Time to go.
Eris gripped the spindle hard in her hand as she crouched down. As the soldat stumbled into the room, she pressed the spindle’s edge to the mosaicked floor and drew a straight line.
The line glowed silver. The mist rose.
The soldat lurched toward her, calling for help and alerting the other soldats nearby.
But by the time he rounded the desk, Eris was already stepping into the mist, and beyond it.
By the time he reached for her, Eris was already gone.
When the mists receded heartbeats later, Eris was not where she should be.
Instead of being Across—surrounded by stars and darkness—she was surrounded by walls. A dark hallway spread before her, lit every few paces by flickering torchlight. Beneath her feet lay that same mosaicked pattern as the room she’d just left. And it smelled like mint and lime.
She was still in the palace.
Eris gritted her teeth in annoyance.
It happened sometimes. If she was concentrating harder on the place she was trying to leave rather than the place she was trying to get to, the spindle would get confused and blunder up the crossing.
Eris was just about to curse the godsforsaken splinter of wood when something slammed into her from behind, hurtling her forward and causing her to drop the spindle altogether.
“Kozu’s balls!” She spun, watching the spindle roll toward two black leather boots with silver buckles polished to a shine. A hand reached down, picking it up, and as the newcomer rose, so did Eris’s gaze.
The young woman before her was dressed like a palace guard. Only instead of the king’s crest, a flame-like flower blazed across her shirt. She wore no morion, and tucked into her belt were five throwing knives.
“Apologies, soldier.” The young woman’s voice was hard and commanding. The voice of someone used to giving orders—and used to her orders being obeyed. “I didn’t see you there.”
Eris’s gaze snapped to eyes as cold and blue as sapphires. The torchlight made it impossible not to notice the girl’s strong cheekbones or ink-black hair braided away from her face.
Eris knew who this was.
The commandant.
This young woman before her was not only cousin to the king—and therefore royalty—she held that same king’s army in her fist.
A dark memory flickered in Eris’s mind of another cold commander. Fear pooled in her belly. She shook the memory off, stepping back. But the sharp sliver of it lodged in her chest, reminding Eris of who she was. That she needed to leave this place.
Now.
Except her spindle was currently in the commandant’s hand.
The young woman’s gaze moved over Eris quickly and dismissively. It made Eris stiffen. She should have been glad the commandant found nothing of interest in the girl standing before her. Eris wanted—no, needed—to be invisible.
For some reason, though, that indifferent glance rankled her.
The commandant’s lips parted, as if she were about to say something, when a shout echoed from down the hall, interrupting. Making them both turn.
More and more voices joined the first. The soldat Eris had just left was alerting the entire palace to the thief in their midst.
It was an alarm.
Eris waited for the truth to dawn on the commandant’s face the way it had with the soldat. But the commandant was no longer looking at Eris, only frowning in the direction of the alarm.
“That Death Dancer.” Her eyes were sharp with ire. “If he thinks he can steal from the king without consequence, he has no idea who he’s dealing with.”
Eris should have kept her mouth shut. This commandant had her spindle, after all. Her only escape.
But Eris couldn’t help herself.
“How do you know it’s a he?”
The commandant looked straight at her then. Eris shivered under that cold gaze. Stupid, she thought, even as she stared into the girl’s eyes. What a stupid thing to say.
The commandant studied her as the alarm grew louder in the distance. On her face Eris could clearly see the need to respond to the alarm warring with . . . what? Wariness? Suspicion?
Any moment now, she’s going to figure it out, draw her weapon, and arrest me.
But the commandant did none of those things. Instead, she held out the spindle, her eyes seeing Eris now, taking all of her in. “You dropped this,” she said.
Eris swallowed, staring at the elegantly carved spindle lying on that callused palm.
Is this a trick?
When Eris reached to take it, though, the commandant’s hand fell away. She turned on her heel. “Come on. Let’s see what that cocky bastard has done this time. . . .”
Concentrating on the alarm now, the commandant failed to notice that Eris didn’t follow.
The moment she strode away, Eris crouched down to draw a silver line across the floor.
Cocky? she thought, working quickly.
It felt like a challenge.
She shook her head. She couldn’t let herself get distracted this time. She needed to pour all of her focus into her destination.
As Eris finished drawing the line, the air grew thick and damp. The mist billowed up. But the sound of those diminishing footsteps drew her attention back. Eris paused, watching the commandant turn the corner. Watching her disappear from view.
Eris rose to her feet. Before putting Firgaard and the palace and that girl out of her mind, she thought: I’ll show her just how cocky I can be.
And then she stepped across.
Two
Ever since the door to the king’s treasury was found open and a bright red ruby missing, Safire hadn’t been able to sleep.
Someone had walked the halls of her palace, slipped past every single one of her guards, entered a locked door, and stolen the very ruby King Dax intended to give the scrublands tomorrow. One that would be sold and the profits divided to help remedy the starvation caused by the blight—one known as the White Harvest. Years ago, it had spread like wildfire through the scrublands, destroying all their crops, cutting off their main sources of food. Every season, farmers would try again, but the blight would only infect the new harvests, driving the people further and further to the brink of starvation.
Safire knew things were getting worse, but it wasn’t until Queen Roa returned from her last visit home that Safire realized how dire the situation really was. Roa’s father was now bedridden. Unbeknownst to her family, he’d been going without food for some time now, so that those less fortunate than him could eat. But it wasn’t only Roa’s father who was at risk of starvation—her best friend, Lirabel, was also chronically malnourished due to her pregnancy. The physician told Roa if they couldn’t get access to substantially more food, and quickly, Lirabel would lose the baby.
When Roa returned to Firgaard, even Safire had seen the change in her. She looked exhausted and frail. At meals, Dax cast worried glances her way whenever she refused to eat—because how could she, when her loved ones were starving to death?
They needed a permanent solution, and quickly.
Dax planned to sell the ruby in the royal treasury—a jewel that once belonged to their great-grandmother—and use the profits to buy meat and vegetables and grain to supplement the weekly rations Firgaard was already sending, in hopes of keeping starvation at bay.
The fact that someone had stolen the jewel without a second thought? It was intolerable. Unforgivable.