Bring Me Their Hearts(18)

I swallow, any witty words lost in the realization that she’s right. Who I was doesn’t matter. Who I have to become is the only thing I can focus on now. Y’shennria tosses the ragged dress into the bottom of the trunk.

“Now, let us see you.” She turns, walking around me in slow circles. She muses, “You wear it well, even if your posture is hideous. You may be coarse-tongued, but you have a voluptuous body, and this will serve you in catching the prince’s eye.”

“I’m to seduce him, then?” I chirp. “And here I thought it was an aunt’s job to be against allowing her niece to have any fun.”

Y’shennria’s face is solemn. “We will do anything to have the prince’s heart—you must do anything. Do you understand that?”

I swallow her words like lead. Anything beyond mild flirting is a huge blank in my repertoire of experience. It’s been three years since I’ve seen a boy my age. There was that one mercenary who came to the woods to kill Nightsinger, only a year older than I, but cutting his left pinky off hardly qualified as “flirting.” The woods never made me stop to consider my body as anything more than something to be fed and cleaned, yet Vetris demands I think of men, of women, of anyone who’d desire me. And desire is a strange, foreign game to a murderous monster.

Five men, their tortured screams like honey to your ears as you ripped their tongues out—

I breathe in deeply. “I’ll do anything. You have my word.”

“A Heartless’s word means nothing,” Y’shennria says. “I can do nothing but hope you stay true.”

That disappointment gnaws at me again, but I can’t refute what I am. Y’shennria looks me up and down, rummages in the trunk, and hands me an ivory hairbrush and a leather thong.

“Do something about the mess on your head. We’ll have to cut it when we get home.”

“You don’t like it? I was hoping forest-grown split ends were in style in Vetris.”

“It’s not the split ends, it’s the length. Long hair is a symbol of rank in the Vetrisian courts, and it always has been,” she insists. “Men, women, it doesn’t matter—the longer it is, the more powerful your family. Only the royal family has hair as long as yours. Firstblood families keep their hair shorter than that as a show of respect.”

“So only they get to look amazing? Bit selfish, don’t you think?” I grunt, and begrudgingly pull my gold hair back into a ponytail. Y’shennria looks mildly satisfied, for once.

“What about that rusted old thing?” She points to the sword on my hip. “There’ll be lawguards everywhere—you’ll hardly need to defend yourself. Physically, at least. Socially, however, is another story.”

I grip the hilt. “I keep the sword.”

“A sword is fine on a lady,” she agrees. “But one as ugly as that? No. Impossible. Discard it, and I’ll buy you a new one in Vetris.”

“I said no.”

“You will get rid of that unsightly thing, or I will—”

“I’ll do anything. Wear any dress, seduce any prince. But the sword stays.”

“At least tell me why you’re so intent on it.”

I clutch the blade closer. “It was my father’s.”

She’s quiet, and then finally she sighs. “Fine. Keep your rust. If it drives the prince away, it’s you who will be apologizing to the witches in the afterlife.”

“If a simple sword drives the prince away,” I fire back, “I can’t imagine what my personality might do.”

Fisher leads the horses by to hook them back up to the carriage. They’re healthy, well fed. The smell of their warm flesh makes my mouth water, though I shake it off. No. There’ll be a thousand horses in Vetris—I can’t look at every one as if it’s a delicious feast. As if reading my mind, Y’shennria hands me a paper parcel.

“Hurry and eat,” she demands. “We leave soon, and I won’t have you making a mess in the carriage.” I unwrap it to see a boar’s heart inside.

It looks like his heart, doesn’t it? the hunger hisses. That old man you tore limb from limb.

Burning, and desperate to stop burning, I look up at Y’shennria and ask, “How will I eat in Vetris?”

“I’ll be the one providing you with food,” she says. “Discreetly, of course. The witches informed me hearts and livers satiate you easier. But they didn’t tell me how—” She swallows, the second outward sign of nervousness from her, but she tames it quickly. “How often must you eat?”

“Every hour on the hour,” I drawl. “A thousand infants’ hearts.”

A shadow passes over her face, and I quickly remember she lost her family to us. Too close. Too real.

“Sorry. I do this thing where I joke before I think, and it’s terrible sometimes.” I clear my throat quickly. “We eat twice. Morning and night. Livestock or wild game.”

“Not so different from us, then,” she murmurs. “Very well. I’ll arrange this. I’ll have someone I can trust deliver meals to your room, where you can eat”—she tamps down a flinch—“privately.”

With that being settled, she returns to the carriage. Eating near Y’shennria seems almost cruel, especially after I ran my mouth like an idiot, so I walk off the road a little ways and sit down, the long grass hiding me from view. When I’m done, I wash my hands in a puddle and head back to the carriage. Y’shennria refuses to look at me, preferring to read a book as Fisher urges the horses into a trot. I, on the other hand, casually and constructively pass the time by dwelling in my head on every moment I’ve ever been horrible to someone. Eventually we crest a hill, and Fisher calls out, “The city is in sight, mum!”