Bayard was on his feet, reaching for her. ‘It’s okay—’
‘—It’s not okay!’ she hissed. ‘You’re not allowed to do that! What about me, Adon? What about me when you just walk away? Instead of telling me I’m damaged, why not acknowledge that at least I’m trying? You just have to try harder too. You don’t just ... leave.’
He nodded, something in his eyes changing as he looked at her. He nodded again, more firmly this time. ‘Okay,’ he said seriously. ‘You are right. I won’t leave. I’ll be better. I promise I’ll be better.’
A few nights earlier, in another room, in another palace, two men stood looking at each other, each thinking about the message they’d just received in their mind.
Harry, his eyes filling with enraged tears, turned and punched his fist into the door, tearing open the skin on his hand. Jack stood frozen to the spot, everything inside him finally starting to overflow.
‘How could this happen?’ Harry asked, his voice loud in the silence of the room. Blood dripped from his hand. ‘
How could I let this happen to him?
’
The words barely registered in Jack’s ears, because as he stood there, he was struck with a realisation that had come far too late. As he thought about what one of his best friends had become, and what had happened to him because of it, Jack understood something about himself, and what he had to do.
It dated back to a conversation he’d had with Luca before the boy had gone off to be tortured. A conversation in a room very near this one, about the slave trade, and the Red Lion, and what Luca was going to do. Jack thought of his nightmares, and how, even with Elixia’s help, he’d barely made any progress. He thought of his own powerlessness.
‘He was trying to change something,’ Jack said softly, almost to himself. ‘He was trying to make a difference.’
Harry didn’t say anything, his face weary with pain.
‘He was trying to make a difference,’ Jack whispered once more, everything becoming clear.
Mia’s hands shook as she sat in the carriage that would carry her to the temple on the evening of the ritual. She was covered head to toe in a red veil, the same colour as the robes that the priestesses wore. The wheels bumped over the stones on the road, throwing her against the seat, rattling her nerves.
She finally knew about the ritual. And felt like she might throw up.
How was a girl who had been a vegetarian her whole life supposed to enter a temple and slaughter a bull in front of an audience of people—then drink its blood from a sacred goblet?
She was going to be sick. She couldn’t do it. It was barbaric. She understood now why the people of Samaraq had been thought of so badly by the rest of the world.
Tye sat next to her, looking very worried. Gwen and Claudia kept reaching out to pat her back, or touch her arm, thinking it might help calm her. But she was beyond being calmed. Mia was terrified and panicked, and this was not going to go away unless she could somehow get out of doing what she was on her way to do.
They arrived at the temple all too soon.
She could hear the people outside the carriage. There must have been thousands, all those who couldn’t fit into the temple crowded outside to hear the announcement that the sacrifice had been made and the goddess was appeased for another year.
Mia couldn’t stop thinking about Luca, about the violence that had been inflicted on him. About how she was about to commit the same kind of violence on another living creature.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ she rasped, leaning over to put her head between her knees. Unable to stop, she vomited onto the floor of the carriage. Gwen quickly pulled her hair and veil back from her face.
‘It’s okay,’ Claudia told her softly. Mia didn’t feel any better. This was a nightmare. She was going to ruin everything by being a weak-stomached little girl.
‘Tell me again,’ she whispered frantically, turning to meet Tye’s eyes.
‘Livestock is one of our most precious commodities. By sacrificing something that we need in order to survive, we are proving to Neith that we understand the sacrifices she makes for our souls every single night.’
‘And what does she sacrifice again?’
‘Every night, she battles the Devourer of Souls, risking her life that we might be safe. Isn’t it fair that we give her something in return?’
‘Why the hell would she want me to drink the blood of a cow? What in the world does she get out of that?’
‘As her anointed one you are responsible for receiving the sacrifice in her name. It proves our devotion, and your own,’ he said firmly. ‘It brings you closer to her, and therefore to us as your people. Look, Mia. It just has to be enough that you know it is important. You can work through the “whys” later. Right now, stop thinking and just do it.’
Mia sucked in a deep breath and, gritting her teeth, emerged from the litter into the night air. No cheer went up—this was a sombre night. All eyes watched her intently as she moved up the steps of the temple and disappeared inside.
Hundreds of people were crammed into the space within. A good number of them were priestesses, dressed in red as she was. A sea of blood red, staring at her.
Mia focused everything she had on staying calm as she walked up to the altar. She stood through the ritual as if in a daydream, trying not to think about what she had to do. Finally, at the very end, they led out the bull. It was perfectly white, mighty and strong, its eyes wide and crazed in the candlelight.
The knife was placed in her hand. It was long and sharp and cold. Mia stared at it, and then the bull.
It seemed to her then that she was floating out of her body and looking down on the scene below. She saw herself through the eyes of all those watching her, and realised that despite what was going on inside her, she looked strong and sure. She saw the faces of her people, the need in their eyes, and then she turned to the statue of Neith. There was something about the strength in the goddess’ gaze, the unwavering determination to protect and fight that made Mia come to realise something.
In that moment, with all eyes on her, Mia first began to understand what it meant to be a true leader of people. It meant compassion, and bravery, and also strength in its most potent form. She had to be unwavering like the goddess, even if it meant doing something she didn’t want to do. This was what they needed from her, for whatever reason. It was going to make her people feel safe. That’s what mattered.
Without another thought, Mia sliced the knife as quickly as she could across the throat of the bull and watched as the blood trickled steadily into the sacred goblet. The corpse was removed, and then the cup was offered to her.
Looking at the statue of her goddess, the Queen of Samaraq drank the blood of the offered sacrifice to
prove to her people how devoted she was to them, finally understanding in her heart what it meant to be queen.
That night Mia stood atop the wall of the palace and looked down over her city, the cool air of the night bringing bumps to her skin. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. They weren’t tears of sadness or inadequacy. They were simply falling because she was so full of everything.
How could one heart have enough room in it to love an entire nation of people as if they were her very own children? It grew, that’s how. It grew until it took up her whole body. But that heart—the size of it—allowed all the sorrow inside as well. All the worry and the determination. All the sadness.
Luca wasn’t far from her mind. She wanted to be with Jane and Anna, trying to look after him. She wanted to give him something, but she didn’t know how, when everything inside her was being taken up by this place.
She heard footsteps and knew who was behind her. She had known with certainty that he would come and find her tonight.
‘Tye,’ she said softly, turning to look at him. He didn’t look away from her tears, but held her gaze with the innate kindness she had come to know in him.
‘Mia,’ he said. And there was something in his voice when he said that word that made everything shift inside her.
‘Tell me,’ she said softly, holding his eyes. ‘Tell me what you are hiding from me. Tell me what you try each day to tell me and fail.’
Her heart, so overflowing, had been able to detect something she never would have seen before tonight; it was finally able to feel something that had been staring her in the face all along.
Tye looked down at his hands clasped together tightly. ‘It has to do with why we were banished, highness,’ he said softly. ‘In the end, it was one thing that pushed us over the edge. You see, majesty, you fell in love with your servant, and such a thing, I fear, was too much to be borne.’
He paused, and Mia felt something clenching in her chest. Too many avenues, in this new heart, to pain.
‘It might go a small way in explaining, too, the reason I have been so unforgivably rude of late. I’m in love with a woman who does not remember me, or the way in which she loved me in return. I went to sleep one night, full and alive, holding you in my arms, and when I awoke, you were gone. Now I walk this life as a ghost, empty and starved.’
Mia felt the wind against her skin. It brushed her hair from her face and made the tears on her cheeks cold. She closed her eyes, feeling that same wind flow inside her, through her.
Tye spread his hands wide, but she didn’t see. ‘Forgive me,’ she heard him say. ‘I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be easier for you. I didn’t want you to feel pressure, or pity. Please try to forget I said anything.’
‘Tye...’ she whispered, opening her eyes. ‘No more forgetting.’
A memory was in her mind, clear and vivid. The words Sharif had said in the tent before she even knew about Samaraq.
Nayana fell in love with the wrong person.
How could she have forgotten? Their’s was a love that had an entire people banished from existence. A love that went deeper than anything Mia had ever hoped to know.
So there it was—why she had never truly been able to feel anything properly. It was because of this man,
standing before her. A man who’d taken all of her heart for himself, and was now stripped from her memory.
He smiled sadly. ‘Truly,’ he murmured, ‘there is no fault here, certainly not your own.’ It was so clear now, the pain in his eyes; how could she have been so callous not to have understood?
He turned to leave, but panicked, she called out, ‘
Wait!
’
Slowly he looked at her once more. ‘Please,’ he said. Only that. It floated over the wind to her and after a long moment, she nodded, letting him go.
Mia stood for such a long time that her limbs became stiff with cold. Far into the early morning, she made her way back to her room and sat down on her bed. Claudia and Gwen were waiting for her.
‘What’s wrong?’ Gwen asked sharply.
A few words tumbled from Mia’s mouth, awkward and stumbling like her heart.
‘The part of me that I’ve always felt was missing?’ she whispered. ‘The emptiness? What do you do when you find that it’s been waiting for you inside someone else?’ She paused and looked out the window, desperately seeking an answer.
‘What do you do when your heart lies inside someone you cannot remember?’
Harry woke in a cold sweat and sat up in bed, the woman’s face hanging in his mind for a second before vanishing with sleep. He’d dreamt about her most nights since he’d heard of Luca’s torture, a nameless woman whose face felt unnervingly familiar.
Reaching for the cup of water next to his bed, he drank thirstily and looked out his window at the rising sun. Already he was feeling the need to get back out to the watch-tower and help once more. The few nights
he’s been there had been gruesome and gruelling and he’d seen far more men die than he’d been prepared for. Now he felt guilty being in the palace.
Just then there was a knock at the door, but before he could react it was thrown open and Satine flew into the room, a long cloak swishing about her feet. Her blonde chaos of hair whipped about her shoulders as she stopped, towering over him.
‘What—?’
‘Harry,’ she breathed, her face agonised. ‘Get up! We’ve a fight on our hands!’
‘I can’t bear it anymore, Anna. I can’t sit here doing nothing.’
Jane sat on the grass with her friend just outside the boundaries of the city as the clear morning sun warmed them into a sleepy state of contemplation. They had been in Sitadel for a few days. It had been a week since Luca’s torture, and he was not in any way improving. He may not ever, Jane acknowledged, but only to herself.
‘What do you mean?’ Anna asked, pulling out a handful of grass and throwing it into the air.
Jane winced and spat a piece out of her mouth. ‘All this fear. It’s horrible. We have to be able to retrieve some semblance of a life.’
‘And how do we do that?’ Anna murmured. ‘Trust me, Jane, we’ve been trying for a very long time.’
‘I want to know why Accolon is ignoring all of it. I want to know why everyone’s just been sitting around, accepting the fact that these things are ruling our lives.’
Anna frowned. ‘Some of us haven’t been just sitting around accepting it.’
‘Oh, An, I’m so sorry,’ Jane sighed. ‘I didn’t mean you. What you’ve been doing is really brave, and more
than I could ever imagine being capable of. But surely you’ve noticed that Accolon is ... behaving strangely?’
Anna nodded. ‘We all have. He has a one-track mind. He refuses to think about anything other than the slave trade, even though it is a small concern in the face of everything else. He’s putting less and less money into the defence force, so his men aren’t even armed properly. They’re being slaughtered.’
Jane nodded. ‘That’s what I mean.’
‘But what can we do? He’s the High King.’
Jane frowned and draped her arm over her eyes.
‘How is Fern?’ Anna asked suddenly.
‘A mess. Of course. He blames himself, as he does for everything. He’s not going to get over it any time soon.’
‘But you’ll be there to look after him.’
‘If he lets me. He hasn’t spoken to me since it happened—I’m not his favourite person at the moment.’
Anna paused. ‘Why didn’t you tell us, Jane?’
Jane shrugged. ‘I was embarrassed. Ashamed of myself. I thought you’d all think badly of me.’
‘Jane! That’s just stupid! Of course we’d never think badly of you, and you know that.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe ... I mean, I never thought he would actually marry her. Not after you and he—’
Jane propped her head up on her elbow to look at Anna with a helpless shrug. ‘Yeah, well, guys really are idiots, aren’t they? If I’ve managed to learn anything here it’s that women are
so
much smarter.’
Anna met her eyes and they both burst out laughing. After a while Anna lay down on the grass and looked up into the sky. ‘Does that mean things are over between you two?’
Jane felt the laughter seep out of her. She gave Anna a weary, sad smile. ‘I don’t know what will happen. But what I do know is that when you love someone, when
you love them properly ... you love them until you bleed, and then you love them even more.’
‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ Anna whispered.
‘Of course it does,’ Jane murmured, feeling the wind brush against her skin.
Just then there was a tap at Jane’s senses and she felt Harry’s clumsy contact. Opening her mind, she allowed Anna to hear the conversation too.
Jane,
Harry said breathlessly.
Something terrible is happening.
Not again!
Jane thought.
What now?
It’s Accolon—he’s deranged or something! He’s back from Lapis Matyr and he wants to take the dream protectors off Amalia!
What?
There was a second of silence in their three minds, and then a barrage of confusion and panic.
Why would he do something like that?
I have no idea—I think he’s lost his mind!
Jane could have wept with exhaustion and the unjustness of it all. It just kept getting worse.
We’ll be there as quickly as we can be, Harry. For now—do everything in your power to stall him. No matter what it takes, I don’t want those protectors coming down. Do you hear me?