Slowly Falling for him
I glance at Talan cautiously. “Whose blood is on your sword?”
“Someone made the mistake of testing my patience. You’d think people
would have learned by now.”
Vague. Annoyingly so. “Another traitor?”
He cuts me a sharp look. “I won’t let anyone get in my way.”
A chill ripples up my spine as he stalks over the snow.
The air seems to grow heavier and otherworldly until the forest opens
into a clearing, a path lined with ancient statues and pale purple hedges. On
the far end of the path, the Lost Palace emerges from the wintry forest, a
haunting edifice of twists and curves. Ice and snow glaze the stones,
sparkling in the pale light. Fog billows around a frozen garden of heather
and bare yews. Moths flutter around us—not metallic, but real ones that are
bright blue. Corbinelle moths. Beautiful to look at, but they’re venomous.
Like Talan, really.
Stone arches frame a door of carved oak, peaked in the center. As we
walk closer, my gaze flicks up at the statues. I stop to stare at one of them, a
towering, crowned queen with long hair that drapes over her robes. My
gaze slides to the symbols on her wrists, and an ember of recognition sparks
in my mind. The encircled triple spirals remind me of the ones I saw in
Nimuë’s tower—and look exactly like the ones I’d seen on my wrists for a
moment in the bathtub. As I stare at them, cold magic slides over my wrists.
Talan follows my stare. “That’s Nimuë. She built this palace long ago.
She’s buried here, in fact. Did you know that before she was the Lady of the
Lake, my grandmother had that role? Before she was queen.”
I stare at the triple spirals again. Three Ladies of the Lake. “Queen
Morgan.”
Thank the ancient gods we don’t have the same grandmother in reality,
given some of the filthy thoughts I’ve had about him.
I draw a shaky
Another flash of memory: me, kneeling on the ground, atop the comforter Wyn’s dragged to the floor. Arms up, baby, he says gently. He peels the ruined white T-shirt over my head, runs a cool washcloth over my collarbones, collecting what’s left of my mess. I can barely keep my eyes open. Did you get me the shirt about the rodeos? The I’ve been to so many fucking rodeos shirt?
I got it, he says. Arms back up. I must not lift them high enough, because his rough palms catch the undersides of my biceps and ease them over my head. Then the butter-soft fabric is being tugged down around me, pooling against the tops of my thighs.
I love this shirt, I grumble.
I know, he says, sliding my hair out from under the collar. That’s why I brought it. Now go to sleep.
A Magnetron
The smallest girl I’ve ever seen rises out of darkness.
Cheers rise as a house in brown silk and red gemstones applauds their daughter.
“Rohr, of House Rhambos,” the family shouts, announcing her to the world.
The girl, no more than fourteen, smiles up at her family. She’s tiny in comparison to the statues, but her hands are strangely large. The rest of her looks liable to blow away in a strong breeze. She takes a turn about the ring of statues, always smiling upward. Her gaze lands on Cal—I mean the prince—trying to entice him with her doe eyes or the occasional flip of honey-blond hair. In short, she looks foolish. Until she approaches a solid stone statue and sloughs its head off with a single, simple slap.
House Rhambos speaks again. “Strongarm.”
Below us, little Rohr destroys the floor in a whirlwind, turning statues into pulverized piles of dust while she cracks the ground beneath her feet. She’s like an earthquake in tiny human form, breaking apart anything and everything in her way.
So this is a pageant.
A violent one, meant to showcase a girl’s beauty, splendor—and strength. The most talented daughter. This is a display of power, to pair the prince with the most powerful girl, so that their children might be the strongest of all. And this has been going on for hundreds of years.
I shudder to think of the strength in Cal’s pinkie finger.
He claps politely as the Rhambos girl finishes her display of organized destruction and steps back onto the descending platform. House Rhambos cheers for her as she disappears.
Next comes Heron of House Welle, the daughter of my own governor. She’s tall, with a face like her bird namesake. The destroyed earth shifts around her as she puts the floor back together. “Greenwarden,” her family chants. A greeny. At her command, trees
Sayfa 70
The Cike
“I recommended you to the Cike. And I did it for you, child.” Irjah
fixed her with a level gaze. “The rivalry between the Warlords has never
completely disappeared, even since their alliance under the Dragon
Emperor. Though their soldiers might hate you, the Twelve Warlords
would be very eager to get their hands on a Speerly. Whatever division
you joined would gain an unfair advantage. And whatever division you
didn’t join might not like the shift in the balance of power. If I sent you
to any one of the twelve divisions, you would be in very grave danger
from the other eleven.”
“I . . .” She hadn’t considered this. “But there’s already a Speerly in
the Militia,” she said. “What about Altan?”
Irjah’s beard twitched. “Would you like to meet your commander?”
“What?” She blinked, not comprehending.
Irjah turned and called to someone behind the door, “Well, come on
in.”
The door opened. The man who walked through was tall and lithe; he
did not wear a Militia uniform but a black tunic without any insignia. He
carried a silver trident strapped across his back.
Rin swallowed, fighting a ridiculous urge to sweep her hair behind her
ears. She felt a familiar flush, a heat starting at the tops of her ears.
He had gained several scars since she’d last seen him, including two
on his forearm and one that ran ragged across his face, from the lower
right corner of his left eye down to his right jaw. His hair was no longer
cropped tidily as it had been at school, but had grown unruly and wild,
like he hadn’t bothered with it in months.
“Hi,” said Altan Trengsin. “What was that about losers and rejects?”
“How on earth did you survive the firebombs?”
Rin opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Altan. Altan Trengsin. She tried to form a coherent response, but all
she could process was
So what happens know
One moment, everyone is drinking and cheering, but
then, the goblet slips from Niven’s hand and crashes to the
ground.
The people nearest him startle, but it becomes
apparent very quickly that there’s more wrong than just a
dropped cup.
Prince Niven locks his hands around his throat, eyes
gone wide in fear, just as someone in the crowd screams.
The prince stumbles, and purple-cloaked Ranhold
guards come rushing forward. With pure panic, his fingers
claw down his neck—a neck that’s now lined with black
veins spreading up toward his cheeks.
“Oh no...” My whisper is swallowed up by the eruption
of shouts from below, as dark froth starts to bubble out
from the young prince’s lips.
“Poison! The prince has been poisoned!” someone
screeches.
I watch in horror as the prince falls to his knees too
quick for the guards to catch him.
“Mender! Where’s the royal mender?” Midas booms
out.
A gray-haired man in purple robes surges forward and
falls to his knees in front of the prince, a red band tied
around his arm. From up here, I have the perfect vantage
point to see the mender’s hands skate shakily over Niven’s
chest, head tilted against his mouth.
Midas pushes past his own guards to kneel beside the
mender too. Queen Kaila hangs back, her brother standing
in front of her like a shield, while more men stand behind
her.
Song of Myself (I)
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
