain. Proud of you.
Then, in an addendum squeezed into the very bottom of the page, the markings sound out a final message in Wolf’s brutal, slashing script.
Happy birthday.
My eyes sting at the words, warmth swelling dangerously in my chest.
He had looked so surprised when I mentioned in Saraid’s carriage that my birthday was soon—tomorrow, in fact, a detail someone must’ve told him… or he must’ve asked about.
Keeva, maybe… or Finn?
And as grim as it feels to think about something as mundane as a birthday in the middle of all this death and danger… he remembered.
Be ready, his note adds.
My mind spins, reading the last two words over again.
Be ready?
The Test of Strength is tomorrow, and tomorrow is just a few hours away now. Does he have a plan—for how I can find the High King, or how to get myself out of here after?
I trail my fingers over the ogham markings, and a shiver runs down my spine.
Night has fallen over the courtyard outside my room, starry and still. Mist swirls around the gnarled base of the old willow there, twisting and twining as the slim glimmer of light from Aoife’s chamber across the garden flares.
She hasn’t come out in three days, since we got back from Eavan’s execution.
I haven’t pushed her, other than knocking on her door yesterday. I know the weight of blood shock and the horror of what happens on the Black Quay. If this was her first time seeing it up close… I shove the fresh twinge of guilt away and focus on my face in the mirror.
Strands of dark hair curl softly around my cheekbones. There’s a faint flush of rosy color, but no hiding the gash in my temple. The gray eyes staring back at me are wide. Bright.
I would be a fool not to recognize the danger I’m walking into. This night, or the dawn of the Test of Strength tomorrow, could very well be my last. And if I must face death, I’ll do it as no one but myself.
I draw no kohl around my lashes. I leave the delicate jar of gold dust where it rests on the counter, and my cheeks bare but for the flush burning there. I struggle with the laces up the back of the dress Wolf left for me in the basket, but manage it.