"Oh, Mother!" Katarine cried out as she walked into the bell tower. I barely got a chance to be surprised as she launched herself at me, enveloping me in a hug so tight it was hard to breathe.
"Brynna, sweet girl." She took my face in her hands, tears springing to her blue eyes. "Is it true? Are you alive? Or is this some Nestori trick?"
"No trick," Felix said, giving me a warm smile from behind her. "Brynna's really alive."
"I am," I said as she poked and prodded at my face. "Promise."
She burst into sobs, her pale face growing red and blotchy as she buried her face in my neck. I awkwardly patted her head, sharing a smile with Felix. "There, there?"
"Give her a minute," Felix said. "It's shocking to see someone come back from the dead."
I let her cry and hold me, thankful that my initial fears about her abandoning me had been unfounded.
"Felix, you horrible man," Katarine barked at him, looking over her shoulder. "Why didn't you warn me?"
"I didn't want to chance anyone overhearing us," Felix said. "Because Brynna is going to Niemen to talk to your sister."
"She…is?" Katarine turned to me. "Are you going to launch an offensive against Ilara?"
I wanted to give Felix a dirty look, but in the face of Katarine's hopeful eyes, all I could do was shrug. "I guess? I don't know how or—"
Katarine released me, wiping her wet cheeks and running a hand over her smooth blonde hair. "It won't be easy, of course. But you do have a lot in your favor. Ilara's ruining the country, and she's done her best to spite everyone except the Severians. Beyond that, neither Ariadna nor Neshua—"
"Have accepted her as queen, Felix told me," I said. "But what's to say they won't eventually?"
"Then we'd better act quickly, hadn't we?" she said. "I can write you a letter. That should be enough to get you in the door with Ariadna. Luard is back in Niemen, I hope, so if you can find him, he'll help you, too."
"That's all well and good," I said, clasping my hands in front of me. "But why would Ariadna even entertain the thought of helping me? What does she care what goes on in Forcadel?"
"Because closed borders affect her country, too. Ilara's a nightmare to negotiate with. Besides that, you won't be going empty-handed." She grinned, as if she'd just been struck with a brilliant idea. "You're going to be offering her the city of Skorsa."
"Skorsa? The city on the border with Niemen?" I glanced at Felix to gauge his reaction—he was considering it, but not shocked by the idea. "Didn't you tell me not to give up any cities?"
"That was when you were happily on the throne," she said with a small laugh. "Now, you're at a disadvantage, so you need all the help you can get. The Niemenians have been dying to get their hands on the city and control the river gate at the border. All Ariadna needs is an excuse to take it, and she could easily defeat Ilara's forces there."
"That's an odd thing to have prepared," Felix said, eyeing her. "For just finding out Brynn is alive."
"Well." Katarine's pale face grew bright red. "I suppose, when Ilara was being a brat, I perhaps might have thought of how Niemen would invade and de-throne her. Merely as a thought exercise, but in this case, pertinent to your cause."
"You'd have Ariadna sit on the Forcadel throne?" I asked with a nervous laugh.
"No, of course not. She wouldn't take it." Her face was now the color of a tomato. "Before I knew you were alive…it was just a bit of fun. Thinking about revenge, that sort of thing. Now, of course—"
"Sometimes, I don't know about you, Kat," I said with a smile, but only a small one. Either Ilara was often a brat, or Katarine was being a little lighter with the truth than she was admitting.
"I promise." Katarine took my hand. "I desperately want you back on the throne. You are what's best for Forcadel. And I would be honored to fight by your side." She kissed my hand and bowed a little.
"You absolutely will do no fighting," Felix chimed in. "You and Beata will—"
"Oh, good, I'm glad I'm not the only one he does that to," I said as Katarine rolled her eyes.
While Katarine drafted and revised her letter, Felix and I prepared my things for the journey out of the city. Most of my weapons and gadgets were exactly as I'd left them. I swapped out the crossbow I'd picked up at Celia's for my old standby and filled my slingbag with whatever I thought I might use: listening cups, twine, and some bags of knockout powder.
"Do you think Celia will care that you disappeared?" Felix asked.
"I think it was clear I wasn't going to be allowed back in the fortress," I replied, plucking a pair of spectacles out from the bottom. With these on, I could see the spores emitted by a special kind of mushroom. But I had no more of the fungus, and so the spectacles were mostly useless. "I still don't know what her end game is. Why save me at all? Why let me linger? Why drop me off instead of just throwing me out?"
"I'm sure she's biding her time until she needs something." He found a few extra arrows and added them to my bag. "How do you think you'll get out of the country?"
"I don't know," I said, glancing up to where the moon was shining in. The earlier storms must've passed. "It was hard to get into the city, I know that."
"There's some extra gold in here," he said, jumping to his feet and heading to the other side of the bell tower. He yanked off a loose floorboard and pulled out a coin purse that sounded full. "Take this on your way."
"I don't think money's going to help me," I replied, but still took it when he handed it over.
"There are always people willing to be paid to bend the rules," Felix said. "I would've thought you knew that better than most."
I ran my fingers along the string of the crossbow. "I don't know much of anything anymore."
"You're still you," Felix said, handing me a black mask. "You're still the same person who protected Forcadel wearing this mask. You just made a mistake. Didn't you once tell me you made those?"
I took the mask but didn't add it to my bag. "This wasn't a mistake, Felix. People died." I closed my eyes to keep my tears from falling. "All because I was too stupid to—"
He covered my hand with his and squeezed. "You and I can sit here and cast blame on ourselves all night long, but it won't change anything. What's done is done, and now we've got to figure out a way forward."
I stared at his hand, the touch of his skin zooming up my arm and making me shiver. He quickly released me.
"I think I've got it," Katarine said, rising to her feet. She carefully folded the letter then chewed on her lip. "It won't have a seal, but I'm sure Ariadna will understand, considering the circumstances."
She handed me the paper and I placed it atop the rest of my weapons. "I hope so."
"Ariadna is very fair. I think you'll like her," Katarine said, her blue eyes growing wistful. "I do miss her terribly. And the rest of my family. Please give them my best."
"I will," I said. "If I make it up there."
"You've got a long road ahead of you," Felix said. "But just take it one step at a time. Concentrate on getting out of the city. Once you're out of the city then it's how to cross the border. And so on."
"Before you know it, you'll be back home with an army and we'll all be sharing a tea back in your room," Katarine said with a teary smile. Before I could say anything else, she pulled me into a hug, pressing me tightly to her.
I wrapped my arms around her and rested my chin on her shoulder.
"I've scarcely had any hope these past few months," she whispered. "But seeing you, it's given me a reason to believe in the Mother again. She will look after you."
"I hope so," I whispered, stepping back, and surprised to find my eyes wet with unshed tears. "Please tell Beata I said—"
"No," Felix interjected with a swift shake of his head. "The only people who can know you're alive are in this room." When Katarine gave him a pleading look, he softened, but didn't yield. "I know you don't like keeping secrets, but we trusted the wrong people before."
"Bea is—"
"Kat, please," Felix said. "For me."
She sighed and released me. "Fine. I won't tell Bea. You know you're—"
"I know," he said.
They shared another unspoken conversation, one which I could read fairly well and one I wanted no part in. I thought we could trust Beata, but apparently, I wasn't the only one who considered their judgment flawed.
"You should be getting on your way," Felix said, breaking the silent tension. "It'll be dawn soon and harder to move."
I nodded, giving Katarine one more hug before following Felix down the stairwell. It felt as if I'd been there for a thousand days, and yet it was odd to be leaving already. I wanted more time with both of them, to tell them about Celia's camp and surviving, and to hear all of the castle gossip. But time was of the essence.
Still, I paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up to the lightening sky and listening to Felix's soft breaths beside me. My hand was close enough to his that a flick of my finger would've connected them.
"I feel like I should say something, but I don't know what to say," I whispered, looking at the ground.
"It'll all be fine," he said, and I felt his gaze on me. "I'll worry about the city and keeping things from falling apart here."
"I'm not talking about that." My voice echoed in the silence as my cheeks warmed with embarrassment. "I know I should be focused on getting out of here and getting to Niemen, and I am. But I'm also not sure what I'll find out there, or even if I'll make it back alive, so…" I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "I can understand why you stayed with Ilara to protect the kingdom, and I forgive you for that."
"Thank you," he said softly.
"But," I continued, opening my eyes, "when you…when you kissed me then said you didn't want to be with me, that…that hurt more than Ilara's knife. And I don't know how I can get past that."
"Oh." He exhaled a shaky breath. "Would it help if I told you I regretted it?"
"It still happened." I stared up into the darkness. "Maybe I just want to know why you did it. If you regret it so much…"
He was quiet for a long time, so long that I thought he might never tell me. But when he did speak, it was soft and his voice cracked. "Because I'm weak."
Anger flushed my face. "What does that even mean?"
He twisted to face me, wearing a smile that was at once self-deprecating and cocky. "It means that if I got a taste of you, if I allowed myself to love you like I want to, and then, for whatever reason, you couldn't be mine anymore…" He swallowed as he stared directly into my eyes. "I couldn't take it. I'm not that strong."
"You could've asked my opinion on the matter," I said as my cheeks grew white hot at his admission. Did he just say he loved me?
"I know what you would've said," he replied, moving closer to me. "You would've thrown caution to the wind and done whatever your heart told you to."
"You're right," I replied, backing up another step and landing against the wall. "And that's what got me stabbed."
He stopped, staring at me with those brown eyes full of indecision. It was a new look for him, and I didn't like it.
"I'm…I'm sorry." He bit his lip then wiped the sadness away from his face. "You should get going."
I nodded, taking a step back and shouldering my bag. I headed toward the open street, my gaze outward, but my heart back with Felix. There was so much more we needed to say to one another, but neither of us could find the words. Perhaps we'd both been second-guessing ourselves in this new reality, and we'd been hoping the other might have some answers.
I turned, walked back to him, and grabbed him by the back of the neck, connecting his mouth to mine. At once, my fears and misery vanished in the bright light of his touch. They would return, lurking in the periphery of my mind like vultures waiting for the dying breath. But for this brief moment, I would cling to the hopefulness I'd been missing for so long.
His touch was feather light on my back, his lips moved against mine as his tongue slipped between my lips. I rested my hands on the nape of his neck, taking all I needed from him and allowing him to kiss me like I'd always wanted him to.
The faraway whinny of a horse made us both jump, and the ever-brightening sky was a signal that our time to part had arrived.
"Take care of my city while I'm gone," I whispered.
He pressed something into my hand—his Forcadelian seal. "Take this with you as a reminder of who you serve."
"Don't you need it?" I asked, looking up into his dark eyes.
"No," he said with a more confident smile. "Because I'm going to dream of you every night until you return."
My mouth parted in surprise, and he captured me in a sweet kiss. "Please be careful out there."
I nuzzled my nose against his. "This doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you, but…"
"I know." He grinned. "But you're always mad at me."
At that, I stole a final kiss and continued out into the early morning.