Without conscious thought, my head spun to face back the way I’d come. I’d left my mother with the most ruthless and cruel of the king’s lapdogs. My blank gaze blindly searched the barren square, thoughts running rampant. As I did so, the light from the twin moons caught at something.
The welded flower on the side of the fountain.
The one my mother had taken me to see most days of my childhood. It was our flower.
Gut-wrenching horror clenched my stomach. I gasped. I’d left my mother all alone with a Drae while soldiers were going door-to-door searching for me.
I let my pack fall to the cobblestones and stared at the welded flower, the dark night’s heat swirling around me. My skin prickled in chills as anxiety stabbed me in a thousand different places. What had I done?
I abandoned all pretense of hiding, taking the most direct route back to my window and to the woman who had raised me.
There was still time to help her. There had to be time.
I pushed through the stalks of maize and climbed to just beneath my windowsill, pressing myself against the warm stone wall, and listened before entering. If the soldiers already had her, I’d need to formulate another plan to save her from the king’s dungeons. I’d be useless to her if we both got caught.
Hysteria rose in my throat, and I pulled myself back from the brink by my fingertips.
“How can that be? What you’re saying is impossible.” The rumble of Lord Irrik’s voice carried out to me. “That would mean—”
“It’s why he must never know. You need to protect her. You must swear to me. If there was any other way, don’t you think I would take it? If you take me to the king, he will find out.” My mother’s voice was choked and filled with tears. Before tonight, I’d never ever seen her cry, aside from peeling onions.
“I didn’t know,” Irrik said quietly.
He’d followed several of us home after The Crane’s Nest.
He’d assigned the soldiers to tail each of us.
Even if he’d changed his mind about having me followed for whatever shocked him so much about Mum and me, he’d started this whole thing.
Whatever was happening now, fault rested with him.
I stood to go inside but returned to my crouch at Mum’s next words.
“Promise me you’ll keep her safe,” my mother said in a rising voice.
He said nothing, and I was left to wonder if he had nodded or not.
Mum spoke again. “You must do it now.” A moment of silence passed, and then she continued, “This has Phaetyn blood on it. It’s the only way.”
“How do you even have this?” Lord Irrik said, breaking his silence. He sounded flustered for the first time. “I can’t do what you’re asking of me. You know I can’t.”
“Yes, forgive me. I’m not thinking . . .” Mum trailed off. After another beat of silence, she said, “Your soldiers will not stop hunting until they have a head for the king. You tell him I was alone, that I was the one the soldiers were meant to follow. You promise me you’ll look after my baby.”
Their words made little sense to me, with the exception of the phrase, “head for the king.”
I remembered her tears before I’d left, her nonsensical mutterings, and finally, finally my mind deciphered what they’d meant.
Goodbye.
Someone hammered on our front door. Several someones shouted. But these realizations came to me as though from a great distance.
She’d lied to me. When she’d pushed me to leave, there had been no intentions or expectations of her seeing me again. The realization was like a punch to the gut, and my mind refused to believe what my instincts told me was happening. Until I heard her gasp. There was something about the sound…as soon as I heard it, I knew.
Lord Irrik swore, and I pulled myself over the ledge in time to see Mum crumple to the floor, the hilt of a golden dagger protruding from her chest.
I screamed.
My mother’s eyes widened as she saw me. Her hands uselessly grasped at the hilt buried too deep for her to pull out. Her mouth opened and closed, her words lost in the space between us. Lord Irrik pushed me toward the window, yelling something, but I pushed back, the same fire crawling up my hands as our skin touched. I had to see my mother, and I screeched at him.
“Leave, foolish girl,” he hissed, picking me up and flinging me toward the window. “She sacrificed herself so you could get away.”
I crashed into the wall, my right side missing the window by only a hair’s breadth. The air rushed from my chest, and pain exploded from my shoulder and hip from the impact. My mind couldn’t process the chaos surrounding me, and I sat dazed where I’d landed, loud footsteps pounding closer.
Irrik crossed the floor in a single stride and picked me up once more. He stared down at me in disgust and strode to the window— —just as several soldiers crashed into my bedroom.
7
“Lord Irrik,” exclaimed a burly soldier from the open doorway. The soldier wore an aketon similar to Lord Irrik’s, but the material was loose and the color navy. Above his left shoulder were twists of gold, a symbol of rank in the king’s guard. He held his blade out, as if he’d anticipated a fight, but upon seeing Irrik he allowed the tip to drop to the floor, and his snarling expression smoothed.
“Captain,” the Drae said, face blank.
A distant part of my mind registered there were others here, that they were talking. I even saw droplets on the burly soldier’s sword, the blood of one of my neighbors, I assumed. But that was all in the periphery, for my gaze was on my mother, my wheezing, crying, strong mother. She didn’t look strong now, and as I stared at her, I knew all the other happy times I’d shared with her would be erased and replaced by this one searing image.
A pain impaled my chest, and a scream worked its way up my throat. Lord Irrik released me, and I scrambled to my mother, dropping to my knees on the stone floor. My hands hovered, unsure where to touch. Her chest was heaving, and shallow gasps of air escaped her lips. She blinked, and a large tear trickled into her dark hair.
“Mother,” I mouthed, unblinking.
“Must . . . go,” she wheezed, but the fear in her eyes said she knew it was too late for me to run.
The worst thing was a part of me felt I was watching a stranger die. Who was this woman who didn’t fear the Drae and could shove a dagger into herself? She had clearly concealed . . . so many . . . huge things from me.
The heaviness of hopelessness swept through me as her breath began to rattle.
“I’m sorry, Mum. Please.” I wanted so much for her to know just how sorry I was. Sorry for not being careful enough on the walk home, sorry for getting caught by Irrik, and so sorry for leading trouble straight to our doorstep.
“Please,” I cried out. “Please,” I begged, to no one, anyone, to the nameless, make believe person who could save her.
“Who is this?” the soldier behind me asked. “Is this our little renegade?”
I reached to stroke Mother’s hair. Her long, cinnamon-brown hair just like my own.