“Presenting Lady Torrowin and her children, Mysric and Xeanora.”
I grasped my skirts and the gilded rail, kept my gaze on my heels and the crushed velvet steps. It was a steep descent, a hundred steps at least, from the landing to the ballroom floor.
And every eye was trained on me.
They’d been watching since we’d arrived, whispering their gossip of the Viper of Rynmoor and her brood. They’d say whatever they liked, spin the same stale stories of the happenings behind our doors: how Paia Torrowin had fangs of her own and drank the blood of her servants while they slept, how my brother and I had been born covered in golden scales.
Or the latest: that I’d been the one to murder that poor girl at Renasmere, and that she hadn’t been the first.
I excused myself and wandered farther into the room. Mother had chosen the Dome for the occasion: a bubble of wrought iron and frosted glass. Faceted like an expertly cut jewel, its stone floor veined with the clear waters of the River Tel. I crossed one of its many bridges, stared up at the ceiling in wonder.
I’d never seen it like this. Curtains of cream-colored roses draped the walls. Lush and full, filling the room with the sweet, heady perfume of a long-gone spring. Petals peppered the floor and floated in the rivulets, fluttered through the air, and gathered on my shoulders like snow. Blue willows glimmering with lights set every inch of it aglow. Tiered fountains dripped in white wisterias.
A woodland paradise.
I searched the room for a familiar face.
The ladies of the River Court, ambassadors from the other witch cities of the Muyn coven. The thin-nosed Lady Ferafona of Gellion. Young Lady Tenwar of Laethys and her Lord Consort.
I spied a head of platinum blonde hair among the frills and finery. And her dress, like a peacock in a room of bluebirds.
“Nycta?”
The white-haired girl stood at a long table of sweets situated on the outskirts of the ballroom, nursing a piece of fruit glistening in a shell of hard sugar. She’d exchanged her leather gloves for ivory silk. Her academy uniform for a gown as light as breath, in the emerald of the Taenmi witches.
“Nycta?” I repeated.
She looked up, widened her light eyes, and set the confection aside. “Norrie?” Before I could answer, she was in my arms, a constellation of her tears glimmering on my shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when she let go, my back cool from her touch.
Her gloves did little to disguise it. The chill of Death in her fingers.
“I wanted to see if you were all right.” She took a small frosted cake from a glass tower of desserts and handed it to me. “Are you?”
“Lorris and Moranthe Estyr and their daughter, Tannyth.”
My skin prickled as I turned.
The Estyr family. They’d come in their mourning clothes, draped in night. Lorris had been more subtle, but Moranthe—she wore a veil that tumbled to the ground and trailed several feet behind her, like a bride at her beloved’s grave. Tannyth had dressed in lace, her skirts billowing like clouds of ink in water, the neckline sinking below the hollows of her alabaster collarbones.
The gall alone was enough to make me retch. “Not anymore.”
“Gods.” Nycta hooked her arm in mine. “They’re walking this way.”
Lorris had stopped to trade pleasantries with a few lords and their families, some in olive and the rest in cornflower blue. But his wife and daughter had moved on, carving a path straight for us. Nycta quickly turned her back, pretending she’d never seen them, and pushed an overstuffed pastry puff through her teeth, honey dribbling from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. But they were upon us like ravens picking at carrion.
“Lady Ouest.” Moranthe was the first to speak. “What a privilege it is to meet the heir of Sylphira the Grim.” The lines of her pale face seemed more severe than I remembered, as if she’d pinned her dark hair back too tight underneath that monstrous veil.
Nycta, to their abject horror, whirled to greet them with a mouth full of food. “Madame Moramfee,” she managed, spitting crumbs so far, the two retreated a step backwards. “Tannyf. Chommed. What an unusual choif of color.”
“When I heard about the gathering—” Moranthe grimaced, fished a handkerchief from the folds of her gown, and brushed a cluster of pastry bits from her shoulder “—I assumed it was a funeral. Miss Xeanora,” she said, nodding in my direction, “pleased to see you’re well.” And then she paused, her next words barbed and drenched in venom. “How are your friends at the academy?”
My neck ran hot. How bold she was, to confess what she’d done to my face.
“A little bored.” Nycta reached for a flute of moonflower wine from the table, and the glass frosted over as she raised it to her lips. “But I suppose that’s just the company.”
Tannyth contorted her pixie-like face in disgust.
But Moranthe was a statue in comparison. “Come, darling. Our time is better wasted with the guest of honor.” She let the cut of her gaze linger on me a moment longer, and they both slithered away, their black skirts sweeping after their feet.
I snorted when they were safely out of earshot. “You’re absolutely diabolical.”
“What do you expect from ‘the heir of Sylphira the Grim’?” She brought her voice down to a low rasp. “Why are they here? They tried to have us killed. They did kill Cyrie.”
A twinge of grief lanced through my chest, and I tried to swallow it away. “Same reason I am, I suppose.” I drew in a breath. “The lord of Phaenn is looking for a wife.”
Her gray eyes seemed to double in disbelief. “She’s marrying you off?”
“Not if I can help it.” I closed my mouth around the little cake, the taste of lemon and elderflower seeping on to my tongue. I’d avoid him all night if that’s what it took. Or better yet, take after Nycta and send him fleeing in the other direction. I returned to the table to reach for another dessert and pulled my hand back when I grasped someone else’s fingers instead. “Oh! Gods…I almost ate you.”
“I can assure you, I would’ve tasted terrible.”
My cheeks warmed when I lifted my eyes to his face. He was young, no older than I was, if I could guess. And he favored the Taenmi. Eyes shaped like willow leaves and the color of wildflower honey, bronze skin, and short waves of raven hair—telltale signs of the witches of the woods. But he was clad in cobalt.
One of the Tenwars’ underlings, most likely.
“Um…hi.” It was all I could muster.
His sharp features softened, and he disarmed me with a smile. “Hello.”
Nycta buried her elbow in my ribs. And I looked at her, wincing. She tilted her head at two figures in the near distance.
My mother, the Viper, in her silver scales. And another, a broad-shouldered man clothed in autumn brown. He was laughing with her as she led the way, blood-red wine sloshing over the rim of his goblet and splattering on the floor.
I grasped the stranger’s fingers again. “Dance with me.”
“What?”
“Unless you’d like to see me eaten alive, I’d suggest you hurry.”
“Um…” He fumbled around the table. “A-All right.”
I pulled him through the willows and into the fray of twirling, gilded bodies. And they blurred around us, sparkling and spinning, all languid limbs and wistful reaching.
“I’m Aeren,” he started, and my breath caught in the cage of my ribs when his hand fit into the crease of my back. “By the way.” His touch made me shiver, sapped the strength from my knees, and as he pressed closer, his nose a breath away from mine, I wasn’t sure how I was standing at all.
“Xeanora.” I draped one hand on his shoulder, and we entered into the soft push-pull, rise and fall of a waltz. He seemed tender footed, unsure—perplexed, even—as he navigated the style of the River Court, missing steps and stumbling in the wrong direction. Tannyth, who’d been dancing with a handsome, moon-eyed boy nearby, drifted into our path and choked back a snicker before floating away.
“One of the cannibals, I presume?” He’d barely glimpsed her, and still somehow gauged her perfectly.
I sighed a little. “The worst kind.”
“I saw the others, too,” he said softly. He’d all but abandoned the waltz, leading me in a different dance altogether. “The ones you’re running from.”
“My mother.” I whispered and chanced a glance at where I’d seen them. They’d cornered Nycta, but she was handling them well, drawing their attention each time their eyes skimmed the rotation of dancers. “And the man she wants me to marry.”
His brow furrowed in earnest. “She wouldn’t let you choose?”
What a novel thought. I shook my head, my voice croaking in my throat. “She never lets me choose.” We slowed to a halt as the song faded into its final measures, strings quieting, the River Court falling still around us. But I’d hardly noticed them. My heart was beating too fast, too loudly to hear anything else. And he didn’t seem eager to let me go.
“I hope, one day, you will,” he said, his fingertips brushing down my spine. “Choose for yourself, that is.”
My vision swam. “Thank you…for letting me use you.”
“Anytime.” He murmured as the tips of our noses aligned. An inch closer and—
The chime of silverware on glass.
I averted my gaze and retreated from the lure of his kiss. Mother stood at the edge of the willows with a half-empty flute and sugar spoon in hand, the glassy-eyed lord of Phaenn beside her.
She held the drink aloft to the rousing cry of her fellow nobles. “To Lord Aflytaer and his health. May this signal the beginning of a long friendship between covens, courts,” she paused, her stare settling on my face, “and Houses.”
My chest tightened. “Thank you again.” I squeezed Aeren’s hand and fled before he could respond. To find Nycta and disappear into a corner far from my mother’s sight. But the guests pressed in, closed off every route of escape, as they gathered to listen.
“Please,” the lord insisted, “my friends in the Rose Court call me Haenor. Paia—” he touched the small of Mother’s back, a little too familiar for my taste “—if I may?”
I was shocked she didn’t separate him from his hand right then.
But she merely bristled and smiled again. “Of course.”
Haenor swept the glass from her fingers, earning a hiss from Tamsyn, and stepped forward. “There’s been much talk of an announcement to be made tonight, and I would be remiss if I allowed this moment to pass without doing so.” He spoke with the self-importance of a king. His voice alone made my insides squirm. “The Lord Aflytaer,” he gestured to someone in the crowd.
And I followed the arrow of his hand—to Aeren. I held my breath too long, and the back of my throat burned with the bitter tang of bile.
I was a fool.
“My son,” he continued, his voice softened with pride and strong drink, “is in need of a wife. And I am confident that she is in this room.” The ballroom stirred with whispers. Girls pining, mothers gasping in delight. “But we won’t leave it to chance. Tinnabir, the Perennial Rose, one of the western kingdoms from which our two cities were born, yields to the power of fate. In the assignment of familiars—and those its people are destined to love. The old magic runs deep. Their curse is ours as well. But what of the blessing?” He let the silence linger for effect and motioned to a servant flanking a table nearby. Whatever sat upon it had been covered in a blue veil. The fabric betrayed it, cascaded into its curves. But the domed shape only added to the mystery. “This is our answer.”
At Haenor’s cue, the servant pulled the veil away, and it slipped slowly from the table and onto the floor.
A bulb of moon-white petals pushed up from the soil of a wide-rimmed vase, a day shy from blooming, encased in the clearest glass. No one spoke, or even deigned to breathe.
“A flower from our ancestral lands.” Haenor gripped the crystal knob and freed the blossom of its dome. “It blooms only in the presence of two entangled souls—lives meant to intertwine. And if it opens tonight, there will be a new Lady of Phaenn.” This drew a small chorus of impassioned whispers.
And a look of dismay Paia Torrowin could no longer suppress.
“A bride test?” Nycta’s voice spat the words behind me. “Is he serious?”
But Haenor never faltered.
Mother cut in to protest. “Lord Haenor, I hardly—”
He didn’t let her finish. “Would the eligible young ladies of the court come forward?”
Tannyth was quick to volunteer, pulling free of her escort’s arm and rushing to the front of the line by the table. And gripping handfuls of her skirts, she curtsied so low and so long, Aeren’s face flushed.
“Tannyth Estyr of Rynmoor, my lord.”
“What a fine rose you are. Please, come.” Haenor reached into his coat pocket and produced a small, double-edged dagger with a golden hilt. “Blood serves as the key.”
“Oh, what fun,” Nycta quipped with mock interest. “Maybe he’ll stab her and solve all of our problems.”
He pressed the tip into the valley of her palm, a small crimson bead bubbling up from her broken skin. I watched, in half-fascination and half-terror as he carved deeper still, until the creases in her hand ran red with blood. But Tannyth remained stoic, even smiled, as she held the younger lord’s gaze. She kept it as she tilted her hand over the flower and shed a few scarlet drops over the petals, and the crowd that had gathered round the scene waited in silence. But nothing happened. She turned her head sharply to cast a cutting look at the girls who’d begun to giggle, the blood boiling in her cheeks, and revisited the flower. Squeezed another stream into the soil. Again, nothing.
“Ah. Well…” Haenor stepped in, placed his hand on her shoulders, and ushered her away. “Shall we move on?”
“Lady Ouest of Tyafae.” Nycta left my side to break away from the crowd, drawing stares as she offered the perfect curtsy and slipped a satin glove from one of her hands. Haenor primed the blade and reached for her wrist, but she pulled it away. “It’s…” She let her voice trail and gestured for the knife. “Best if you don’t.” He paused, studied her fingers, and pinched the blade, turning the hilt in her direction. And Nycta sliced her hand herself. The blood stiffened in her palm at once, crystalline and frozen. She flexed her hand to crack it into shards of crimson ice and sprinkled it over the unopened bloom.
I held my breath when the flower appeared to shudder, but it remained closed.
Nycta curtsied again, with a comically unbothered grin, and reclaimed her place beside me.
Scores of more girls approached and presented themselves with the same result—cutting and disappointment—until the flower, once white as milk, was drenched in blood, its light perfume now choked with the coppery scent of decay.
Haenor sheathed the dagger in a folded handkerchief and wiped it clean. “Is there no one else?”
I saw my mother’s eyes search the room, and I edged backward, farther from the breach in the crowd. If she never found me, I wouldn’t have to be tested. Gawked at by the lords and ladies of the River Court while I was appraised like cattle. I worked my way through, weaving past Tannyth and her wounded pride, Lady Tenwar and her husband and their small affections shared in secret, and headed for the nearest bridge.
“I believe,” Mother’s voice cut the silence, a tinge of annoyance beneath her cool veneer, “you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting my daughter. Xeanora?”
I stopped mid stride, steeling myself as I bit my tongue, and whirled to face her.
“Would you come, dear?” She beckoned for me, fixing her lips in a curated grin.
A nide of whispers swarmed at my back when I obliged. But this time, the throng cleared a path for me. Tannyth pushed through and stumbled to the fringe of the crowd to watch with swollen eyes, while the rest looked on in rapt captivation. I tried not to meet their gazes, stared straight on and at the little basin of blood-soaked mulch. It would hurt, I knew. But what gripped me was the terror of what came afterwards. If the flower opened, I’d belong to someone else. And if it didn’t…something told me my mother had other, less savory schemes in mind. Nycta waited at the end, unclasping her hands to leave a reassuring touch on my arm. It was cold, almost numbing, but I took comfort in it.
I stopped short of Haenor and his flower, my vision skimming over Aeren’s face to his left, and I anchored my hand on my chest and bowed my head. “Lady Torrowin of Rynmoor.”
“Milady.” The elder lord was in the midst of returning the gesture when I raised my eyes again. “You’re as comely as your mother said.”
My cheeks seemed to warm with offense, as if he’d meant it as an insult. A clever remark sat poised like a serpent in the pit of my stomach. But I held it back.
“You’re too generous, my lord.” I feigned a smile in reply.
“If you would,” he brandished his golden dagger, “grace me with your hand?”
There was a tension between us I couldn’t place, a quiet animosity that traced a chill down my spine. He was daring me—to do what, I wasn’t sure. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Of course,” I said, my tone unchanging, and surrendered my palm.
He took it gingerly, held it with such care, I questioned the immediate disdain I’d felt before. Until his fingers migrated to my wrist and seized it tight as he slit my hand open. I clenched my teeth to the sharp, and then throbbing, pain as it spread like wildfire under my skin, the bite of the air seeping into the seething wound. Haenor wrenched me forward, and I staggered a step closer, the edges of my sight blurring with gathering tears. He guided my hand, dressed in ribbons of my own blood, over the flower. I sucked in a breath, a tear slipping down my cheek, as I listened to the drip…drip…drip of my blood falling on the petals. The flower had gorged on all the girls’ blood now, its soil swollen and sodden with their offerings. There was no white of its petals, no green of its stem. Only red. Crusting darkly and flaking off in thick, crumbling scales. Haenor slackened his grip on me and stared in anticipation, and I cradled my palm to my chest, my head still swimming from the pain.
But I forgot it, and everything that preceded it, when the flower struggled open.
Once bloody, now clean and aglow, the heart of it limned in the softest, most entrancing light.
My stomach threatened to empty itself when the court erupted in a fit of applause, hurling praises of a betrothal and a wedding and a bride-to-be. I didn’t realize my legs had grown numb until Aeren caught me by the wrists and held me upright. He whispered something, so low beneath the cries of celebration, I couldn’t hear him. And he repeated himself before I lurched from his grasp and into Nycta’s trembling arms.
“If it matters—if it counts—I’m glad it was you.”