CandaceI’m sitting at the dressing table, fixing my hair for the first time in days, when a bird starts singing right outside my tent. An ash warbler. For the third time since sunset yesterday. I almost smile.When it first happened, I made Ingrid go check. We were way outside of where the warbler
“I want something more active,” I say. “Like you. I want to… I don’t know… make something?”“Easy.” Ingrid claps her hands together. “Have you ever done any fine arts? Drawing, painting, sculpting?”I shake my head. Yet another class Mother thought was filling my head up with nonsense.“Okay. I know
HollisI’m a moron. Worse than that, I’m insane. That’s what Mother said when she found out I’d stuck my tongue to the frozen pole outside of the kitchen three times in a week and basically skinned the damn thing every time. But every time, I thought it would be like in a story Eva and I read, where
My quill flows across the page, writing down every word of the story. Mother’s voice rings in my ears, soft over familiar phrases. When I’m done, I don’t read it over. I’ll just crumple it up if I do. But I scribble one last thing at the end.Even if the tower never falls….Seconds tick away as I st
CandaceI wake early the next morning, and the world feels a little less like a yawning maw of disaster than it has recently. It’s not that hard to sit up in bed, and when I see the faint line of sunlight poking through the tent flap, I basically smile. Today, I don’t care what people think about Pr
I nod. Just… leave the circle of our tents.“You can do this,” she whispers.“Isn’t the big sister’s job to set the good example?” I reply with a smile.“Maybe you set a good enough one to convince me of all this.” She wiggles her eyebrows.As I laugh, we step out into the campground proper. Perfect
Hollis“Oh, shit,” Zain whispers.A gasp ripples back through the crowd, and I grit my teeth. I knew I shouldn’t have fucking come. I haven’t been in days. After Rowena’s last “blessing,” I came once or twice to just see if Candace was here, but when she wasn’t, it obviously wasn’t worth my time. Th
I cup my hands around my mouth. “Sounding a little crazy, Rowena.”Scattered laughter ripples through the crowd. I smirk. Candace doesn’t even look in my direction, which can only mean she already knows it’s me. My smirk dies.“Anything else?” Candace asks. “Any real proof?”A woman steps forward. “
Kash frowns. “Then how’d she find out? See a mark?”“In effect.” Hollis stares at the rocky floor.“He’s softening it.” I bite my lip. “We didn’t not pursue as much as we intended to, and she caught us. We made a terrible, selfish mistake that’s caused a lot of problems, and we just want to fix them
Candace“This is a bad idea.” Ingrid crosses her arms and glares at her door, like Hollis is just outside of it.He’s not. He’s in my room, waiting for me to come back after I told him his idea was a bad one and that I needed to get someone else’s opinion first.“Is it a bad idea because it’s Hollis
“Lord Soren,” Candace says numbly. “Where is he?”I grimace at the memory of our return home. Soren greeted the caravan at the gate, redder than Father with rage. His bellowing was hard to follow, threading together fights from their childhodbetween him and Father with ancient slights between our fa
Hollis“Come in?” Candace calls hesitantly through the door of one of the lesser guest rooms.I suck in a deep breath. I can smell her even through the door, blackberries and sunshine. Knocking—rather than just tearing down the door like I wanted to the second Lord Gunnar told Father about the addit
“Coming up!” the driver on the front of the carriage calls.Ingrid presses her face to the window. I try to look and almost end up tumbling into Taner’s lap. But finally, the carriage pulls to a stop, and someone opens the door for us to exit.According to protocol, Kieran exits first, with Taner ri
CandaceWhen the sun rises the next morning, it finds me crouching in the stables, sandwiched between one of Finn’s favorite stallions and Ingrid. It lights the wild grin that’s barely left her face since I barged into her drawing practice yesterday and declared Kieran didn’t control me. She immedia
That leaves me with Kash as company. He likes to walk through the castle with me while I point out places where different things happened. And to eat every meal together. And to spend almost every second that I’m not asleep by my side–making up for lost time, always. By the second day, I’m making up
CandaceI fold dresses into my trunk and listen to the commotion of the rest of the encampment breaking down outside. Kieran decided that letting King Andri cool off would yield the best results, so we’re leaving just as quickly as everybody else. This weird pocket of time with so many people in one
“What?” Ingrid scowls. “You’d think assassinating your own father would be enough to prove that you didn’t agree with him. Throw Mother in the dungeon with Hollis, when we get around to that stage.”Anwen winces.“We’re not throwing Hollis in the dungeon,” Kieran says tightly. “Not least because, in