When the last prediction seeker enters the Grand Hall, the first thing I notice is that he isn’t being escorted by guards.
Unlike the others, he’s alone as he strides toward us. He doesn’t look to the floor or fiddle nervously with his hands as he prepares to bargain his soul for magic or glory.
My heart thunders in my chest as he approaches, barely even blinking.
He isn’t one of the desperate or the reckless, I know that.
He’s a soldier. A warrior in King Seryth’s army.
And he doesn’t just walk—he struts.
The boy is a blade of handsomeness, with light brown skin and midnight hair that curls by his ears. His eyes are the color of winter leaves. They catch mine briefly and then seem to go right through me.
Theola and the king grin as he approaches, their postures newly alert and curious.
He’s dressed in the uniform of the Last Army, covered by a long black cloak threaded with blue. His sword is sheathed by his hood, glimmering in the growing moonlight.
The way he moves, so quickly and gracefully, the way he doesn’t flinch when he sees my eyes: It all reminds me of someone.
Of that last person I ever touched. Of Asden and his sad, sad eyes.
I pray this boy’s fate won’t be as tragic.
“My king,” the boy says when he reaches the steps.
He bows and turns to Theola.
“My lady. A pleasure as always.”
His smile almost looks genuine as he steps up to take her hand and place a kiss below her ring.
Almost.
I have practice in perfecting smiles and I can spot a fake from a mile off. But Theola and the king either don’t notice or don’t care. They’re both enamored with the young warrior, staring at him like he’s so special.
It’s been a long time since my mother looked at me that way. All the magic in the world ready to be inherited into my blood and some Last Army soldier gets the pleasure of her smile.
“Nox.” Theola’s voice is silk as she takes him in. “What in the name of souls are you doing here?”
“Is there word from the Southern Isle?” the king asks, sitting up straighter in his throne. “Do the rebels show signs of surrender?”
The boy—Nox—shakes his head. “Polemistés hasn’t fallen, my king,” he says. “The people’s resolve grows as steadily as their numbers.”
“They’re such fools.” The king is quiet, but his voice cuts through the empty hall. “Don’t they know to accept me as their leader? The Six Isles are mine.”
There is poison in his words.
He squeezes his hand slowly around a skull affixed to the black throne, and it splinters with his touch.
King Seryth has been trying to conquer the Southern Isle for as long as I’ve been alive. Before that. Ever since the True War, when he first deposed the witch queen of Thavma. Polemistés is the only isle left of the six that hasn’t bowed to him, even after he killed their king.
I know he wants it more than he wanted the others.
Polemistés is the land he once called home, and leaving it until last, long enough to amass rebels, is his greatest anger. His desire to defeat them has only grown stronger and more destructive over the years.
“What news does my little legacy bring, then?” The king looks at Nox, waiting.
“No news,” Nox says with an easy shrug. “I’m just here for a prediction.”
I gape.
I can’t help it.
The Festival is for civilians. For the desperate or the bored, but hardly ever for members of the Last Army, who are far too busy playing with their swords.
Yet the king doesn’t look angry.
He has his favorites and I can see clearly that Nox is right at the top. Now that I think of it, his name does ring a small bell. A splinter of a conversation overheard at court months before embeds into my mind: A legacy. His father served before him. His whole family. One of the king’s best and brightest, I swear. The youngest soldier ever to be given his own regiment.
I resist rolling my eyes. I’ll bet Nox has got more commendations threaded into the lining of his uniform than soldiers twice his age.
What an utter tryhard.
“Are you sure about this, Nox?” the king asks him. His low voice slices across the room as he leans forward, intrigued. “There’s no going back on such a bargain. You should remember who you are. How valuable you are to me.”
Nox smiles, and something about it gives me pause.
“I know who I am,” he says. He takes a knee. “And I’m ready.”
“Very well.” The king licks his lips. “Then we shall proceed.”
He waves a hand at me, gesturing for me to take a piece of Nox’s hair and seal his fate.
I grip my scissors.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been close to a boy my own age, or anyone my age who isn’t Irenya.
Children were banned from the castle when I grew up, because people can’t be trusted and the king worried they’d take advantage of me. Better I stayed beside him and my mother. Better I stayed in my tower, where I was protected.
The heir to the Somniatis magic needs to be kept safe, he always said. At all costs.
Even now, I’m not allowed to speak to people at court. When I’m permitted—rarely—to attend celebrations, I’m always kept at a distance. Forced to stand by the thrones, surrounded by guards. Untouchable.
Like a trophy on display.
Then when it’s over, I’m locked back away in my cage.
I can watch and listen in on their stories, but I’m never a part of them.
I step toward Nox.
“You’re lucky,” he says as I approach. “A lot of girls would love to keep my hair in a locket close to their hearts.”
I raise my eyebrows. “How unfortunate for them to have lost their minds so young.”
Nox’s lips curve upward. “I am known to drive women crazy.”
I roll my eyes.
Only a Last Army soldier could be so cavalier while selling his soul.
Seeking a prediction is all fun and games when the townsfolk toss the idea around a tavern in the bright glow of torchlight, but usually stepping into this hall and handing over a piece of hair—a piece of their soul—makes things different.
Usually, the arrogance leaves them and their fear clogs the air.
Not this soldier. Nox doesn’t look scared at all.
More fool him.
“With these scissors, I’ll take a lock of your hair and seal your place in the Festival of Predictions,” I say, reciting the words as I always do.
They come so easily to me now that I barely have to think at all before I say them. They’re as familiar as my own name.
“Do you accept this bargain?” I ask, once I’ve finished.
“I accept,” Nox says.
Prat, I think.
He’s close enough that I don’t need to move to take the hair from him. I simply crouch, dress flowing down the steps like water, and slip a lock of Nox’s hair through my fingers.
When I cut it, a jolt goes through me.
It pushes me back and I stumble, nearly losing my footing.
It’s small at first, like tiny needles scurrying up my arms and down the back of my neck, before butting violently into my heart.
I grip the cut hair tightly and still.
I’ve never felt something when cutting a person’s hair, but it’s like the part of Nox’s soul I snipped away shot through me first.
Did he feel it too?
“I guess I really can sweep women off their feet,” Nox says.
I stare at him, but if he experienced the same shock, nothing on his face portrays it.
I push away the strangeness that pierces into my chest and secure the lock of his hair in the last empty jar by my feet.
“Go on, then,” the king says, once I’ve twisted the lid closed.
“I’ve collected the hair,” I tell him, confused.
The king laughs, and though it’s a beautiful sound, I know it means something awful is to come.
“No, Selestra,” he says softly. “Give the soldier his prediction.”
A panic sets through me.
“You want me to do it?” I ask. “Why?”
“Consider it my gift to you,” he offers.
Only I know the king never gives gifts that aren’t laced in poison.
“It’s just one little prediction,” he promises. “Your magic should be able to handle it and it’ll be good practice.”
I fumble with my gloves.
The idea of taking them off in front of someone for the first time in years makes my skin itch. It makes me think of Asden’s screams.
I look to my mother.
“Go ahead,” she says, encouraging. “Do as the king says, Selestra.”
My heart pounds.
I lick my lips.
I’ve both feared this moment and craved it.
It is a chance to finally let loose the magic inside me I’ve never been allowed to explore. To touch someone and feel skin on skin for the first time in over two years.
To show my mother that I’m worthy of our family’s power.
I slip off a glove and let it drop to my feet.
I crouch down and my dress pools onto the marble as I reach out a hand for Nox’s cheek.
He flinches when I touch him. I suppose I am a little cold. Every inch of me is.
Magic is fire and I’ve never let mine burn.
My heart thunders furiously against my chest as we make contact, like a beast in a cage. All these years and I haven’t touched anyone.
It’s like the sudden quelling of a hunger I’ve always ignored.
I’m sick with it, with the feel of him. Of another person, real and in my grasp, able to feel me as much as I feel him.
Nox is warm, with skin softer than I thought. There’s a scar on his face that stretches in a smooth pink line from his eyebrow to his chin, and when my hand grazes it, his eyes flicker to mine.
Usually, people flinch when they see my eyes. Eyes of snakes, that all Somniatis women bear.
Nox barely blinks.
I don’t either.
I don’t want to blink or do anything but savor this moment.
I know I won’t get another chance for a while—maybe years—and I want to have my fill while I can, but there isn’t time.
Death comes quick.
My breath catches in my chest, pushing down on me, like I’m suffocating. Then my head flings back and I know my magic isn’t ready.
It feels like being hit in the head, over and over with no reprieve.
I try to pull away, tear myself from Nox, but my bones are rigid and my hand stays glued to his cheek as the images burn into me.
Flashes of dark red floors and half-painted walls.
I can’t make sense of it and my head feels like it’s cracking with every new image.
A crowd surrounds a moonlit Nox. Lanterns hiss like orbs around him, growing brighter and brighter until suddenly the world is on fire.
It catches across the floors and sizzles up the walls, turning everything to smoke.
I can smell the air, thick with sweat and salt. See the gaping hole in the ceiling as it crumbles down.
Nox bleeds out on the floor, surrounded by flames.
The wind howls in a mourning cry and an image sears across my mind, so painful that I scream. A handle in the ground, surrounded by broken bottles.
“This way,” a voice whispers.
A hand reaches for the bloody Nox and I gasp as I catch sight of the bracelet on their wrist.
A small gold thing, with a single gem in the center. Like a watchful eye.
I know that bracelet.
I’ve worn it for years.
I choke in a breath and then I feel the fire on my own skin, licking up my arms and catching on the ends of my hair. It melts through my bracelet and down to the bone.
With everything I have, I wrench away from Nox, pulling myself from the vision and back into the present.
It happens so suddenly that I lose my footing and tumble to the ground, knocking over a row of jars that crash down the stairs.
They scatter glass and hair across the floor.
“What is it?” Theola asks, yellow-green eyes widening. “What happened?”
It can’t be.
I tremble and clutch at my wrist as the memory of the flames seeps onto my skin.
Burning and charring.
It just can’t be.
“Selestra.” My mother’s voice grows louder.
The king holds up a hand to silence her, and the whole room falls quiet. The guards at the door even hold their breaths at his command.
Slowly, the king descends the steps toward me.
His face dawns with the kind of look that has destroyed worlds.
“Speak,” he commands.
I turn to Nox, and the deep brown of his eyes slices through me.
The brand of the serpent is on his palm and when I look down, I see it on my own too.
Quickly, I clench my hand into a fist and reach for my fallen glove, before anyone else notices.
“Well?” Nox asks.
His jaw pulses in anticipation of what I’ve seen.
I swallow. Look away.
I can’t tell him. I can never speak it.
Because I haven’t just seen Nox’s death, but my own as well.