“Stop,” I repeat, my hand pressed against his chest. “Let me talk to her. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t have something important to say to me.”
And I have something to say to her.
Every inch of him trembles, and he slowly lowers his head, his fingers curling into fists. “Make it quick.”
Andraste’s mouth forms a little O of horror. “It’s true.”
“That you betrayed us?” I shake my head. “I fall for it every time—”
“I didn’t betray you.”
“Really? We stole inside the castle but the crown wasn’t there! She knew we were coming. She knew and—”
“It wasn’t there,” Andraste snaps, “because I took it.” Brushing her cloak aside, she unties something from her hip and holds it in her gloved hand. “I was going slip away to the Hallow and send it through to you while she was distracted.”
The crown.
Mother’s crown.
It has no gemstones. Nor is it merely decorative. Seven sharp prongs stab away from a circlet of heavy gold, and as the light flickers over it, it feels as though something malevolent within the crown stares back.
“Here,” she says, shoving it into my hands. “Take it.”
“Why would you do this?”
She knows the consequences of betraying Mother. It was one thing to protect me at Briar Keep. Another to steal from our mother—and to deliberately sabotage the queen’s plans.
Because while I didn’t set that fire, there’s only one other fae in the court who has the power to wield such flames. Fire runs through the Asturian matriarchal bloodline, and while it’s one of the few fae gifts I can access, my sister wields it like a whip.
Andraste curls my fingers around the crown. “Take it. I can hear it whispering to me. Just take it. And get out of here. She’s had the Hallows surrounded both here and at Briar Keep. She expects you to flee in that direction.”
“But why?”
Her gloved hands are warm beneath mine as I take the crown.
I don’t know if I imagine it, but there’s a little shiver through my veins, as if some sort of power leaches through my skin. It’s the crown.
“Because….”
“Because?”
“Because I am sorry. Because I can never take back any of my actions, my lies. And because….” Andraste looks at me with eyes wet with guilt. She shoots a glance over my shoulder toward Thiago and then presses something into my hand. “I don’t want you to lose your child.”
A little curl of paper.
“What are you trying to—?”
“Read it when you are safe,” she says, shoving me toward Thiago. “Read it and know this: I am sorry. And I do not ask for forgiveness, only for understanding. I have tried to protect you as best I could. As I have tried to protect her. And I thought my silence was the best protection I could offer, for there are eyes and ears in every inch of this court. I did not dare reach out to tell you.”
“To tell me what?”
Guilt darkens her eyes, but then another explosion of flame is set off nearby. My head whips toward the west. Toward the armory.
“Go,” Andraste tells me. “I’ll try and distract the guards.”
Thiago hauls me into the trees, but I pause at the edge of the clearing and look back.
“Goodbye,” Andraste mouths, and a chill runs through me, because this time, I feel as though it’s forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
The night is a blur.
Thiago flies us toward the north, finally setting me down somewhere near the Duke of Thornwood’s lands—and the Hallow there. We arrive back in Ceres just as dawn breaks in the east.
I take three steps, and that’s when I realize my thighs are slick, and it’s not from desire. The dull pain that’s been nagging at my back all day suddenly makes sense.
I stop halfway up the stairs in surprise.
“What is it?” Thiago asks, from behind.
“I….” I dash up the stairs into our chambers, and from there into the washroom. Stripping out of my clothes confirms the truth.
I’m not with child.
“Vi?” Thiago knocks on the door I slammed in his face. “What is it?”
“Give me a moment.”
I clean up as best I can, and then slip into a robe that’s hanging from the back of the door. A bath will have to wait. There’s another nagging sensation in my chest, and this one won’t be suppressed.
“What is it?” he repeats, when I open the door.
“My monthly finally came.”
Expression drops from his face. “Ah.”
And I wonder if we wear the same mask.
I was so certain I was with child, but the feeling that cuts through me is both of relief and loss. With the crown in our hands, there’s no longer any threat from the Mother of Night, and I guess there’s a little part of me that wanted a child.
His child.
Thiago opens his arms and I walk into them, leaning against him and closing my eyes.
“You’re upset,” he murmurs.
“No, I… I don’t know what to think. I could almost imagine her.” And the dreams. Every night the dreams. “It’s a relief right now, but….”
“You wanted her.”
“She felt real,” I admit, curling into him. “She felt so real.”
And to lose that feels like a little death inside me.
Thiago kisses the top of my head. “Go and take a bath. I’ll send for some breakfast.” He gives me a brief squeeze before he finally opens his arms. “You did it, Vi. You were right. We have the crown.”
He heads for the door as I turn back to the wash chambers, but something stops me from entering.
I never checked the little message Andraste pressed into my hands. At first we were too busy running and fighting—and then flying—but now I can’t help wondering what she was so desperate to tell me.
“I do not ask for forgiveness, only for understanding.”
I find it in the inner pocket of my dress and unroll the little scroll of paper.
It’s written in the language that Andraste and
