“Hold out your hand, girl.” I stretched out my right hand, and the cold, solid weight of the ring dropped into my palm. “Do you know what you’re taking up along with this ring?”
I knew what I should say: I take up the hand of our lord beneath the fields. But the words stuck in my throat. The ring was an old heirloom, a gift to the village from some long-forgotten lord. I had seen it put on the bride’s finger every year I could remember. But now I finally saw it: a heavy golden ring, carved like a signet into the shape of a rose.
I smelled crisp, smoky autumn air and I couldn’t look away. Somewhere a bird was singing—and as if from very far away, I also heard the sweet, breathy voice of a girl raised in song:
Though mountains melt and oceans burn,
The gifts of love shall still return.
I stared at the ring, golden and gleaming and utterly real, and I remembered.
I remembered being married to a statue while my sister sobbed her heart out back at home. I remembered being raised as a tribute and a weapon, and I remembered receiving this ring. With love.
I remembered my husband, whom I had loved and hated and betrayed.
There was a roaring in my ears and I thought I might faint. They love to mock, Ignifex had said, and they had. To leave answers at the edges, where anyone could see them but nobody does.
And they had. Everybody knew the story of the Last Prince, and everybody knew the story of Tom-a-Lone, and nobody knew what it meant.
Old Nan said, “Don’t you have a vow to make, girl?”
People said the Last Prince still haunted the ruins of his castle. That he would come if you called out his name. People said that Brigit let Tom-a-Lone out for just one night every year. To meet his bride.
And they are always fair.
I seized the ring and slid it on my finger, then pulled off my veil as I spoke the words I had said before, in a time that now had never been.
“Where you go, I shall go; where you die, I shall die, and there will I be buried.”
Then I bolted away into the woods.
26
Behind me I heard shouts and people running after, but I lost them soon enough. I kept running, though: I had to get to the castle by midnight. That part of the legend might be a lie, but I couldn’t risk it. I had lived all my life surrounded by the Kindly Ones’ mocking clues and ignoring them. I wouldn’t ignore them anymore.
Eventually I slowed to a walk, but I struggled grimly onward in the darkness, my legs aching as I climbed the slope, sweat trickling down my back. I was now following the road—it seemed safe enough, because who would expect me to run this way?—but there wasn’t much moonlight and I was terrified of losing my way.
Finally I reached the top. I paused for a moment, gasping for breath, then staggered through the ruined archway into the remains of the castle and collapsed to the ground. I was burning with heat from the climb and my legs felt like they were made of limp wool; I wanted to lie down in the grass and sleep, but I made myself sit up and watch.
All around me, there was nothing but darkness and the sound of crickets.
“Kindly Ones!” I yelled into the night. “Where are you? Don’t you always want to bargain?”
There was no answer. I clenched my teeth and waited. And waited. Drying sweat itched against my skin and I shivered in the cold. I began to wonder if I had gone insane and all my memories of that other life were only a delusion.
Or maybe it had all happened and I was deluded to think that they let him out of the box even once a year. I remembered my futile childhood vigil. That had been in the spring, but maybe it didn’t matter what night I waited for him. Maybe my only chance to save the Last Prince had been back in that house, and now that I had lost it I would never get another.
The darkness yawned around me. I imagined living out my whole life knowing what I had done and what I had lost, knowing that Ignifex—Shade—my husband was suffering in the dark and would never, ever be rescued.
Then I did cry again, but only a little; I wiped my tears and settled in to wait. Against all hope, I had remembered. I couldn’t give up now. If I had to, I would come back to this place every night for the rest of my life. I knew whom I loved and what I had to do, and for once what I wanted was right: so nothing in the world could break me.
But I could fall asleep.
I held it off for a long time. I would sit bolt upright, forcing my eyes wide as I glared into the darkness, or sometimes I would stand and jump up and down, pumping my hands through the cold air to wake and warm myself at once.
But eventually I was so tired I couldn’t think. Eventually I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I leaned my back against the stones for just a minute; and then I thought I could surely rest my eyes for just a moment; and then I was asleep.
Birdsong woke me, high and pure. I bolted up, my heart pounding, as I remembered speaking to the sparrow.