Another flock of hands rise, and the scribe counts them quietly. “It’s a draw,” he calls out, gaze cast on the mezzanine, appearing to recount.
I frown.
Surely not.
I count too—looking up in time to watch a familiar hooded “Runi” raise his hand, like he’s lifting a gavel of his own.
Casting a vote.
“Oh, no matter,” the scribe bellows. “Dragons it is—by one vote!”
My blood chills, my rapidly beating heart making my head spin, certain I’m going to pass out. Not that it stops me from slaying the Incognito King with a glare I hope he feels all the way to his bones.
I should be able to die how I want to die, dammit!
The King dips his head, and I picture myself lobbing it off his shoulders and watching it thump upon the floor, but then the Chancellor slams his gavel against the table again.
I flinch, gaze plummeting in unison with my guts.
“It’s settled. Prisoner Seventy-Three, you will be led to the coliseum come next aurora rise, and the bell will toll in your name. May the Creators have mercy on your tarnished soul.”
I’m escorted back down the long, twisting tunnels of Gore’s notorious prison, past cells that smell as rotten as I do. Past folk who cling to their bars with blanched hands, looking at me through wide eyes—faces gaunt, lips cracked and sapped of color.
We pass a boy with his cheek pressed against the bars, his eyes so glazed and sightless I almost wonder if he’s— He blinks, pupils tightening, gaze shifting to me.
The strings of my stony heart tug, because I recognize those yellow irises. That flock of matted golden curls.
On a foggy aurora rise not too long ago, I found him wandering the Ditch, blood spilling from his nose that looked as crooked as it does now, bruises in places that told me someone much stronger had taken their anger out on him.
I’d given him an Elding orb. Asked if he wanted my help in any way. He’d pushed the orb back into my palm and told me he wanted to do it himself— I look away, a shiver scurrying up my spine where it explodes across my shoulders, down my shredded back.
I’m nudged into my cell, stumbling to a stop. One of the guards unclips me from the leash, reattaches my mobility-restricting pole, and kicks me.
Hard.
Panic erupts beneath my ribs as I pitch toward the back wall, certain I’m about to rip half my face clean off, my feet clamped so close together it’s impossible to kick my foot forward and catch myself. Instead, I tip my body to the side and tuck into a ball— My shoulder collides with the wall, the top half of my back grating down the rough-hewn rock in an explosion of teeth-gnashing agony, violent aftershocks coursing through me—my flesh lit with the whipping pain of a thousand lashes.
A deep, searing scream wrangles up my throat, seeming to echo off the walls, the tapered end of it chased by a chilling silence.
Hissing through the aftermath, I tap my hand against the floor to the beat of my calming song while letting my eyes slit open. Narrow on the offending guard.
He picks my broken lock off the ground, then leers at me like it’s my fault a king with a fist of iron crumbled it free. He secures my door with a new padlock he plucks off the latch of an empty cell, and leaves with the rest of my armored entourage—their heavy footsteps fading into oblivion.
He’s lucky I’m chained and secured in a cell; otherwise, I’d have his heart in my squeezing fist for making me scream.
“Guessing it didn’t go well?” Wrook asks from somewhere so close I can feel his whiskers twitching against my arm.
“As expected,” I mutter past gritted teeth.
He reaches through, settling his claw on my arm, and I thank the Creators he’s getting out. The world needs more folk like him.
I place my hand atop his for a brief moment before letting it drop.
He does the same.
There’s the sound of the slop cart rolling down the tunnel. Of bowls sliding across the floor, followed by the sloshy tune of ravenous consumption.
A bowl skitters into my cell, and I look at it, feeling none of the hunger I was experiencing earlier—the hollow ache replaced with gut-churning dread.
I use my foot to nudge it left since Wrook is apparently getting out soon.
The bony male pauses his frantic gorging, slop dribbling from his beard as he looks at me. “No,” he rumbles, sliding the bowl back into my cell. “You will starve.”
I look straight into his sunken eyes. “I’m to be offered to the dragons next aurora rise. It’s wasted on me.”
Everyone seems to pause their feeding frenzy, silence feasting on the echo of my words.
“I am sorry,” the male murmurs.
So am I.
Sorry I won’t get the chance to avenge Essi’s death, and that I’m leaving this beautiful, broken world.
I love living, painful as it’s been at times. I love the colors of our kingdom and the way our clouds are ever changing.
Ever shifting.
I love the way the dragons soar through the tombstone-riddled sky, entirely untethered. Love the feel of fallen snow peppering my skin, and the way a frosty, south-born breeze nips at my nose, numbing the tip of it like an icy kiss.
The backs of my eyes burn as I think of that little wonky moon I’ll probably never see again …
I love that most of all.
I offer the male a soft smile, pushing the bowl beneath the bars again.
This time, he takes it.
Ostern Vaegor—King of The Burn—came to visit Mah and Pah and, well …
Me.
Since I’m now eighteen, I’m apparently mature enough to be marketed off to the highest bidder, like livestock set for slaughter. At least that’s what King Ostern thought. That Pah would agree to an arranged bind between me and one of his sons who has cruel eyes and an even crueler smile, simply because The Shade has a swelling need for agricultural produce we’re struggling to service.
Too bad for Ostern, I told Pah I’d rather eat nothing but my Moonplume’s shit for the rest of my existence than pair with Tyroth Vaegor—and meant it.
Pah said I have a foul mouth. That if I grew up in the Boltanic Plains like he did, I’d have been made to shovel faunycaw dung for an entire phase for that single comment alone. Or be whipped for my insolence.
I told him I’d happily take a whipping over Tyroth Vaegor.
Pah said that’s exactly why he left that place, and that he wouldn’t sell me for all the grain in the world. Then he kissed me on the forehead, called me remarkable, and told me to spend some time with Slátra and Allume so kings could talk politics without a foul-mouthed princess listening in.
I love Pah, but I wish he’d stop calling me remarkable. If I could squish that word like a bug and pop it from existence, I would.
I asked Haedeon if he’d like to come with me to the hutch, but he just stared at the wall like he always does. I accepted long ago that he never came home from Netheryn—not really. I swore I wouldn’t leave him there, but I did.
He doesn’t laugh anymore.
He doesn’t eat butterberry chews.
He doesn’t speak. Which means he also doesn’t argue when I push him into the hutch so he can watch me work on Allume’s wing that’s growing stronger with each passing phase. Honestly, I think she’ll be sturdy enough to take her first flight soon.
Since he was a little boy, all Haedeon wanted was to ride on the back of his own Moonplume …
Perhaps if I can give him that, he’ll smile again.
My foot taps against the floor while I hum soft and slow, “Ballad of the Fallen Moon” whipping through the otherwise eerily silent cells—most of the other prisoners fast asleep, hidden in some pocket of nonreality where I hope they’re happier. More comfortable.
Healthy and free.
Given the fact that the Incognito King watched from the shadow of his hood as I sang the same song in the Hungry Hollow, seeing him stride down the prison tunnel in a flutter of Runi white is …
Fitting.
He stops before my cell, arms folded over his barrel chest.
“Go away,” I rasp, letting my eyes sweep shut.
“You don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Don’t want to.”
Zero.
Percent.
Interested.
My lock jiggles, and I open my eyes to see him delving a key into it, clonking it open.