“Of course,” Danyll replied, his eyes going pointedly to the knife she still held brandished in front of her. Her knuckles were white around the hilt and her palm was sweaty. She shifted her stance, standing straight and tucking the knife back into a skirt pocket.
“Rayne?” The sound of her name washed over her like a cold shower. Edlyn still looked and sounded so young, with her curls loose around her shoulders and her bare feet. Did Rayne look that young? She felt so much older. The girl took one step, then another, but Rayne didn't dare move.
This was it.
This was it.
This was—
Edlyn raised a small hand and brushed it against Rayne's cheek. Rayne turned her face into her sister's hand and closed her eyes, letting the knife drop into her pocket, losing it in the folds.
“Do you remember when we hid Rin's crown?” Edlyn asked.
Rayne opened her eyes and smiled, surprised. They had been so young and so improper. Not so different than they were now.
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “How could I forget?”
Rinnan had been in a tizzy, tearing up the castle, chasing his sisters, screaming at the servants. He was a miniature version of their father in looks, but he got his fiery temper from their mother. She remembered Madlin trailing behind them, her hands plucking at the child’s rope around her upper arm like she always did when she was nervous.
“Just give it back to him,” she had urged. The sudden memory of the girl took Rayne's breath away, but Edlyn didn't seem to notice.
“I couldn't believe it when he started setting our dresses on fire,” Edlyn added, shaking her head. “I thought Mother was going to kill him.”
Rayne remembered the screams, the laughter, their dresses going up in smoke, Madlin throwing buckets of water on the smoldering pile while Edlyn ran circles around the impromptu bonfire, dancing and stomping her feet like she had seen the women from Ash do during the gathering.
“You sure did bring that crown out quick,” Edlyn said, trapping Rayne with her gaze. “Fire has a way of bringing things out of hiding.”
Rayne couldn't breathe; it felt like a hand was squeezing her heart. Edlyn knew that Rayne had something to do with the fire in Iblia. Edlyn knew, and Rayne had missed her chance, and now—
“And I am so glad it brought you to us now,” Edlyn said, and the tension dissolved as Edlyn threw herself at her sister, wrapping her arms around her so that even though Rayne wanted to catch her breath, she couldn't. Over Edlyn's head, Danyll watched them with suspicion in his narrow, calculating gaze from across the room, as far away as he could get, it seemed.
There was a crash nearby, the sound of scraping stone that she realized was the door being hurriedly opened, followed by pounding footsteps.
“Ashsky! She's gone—” She had expected her father, but it was the general who rounded the corner. It made sense—he was bound to the prince, their magic deeply intertwined. Of course he would also be able to open the door. Rayne was suddenly aware of her body outlined beneath the nightgown as she hadn’t been moments before. Instead of shrinking into herself and hiding as she would have liked, she stood tall, moving to stand in front of Edlyn.
As soon as he caught sight of her, his lips snapped closed. It would have been comical except for the ball of flame that erupted in his hand, so strong that it extinguished the lamps in Edlyn's room, leaving the general as the only source of light. He thought she was dangerous; he knew the truth. She remembered how he had harnessed enough power to propel the ship, how he had burned Bricboro. He would destroy her and she wouldn't be able to do anything.
Rayne jerked away from her sister, ready to launch herself at the door, but Danyll's voice was the next thing she heard.
“Enough of that, Tierri,” he said, and Rayne felt the tug in her stomach as strong as if someone had punched her as the flames flared once, blinding her, and then smoldered into nothingness. “She's not hurting anyone.”
Yet, Rayne added in her mind. Not while two powerful wielders were facing her down. Danyll re-lit the lamps with a flick of his fingers, and Edlyn grasped Rayne's arm. She looked worried, her face drawn and pale.
“Although the knife…” Danyll said, trailing off. Something tugged inside of her and before she could stop it, the knife flew from her pocket and into Danyll's waiting hand. She pursed her lips in frustration. He examined the dark wood of the hilt and its carved feathers, then ran a finger down the dull side before looking up at her. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s mine,” she said, avoiding the question.
“You didn't search her before letting her onto our ship?” Danyll asked, turning to the general. “Careless, don't you think?”
She waited for him to object, and then how would she explain how she had gotten it back? “She is a princess,” the general said instead. “She was their prisoner, not ours.” His words echoed the very question she had asked him earlier. “I didn't think—”
“No, you don't think,” Danyll said. “You didn't think that maybe she'd been brainwashed by the foolish rebels? That in five years, she hadn't thought about getting revenge on a family that had abandoned her?”
“Stop,” Rayne said, not able to look at any of them. “Just stop.” He was too close to the truth and her head was swimming. Was she brainwashed?
They didn't listen to her. “She's just a girl,” the general—Tierri, she remembered the prince calling him—said, his voice rising.
“She's a Crowheart!” Danyll shouted.
Rayne turned and ran then, pushing her way past the general and out the door. She had said she wouldn't run, but it was too much. The way they talked about her like she wasn't there, the way Edlyn stared at her with pity on her face. How dare she pity her? As if she hadn't been locked in a stone room for five years. As if she wasn't kissing her captor.
She ignored the shouts behind her, shoving through the stone door and down the staircase. Her room that had seemed like a cell hours before now felt like a refuge. She slammed the door and leaned against it, willing herself not to cry. You're a statue. You're stone. It worked, as it always did, even though the prickling feeling behind her eyes never fully went away. Danyll's words rang in her head like the festival bells. She's a Crowheart.
Eventually she was able to move, crossing the room to the wash basin and leaning over it to splash water on her face before daring to glance into the mirror that hung above it. The eyes looking back at her were not just her eyes. They were Edlyn's eyes, Innis's eyes, Rin's eyes. They were Crowheart eyes. And she didn't deserve them.