Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(30)

Noam’s son. I frown, absently clutching the fabric of the skirt. I knew I was forgetting something.

The girls start to leave, Rose herding them out with sharp orders to see if other guests need any last-minute assistance. I leap down from the dressing pedestal and grab Rose’s arm.

“General William and King Mather.” Saying his title flows out surprisingly easily, and I start in discomfort. “Where are they?”

“Getting ready themselves, Lady Meira. They did say that if you were to ask for them, they would meet you in the library before the ball.”

“And when is the ball?”

“In ten minutes.”

I smack my fist to my forehead to fight down a sudden migraine. “Lady Rose, if you wish me to attend this ball, you will tell me exactly where the library is. Now.”

Rose points down the hall and to the left. “Two lefts, one right. First door on your right.”

I start to say thank you, but realize—I’m wearing a ball gown. How many times will I have this opportunity? I drop into a sweeping curtsy, skirt fluffing out in my descent, fabric swallowing me up. Rose applauds as I leap up and start to run out the door. Then I pause, grab the lapis lazuli, and stuff the small blue stone into one of the gown’s pockets. Just something to hold on to.

Two lefts. One right. First door on the right.

I repeat the instructions as I run, trotting past scurrying servants and fancy-looking people I don’t know. Cordellan royals, probably. Running in a dress is hard enough, but running in a ball gown is like trying to run while wrapped in a tent, so eventually I concede defeat and heft the whole mess of silk into the air. A few passing courtiers raise their eyebrows, but I hurry past them, too glad to move my legs freely to really care about their shocked looks. I was right—skirts are inventions meant to make running harder.

The library door is already open when I dash in, but the room is empty. Books line shelves three floors high, and windows just as tall let in rays of dying sunlight. Three balconies wrap above me and a grand piano stands in the center of the bottom level, but there are no people, not even a servant dusting old books in a corner.

I scurry into the room and scan each level for any sign of Sir or Mather or Dendera, anyone. The more empty corners I see, the harder my heart hammers.

They’re not here.

Their absence shakes me out of the lightness of preparing for the ball, of getting to take a bath, of the luxury and finery of Bithai. Here I am, standing in Cordell’s library, playacting like some foreign damsel, all ball gown and lavender-vanilla perfume. I should embrace this. I shouldn’t care that I won’t find out anything before the ball, because this type of normalcy is what Sir wanted for me, isn’t it? To dance and laugh and wear frilly dresses. To lead an easier life.

But however nice it is to have a tub full of steaming water, however pretty my gown is, I’ve never wanted this kind of life. Dendera would talk about the days when Winter was whole and its court was intact, when Queen Hannah would throw lavish balls like all the other kingdoms of the world. The ladies would dress in fine ivory gowns and the men in deep blue suits, and everything glittered silver and white. I would listen to Dendera’s stories and smile at the images, but it was the tales of Winter’s battles that filled my dreams. Tales of protecting our kingdom. Fighting for our land. Defending our people.

Not that the courtiers were any less worthy of Winter than the soldiers who fought for it, but I never wanted the life Dendera said she’d had. I wanted a life of my own, a life where I could feel myself being a part of Winter. And that, to me, came through fighting for it.

A piece of parchment on the music stand catches me, and I pick it up. Something about the way the script bends in a frantic, scratched hand, like whoever wrote it was in a hurry to get the poem down, draws me to it.

Words made me.

They shifted over me from the moment I took breath;

Little black lines etched into my body as I wriggled and screamed

And learned their meanings.

Duty. Honor. Fate.

They were beautiful heart tattoos.

So I took them and kept them and made them my own,

Locked them away inside me and only took them out

When other people got their meanings wrong.

Duty. Honor. Fate.

I believed in everything.

I believed in him when he said I was his greatest duty.

When he said I would be his greatest honor.

I believed no one but him and his three words.

Duty. Honor. Fate.

I believed too much.

There’s a pain in it, the same I-want-more-than-this pain that makes my dress a little less pretty. It sucks my breath away. I’d expect something like this just lying around if we were in Ventralli, which is known for its artists, but not in Cordell. Cordell is all money and power and fertile farmlands. Who wrote this?

“Lady Meira?”

I fly around, parchment fluttering to the ground, gown whooshing in a great funnel of red. At first I think it’s Noam. Same tall build, same golden hair, same dark-brown eyes. But this man isn’t old enough to have gray in his hair; he’s only a few years older than me, and his skin is smooth, sporting just a patch of stubble on his chin. He’s much more handsome than Noam too, not quite as harsh, like he’s more apt to sing a ballad than lead a kingdom.

I smooth my dress. “Prince Theron,” I guess.

An intrigued light brightens his face. Then his eyes drop to the parchment resting between us on the carpet, words up, and the light falls. He dives, grabs the paper, crumples it in his fist like he can disintegrate it through sheer will.