Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(7)

The knocking again.

Aurora flips back the coverlet and hurries to her window, but the crisp night brings nothing other than the distant scent of woods . . . and ash. A strange burning scent that brings back, with a flash of horror, the memory of her last moments in Sommeil, and the fire that ravaged the castle, the Borderlands, the whole world, it had seemed.

Thud, thud, thud. The iron locks of the front gate rattle in their sockets. The pounding is inside her, a rhythm to her racing heart.

She lets go of the window curtain and moves toward her door, inviting the escape from her chambers. Tomorrow she will wed Prince William of Aubin, and she’ll finally be crowned queen, a notion too massive and tangled to give her peace. Sure, she knew she’d be crowned when she came of age, shortly following her sixteenth birthday, so long as she agreed to marry the prince—but that doesn’t stop her from dreading both.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the prince. No, the problem most certainly lies with her. There’s a restless animal caged in her chest, clawing to get out. She’s afraid if she sets it free, it will destroy her, destroy them all.

She steps into her night shoes and slips into the corridor, then makes her way down the winding stairs, where torchlight plays against stone.

The knocking grows more urgent—a powerful drumming of blunt fists against the wood. There are shouts from outside.

Aurora reaches the receiving hall just as Isbe bursts in from the doors to the opposite wing, in a nightgown just like Aurora’s, her short-cut hair tied back in a dark tangle at the nape of her neck. Isbe collides with Prince William of Aubin—Aurora can still only think of him by his formal title, not the more intimate term “husband,” though that is what he will be to her by the time the sun sets tomorrow. The prince is wearing just a pair of loose-fitting pants, and Aurora notices the strength of his bare chest and shoulders, the gleam of his dark skin in the flickering light, the way he grasps Isbe’s arms to steady her, his hands lingering a moment more than needed.

Servants have clustered into the hall too, and Maximilien appears, looking unusually ruffled. “What’s the meaning of the commotion?” he demands, though clearly no one knows. “Unbolt the doors.”

Four soldiers pull open the grate.

Aurora’s chest tightens, and her skin grows cold. What if it is an envoy of Malfleur’s, a brigade of her deadliest mercenaries?

But into the hall stumbles a ragtag group of peasants: two men carrying an injured woman, plus one other man and woman following just behind, restrained by a pair of castle guards. Soot dusts their skin, as though they’ve been spit out by one of the great southern volcanoes Aurora has read about. One of the men is wounded in the leg—Aurora’s gaze sweeps to the bloody mud that he has tracked inside. The injured woman groans. Her taut, rounded belly rises and falls with her heaving breath.

Aurora is suddenly reminded of Helen, one of the daughters of Greta from Sommeil, the mistress of the kitchens at Blackthorn. Helen had been just a few years older than Aurora, and with child.

“They’ve no weapons,” a guard announces.

“We seek conference with Aurora, crown princess of Deluce,” one of the men asserts. Oddly, she can picture him gathering hay at dawn. In Sommeil. But that’s not possible.

All heads turn toward her, and heat rises from her neck to her face.

“We must know your business first,” Prince William says, at the same time that Maximilien asserts, “Absolutely not.”

The councilman and the prince look at each other for a moment, and then Aurora steps between them. It isn’t their decision to make.

Just then, a girl pushes her way through the men. “You!” she cries out.

Aurora swivels at the sound of the voice, and her jaw drops open in shock. She recognizes the servant girl immediately, even in her disarray: the ears ever so slightly outturned like a fox’s; skin that reminds Aurora of the sandy beach of Cape Baille, where she once traveled with her father and mother; hair blacker than Isbe’s and straight as the fall from the Delucian cliffs. The girl was a close friend of Heath’s—perhaps more than a friend, though Aurora was never sure. And now her face is arranged in an image of agony—no, anger.

Wren.

The girl lurches toward her. “Aurora,” she says. There’s an ugliness to her tone, as though Aurora’s name tastes sour on her tongue. “This is your fault.” There are tears streaking the mud on Wren’s face.

Aurora is so startled she backs up nearly into William’s and Isbe’s arms.

“Stand back,” Maximilien demands.

A burly guard grabs Wren, pulling her away from the princess. “I told you to leave it alone, but you couldn’t, could you?” She struggles against the guard.

“Where is it that you come from, in such haste, and at such a late hour?” William interrupts.

Another castle guard clears his throat. “They been talking nonsense about another world—”

Isbe scoffs, cutting off the guard. “Isn’t it obvious? There’s been a fire!”

“We come from . . . Sommeil,” one of the men says. “Kingdom of the Night Faerie, Belcoeur.”

“Destroyed now, because of you!” Wren says, before the guard holding her throws a thick hand around her mouth, shutting her up. She writhes against him.

The injured woman, still held in the two men’s arms, whimpers. Aurora gestures urgently to a few of the palace servants. The woman moans again, and Aurora rushes toward her. She doesn’t just look like Helen, Aurora realizes with a silent gasp. She is Helen.