Bring Me Their Hearts(83)

He can’t learn what I am, or he’ll hate me for the deception, for my nature. But he must learn what I am, and soon, if I want my freedom.

When I’m in the carriage, sword at my side and Fisher driving me home, when Lucien is so far from me I can’t hurt him, only then do I let the hunger rampage through me unbidden.

Only then do I let my teeth show.

The pain that doesn’t fade is the first thing to tell me something’s wrong. The second is the blood that blossoms on my forearm bandage. Blood means only one thing.

I haven’t healed.

A whole day has gone by, and Nightsinger’s magic still hasn’t healed me.



Y’shennria piles out from her manor so quickly when we pull up it’s as if she’d been watching out the window for me. She’s at my side in a flash, helping me down from the carriage. My legs nearly give out twice from the pain, but she hefts me higher on her hip, never once ordering me to stand straight or to collect myself. Reginall takes over for Y’shennria in supporting me as we enter the manor, Lord Y’shennria’s portrait warmly welcoming me home. The first thing my eyes look for is the fire-calendar, an extra mark burned into it.

“Five days,” I moan. “That’s all I have left.”

“Hush,” Y’shennria chides. “Focus on getting better.”

“I don’t care”—I grunt, every step Reginall takes with me in his arms ricocheting magma pain through my bones—“about getting better. If I get his heart, I’ll be fine. His heart. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re delirious.” Y’shennria sighs. “Quickly, Reginall, get her in bed.”

“I’m going to the Hunt,” I insist as he puts me on my bed, wrapping the blankets around me. “I’m still going…no matter what.”

“Of course.” Y’shennria nods. “Now stop worrying and get some rest.”

“Speak for yourself,” I snort. She looks utterly fatigued, her dress wrinkled as if she fell asleep in it. Her makeup is a little off, and that’s how I know she’s been…what, worrying about me? Nonsense. I look to Reginall. “You came as a polymath, right? Disguised.”

Y’shennria nods. “When I’d heard you collapsed, I knew it couldn’t be from a simple human cause. So I brought the one who knows Heartless best. What happened to you?”

“Prince Lucien and I dueled, and he cut me accidentally, and then I fainted. That sword is made of white mercury. The wound burns, all over my body now. I think it…killed me.”

“Surely you’re fine—you’re lying here talking to us, after all.”

“Look!” I offer her a view of my arm. “My wound isn’t healed. And the hunger—gods, Y’shennria, it feels like the hunger wants to devour everyone I see. Controlling it is like…like trying to tie down a starving beast with thread.”

YoU call us tHe beast, but yoU’re the one whO’s killed fIve meN. You’rE the onE who’s goiNG to beTrAy the prince, the hunger screeches. PiTiFul.

Y’shennria pales and quickly leaves the room. Dismay crawls into my throat at her abandonment (still, after everything we’ve been through?), but Reginall smiles grimly at me.

“Lady Zera, you said it was the prince’s sword that killed you? A white mercury weapon?”

I nod. Reginall lets out a breath.

“There were weapons like that, too, in the Sunless War. Blades made of pure white mercury. We knew they were hard to make for the humans, because there weren’t many of them. A few generals had one.” He pauses. “If it sliced you, the white mercury would linger in your system for days and days, making it hard for your witch to heal you, command you. Do you remember when I told you about the Weeping Heartless?”

“Why?”

“The weeping were always those who’d been killed by a white mercury blade before.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not entirely sure myself. I’d see them in camp, after battles, suffering with wounds that refused to heal. Being cut by such a strong white mercury blade might weaken a witch’s hold on a Heartless, or so we’d hear the witches whisper.”

“That’s…that’s nothing bad,” I say. Reginall holds up a hand.

“I didn’t know this for many years, but the connection between a witch and Heartless does more than heal you. A witch’s magic helps keep your hunger calm. Calmer, at least, than if you didn’t have a steady stream of magic siphoning into you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying to be cut by a white mercury blade so powerful weakens your connection to your witch. The hunger becomes louder. And the beast within hovers ever closer to assuming control. A few Heartless cut, as you were, transformed randomly—lashing out wildly at anyone and everyone. Eventually considered risks, they were shattered by their witches. Only a few ever mastered Weeping—a way to quiet their hunger out of necessity more than anything. It was that or die.”

I swallow. It’s already so hard to keep the monster at bay. Reginall pulls a nearby chair up to the side of my bed, staring at me intently. “Close your eyes.”

I do as he says, my locket thumping nervously.

“Concentrate on the void in your chest.” Reginall’s voice is low, even. “Feel the weightlessness of it, the emptiness where a beat should be. You are in the silence. You are of the silence.”