Bring Me Their Hearts(13)
My face goes cold, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of flinching.
Nightsinger can’t meet my eyes as she murmurs, “I’d rather you not suffer more than you have already, Zera. I hope you understand why it must be this way.”
Of course I understand. I understand my life is hers to do with it what she will, that I’m powerless to resist, or decide, or even change. That is the fate of a Heartless, the price of our eternal life—chains heavier than iron.
But I can break them. I know exactly how to break them now—with Prince Lucien’s spoiled little heart.
“Are you two done?” Firewalker demands. “The carriage awaits.”
I spare a glance at him. Underneath his shortness and anger, the moonlight reveals fear in the lines of his face. Even Seawhisper’s smiles now look paper-thin to me, her lips trembling, as if she’s holding something in. For all their power and majesty, they’re still afraid of war—of death. Of being unwritten from this world—a fear all living things have. A fear I have once again.
“Yeah.” I straighten. “I’m ready.”
“Good.” He looks pleased with me for once. “Then stand in the center of us. We’ll send you there—it’s faster than walking, and you’re on a bit of a time restraint.”
The three witches form a triangle. Seawhisper looks to Nightsinger with concern in her eyes.
“Are you sure you still remember the spell, Night? You’ve been away from the Tree for so long—”
“I remember,” Nightsinger answers immediately. They fall silent and still. One second their eyes are normal, and the next they’re jet black, from lid to lid, corner to corner. Their fingertips hanging at their sides grow black, nails stretching long and sharp like claws, and equally dark. Nothing about the growing darkness is natural—it’s cold and void-like, a black deeper than the night itself, as if the magic is eating away at the very reality of color. It consumes their skin all the way up to their wrists. The stronger a spell, the higher the void grows up a witch’s extremities. I’ve only ever seen Nightsinger turn her tear ducts black, or the very tips of her nails. This spell, though, is something far more powerful. Their mouths form the same words in sync, but all I hear is the roaring silence of the woods. They speak the Old God’s tongue—an inaudible prayer to him. The foxgloves around me sway with a sudden wind, the fireflies scattering.
In a flash, Nightsinger opens her eyes—no longer black, but green and white again—and smiles at me, her voice audible once more.
“Be safe, Zera.”
“You—” I blink, and get to finish my sentence to a whole new vista, one with a muddy road and a misty midnight horizon. The forest is to one side, vast grassy plains on the other, the Bone Road stretching beneath my feet. “—too.”
I haven’t seen the world on this side of the forest in three years, and I drink it in greedily. The tall grass of the plains sways gently in the midnight breeze. Everything looks so huge, the sky pressing down on me; the three moons seem even bigger without a canopy to hide their faces. I take a moment to breathe in—not the damp, molded pine smells of the woods but the bright, alive smell of earth warmed to its bones by the sun and cooled by the moons each and every day.
A carriage waits not far ahead, covered in slate gray silks and drawn by two roan mares. The driver waves his hat. I begin toward him at a trot, looking back once at the velvet woods. I’d forgotten how strange the feeling of leaving was, like a bittersweet snowflake on the tongue. It’s a bare taste of the freedom I’ve lusted after for three years—a freedom that waits for me in the chest of Lucien Drevenis d’Malvane.
Stupid girl. You’ll never be free. The hunger rasps a laugh, clinging like a spider to the dark corners of my mind. No matter how much you squirm, no matter how far you try to run, those men are still dead because of you. The shadows of what you’ve done are long and eternal.
I don’t make a habit of responding to the hunger, that darkness that lingers inside me, reminding me always of my mistakes. I like to ignore it, push it away with my own voice, with whatever joke or thought comes to mind. But tonight, standing on a precipice, I stride forward and answer it with a whisper.
“Then maybe it’s time to build a brighter fire.”
2
The Iron Lady
I approach the carriage at a jaunty pace, plumes of hot air from the horses’ noses floating up into the cold night.
“You’re my new partners in crime, then?” I ask the man who waved his hat at me. He descends the carriage, all lanky limbs and long face and nut-brown wrinkles. He’s so thin and tall he looks like a scarecrow without all the stuffing. His warm smile is much heartier than his body.
“Indeed, miss. I’m Fisher Jell, Lady Y’shennria’s driver.” He extends his hand in greeting but retracts it suddenly, wiping it on his trousers and flashing an apologetic smile at me. “S-Sorry.”
“For what?” I blink.
“You’re a— Well.” He clambers over himself to finish his sentence.
“Don’t force yourself, Fisher,” a clipped voice comes from the carriage window. “She’s a Heartless, not a human. There’s no need to be terribly polite.”
A woman leans out of the window ever so slightly, her dark, fluffy hair amassed atop her head and pinned back discreetly with amethyst jewelry. The purple lace dress she wears accents her dark skin beautifully, the high neck of the collar somehow making her sharp hazel gaze look even more imperious. Her face is smooth, yet so well taken care of that you can barely see the creases of age at her eyes and mouth.