Bring Me Their Hearts(85)

“But I’m more afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

I feel Reginall’s eyes on me, as if he’s trying to read my face. His voice is a bare murmur.

“I remember what it feels like, still—being weighed down by the enormous burden of taking others’ lives. Of being haunted by our every mistake, every doubt, every hunger, unable to forget. People love to say Heartless aren’t human.” He nods. “But to this day, I still wonder if they’re perhaps more human than the humans themselves.”

The moons watch us quietly as they chase the stars across the sky. Reginall stares at the Red Twins.

“No matter how bad the hunger gets, milady, you must remember it is a passenger in your body. It can feel oppressive, but it does not own you. You are very much still the you you were before you were turned.”

“I can’t remember who that was anymore.” I choke on my own voice.

“Then you must hold on for that day when you can remember again.”

The laugh that erupts from me is hysterical. “What if I fail? What if I’m shattered into pieces like a toy, what if I die without ever getting my heart, the memories in it—”

Reginall grips my shoulder, his wrinkled face set hard.

“Please, milady. Don’t lose faith in yourself. It is the only thing the hunger can’t take from you.”

“It’s stolen everything,” I snarl. “How am I supposed to hope, when it tries to steal even that from me?”

He takes my hands in his own, unafraid of who I am. What I am.

“Fight,” he insists, voice like fire, so different from his usual modest tenor. “Fight with everything you have, everything you are. Everything that is left of you—battle with it. Fight by the moonlight, the starlight, whatever faded hope you can find at any moment—cling to it. Embrace the smallest of lights, and never stop fighting.”

I go silent, and we watch the sunrise together. I’m the first to retreat into the house. I ascend the stairs, the pain begging me to stop moving, the hunger begging me to tear someone, anyone, apart. I stand in the middle of my room, fighting it. My body and mind are exhausted, assaulted on every side. If I take Lucien’s heart, I’ll be free. That rings in my head like a mantra, a prayer.

His heart. Freedom. His heart. Freedom.

I reach for a dress and my makeup.

When I walk into the dining room for breakfast, I’m perfectly outfitted in a blue velvet dress, perfectly primped in blush and blue lip tint and dark wax lines down my cheeks like banners of war. Y’shennria looks up from her book with a stunned expression.

“Y-You—” She stutters for the first time I’ve ever heard. “You shouldn’t be walking.”

I smile with my lady’s mask at her, and sit at the table. “That’s what they all say.”



It takes much convincing, but Y’shennria relents and allows me to meet Fione at the royal shooting range only when I can prove my coherency by reciting everything I know back to her. Firstbloods, Secondbloods, Goldbloods. The small spoons for cold soups, the large spoons for hot ones. Never take the hand of a man unless offered to you—a hundred questions, and a hundred answers I know by heart now. Y’shennria pauses after the last one.

“Something wrong?” I inquire. She frowns.

“You’ve learned well.”

“Then why do you look upset about it?”

“I’m not,” she corrects. “It’s just…so strange. To feel pride like this.”

“For a Heartless,” I finish for her. She meets my gaze with her own soft one.

“For anyone. After my family died I thought—” Her elegant, scarred throat bobs. “I thought I’d never feel this way again.”

She fixes her eyes on Lord Y’shennria’s painting. I look at him with her.

“If he were here, I’d bet he’d be proud of you, too,” I dare. Y’shennria tears her eyes from him, and I swear I see wetness there, but I must be wrong. Y’shennria doesn’t cry—not in front of me, not in front of anyone.

“He’d tell me I was a paranoid old woman,” she starts with a little laugh. “And I’d tell him to shut up.”

She laughs and laughs. Somehow, in this moment, she seems so much younger. I ball my fists.

“I promise you, Lady Y’shennria—I promise you I’ll prevent this war.”

Y’shennria calms at this, wiping her eyes with her kerchief softly. “You little fool—of course you will.”

An insult to anyone else, from anyone else. But from her, her confidence in me, her certainty—it’s as near to a compliment as I can imagine. And I hold it close as I get in the carriage, as I watch the Y’shennria manor grow smaller and smaller behind me.

The royal shooting range is little more than a perfectly manicured lawn on the outskirts of Vetris with a few straw targets and weary groundskeepers with green mantles wandering about. No other nobles are present, which leads me to believe archery isn’t very popular in Vetris. Either that, or someone got a stray arrow lodged in their arse here very recently.

“Lady Zera!” Fione waves me over to the only occupied lane—a hefty crossbow cradled in her thin arms. “I was wondering if you’d show!”

I trot to her, her target in the distance riddled with bolts. She aims and shoots, the steel-tipped wood cleanly sinking near the center. I whistle, impressed.