Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(33)

In his forthright way, he accused faerie tithing of being outdated and unfair, especially to the human race that now populated the majority of their lands. Malfleur argued that this had always been the relationship of human to fae, though, much like the fox to both. There was, quite simply, a hierarchy in the natural order of things, one that had to be respected in order for each to thrive as they were born to thrive.

He looked at her then, and she felt as studied as the slain fox had been. His eyes took her apart, but so carefully, so gently, and so gradually, that she experienced the confusion and surprise of liking it.

“If I had the power of the fae, I’d use it to tithe away faerie magic from all the others. Bring about a new order, one in which faerie and man are equal,” he said.

She scoffed, of course, offended. “You’d have us be just like you, then? What arrogance.”

“Is it arrogant to want justice?” His eyes blued, sun passing over water.

Thirst sprang up in her. “It is arrogant,” she countered, “to believe you can even know what justice looks like for anyone but yourself.”

“You would have us govern without presuming we understand justice as a general principle?”

“Oh, please, Charles,” she said with a smile. “I don’t pretend that anyone actually rules in the name of justice.” She wanted to laugh. “Monarchy does not exist for the sake of fairness.”

She didn’t know her words would hit him so hard, but he winced as though struck by something small yet infinitely sharp. The truth was like that, she thought. A trim and effective dagger—it fit, well hidden, inside even the daintiest palm.

He turned to face her, forcing her to stop walking. They had passed the gardens and were nearing the top of a squat hill she and her twin had hurtled themselves down countless times as children.

“You have a stark view of the world,” he said after a moment spent staring at her. His breath danced in the cool fog, folding into it, becoming lost.

She wanted to shrug but didn’t. She hadn’t expected him to make it personal. Instead, she turned to the side, scanning for signs of life over the strait. A stray gull curved through the gray. Closer, a pair of laundresses chased a woman’s underclothing that had gotten caught up in the wind’s invisible fist.

“It is rarely pleasant to look at things without any of their comfortable disguises,” she finally answered.

He touched her scar.

She sucked in a breath but did not push his hand away. It was the first time he seemed to have acknowledged the seared mark on her cheek and brow.

“That’s what I like so much about you, Malfleur,” he said, so low and so quiet it gave her a shiver. “With you, there can be no disguises. Everything is real. Light becomes anguish.”

She turned to face him, then. He was so near. His thumb traced her lower lip.

“And,” he whispered, “anguish becomes light.”

Now, Malfleur traces her fingers along her scar as she nears the trap in the woods. She is still thinking about transference and about the princess’s offer. I give you myself, she’d said. Malfleur toys with the possibilities. She has already used transference to transcend the old way of tithing senses, instead discovering how to transfer them from one being to another. She has used it on her soldiers, to make them harder and stronger—filling them with the rage and hunger of real vultures.

And now she ponders the possibility of the opposite. If she can tithe magic from the fae, can she also transfer magic to another? What might happen to a princess who has been gifted beauty and grace . . . and a piece of Malfleur’s own magic? Aurora could be the grandest experiment, the most intriguing pet, the best protégé yet. . . .

Malfleur pushes her way through underbrush and into a clearing. She doesn’t believe in luck, but perhaps she ought to.

Because tangled in her trap, still half alive, its front nose and paws clamped down between iron teeth, lies a young fox, twitching, stunned.

She eats it while the blood’s still warm.





PART


III


SO CRY THE FUTURE SAYERS





13


Aurora


The hood blocking her eyes is raised. Aurora squints into a vast room, its only light streaming from a hole in the ceiling high above. Her hands are bound by rope. She flexes them, tries to pull. Braces herself.

A figure disappears into the shadows. A door slams. She is alone.

No. Not alone. There’s a sound. A shuffling. A fluttering.

Suddenly, heavy iron grates rise all around her. Cranking. Creaking as they’re lifted, to reveal bars. Terror races through her. She’s caged. Now there’s a rustling in the shadows, beyond the bars. Louder. A harsh cry.

Her body clenches, jerks. And yet still she is shocked when a thousand shapes razor out of the black mass.

Wings.

Beaks.

Crows. Hundreds of them.

Panic—she can feel it in the way the bodies collide with one another, surging upward and out, pushing through the bars, which are wide enough to let them in but too narrow to let her out. She’s surrounded by complete anarchy. She screams but makes no sound.

She struggles against the rope again, unable to free her hands.

The birds swoop and dive. Claws rake across her cheek.

Talons land on the back of her neck, clamping down. She screams again, falling to her knees. They are on her. They are everywhere. A chunk of hair is wrenched from the side of her head. She writhes against the madness. A crow flies at her face. Its eyes gleam like beads. She dodges, collapses forward. Beaks tear at her shoulders.