“This is not entertainment—” His lips meet mine, mumble half buried in my skin. “This is a promise. You and I, for as long as Arathess exists with us on it. And after that. And after that.”
It’s silly. It’s sweet. Can I have this? Do I deserve this? Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe what I deserve is not for me to decide.
I can’t even think about the past. It’s blown away, like strong wind over dandelions. Every mistake, every hurt, every betrayal, everything we did to each other in Vetris, said to each other—these kisses heal it all shut. Heal it all closed. They will scar—of course they will. But they’ve stopped bleeding.
And I’m so deliriously glad to stop bleeding.
My laugh this time is water, running unsteadily and recklessly. “I’ll have you know, eternity is unbearable.”
He leans his forehead on mine, our breath mixing white in the freezing air and his dark eyes gleaming with sun. “But with me?”
“But with you, Lucien d’Malvane.” I kiss his proud nose, making a pressed line down to his lips. “Far less so.”
3
THE HARDEST
PROMISE
Love is, of course, a tad bit different for me than it is for everyone else.
Lucien is still very much my witch. But it’s hard to remember that when we spend the rest of the afternoon wandering Breych’s hundred bridges, taking in every angle of the view, and talking about nothing at all—jokes about the nobles back home, about my time in the woods, his childhood memories. He says Fione’s all right, as all right as anyone can be after losing their loved one. Varia threatens at the surface of it all, his parents and his people, too. But he pulls it back—for me or for himself, I can’t tell.
The hours soar by on easy wings made of his smile and his laugh. We make it easy on each other, because we both know: after this walk, after this time together, the real battle begins.
The one to stop his sister.
The one to, maybe, save the world from her. And her from herself.
But where do we even begin? Who even has the answers for us?
Sunset marks the end. Malachite finally comes to fetch us, but knowing him, he was watching all along. Politely, of course, he insists. With his back turned every time we decided to touch mouths. Lucien is fifteen different shades of red, helpless against the onslaught of Malachite and me teasing him together.
“You had no right to watch, Mal,” Lucien insists.
“Luc, I spent nine years watching you be boring. The least you could do is let me watch when you decide to be interesting.”
“You can’t lurk forever.” I slap Malachite’s shoulder playfully.
“Watch me,” he shoots back. “Just kidding. You can’t. Because I’m very good at hiding.”
“You’re going to get very good at jail shortly,” Lucien mutters.
“Throw me in if you have to.” Malachite sighs. “But know I can expertly digest most forms of substratum stone.”
“Sky jail,” Lucien adds. “Where you can’t eat your way out.”
“Well,” Malachite faux huffs. “That seems a little excessive.”
My laugh scares nightdoves off a nearby tower, all of them flooding into the sky on indigo wings, their white breasts flashing in the first starlight. A real laugh. Gods, how long has it been since I laughed without a weight on my chest? Years, it feels like.
…
Dinner is, of course, also a tad bit different for me than it is for everyone else.
My plate on the long oakwood table of the old sage’s house-tower dining room is piled high with the fattiest livers I’ve ever seen, garnished with a gooey pool of grapefruit-red pig blood. Everyone else has perfectly seared pheasant with gleaming sugar-roasted yams and vivid green wyrmfruit compote. Absolutely grotesque.
Helkyris and Cavanos share few things, but one of them is the stuffy meal seating tradition. Lucien sits at the first right, as is custom for the highest-ranking guest, and Malachite tries to lean on the wall, but the sage won’t have any of it, guiding him to sit next to Lucien and offering him a beneather spirit of some sort. I smirk and take a seat across from the prince, but one seat down. The chair next to mine is Fione’s. The old sage finally sits at the head of the table. Y’shennria’s teachings whisper I’m supposed to refer to him as “Elder.” And here I thought her lessons on Helkyrisian titles were utterly pointless. I’ll have to apologize, next I see her.
if we ever see her alive again.
I put my napkin in my lap. No ifs. Only whens.
Fione is the last to join us, nose and apple-cheeks red from the cold as she rushes in, shaking snow off her velvet covering and her mouse-colored curls. Her eyes catch mine, and for a second it’s hard to breathe. The pain on her face is so raw. It bleeds out from the corners of her pursed lips, her cornflower-blue eyes. Eyes that should be happy. Smiling. Not weary, and certainly not dusted with the thick, dull fallout of loss.
She looks away first. I stand up quickly and intercept her cane as she hands it over to the guard.
“I’ve been awful lately.” I smile, setting the cane gingerly against the wall. She bites down on a wince, keeping her neck Duchess-Himintell-long.
“You’re here now,” she says woodenly. “That’s all that matters.”
“Please, ladies.” The sage motions to our chairs. “Sit and partake. You must be starving.”
“Some of us more than others.” Malachite nods to me. I’d make a playfully rude gesture, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it might send the ancient sage into heart failure, so I settle on a winsome smile instead. But it doesn’t last long, Fione’s human scent pulling me back. Lilacs and skin.
I pivot and gulp down whatever’s left of my reservation.
“I’m sorry—”
“You didn’t make her choose the Bone Tree.” She cuts me off smoothly.
“Fione—”
“It’s not like you could’ve chosen otherwise. You were her Heartless. Lucien’s explained to me how that all works.”
“Fione, let me apologize properly. Please?”
Her eyes rivet to the floor, and the dining room goes silent, the sputter of white mercury lamps and distant clang of the kitchen the only sounds. I reach slowly, oh so slowly, for her hand—her small, elegant hand with all her perfect fingers. Fingers that made her crossbow cane, that made the jeweled dagger of her and Varia’s relationship into a white-mercury bladed thing, capable of giving me back the ability to Weep.