23

A Promise
of Blood

My knees do their godsdamnedest to turn to gelatin, but I keep them strong. I focus my eyes on the celeon royal guard line as they pass more rocks to one another, clearing out the arena that’s completely caved in by rubble. The gate—that one I walked under so many times to teach Ev—has been obliterated into nothing more than a twisted piece of metal by the collapse. The cracks in the rock avalanche show faint traces of sunlight peeking through.

I close my eyes and picture Evlorasin flying through the sky, a streak of pearl-rainbow-white against the blue.

Yorl sends a watertell to Varia, and we wait for the response. In the meantime, the suddenly eternally smiling celeon takes to writing, his quill scratching busily over parchment, leaving me to simmer in my newfound shock.

“The blood promise was supposed to be for Varia,” I say slowly.

Yorl doesn’t even look up, but he nods. “Yes. But we will adapt, as we always have.”

I pause. “That means…I have to go with her, don’t I? To find the Tree.”

“Undoubtedly,” Yorl agrees. “The blood promise will stay with you, whether you are Heartless or human. So Varia has no reason not to return your heart as she promised.”

“But she could just command me to tell her where the Bone Tree is, right?”

Yorl opens his mouth, then closes it, and finally mutters, “To the gods with it—I’ve given her what she wants.” He looks to me. “The blood promise was given to you under the effects of Weeping, remember? Anything directly involving Weeping cannot be commanded of.”

My burden lifts a little upon hearing that. If that’s true, he’s right. The crown princess suddenly has even more reason to keep her promise that was so tenuous before.

“Where did Ev go, you think?” I ask.

“The lawguards on the wall said it rose straight up and took off to the west,” he says. “Apparently the entire city panicked—a few bumps and bruises—but no one’s seriously hurt.”

I laugh, lying back on the bedroll. “Those poor people. I’d think a giant glowing wyrm bursting out of the ground meant the end of the world, too. Did you know they could glow?”

Yorl shakes his head. “I had no clue. I studied them for ten years in Pala Amna with Grandfather. I know perhaps more about them than anyone in the world, and yet after today, I feel like I know nothing at all.”

“Welcome to my unlife,” I drawl.

…

Varia’s watertell response tells us to meet her at her apartments in the palace immediately.

Yorl doesn’t need to escort me to the surface this time, the lights all humming brightly against the spiral stone walls as we ascend up and up. I finally get to see the damage once we reach the exit and surface to South Gate—there, outside the wall and at the foot of it, near where the army is camped and in the center of an otherwise placid patch of green grassland, is a massive hole torn straight out of the earth. Evlorasin must’ve erupted from it—dirt and rock scattered around like explosive detritus, lawguards and soldiers forming a circle of barricades around it to prevent anyone falling in.

“You’ll hear nothing but this for the next ten years from the bards.” Yorl sighs.

“Chin up.” I nudge him in the ribs. “If you think about it, it’s sort of like being famous.”

He just groans.

“I thought you wanted to be famous!” I quip.

“I want to be a polymath,” he corrects. “I want to make my grandfather’s name rightly famous for the work he did. My own fame is optional.”

“Being so selfless is no fun.” I click my tongue.

He follows me through the South Gate crowd—a half-terrified, half-worried buzz humming among the people.

“Was it the witches? Can they summon the wyrms now?”

“First the witchfire, now this—Kavar helps us!”

“It was huge and glowy and long!” a child shouts excitedly to a gaggle of his peers hanging onto his every word. “Like a moon caterpillar!”

“They are definitely not moon caterpillars,” Yorl sourly mutters. I laugh and fall quiet, the two of us walking back to the palace together for once.

Varia’s waiting. The sooner I get to her, the sooner I get my heart.

“What happens to you now?” I ask Yorl.

“Now I compile my findings and submit them to the Black Archives. Varia will put forward my recommendation to become a polymath before the council of the Black Archives, and they will be all but forced to let me in.”

“So we won’t see each other again?”

His muzzle frowns. “In all probability, no.”

“You’ll be safe, yeah? You’ll stay in the Archives doing research and stuff and won’t get killed in the war, right?”

“There won’t be a war,” Yorl says confidently. “Not for much longer.”

He’s right. The whole reason Varia is after the Bone Tree is to stop the war. And yet Evlorasin said there would be one, and Varia agreed with it. Even I’m convinced the impending peace won’t last long. I’m about to bring this up when I spot someone very familiar cut out of the crowd—Lucien’s hawk eyes glaring from the cowl’s slit at me.

“The valkerax escaping—was that your doing?” he demands. As he gets closer, I can see his hands are clenched tight at his sides.

Yorl blinks his huge green orbs at the prince. “Just who are you?”

The cowl makes it hard to see Lucien’s face properly, but if he didn’t have it on, Yorl would instantly know who he is just by how similar he looks to Varia.

Lucien rounds on him. “Who am I? Who are you? Did my sister hire you?”

Yorl scoffs. “Not unless your sister is the crown princess.”

Lucien is suddenly a black blur and Yorl a yellow blur as the prince pins the celeon to a nearby wall. “My patience is thin, polymath. One of my Goldblood families was killed today, and I just saw a valkerax dig out from beneath my city and terrify my people. Who are you?”

Lucien’s on edge in a way I’ve never seen before, not even when I revealed my monster form in the clearing, and I nervously start after the two of them. One of his Goldblood families, killed. Then he’s found out about Tarroux. He’s never had any love for the nobles, but neither is he the sort to ignore the injustice of death. And Tarroux—the last time I saw them walking the garden together, he’d managed a small, amused smile at her. My unheart sinks. No wonder he looks so strained.

Yorl struggles to twist out of the armlock, his celeon limbs with their extra bones and sinew maneuvering like flowing water from Lucien’s grasp. Yorl flattens his yellow ears to his head, pulling back his gums to show all his teeth.

“My name is my own. Cross me again, and we will see who bleeds easier.”

“Stop it!” I flail my arms between them. “Both of you. Lucien, this is Yorl. Yorl, this is Prince Lucien.”

Yorl freezes as Lucien narrows his eyes further at him. “Your Highness? In that gaudy getup?” He pauses, looking down. “With pants that tight?”

“It’s better than no pants at all,” Lucien snarls. Yorl shifts in his robe, his barely formed hackles raising straight off his neck in a golden ridge.

“I’m not a naked ape,” Yorl fires back, “who needs them to begin with!”

The competitive pride is so thick I can practically smell it. People are staring. I clap my hands as loud as I can, like I’m trying to break up a feral-dog fight.

“That’s enough,” I snap. “If you two are going to act like rampaging babies with full diapers, the least you could do is be considerate about it.”

Lucien flinches, his eyes roaming over the staring crowd. Yorl’s ears go even flatter on his head, his tail thrashing over the cobblestones. I let go of them both and they straighten, still glaring daggers at each other.

“There was a valkerax under the city!” Lucien demands. “Why? What were you doing to it?’

Yorl shoots me a look, and the words go unsaid; no matter what, Lucien can’t interfere anymore. The blood promise is with me. There’s no real benefit in lying or deceiving anymore, and that thought alone lifts a weight off my chest.

Yorl dusts his shoulders begrudgingly. “I was studying the valkerax for roughly eight days.” The celeon shrugs. “But you don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s gone for good.”

The crowd slowly starts diverting their attention from us and, determined to keep heading for the palace and my heart, I pivot and continue walking, making sure my pace is near impossible to keep up with. The boys trail after me fervidly.

“You’re a real polymath?” Lucien finally asks Yorl.

“I’d like to be,” Yorl scoffs, his agile feline legs keeping up with me more easily than Lucien’s. “But it seems you’ve forgotten your father’s policies prevent celeons from ever becoming polymaths in the first place.”

Lucien quirks his brows in a fair enough way as he swings around a lamppost to turn the corner with me.

“The valkerax is gone, then?” he presses. “For good? You’re certain of that?”

“Mildly,” Yorl says drily.

“And I’m sure you’re not going to tell me what my sister got out of you studying it,” the prince continues.

“Hardly,” Yorl agrees.

The three of us walk near the bridge to the noble quarter, Lucien keeping up with me easily. I can feel him at my side even if I can’t see him—his presence like the thick, unbreathable pressure before a summer storm.

This could be the last time I see him.

This walk could be the last steps I ever take around him. The last air I breathe near him.

Something soft and warm suddenly slips into my hand—skin sliding across skin. Steadying. Gentle. Fingers hook around mine, and I look over to see Lucien’s hand entwined in my palm, his eyes soft behind his cowl. The urge to squeeze his hand hard, to make sure it’s really real, fills me to the brim, but I resist it.

Why? Why is he doing this to me? Doesn’t he know it’s cruel? Doesn’t he know I’m going to abandon him the moment I get up those palace steps and into Varia’s room? The moment my heart is in my chest again will mean the moment his sister inherits her doom.

His thumb traces the back of my knuckles thoughtfully, slowly, and part of me gives in. This one moment is all I could ever ask for. It is all I will ever have, and I tattoo it into every part of my aching flesh.

When I am old and gray, forgetful and alone, I am certain this will be the only memory that remains.

I dare myself to look up into his face, only to find the gentleness in his eyes is gone. His face is ashen. Not just pale, not just green around the edges, but ashen, completely and totally drained of all blood and color. His hand around mine tightens slowly but inexorably. Something’s wrong.

“Lucien?” I murmur. “What—” I try to pull my hand away, but his grip is too strong. And Lucien doesn’t react to my attempts to get away at all—his eyes staring off into the distance as if he’s watching something happen far away.

“Lucien, let me go.” I yank my hand, hard, but he doesn’t budge. “I said let me go!”

My shout breaks him out of his strange trance, and I manage to free my hand just as he releases his grip. His eyes snap back to the present, to me, and they waver over my shoulder to a paused Yorl. Then back to me. Then to Yorl again. He stutters between us, and the coldness in his obsidian orbs isn’t anger. It’s…fear. What is he so afraid of from touching me? But it’s there for only the second, and then his princely demeanor shutters it off. Lucien draws himself up to his full height.

“Is something amiss?” Yorl asks languidly. I can’t take my eyes off Lucien, and neither does he look away from me. The celeon clears his throat. “We have places to be, Zera.”

our heart, the hunger keens. we can feel it beating, so close…

The hunger reaches me through Lucien’s gaze where Yorl’s words can’t. My heart. My heart is waiting. No matter how good it feels to hold his hand, no matter what strangeness is going on with him right now, no matter if this is the last time I see him or not, I have to go. I tear my eyes from Lucien’s face and trot after Yorl, over the bridge to the noble quarter, but the lawguards hold their halberds down on Lucien, dressed more like an outlaw than a prince, and he doesn’t follow.

“Zera!”

Lucien’s shout has me pivoting on the cobblestones. He stands there, behind the halberds, his dark eyes burning now. All the coldness of fear is gone from his face, replaced by dark flames, roaring with determination.

The prince holds out his hand to me.

“Say my sister’s name,” he says simply.

“Princess Varia?” I frown. “There. Happy?”

Lucien’s eyes bore into me. “Her true name.”

All the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. We stand on opposite sides of the bridge, the wind whistling between us as the crowd moves, ignorant of the gravity of the moment.

Her true name. Her witch name. Why? Why would he want me to say it to him aloud like this?

“Did you know”—Varia’s words ring in my head—“that a Heartless is never supposed to say their witch’s name aloud to another witch?”

My eyes start at Lucien’s boots, and slowly, terrified, work their way up his legs, his hips, his chest, up his strong neck and to his face, his sister’s words echoing all the while.

“If a Heartless says their witch’s name aloud, you’re essentially giving other witches permission to steal you away. We can use the sound to create a spell to transfer ownership.”

No. I take a step back. No—that’s impossible. He’s from a witchblood family, but…a witch has to discover their true name. Evlorasin said that much. Has he…? No. There would’ve been some indication. He would’ve told me—

why would he? he can barely trust you.

He’s asking me to abandon Varia to be with him. To choose him over my freedom.

Part of me refuses to believe. But part of me knows, deep down. He’s asking me to abandon Varia to become his Heartless. His thrall.

Not again.

we will never be chained again, the hunger spits.

The kisses, the dance, those tender moments shared between us—all of them come crashing down on me. The girl in the other timeline who loves him and whom he loves back, openly and beautifully, is closing in. I could be her. I could make the choice to be her, here and now.

I could give up my enthrallment, only to be leashed again. Would he give me my heart back? Would he free me? Can I trust him to do that?

trust a human? after what you’ve done to them? The hunger laughs. to him?

Fear grips me, cold and wintery and absolute.

“We can help,” Lucien insists. “Fione, Malachite, and I—we’ve been working on finding a way to free you from my sister. And we came across this. If you say her true name, I can free you.”

They’ve been…working? For me? Putting in effort to try to free me from a bond that cannot be broken? Inane. Pointless.

I force an unaffected smile at Lucien. “You’re all so smart.” I laugh. “Why would you do something as illogical as waste your time on me?”

“Zera—”

The sound of my name on his tongue is poisoned honey.

“I betrayed you,” I snap. “I betrayed all of you! How can you offer me anything, when I lied so much? So terribly? None of you should still care—” I swallow and pivot on my heel.

Enough. I’ve done them wrong. I’ve proven myself unworthy. They need to move on.

coward, the hunger sneers. a coward who won’t trust anyone, who won’t do the hard work of atoning, a cowardly girl who wants only to run away, where things are easy—

Yorl’s green eyes are narrowed squarely on Lucien. He looks over at me, and then mutters, “We need to go.”

I’m so close to my heart that I can feel it beating in my chest, vestigial and eager. Lucien suddenly flips himself forward, landing gracefully on the bridge’s railing and scaling up it to get around the guards. I start—he’s mad. It’s so high up! He’ll break his spine if he falls! Where is the carefully calculating prince of Cavanos, the one who made sure to never make waves as Whisper, to stay low and quiet and always in the shadows? The lawguards clamor, shouting and brandishing swords and gathering below the rail, just waiting for him to come down so they can arrest him. On the very top of a brass pillar of the bridge, Lucien stands, looking down on Yorl and me, his gaze fixed on my face.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore, Zera,” he says clearly, his words ringing down like rain. My unheart throbs with a spear of pain.

always alone, the hunger snarls. relying on others is a fantasy. a lie. unsafe.

Yorl adjusts his glasses and starts walking away in defiance of the commotion, toward the road to the palace. I take one step after him, and Lucien’s shout is molten iron.

“If you leave with him, there is no going back. No matter how much I despise the idea of it, if you walk away with him now, you will become my enemy.”

Enemy. Not just a traitor but an enemy?

we have always been your enemy, little prince. The hunger laughs riotously, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world, even as my unheart is breaking. An enemy of Lucien’s, once and for all. It’s the last thing I ever wanted, but here, now, I realize it’s what must be done. It’s what I should’ve done, that night in the clearing.

My unheart screams to trust him. I want to more than anything. To accept his tempting offer, to believe in the idea that he wants to help me. That Fione and Malachite have forgiven me. But I know better. Forgiveness isn’t that quick. It isn’t that easy. I haven’t even forgiven myself for killing fourteen men, for the five men when I was turned three years ago. But forgiveness looms so small in the face of reality.

I won’t be anyone’s thrall, ever again. Not his. Not anyone’s. I’m so afraid of losing the hunger, but I’m more afraid of being a monster again. Someone else’s monster. Two sides of my unheart war with each other in the span of a second.

He is Lucien—the kindest, noblest boy I know.

He is a witch.

He could be my witch. He could give me my heart back once and for all if I became his. If I am his, he could command me to do anything he wanted. He could command me to stay with him when I don’t want to. He could command me to believe his every word. To smile, to kiss him. He could starve me, force me to fight.

he is a witch, the hunger laughs. and magic is a terrible temptation.

My heart. My heart.

I want to trust him. But I can’t.

I’ve learned the hardest way that I can’t trust anyone but myself with my freedom.

I look up at him, the wind whipping my hair around my face, and smile with the last tears I will ever shed for him. For me.

“Af-balfera,” I say. “Ansenme kei-inora.”