Bring Me Their Hearts(106)

Ulla walks by us, demanding we strip and join the others in the spring. I expect Fione to be shy, but she immediately pulls her dress over her head, leaving her in only her underthings. She makes her way to the spring, leaning her cane against a nearby rock.

Ulla asks me to undress, harder this time. I unbutton my dress and step out of it, the warm air pillowing against my skin. I keep my locket on, hoping she won’t make me take it off. My stomach, my thighs—everyone in the spring can see it all. I can feel Charm snickering at me, Lord Grat staring. Malachite, despite our tension earlier, gives me an approving wink. He isn’t in the water, instead standing guard outside the spring. Prince Lucien looks me over once and then glances away, so quickly it’s as if he’s been burned. My underthings barely hide anything, and I hurriedly step into the spring, letting the warm water distort my body from their view. Fione sits alone in one corner, picking at the moss on a rock face. Lucien is intently studying the sky, the heat of the spring flushing his neck and jaw.

I look at my hands under the water, fracturing through the red moonlight. I’m so tired of maintaining this facade, of being a monster, of this hunger within me. Lucien’s and Fione’s wants are so straightforward. Fione wanted Gavik punished. Lucien wants to change his kingdom. He wants me. What do I want? I want him. I want him, the happiness he brings me, the crooked grins and soft embraces. He makes me feel human again. He’s the only one who’s ignited a spark of humanity inside me in three years.

But I want the whole of my humanity, and the cost is his.

“Does everyone understand what they’re to do during tomorrow’s hunt?” Lucien asks. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear a word he said, but I pretend I did, nodding. The circle of nobles also agrees, some of them pale-faced. Of course they’d be—they think they’re off to hunt witches. They have no idea Lucien doesn’t hunt them at all. They have no idea they won’t have a prince, come tomorrow.

HE’LL BE OURS, the hunger hisses with joy. FOREVER.



I await midnight like a doomed man awaits the gallows.

The little sandclock built into my desk ticks away happily, ignorant of my all-consuming terror. I try to make jokes for myself, try to convince myself things will be all right, normal, by changing dresses a dozen times. But the mirror reflects only a pale, haunted girl, with eyes too big and hair too faded, with an emptiness inside her too large to contain.

Even though I know they aren’t, every dress I try looks bloodstained. Wrong.

One last dress—black. Black for mourning.

Part of me prays, to the Old God and the New, that Lucien will arrive at our meeting place with Malachite in tow. Surely Malachite’s told him of Gavik’s approach. Surely he’ll bring along Malachite as an extra sword against the mysterious vanishing bandits the guards spotted earlier.

If he brings Malachite, I can do nothing to him. Even with a broken leg, Malachite’s still a Beneather. I can’t challenge him at all.

But if Lucien doesn’t bring him—

The sandclock strikes midnight. I pick up the silk bag the glass jar rests in and strap Father’s sword to my waist.

Every breath, every smile, every lie has led to this moment. Y’shennria has led me to this moment.

I take the first step outside.





18


The Starving Wolf

and the Black Rose

Beneath the Yew

Getting out of camp is more difficult than it should be—only the nobles are asleep. Ulla directs the cooks in rising sweetrounds in preparation for breakfast tomorrow. The guards patrol relentlessly, perhaps still spooked by the bandit sighting earlier today. Thankfully, most of the patrols are centered around the prince’s tent, giving me a window in which to escape toward the stables. Hiding among horses is far easier than hiding among people, their sheer bulk camouflaging me as I make it to the edge of camp where the forest begins. Only when I’m completely covered by shadow do I look back—the oil lamps and bonfires of the camp burn bright against the darkness.

The forest is more familiar than any home I’ve ever lived in—the smell of trees, the smell of lichen and rot and dry leaves. The scent is identical to Nightsinger’s forest.

Nightsinger. I haven’t seen her for two weeks, but it feels like two months. I know she’ll keep her word about giving me my heart back, but only if I bring her the prince’s. If I don’t—

I squeeze my eyes shut and steel my shoulders. The east path is short but twisted, and I scale a hill to see the yew tree nestled in a rocky little gorge. The twisted branches stand out among the pines—the tree itself old and long stripped of bark, bleached by the sun. A dead tree.

A fitting place to end it all.

Lucien is nowhere to be seen, but he is and always will be Whisper, too. He’s somewhere among these shadows, these rocks. Not the north ones—too exposed. Hiding behind the fallen log would be too obvious. That leaves only one place. I approach the trunk of the bleached yew tree slowly, leaning against it.

“If you aren’t here, then I’m losing my touch,” I say. Lucien emerges from behind the other side of the trunk, his short, raven’s-wing hair ruffled by the wind and his smirk lopsided.

THERE YOU ARE, MY PRIZE. MY PREY. The hunger bursts into flame, licking at my insides.

“I have a hard time believing you’ll ever lose that uncanny ability to find me,” Lucien says. He wears the dark leather armor of Whisper that I first met him in. Varia’s sword still hangs at his waist—if I can’t get a surprise attack on him, he’ll fight back, and a repeat of the duel would be disastrous: long, drawn out, messy. It needs to be clean, quick. I need to end this as fast as I can for my own sake—the longer it goes, the more time I have to hesitate.