Bring Me Their Hearts(14)

She looks me up and down appraisingly. Her nose wrinkles at my bloodstained dress, my scuffed and many-times-mended boots. This is definitely the Lady Y’shennria the witches mentioned. She oozes regality so much I’m almost intimidated. Almost. I lay awake at night for three years vowing I’d do anything for my heart when the time came—I can’t back down now.

I clear my throat and say, “I’m Zera. Second Heartless of the witch Nightsinger—”

“I’m aware,” Y’shennria sighs. “Why else would I be here?” She opens the door with one gloved hand and raps it. “Get in. There’s much work to be done and little time in which to accomplish it.”

I climb in and settle on the plush seat across from her. She immediately tucks herself in one corner like she’s afraid of catching something from me.

“Haven’t you heard? Heartless can’t carry diseases.” I flash her a smile. She ignores me.

“Take us home, Fisher,” she says out the window. Fisher tuts at the horses, and the carriage lurches into motion, the steel-plated wheels cutting through the muddy road with little effort. This is the first time I’ve been inside a carriage since I was human, and the first time ever being in one so fancy. The whole cart smells like cinnamon and roses, though maybe it’s just her.

“In public, you will address me as Lady Y’shennria,” the noblewoman says abruptly, eyes glued to the passing woods. “In private, you will address me as Lady Y’shennria—”

“That’ll be a tough one to remember,” I drawl.

She breezes on without acknowledging anything. “You are, from this moment forward, Lady Zera Y’shennria, my stepbrother’s bastard daughter and the last living relative I have.”

The last living relative? I study her face—up close she looks even more elegant and refined, yet now I can see the massive scar reaching down her jaw and to her throat: three distinct slashes that her high collar barely hides. I’d recognize those anywhere. Jagged teeth marks. A Heartless tried to kill her a long time ago. There’s a tense, stretched-out silence.

“What—” I swallow. “What happened to them? Your family?”

“They were killed,” she says curtly. “Do you see that castle in the distance?”

I squint at where she points—a dim shadow lurking on the horizon my mile-and-a-half radius never let me see before. She rummages in a silken bag at her hip and shoves a brass tube at me. I lamely stare at it.

“Do you want me to swallow that, or…?”

“Try again.” She holds the brass tube away from my grasping hand. “Politer, this time. I know it isn’t so in those lawless woods of yours, but in Vetris we respect our elders.”

“All right. Let’s give uppity a go.” I inhale and put on my best haughty air. “Pray tell, what is that thing, Lady Y’shennria?”

“I didn’t say mock nobility, I said try to emulate it.” She narrows her eyes to thin slits. Not angry, just thin. Anger threatens on her face, but she doesn’t let it show through.

“I’m sorry, aren’t they the same thing?” I smile. Y’shennria’s having none of it as she draws herself to her full height.

“Do you want your heart or not?”

We stare at each other, neither of us even daring to blink. If willpower were an animal, it’d be a tiger, and there’d be a cacophony of wicked snarling between us. I’m not used to losing, but Y’shennria has me cornered, naked in front of the truth. I back off and hold my hands up.

“All right, you win. I want my heart.”

“You’ll ask to see this tube politely, like a noble might. Or the best approximation of one your feral mind can conjure.”

I inhale and put on a lighter voice. “May I please see that object, Lady Y’shennria? It interests me greatly.”

She watches me, those hazel eyes like green-gold slits of agate. Finally, she relents.

“You may have a kernel of potential after all. But that is all it is. From this moment forward, the only armor that will reliably disguise you in the Vetrisian court is hard work and effort. Remember that.” She hands the tube to me, and though she seems perfectly calm and collected, the hand she holds it out with is trembling. I get it, suddenly, why she keeps careful space between my boots and her skirts. She isn’t worried about catching something. She’s afraid of touching me. My stomach squirms. Disappointment. Shame. A hundred things claw at my insides, the hunger laughing at me.

Of course she’s afraid. You’re a monster. There’s blood on your hands.

I take the tube, careful not to let our fingers meet.

“Hold it to your eye,” she instructs. “Close the other, and point it at where you wish to look.”

With clumsy fingers and facial muscles, I do as she asks. What a delightful little human machine—I can suddenly see the castle in the distance with perfect clarity. It’s a crumbling, blackened mess of stone parapets and iron gates, but the sheer size of it is impressive. Crows darken the air above the ruins, and a tattered banner flaps in the wind, the sigil and color too worn by time to discern.

“Thirty years ago, that was my home,” Lady Y’shennria says. “Ravenshaunt. It was where my family and I lived for generations. Until the Sunless War took even that from us, too.”