Chapter Thirty #2
It’s simple and striking, so dark, it could be black—but the glow of the candlelight reveals the silk is the deepest inky green instead.
The neckline is cut high, concealing the necklace my mother gave me, but the back dips down to expose the curve of my shoulders before the laces of the bodice wrap around my spine.
I draw in a steadying breath.
The dark green makes my cheeks glow, even without a hint of rouge or gold to highlight my features.
My hair falls down my back in one long braid, and the sheath of my new sword fastens easily at my waist. Finn must’ve told Wolf what she promised me for my birthday.
There’s no way she could afford Málmar steel like this, but the design is too much like hers to be an accident.
Old Ones, there’s been no way to get new Málmar steel since the mages and their caoranachs were banished five years ago.
I can’t figure him out.
Wolf is the one who hasn’t given so much as a signal about whether the Whisperers will help me escape after I kill the High King. Or how they’ll keep me from having to marry Cashel if I am the one survivor of this final test.
That kiss in the secret room he brought me to… it was reckless, and hungry, and desperate, like we both knew it would be the only time. But I haven’t heard a word from him about Eavan’s execution, or about how Cash brought me into that banquet on his arm.
Does Wolf think I failed the Whisperers—failed him—since Oona wasn’t the one executed like he and I had planned?
If that kiss meant anything to him, he would’ve sent a message by now. He would’ve wanted to make sure I was safe. So, I have to assume the sword is pure business, his way of telling me no one is coming to help me escape when this is done.
If I want to live, I have to do it on my own.
And it’s not betrayal that aches in my chest, or even hurt. This swelling, hollow hurt is something entirely different, and harder to grapple with.
I feel so damn alone.
Loneliness is a gnawing void behind my heart. I’ve never felt anything like this before, because I always had Finn. I always had Keeva.
Talon might be waiting outside, but everything that comes next, I still have to face alone.
No one is coming to save me.
Flames crackle in the hearth, bringing me back to myself, and I curl a hand around the hilt of my new sword. I spare a final glance at my reflection and see it clearly. The woman staring back at me in the mirror isn’t who this court thinks I should be.
She isn’t who I was when I arrived here either.
But she is me, as I am right this second, right with this heartbeat.
And I wouldn’t change who I am now for anything.
Just before I go, I flip back through the book Wolf gave me.
The history of the queens of Eireann, and all the Assays that came before this one.
Every Test of Strength has been brutal, all in their own ways.
Some forced noble daughters to scale the cliffs and to battle the churning sea to swim back at midnight from a buoy to the castle.
Each of them was designed to be lethal, to leave none but the one who is strongest and most ferocious alive.
A single line of ogham still marks the corner of the last page of chapter thirteen.
All these weeks, it’s defied me. The sounds the runic markings make don’t make any sense in my head, don’t sound out any Eireician word I’ve ever known. But there’s something vaguely familiar to it all the same, in a way that feels like a half-forgotten song.
I sound it out again, committing the syllables to memory.
Then I leave the shell of who I was when I came here behind and step out into the hallway, lit with flickering candles.
There’s a sadness in the lines of Talon’s waiting face I’ve never seen before.
It makes my heart hurt, how close the look they give me comes to mourning.
Talon takes me in as if they think it might be the last time. They smile softly and reach into the deep pocket of their crimson-and-black uniform, drawing something out.
Their hand trembles slightly as they offer it to me.
The mask is soft black velvet, cut in delicate and breathtakingly intricate patterns so the effect is vaguely lupine, with tendrils of spirals and swirls branching off at the edges where it would lie against my temples.
A thin strand of black ribbon, no wider than my littlest fingernail, hangs from each edge to wrap behind my head.
“He sent this for me?” My stomach roils, the weight of this night hitting me in full force.
“No.” Talon shakes their head, voice soft. “I made it.”
“You made it?” My jaw drops. “How?”
“Ciara,” Talon answers without explanation, and pain slivers behind their eyes. Right. Their little sister. Talon takes the mask from my hands. “May I?”
A small boulder wedges in my throat, but I turn so my back is to them.
The mask fits snug and soft over the bridge of my nose and cheeks. Only my lips and my eyes give me away, and no one in this court knows me well enough to recognize me by either.
Maybe, just maybe, I can make it through tonight without anyone trying to kill me.
Though I might be asking for too much there.
Talon fastens the ties behind the crown of my head.
“Ready?”
I turn to face them and squeeze their hand in mine.
“I’m ready.”
For whatever will come.