Splat.
Splat-splat.
The hairs on my arms lift—
My eyes pop open.
Through the bars, a waggle of distorted air draws my gaze—no taller than knee height. My eyes narrow as it peels away to reveal a crouching creature with a wild tangle of fur the color of snow, matching her brows and lashes though contrasting with the smooth, pale pink skin on her face, neck, legs, and arms.
Uno lets her cloak fall to the ground in a rumple of inky fabric sketched with luminous runes, flashing me a mischievous smile that’s all sharp teeth.
The organ in my chest squeezes so hard I fear it might crack down the middle.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper-hiss through clenched teeth, leaning forward, nipping a glance down the tunnel, my pulse powering so fast my head feels light and airy.
Her large, fluffy ears twitch as they strain for sound. “Sereme spoke to Master. Commanded I get you out.”
Icy rage rumbles in the pit of my belly.
Of course Sereme ordered this. Which means she intends to replace me with another. To feed The Crown with another. What’s worse, she put Uno in danger to retrieve me …
Ruse must be out of her mind with worry.
Uno pulls a pick from one of the many colorful patchwork pockets stitched into her woolen garb, stretches her body into a long line, grabs my lock, and slides the thin metal pin into the opening—
“Stop.”
Her delicate hands still, pink eyes flicking to me, slit pupils narrowing. A line forms between her brows, the white, tufted tip of her long tail flitting back and forth.
“Get out of here, Uno. Please. You can’t risk being caught.”
Her lips peel back from pin-sharp teeth, buttony features contorting into something honed and horrific. “You are not Master.” The words slit my skin, leaving a stinging trail. “You do not command me.”
Stubborn miskunn.
I sigh, glancing down the tunnel again, then back into her fierce eyes. “They know I’m a threat. If I live, they will double down their hunt.” I pause before landing my kidney shot. “They will find Ruse.”
Uno snaps her teeth together and snarls, lips thinning. Her tail spears forward, brushing against my cheek.
Her eyes flash iridescent.
She goes statue still, her already pale complexion lightening so much her skin turns translucent in places where it’s most thin—her temples, the insides of her frail wrists, the lanky bend of her knobbly legs.
Silence stretches as she languishes in one of her rare foretellings, and I swallow, watching the prismatic flecks in her eyes churn. The pink bits congeal, rising to the surface, glimmering red in the warm light.
Her tail whips from my face so fast it’s like I’m made of fire, a shuddered breath sucking through her pin-tooth maw. She blinks, pulls her pick from the lock, and folds back down into a crouch, droplets of hope I didn’t even realize I possessed splatting against my ribs.
“You know I’m right …”
She tucks the pick into the little pink pocket on her woolen garb. “Master will die if you do not go to that coliseum. Sereme too. I have seen it now.”
My chest deflates, and I nod.
That’s settled, then.
“I’m not surprised,” I whisper, forcing a smile. “I pissed off the Guild of Nobles. Thoroughly. I imagine they’ll turn this city upside down to find me if I don’t make it to my execution.”
“They will,” she says with stoic certainty. “I will relay my seeings to Master. She can pass them to her master. Who can pass them to her master.”
My smile softens. “You do that, Uno.”
She reaches into her orange pocket, revealing a piece of coal. “Come,” she says, raising it for me to see.
I frown.
With another glance down the tunnel, I lift my metal pole so my chains won’t drag along the ground, and shuffle forward. Uno gestures for me to rest my head between two bars, the metal brisk upon the sides of my face.
Her bottom lip wobbles as she drags the piece of coal across my forehead.
I immediately know the shape she’s drawing, so thoroughly familiar with the moon I seek out in the sky whenever I’m looking toward The Shade.
“This is … right,” she whispers, and I swallow the odd thickening in my throat.
“I know.”
She tilts back, knobbed knees up around her cheeks, studying me while I study her …
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask whether or not I get munched right from the stake or carted off to Bhoggith and fed to a clutch of hatchlings, despite knowing her visions are sporadic. That the outcomes can shift and sway. But I decide it’s better to drown myself in ignorance right until the bitter end.
I close my eyes, not wanting to say a goodbye that’ll taste like ash, hearing the near-silent pad of her scuffled steps fade into oblivion. Only when I’m certain she’s gone do I open my eyes again, looking into the empty space before me.
I clear my throat, shuffling back to the wall, rubbing my itchy back against the abrasive surface.
“Why a ball?” comes a rasped voice to my left.
I look sideways at the male I thought was asleep bunched beneath his filthy blanket, instead watching me through the bars. “It’s a moon.”
He frowns. “Then why a moon?”
I cast my gaze forward again, tap-tap-tapping my foot to the soothing tune in my head. “Because they fall.”
Even when we don’t want them to.
I’m escorted through the cramped and crowded Ditch, flanked by The Crown’s beaded soldiers, the sky weeping flakes of snow that dust the ground—an icy cushion for my barefooted shuffle past tight-lipped city folk.
It’s not normal to be marched to the coliseum with a parade of guards and rows of silent witnesses, but with an abundance of posters slapped on the walls alerting of my capture and execution time, I understand.
They watch me shuffle through the thin cleft in the crowd, both sides lined by more Fade soldiers, like fence posts guarding a flock of stock. Swords at their hips, narrowed eyes scanning, perhaps waiting to see if any Fíur du Ath will step forward and show themselves.
Try to help me.
I’m confident they won’t interfere. Not after Uno’s foretelling.
So I keep my chin high as I pass faces I recognize, fae folk and even a few creatures I’ve come to trust over the phases. Other members of the Ath who played small but poignant roles in my life before I fell upon this sword I’ve spent my known life sharpening.
To me, their faces glow like moons.
Just like the ones in the sky, I hope they don’t fall, sad that I won’t be around to see this kingdom restored to its former glory. Sereme will do it, I know she will.
Eventually.
Much as I hate her, the bitch doesn’t know how to fail. A seed of hope I’ll take to my death.
Stony-faced servants of The Crown cradle bowls of what I can only imagine is some sort of animal blood, splattering me with throws of it. Drenching me in its metallic reek as a thunder of Moltenmaws shadow the sky, the booming beat of their powerful wings thumping … thumping …
Much like my rallying heart.
A speck of snow settles on the tip of my nose, and I look up, smiling, certain everybody else thinks I’m suffering from the brisk weather. But I wonder if our Water Goddess knows otherwise. If Rayne’s waving me off with frosty tears that actually bring me a sense of comfort—chilling the fire in my veins and the anger in my heart. There’s no point to it anyway. Not anymore.
It’s over.
Done.
I’ll go to my doom shackled by only two regrets: that I never got to flay Rekk Zharos from cock to throat, and that I failed to experience life in the way Fallon explained it before she passed. This beautiful, bolstering freedom that was always just out of reach.
Both regrets feel like splinters in my heart as I’m escorted toward a stairway chipped into the north side of the wall, zigzagging up the levels until I’m almost close enough to the clouds to catch them in my mouth.
To taste them.