Bring Me Their Hearts(105)

I warily place my hand on the mare’s flank before I try to mount her. I haven’t ridden a horse in years—I think the last time I did was before I became Heartless. Y’shennria never taught me, thinking the carriage enough to transport me for the short time I was with her. I slide off the mare’s side quickly, the other nobles staring. It should be so easy for me—for a supposed farm girl. My whole face lights red; I won’t let something this small make them suspect me this late in the game.

I feel a strong grip around my waist the next time I haul myself up, and that extra boost is just enough to get me in the saddle. Malachite smirks lazily up at me.

“You looked like you could use a hand, milady.”

“And you look like you enjoyed giving one,” I drawl.

“What can I say? I delight in my service.”

“Then perhaps you’ll do me another service,” I say. He quirks a silver-gray brow.

“Name it, and I’ll…well, I’ll extensively consider it.”

I lean in to make sure none of the guards are listening. “Fione’s gotten word the archduke’s broken out of his cell and is coming east. And the king hasn’t announced he’s a traitor publicly yet.”

Malachite narrows his eyes at Fione, who ascends a roan gelding with an ease only possible with years of training.

“To get the last stab in?” he asks.

“Most likely. You know him—he isn’t the world’s most understanding man.”

Malachite snorts. “That’s a mild way to put it. Did Lucien’s kiss startle all the spunk out of you or something?”

I freeze. “Y-You know about that?”

“I know he hasn’t stopped grinning like an idiot.” Malachite sighs. “And I haven’t spent most of my life with you, but you’re easy to read. Something’s bothering you real deep down. Is it your feelings for him?”

Easy to read? He has no idea what he’s talking about. I force my laugh to sound light. “Not everything in life is about love, Malachite.”

He fixes me with the most serious of crimson stares, a strange thing coming from him. “No. Only the things that matter.”

His words ring wise, wiser than I’ve ever heard him sound. “Will you keep an eye on Fione? If Gavik shows, she’s as good as gone. And I’m not ready to let someone die on my watch again.”

“Again?” Malachite asks sharply, his black irises shrinking to pinpoints as they focus on my face. He’s so quick on the uptake, or maybe I’m just dulled, slowed. I feel like I’ve been moving through quicksand, heavy molten iron, ever since Lucien kissed me.

This is the end—isn’t it? Malachite’s been nothing but a pleasant friend. Friend? Acquaintance. Much less intimate. A more harmless secret of mine won’t hurt anything.

“When I was younger, there were these five bandits,” I start, the words like copper coins in my mouth—bringing up the scent and taste of blood. “And I killed them.”

Malachite is quiet, looking up at me from the horse’s side. He looks shorter from this height. Less capable of cleaving me in two with his broadsword.

“One old, one young, one with no left eye, one with a crooked smile, and one who wouldn’t stop smiling, no matter what I did to him.”

MURDERER GIRL. TERRIBLE GIRL.

“Ever since then,” I talk over the hunger, “I’ve been averse to playing any role in someone’s death.”

“T’ragan dhim af-artora, af-reyun horra,” Malachite says, his crimson eyes a little serious, for once.

“Translation?”

“As we all should be, but as we all cannot be.”

I smile, the feel of it thin on my lips. It’s a beautiful sentiment—a sad one, perhaps fitting for a people who’ve remained fighting the overwhelming valkerax for centuries. The horse trained for the purification ritual begins to move, led by Lucien. My mare is eager to go. I look down one last time at Malachite.

“I’ve always thought the moments you speak Beneather are when your voice sounds the loveliest,” I admit.

And with that, I urge the horse into a trot, leaving him and his pretty words behind.



The ride isn’t long, but it’s fraught with dangers: low-hanging branches and steep dips in the old hunting trails. Dangers the nobility, who’ve barely set a foot outside Vetris in their lives, consider thrilling. Shrill gasps and shrieks of excitement punctuate the ride, Fione one of the few who remains looking straight ahead, focused. When Lucien finally stops at the edge of a black rock formation, we all descend our horses. Ulla and the servants who came with us see to the horses, tying them to nearby trees.

The rock formation seems to be the center of everyone’s attention, and I approach the rocks and the little crowd of nobles gathered around it. There, nestled in the middle of the formation, is a perfect jewel of sapphire water. The Blue Giant is new in the sky, dark, but the Red Twins are full and engorged, shedding bloody light that plays purple across the water. A servant carries a basket of fragrant spices and flowers, throwing them into the pool, the petals rippling across the still surface. Lucien sees me and flashes a smile.

HOW MUCH LONGER WILL HIS HAPPINESS LAST? the hunger screeches.

I’m so wrapped up in tamping the hunger down I don’t notice the flesh becoming more prominent around me until Lucien himself peels off his shirt, the dimpled muscles of his back shadowed in the moonlight and his shoulder blades sharp. I catch a glimpse of black ink eagle, feathers arcing around his shoulder and talons curling around his biceps. Fione stands there still fully clothed, unlike most of the nobles around us who are easing themselves into the water of the spring, giggling and admiring one another’s bodies in less-than-subtle ways.