Bring Me Their Hearts(27)
“Clearer than the ice on your heart,” I mutter. Y’shennria’s lips form the barest of smiles as she stands, her dark, fluffy hair flouncing. It’s the first time I’ve seen her cold mask of composure truly loosen, truly warm, but something in the weak way it peters off seems deeply hopeless.
Her gaze fixes on an impressive oil portrait in the hall of a very handsome man, his skin dark and his smile white. We blazed past it when she dragged me in here, but now I can get a good look at him. He’s young, much younger than Y’shennria is now. The artist’s talent is great, but it’s not strictly the art that makes the piece startling—it’s the subject. Something about him is so comforting; his gray-black eyes hold infinite wisdom, shards of precious diamond suspended in a space we can never reach. The regal gold-trimmed coat he’s wearing marks him a noble, and with the tender way Y’shennria looks at him—he must be Lord Y’shennria. The husband she lost to the Heartless. To the war.
“That’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it, Ruberion?” she asks the painting softly. “That my heart could still be clear, after all this time.”
The painting is quiet, and I’m quieter.
5
Hunger
Like a Blade
If I were human, I would’ve entered my modest room and collapsed on the four-poster bed immediately. We’d spent almost a day on the road, by my count. But I’m not human, so instead of wasting time sleeping, I count the diamond pattern on the ceiling and productively reflect on my impending doom.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
I should be scared. I was brave in front of Whisper, but he’s right. The court waits, vicious. My goal waits, precarious. I should be terrified.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two.
But I’m not. All I feel is queasy. Fear is so distant, a howl of a wolf too far to reach me. I haven’t been truly afraid for three years, but it feels like a hundred. A hundred years, deathless and ageless and roaming the woods, flirting with starving wildcats and hell-bent mercenaries just for a change of pace.
No, I’m not afraid. Not yet. But I’m sure I will be.
Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. One tilt of my head, and the dark diamond pattern on the ceiling becomes eyes, the same ruthless birdlike tilt as Whisper’s. I’d been stealing alone for so long, it was comforting to see someone just as skilled as me. To know that the world moves like me, outside of me, whether or not I’m free.
I throw the window open and watch the sun ooze across the sky. Unlike Nightsinger’s forest, Vetris moves, visibly and always. It changes with the sun—noon painting it a stark white, while the shadows of afternoon carve out deep crevices between buildings and roads, like dark veins. Sunset makes the city blush. Nobles in frilly clothes and crested hats stroll by, in pairs or alone, bowing to one another, smoking long cigarettes, checking their pocket sandwatches. The trees mute the bustle of the city, but the sound of the temple clock tower hitting high noon is a clear, powerful bellow, even here. Sunbirds and cranes swoop around one another, and I drink in their bright plumage. Not a crow in sight.
A knock on my door pulls me from the sunset. I open it to see a silver tray waiting, covered and faintly warm. I look for Reginall or Maeve, but the hall is empty. I pull the tray in and lift the lid—a hearty stew of beans and lamb, with a fluffy side of bread. The smell is incredible. There’s a small note next to the bowl: Practice makes perfect.
Y’shennria’s handwriting is flawless. I grip a silver spoon by the bowl. She’s right—if I have to eat human food for weeks, I’ll need a refresher course. I take one bite, the taste just like I remember, warm and tangy. It’s incredible—I shovel another spoonful in my mouth, and another. It’s almost delicious enough to justify what’s coming.
I last ten minutes, and then the pain grips me like hot iron. I cry. I cry blood like rivers, my Heartless body rejecting the slightest bit of normalcy, humanity. When the worst is over I lie on the cool wood floor, breathing through the residual spasms and counting the black diamonds again.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Whisper is a noble. A thief. An obsidian spark in my mind, shrouded in mystery.
Thirty, thirty-one. I’m a noble now, too. I clutch my gold locket, open it, and watch the piece of my heart beat there, powerful and pitiful all at once. It’s so small. Incomplete. I’ve been incomplete for a long time. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.
Right here, right now, even if it hurts—I can pretend to be perfect, human, free. Whole.
I pick up my spoon again.
It turns out, even as an immortal magical thrall, staying awake for an entire night is the worst.
I suppose that’s partly why Heartless sleep—because there are precious few other ways to kill time, or turn off our brains. The day’s events parse through my mind in a messy jumble. Whisper—so full of himself, so broad in the shoulders and lean in the torso. Crav, Peligli. I hope they’re safe. I hope I’m safe. Gods, I hope this place doesn’t kill me. Or if it does I’d like a fair warning, at the very least. Something around a day—enough time to scamper off with all these pretty dresses Y’shennria just bought me, yet not nearly enough time to leave the guilt behind.
Dawn peeks through the windows and alerts me that I’ve wasted an entire night worrying. I sit up and watch the sunrise again, this one more glorious than yesterday’s. I’ll never get tired of these. How many do I have left, I wonder? How many will I get to see before my hunger drives me to kill someone? Before I make a single mistake in this place and die for it?