“That's not stupid,” Rayne said quietly. Maybe finding beauty was something that got easier once she knew where to look for it. Like a square of light on an undisturbed patch of snow. Like a red door in a white city. Like a beautiful girl with a band around her arm but freedom in her heart and power in her words.
She left Seloue in front of the jeweler's shop with a promise to return. It felt empty, after everything that Seloue had shared with her, but what could Rayne say? It was on her way back, as she slipped inside the palace undetected, keeping to the shadows, that she knew what she should have said.
I will help you find your peace. I will fight for you. And this time, I will win.
? ? ?
Rayne lay on her side, knees tucked up and hands folded beneath her head. On the small table beside her bed, the bundle of leaves taunted her. Even though she would have to be up early to steep the leaves before the kitchens were too busy, she fought the sleep tugging at her eyelids. She shifted her snow-frozen toes beneath the blanket so they were closer to the hot water bottle. Her maid had made quite the fuss over her after her return.
“You should not leave the palace without an escort, my lady. You do not know what lurks in the darkness.”
“I do know, maybe better than anyone,” Rayne had answered below her breath.
“Then you should know better.”
All this while she'd stripped Rayne bare and dressed her again in a nightgown that had been warmed by the hearth. The white dress covered her from her ankles to her neck and made her feel trapped in her own skin after her brief taste of freedom. She looked like a ghost in the floor-length mirror that hung in her wardrobe.
She had been glad to climb into bed if only to be left alone. Now, what could have been minutes or hours later, she tore her eyes off of the leaves and rolled onto her back, gazing instead at the dark beams that crisscrossed the ceiling.
“I will fight,” she said into the darkness. “I will win.”
It will not bring me back. Rayne pushed herself onto her elbows. Beside her, a small figure moved, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the mattress. She had deep brown skin that melted into the night and wide brown eyes so familiar that Rayne couldn't feel afraid.
“Madlin,” she said, a name she had not said aloud in years.
The specter said nothing. She just stared, one of her hands fidgeting with the rope knotted around her forearm. Even in death, she wore the slaver’s band.
“I'm sorry,” Rayne tried.
It will not bring me back. The girl's mouth didn't move but her voice rang clear in Rayne's head, as confident and as certain as it had ever been.
Rayne thought so much of her friend's death that she had forgotten her life. She had nearly forgotten the girl's habit of picking at her rope until it frayed. The Duskan slave master had to replace it at least once a week. Or how she was always the fastest runner of them all, running even faster than Rin with his long boy legs, laughing all the while at the royal siblings who struggled to keep up.
Suddenly Rayne was remembering the time that Madlin had woven crowns of twigs for the Crowheart sisters.
“What about yours?” Rayne had asked.
Madlin had not looked away when she answered. “I will never wear a crown. Even made of twigs, the weight is too heavy for me.”
No wonder Rin had loved her. They all had. This humble, kind, obedient girl who would never hurt a fly.
“I could have done more. We should have done more.” We. Rin, Rayne, Edlyn. They had all stood there and watched their father uncoil the whip. It had been the end of them, the last time they were all together. The last time she would be able to look at one of them without thinking about how weak they all were. For so long, she had wanted to blame Rin, but it had been them all, hadn't it? Any one of them could have stepped forward, stilled the king's hand. But none of them had had the courage.
The bed did not shift beneath the girl's lithe form as she crawled to the space beside Rayne and curled onto her side. Her tight black braids fell soundlessly against the pillow. How many times had they lain like this, face-to-face, whispering into the night?
“I'll avenge you,” Rayne whispered, leaning back and reaching for the specter's hand and finding only air.
It will not bring me back. A red stain began to creep around from the back of the girl's nightgown, soaking her hip.
It was too late for Madlin, but was it too late for Seloue? Did Rayne have another chance to do something instead of stand by and watch? She couldn’t change the past, but there was a small spark of an idea somewhere deep inside that she could change the future. But she didn’t think she could do that if she were playing the part of a puppet.
Rayne closed her eyes to blink away tears, and when she opened them, the vision was gone, faded back into the shadows, the pillow and blankets smooth where she had been. When Rayne finally fell asleep, she dreamed of boys with map books and fiery eyes, and girls with crowns of braids and twigs. And blood, always so much blood. On a marble floor, on a back torn to shreds. On her own useless hands.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rayne
Rayne entered the dining hall with Tierri at her heels.
“I am a general, not a babysitter,” she had heard him say outside her door that morning. Prince Danyll had whispered something to him, and Tierri had not protested further. Instead, he had grudgingly stood outside her door, glowering at her every time she opened it. Someone—the maid, probably—had told them about her late-night excursion, then. Was Tierri there for her protection or theirs? There was no chance to speak to him to find out. The halls were always crowded and busy and he made no move to come into her rooms.
Either way, it didn't matter. They had been too late to stop her. She had decided to go forward with her half-baked plan in spite of last night’s doubts, and so she had been up before the sun, boiling water in the kitchen. The sorrow leaf tea was in a vial hidden in her pocket.
This was her first formal dinner, and her father had sent her a pale yellow dress to wear that made her feel more like a lump of butter than a member of the royal family.
“It's the Hail fashion,” said the steward who had brought her the dress. “No more drab Duskan colors for you.”
Her father sat at the lord's table, resplendent in a black tunic to match his hair, the heavy Duskan crown nestled on his brow. She was glad not to see him in yellow, too. At least he had not conformed to the tacky Hail fashions.