“How am I going to die?”
I know that she’s seen it.
Selestra has the same look in her eyes that she did the first time she saw my death. It is one of fear I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You kill me with your dazzling personality?”
Selestra breaks away from me, and it’s only then that I realize I was still holding on to her wrists.
Suddenly I feel colder.
“That’s not funny,” she says.
“You’re right.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “Your personality really isn’t all that dazzling.”
“You’re going to die at the end of the week.” Her words drip with resentment. “During the wish ceremony.”
Just like that.
“How?” I ask.
“My mother.”
Selestra flinches when she says it and I wish I knew why.
Just once I want to know all the things that go through Selestra Somniatis’s mind and why, for a girl who’s supposed to revel in death, she seems to hate it so much.
It destroys every notion of a witch I’ve ever had, twisting up all my plans and all the things I think my father would want until they don’t make sense anymore.
Selestra pushes her hair violently out of her face.
The moonlight grazes her cheek.
Witch, I remind myself again, to steady my racing pulse.
Witch. Witch. Witch.
“You should never have asked for a prediction in the first place,” Selestra says. “And I shouldn’t have been able to see—”
She breaks off to glare at me.
“You’ve ruined everything.”
“It’s a bit late for that. Where does it happen?”
Selestra sighs. “You were running through the halls of the castle. The moon wasn’t too high, so it must be before the wish ceremony begins.”
I laugh a little.
I know I shouldn’t look so pleased in front of the girl whose family I’m going to bring to its knees, but if the king and his witch are conspiring to murder me in this very castle, right before the halfway point of the month, then that doesn’t just mean he knows what I’m really after.
It means he thinks I stand a chance at getting it.
And he’s scared.
Selestra takes in my grin with wide eyes.
She doesn’t understand that this is what I’ve been waiting for: a chance to make the great immortal Seryth of the Six Isles fear death.
“You really are like your father,” she says.
My smile disappears at that.
Outside, the moonlight hides behind a small cloud and Selestra’s room darkens with my scowl.
“What did you just say?”
I don’t want my father’s name anywhere near her bloodred lips.
Selestra lifts her chin up, indifferent to my anger. “It’s what the king said in my vision,” she says quickly, a hint of something else in her frown. “That you’re just like your father. Him and some sword that made him a traitor.”
“What sword?”
I step closer to her once more and Selestra backs away, shoving her hands behind her like she’s afraid we might touch again.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you all have swords?”
Yes, we all have swords.
But there’s only one sword my father ever spoke of.
A sword of fairy tales, strong enough to kill an immortal. One forged by the witches of Thavma before the king and Selestra’s great-great-grandmother wiped them out in the True War.
A last hope held tightly by the Southern Isle of Polemistés. The reason, according to my father, that the king has never stopped trying to conquer them.
“Was it a sword of magic?” I ask, desperate to know.
“A magic sword,” Selestra repeats. “Are you a child?”
When she sees I’m serious, she frowns, a dimple appearing between her brows, just as deep as the ones that puncture her cheeks.
“There’s no magic anywhere but in my blood,” she tells me. “Isolda Somniatis saw to that.”
What if she’s wrong?
What if my father was right and the king fears the Southern Isle because they have the power to kill him? Why else would the king mention it in her vision?
If that’s true, then maybe it means I don’t have to wait for death to find me, holding out until the month is over. Micah said I needed another plan and this could be it.
My chance to change the game and kill the king before he has time to thwart me.
“Say there is a sword,” Selestra says, eyeing me uncertainly. “What does it do?”
“It’s a sword,” I say. “It stabs things.”
Thinking that, I grip my knife again and ready to bring it back to Selestra’s throat. Though I’m not sure what I’ll do after that.
“Are you going to tell your mother and the king that I got a second prediction from you?” I ask.
Selestra looks at my knife.
“Oh, please,” she says, unafraid. “You’re not going to kill me. You need me, remember?”
I drop the knife back to my side, resigned.
“Then where does this leave us?”
Selestra turns from me and walks over to her nightstand. She pulls a pair of gloves from the drawer, a little too late.
“You have to leave Vasiliádes.”
“Is that an order, princess?”
“Yes.”
Selestra bites her lip and when her eyes flick back over to mine, I can tell that she really doesn’t want to say whatever she’s about to next.
“And you’re taking me with you.”
I blink, trying to hide my surprise.
“When you leave to escape the king or find your magic sword, I’m coming too.”
I lean back against the wall and fold my arms slowly over my chest.
“Is that so?” I ask, enjoying the look of desperation she’s trying so hard to hide. “You’ve snuck out of the castle by yourself just fine before, princess. Why do you need me?”
“I’ve never left the island,” she says. “You’re going to take me away from Vasiliádes.”
I kick my leg back up against the wall, reclining farther into the stance. The more at ease I look, the more worried she seems to become.
“What else did you see in that vision?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
Selestra’s jaw tightens. “I don’t care what matters to you.”
She looks down at her bracelet, the very piece of jewelry that led me to suspect her disguise in the After Dusk Inn.
I narrow my eyes, as if it’ll help me figure out anything about her.
She’s like a puzzle made from other people’s pieces. I wonder if she even knows who she is outside of what she’s expected to be.
“Let’s just say that the king is going to find out that I helped you,” she says. “In my vision, he threatened me. I can’t live as a prisoner any more than I already am, so I want to leave.”
It’s the closest thing to the truth she’s ever said, but close isn’t the whole thing and I don’t like how quiet her voice gets when she speaks about the king.
It’s small in a way that makes me feel bad for her. And why should I feel bad for the poor princess, locked in her castle, given everything she could dream of, including the power to harness death?
Selestra can look at me with those troubled eyes all she wants, but there’s no way for me to know which parts of her are real. From her stories to her sadness, it could all be part of a bigger plan to betray me.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you don’t have a choice,” she says. “People rarely escape death. If you want to get out of this alive, then you need a witch.”
She’s right.
It’s why I came here in the first place.
If I want to be the first person in the Six Isles to survive the entire month of the Red Moon, then I need her predictions.
Besides, magic calls to magic. So if that sword does exist, then maybe Selestra is the way to find it. It could be the reason my father never did. The heir might be the key to ending this.
Find the magic, kill the king, and avenge my father’s memory.
“Do we have a deal?” Selestra asks. “I give you my word that I’ll help you live if you help me leave.”
I hook the knife into my belt loop, knowing I don’t have another choice.
Winning is all that matters now, and if I have to align with a few monsters along the way to victory, then so be it.
“We’ll head to Polemistés,” I say. “Legend says that’s where the sword the king mentioned is. And it’s the one place he can’t follow.”
“What is your family’s obsession with this sword?” Selestra asks.
“It’s the key to killing him,” I tell her simply. “Just like my father wanted.”
I wait to see how she’ll react.
“Your father?” she asks, voice almost timid.
She frowns with that dimple again, then narrows her eyes. I can’t tell whether any of it is intrigue or anger.
“Just meet me in the central maze, an hour before moonrise on the night of the banquet,” I say. “Everyone should be too distracted to notice you leave.”
“Not the maze,” Selestra says, shaking her head. “You can’t come anywhere near the castle or my mother. It’s too risky.”
“I didn’t realize you were so concerned with my safety, princess.”
“I’m concerned with my escort getting killed before he can get me off this island,” she counters.
At this, I smirk. “Can you get out of the castle on your own?”
“I’ve been sneaking my way around this place since I was a child.”
“Then I’ll meet you at the base of the mountain,” I agree. “But just so we’re clear, if this turns out to be a trap, I’ll kill you. And if you’re even a minute late, I’m leaving.”
It’s half a bluff, since leaving without Selestra and her visions gives me no way to find the sword or survive any more brushes with death.
But the less she thinks I need her, the better.
“I’ll be there,” Selestra says. She holds out her newly gloved hand in a promise. “I swear it.”
I take her hand, closing my fingers around her palm. Her magic sparks between us, like a match readying to be lit.
With the heir on my side, together we’ll bring down a kingdom.