Beside the mug, the candle on my bedside table has become a puddle of wax, and only the tiniest flame remains. In a few hours, I’ll leave this luxurious bedroom suite for cold, austere barracks. Elisa and Hector and everyone I love will leave me behind.
It’s my choice, I tell myself. I want them to. I’m a different girl than I used to be. I can handle being alone, and I’ve slept in worse places than barracks.
The candle flame sputters out, drowning in its own mess. I grab a pillow, yank the bedspread off, and toss it all into the corner on the floor. I make a nest of everything, snug against the wall, and hunker down. Sleepily, bedspread pulled up to my shoulders, I trace the ceramic border that rims the floor of my chamber. In daylight, the tiles are soft yellow with painted blue flowers, but tonight, in the near dark, they are merely something slick and cool for me to focus on.
I’m finally, finally drifting to sleep when a knock sounds at my door.
Lord-Commander Dante stationed several Guards outside, so whoever has knocked is someone they’ve chosen to let pass. I’m unalarmed as I rise, pad barefoot across the room, and open the door.
It’s Rosario, his hair mussed, a sheepish grin on his face.
A flash of movement draws me partly into the corridor, and I glimpse a fast-walking figure in a dressing gown, just before she turns the corner and disappears.
“Was that Lady Carilla?” I ask, making no effort to hide my amusement. “Were the two of you . . . together?”
Rosario pushes inside. “No.”
“Well, maybe you should be. At the adoption ceremony, she couldn’t take her eyes off you. She’s nice. I like Carilla.”
Rosario closes the door and latches it. “It’s not like that between us.”
“Then what’s it like, little brother?”
The prince opens his mouth to retort, but changes his mind when he sees all my bedding tossed in the corner. “Sleeping on the floor again?”
I shrug. “Rosario, why are you here? The monastery rang the third hour.”
He plunks down on my bed. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured you might be up too.”
I plop down beside him. “What’s keeping you awake?”
He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on top of them. “Captain Bolivar. Still missing. I trained with him. I . . .”
“He was the captain in charge during the year you spent with the Guard.”
“Yes. But not just that. I can’t stop thinking about him . . . Red, what if it wasn’t an accident? What if he was purposely kept away from that audience hall?”
The crickets have fallen silent, and tree frogs are taking up the chorus in their place. Their chirrupy, bell-like sound is something I’ve always found pleasant. It means dawn is not far off.
“I think,” I begin carefully, “that if Bolivar was purposely disposed of, it speaks to a wider plot. A possible coup.”
“Exactly. And with Elisa and Hector leaving, who do you think is the next, most likely target?”
Oh. Understanding lands like a rock in my gut. “You are.”
“I am. And if that adoption had gone through, you would be too. I’m glad you’re going to the Guard.”
The prince is frightened for his life. No wonder he can’t sleep. “What does Elisa think about all this? Surely you’ve shared your suspicions with her. Maybe you should go with her to Orovalle.”
“She says I’ll be well guarded. She also says that we must not consolidate targets. The entire royal family should not be on the road at the same time. And she wants me to stay behind and treat with the Invierno ambassador. To ‘practice my diplomacy.’”
“That sounds like Elisa.”
“Pragmatic to a fault,” he agrees. “I hate that she’s right. Since becoming the ruler of Joya d’Arena, she’s had six attempts on her life. And those are just the ones we know about. She’s always a target. By splitting up, we take some pressure off each other.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
The prince takes a deep breath. It’s too dim to see his features clearly, but I can hear the frown in his voice when he says, “I’m going to keep my head down. Sleep in a different bed every night. One of my Guards will prepare all my food. I may spend some time training in the Guard hideout beneath the Wallows.”
“I think all that sounds wise.”
After a long pause, he says, “Red, is this what being emperor will be like? Always wondering if the next corner hides an assassin? If my next scone is full of poison? I don’t think I can live like that.”
And I don’t think I have an answer for him. We sit together in silence. Then the monastery bells ring the fourth hour, and it’s like an explosion in my chest. I startle so hard that I bite my tongue.
Rosario waits in patient silence as I breathe deep to settle my heartbeat, in through my nose and out through my mouth, just like Hector taught me. With the metal tang of blood in my mouth comes clarity. I do have an answer for Rosario.
“I’ve been afraid my whole life,” I say. “I don’t remember everything that happened to me, but my body certainly remembers how to be afraid. Hector calls it the soldier sickness. He says he’s seen it a lot, especially lately, since the war.”
Rosario knocks my shoulder with his own, giving me a gentle shove. “I know how you are. What I don’t understand is . . . how can you live with it?”
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
Rosario snorts. “I thought you were going to say something wise and inspiring.”
“No. Just . . . you’re not alone. I understand what it’s like to be afraid, and I don’t blame you for it one bit.”
He leans his head on my shoulder, and his soft hair tickles my cheek. “Thanks, little sister.”
“No problem, little brother. You can sleep here if you want. I’ve got the floor.”
5
Then
WHEN the girl woke, it was to the wavering, flashing orange of torches against the night.
They provided just enough light that she could make out the shape of a huge snowdrift blocking half the entrance to her den. She froze, more still than a rabbit with a hawk overhead.
The girl was colder than cold, like her very bones were made of icicles, and her lips felt puffy in her face. Though she had obviously slept all day and into the night, she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and return to oblivion.
Her mamá had taught her about cold sickness. Your bones like ice. Your eyes so heavy with the need to sleep they’re like rocks in your eye sockets. Your lips that swell to cracking.
It meant she needed to get warm—quick, before she was dead.
That was it, the thing she was trying to remember before she blacked out. Her mamá would have wanted her to build a fire. The tinderbox was still in the basket, barely a stretch away. But she couldn’t chance moving with the torches so close.
Voices drifted toward her, muffled by snow and stone. That language again, with the funny syllables and singsong cadence. The language of monsters. She hardly dared to breathe.
They were above her, maybe right over her head, peering into the ravine. If they climbed down, they’d see her little den. But the ravine was thick with snow now. It probably didn’t look like much. You had to be born to these mountains to understand how tricky things were in winter, like how ledges and overhangs were smaller than they seemed and you’d better watch your step or else, and how crevices were always deeper, with sharp branches and hard boulders and maybe even tiny cozy dens hidden beneath the snow.