I t was nearly a full day before someone came to see me, and by then I was deliriously feverish. I could do nothing but lie on the floor, listless, moans
dripping from my throat.
I was barely conscious when Laron came into my room and swore to herself. She flipped me over to look at my face—which, of course, pressed my decimated back to the floor, making me cry out. She held her hand to my forehead and swore again.
Darkness took me.
When it parted again, someone else leaned over me—a man, middle- aged, with dark salt-and-pepper hair.
“She’s burning,” Laron muttered, sounding a little panicked. “Look at her back! Idiot girl. That’s worse than what they did to her. I don’t know how she made it so much worse.”
The man was silent as he felt my face, my pulse, and gently turned me to examine my seeping back. As he leaned over me, I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his wrist—a sigil. He was a slave.
Just as I thought. Good.
His hands ran over my back, and I let out a whimper as his magic fluttered across my skin.
“I’m trying to help,” he muttered, sounding tired but kind. I made a sound halfway between a moan and a sob.
“She can’t die, Merick,” Laron hissed. “They’ll have my gods-damned head. Do you know how the Lady would react—”
The man had a bag with him, which he pulled closer. Inside, I glimpsed many little glass vials. He grabbed two, then mixed them. A flash of magic
radiated through the liquid. “Hold her head back.”
Laron obeyed. Pain shook me as she pushed me upright. “Sorry…” She sounded as if she meant it.
The potion that Merick poured down my throat burned the whole way through me, and it was so potent that I would have thrown it up were it not for his hand clamped hard over my mouth. Eventually my body accepted it, and they released me, allowing me to fall to the ground.
A call rang out in the distance. Laron leapt to her feet and swore. “Go,” Merick said, softly. “I’ll stay with her.”
Laron thanked him before rushing out of the room, leaving Merick and I alone. With great effort, I forced my head up to look at him.
Days of constant drugging, combined with the infection, had taken their toll. But this, now, was my chance.
No one, not even Threllian Lords, could have that much Chryxalis on- hand without a Wielder available who knew how to make it. And that Wielder likely would have been a healer—someone who knew how to manipulate bodies.
The potions in Merick’s bag only confirmed my theory.
And this moment, now, the next step in my plan, was worth my self- inflicted injury, was worth the fever.
“Hello,” I rasped, my voice dull and scratchy. “I need to ask you something.”
 |
I DIDN’T KNOW how many days passed. My fever faded as a result of Merick’s care, but they kept me so drugged that I was nearly incoherent, dreams and reality and pain blending together. I continued to meet with Merick, the gears of my plan continued to turn, and time passed.
One day, I felt a little clearer. I was able to actually get up. I ate the bread and soup I was given, and still had an appetite after. My fingers had been set, and while they ached, it was manageable. My back was painful, but no longer nursed a raging infection.
After I ate, the door flew open and three maids, Laron included, entered. One bore a wheeled rack of fine clothing, another carried a box of shoes,
and Laron was armed with hair and face brushes. “What is this?” I asked.
“The day we get rid of you,” Laron said coldly. But her expression held a hint of something I might call concern.
They lengthened my restraints enough to give me a range of movement about the room. I discarded my dirty, bloody, urine-stained clothing. Water was dumped over me, and the grime scrubbed away.
I was given a white silk dress to wear. It slid smoothly over my clean skin as if an hour ago I hadn’t been covered in my own filth.
My jaw was tight, my nerves close to the surface.
I thought of Max, Sammerin, Serel. Where are you?
I wasn’t surprised by the showmanship. The Threllians prized beauty— even in their enemies. I knew by now that I was a gift for someone, and a gift from the Threllians would always be presented with a flourish, even if it simply meant swaddling death in velvet and silk.
I had come to the conclusion that I was most likely going to be given to the Fey. It made the most sense. The Threllians and the Fey were allies; both wanted me dead. By turning me over to King Caduan, the Threllians proved their usefulness to the Fey and made a dramatic gesture of goodwill.
Only now did real fear settle in my stomach.
I had been so certain that if my friends came for me, I would know it. But what if I had been overconfident? What if my careful measures were not careful enough?
A chillingly vivid image of Max, bloody and limp, pinned to the Zorokovs’ pristine walls flashed through my mind, and I had to fight to keep the bile down.
I imagined my mother, as she had wiped my terrified tears when I was a child. None of that.
None of that, Tisaanah.
I was not afraid.
The other maids left the room, leaving Laron and I alone. I sat in front of the mirror. I looked, despite everything, beautiful, or at least beautiful the way that the Threllians liked it—colorless and clean. My lips were pink and shiny, my eyes wide and framed with brown and pink kohl, my cheeks flushed with powder. Laron stood behind me and worked the final tangles from my hair.
I watched her in the mirror. The lines that etched her features were not the marks of cruelty, but of worry. In some ways, she looked familiar. I had seen the beginnings of those lines on my own mother’s face, even all those years ago.
I wondered if my mother had lived long after she was sold.
I wondered if she, too, had been bitter at the world that had taken her child from her, and at the hope that was too painful to even acknowledge.
“Your daughter should still be here,” I said.
Laron stopped brushing my hair but did not look up. Then she resumed. “Should be.”
“I know she deserved more. She deserved the life that she dreamed about. I wish I had been able to give that to her.”
Laron’s features had grown hard. “Me too,” she said. “Laron.”
At last, her gaze flicked up to meet mine in the mirror. “Give me one chance,” I said.
A slow wave of anger passed over Laron’s face, and I thought for a minute that she would scream at me.
“They killed her for nothing,” she spat, between clenched teeth.
Now I understood. Her anger was not for me. Her anger was for them. “What if it doesn’t have to be for nothing?” I whispered.
Laron trembled with rage. Her eyes were bright and shining. She set the brush down.
|
I HEARD THE FEAST BEGIN—THE horns gave it away, their tinny melody echoing down the hall. I sat politely with my hands folded in my lap until guards arrived and took me by each arm. They led me down immaculate hallways, that music growing louder and louder, until at last we arrived at a banquet hall. Just as they had when I was a slave at Esmaris’s estate, dozens of white-clad bodies turned to me when I entered. I was entertainment, after all—then as the dancer, now as the gruesome, sacrificial gift.
I did not acknowledge the slow confusion roll over Lady Zorokov’s face as she took in my outfit. Not the white of a slaughtering lamb, as she had selected, but bright, bloody red. I kept my face very, very still.
And yet, I could not stop a single, shocked intake of breath when I was brought down the center of the ballroom to be presented to the guest of honor.
I had been prepared for so much.
But I had not been prepared for Nura to be the one sitting beside Lady and Lord Zorokov, smiling back at me.
