“Don’t you understand that in marrying me, you, too, will be living in a gilded cage, Lorcan? You have to stand apart from your people. Always. I believed you would come inside this castle and make a nest with me. But you didn’t understand that a cage isn’t only confinement. It’s also protection. You left it open to any predator that wants to come in.”
Lorcan didn’t meet my eye.
“I’m not talking about Skía. I know you can spot those. You don’t know how to say no to women. You didn’t when Raina was in love with you. When she essentially proposed marriage, you accepted her dagger and pretended nothing had happened. Afterward, she felt embarrassed and devastated that you barely acknowledged the importance of her gift. That’s no way to treat a friend.”
He has no more practice in these matters than I do. We are so achingly alike. None of this should be happening.
“I need you to protectyourself. It’s not right that you use me as a shield. Undoubtedly, Norah is painting me as jealous and unfair, poisoning the entire castle against me. I did this once as an example of what you should have been doing all summer, if you wanted to win my trust.”
He slung the pack over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?” I asked, panicking.
“I couldn’t win your trust. So, I’m making good on our agreement, and leaving.” He strode toward the doorway. “Willingly.”
At the door, he flung over his shoulder, “I should have known better than to think you, of all people, might have a little faith.”
* * *
I cried alone in our rooms—mine alone, now—until Palla came in for bed. She looked around and asked, “Where is your knight?”
Not Lorcan. My knight. There is one person in all of Auralia who holds me in higher esteem than the man I will not be marrying, and I love her as my own.
“He’s gone away for a while, sweetheart.”
She looked at me for a long time. I had no reserves, could do nothing but wait while she took in my red-rimmed eyes and red-tipped nose. Palla got her stone knife out from beneath her pillow and brought it to my bed. Then she crawled into the covers and said, “I will guard you, Princess.”
I took her knife and set it on the bedside table. “No, Palla. I guard you.”
My foster daughter slept soundly in the bed I’d shared with Lorcan the night before. A comfort to me in his absence. I lay beside her and didn’t sleep at all.
In the morning, I rose early and donned a plain white dress that had been hanging in the wardrobe upon my return, without explanation. I don’t know who acquired it. Probably Norah. I went to the sanctuary with its empty reflecting pool and pockmarked statute of the Goddess. I stood in the center. I did not kneel.
I studied the statue’s features in silence for a quarter-hour. Then I turned on my heel and left without uttering a single syllable of prayer.
The priests and priestesses, who’d assembled at the castle to reestablish order, gaped after me, aghast.
Let them.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
With Lorcan gone, I asked Tahra to accompany me to the Mountain Folk’s territory to welcome Scarlett. I was surprised she’d stayed behind, after Lorcan left, though I didn’t have the energy to consider why.
The trip was a welcome excuse to avoid answering phone calls from Raina and Saskaya. I could plausibly claim poor signal as an excuse not to call them back. Both knew the outline of what had happened and wanted to discuss it, but I couldn’t. Not with them.
I was apprehensive about seeing Scarlett again. For one thing, she hasn’t seen me since Scotland. I didn’t want to have to explain my physical state. For another, Kenton’s death loomed between us like a canyon I didn’t know how to bridge.
It wound up being nothing.
“You look great! When did you get muscles?” Scarlett squealed when she leaped off the bow of the boat that had brought her to the northern beachhead. “Also, your homeland is fucking terrifying, Zosia. Is that lava?”
“The Mountain of Fire is an active volcano.” I shrugged. “The elevation is high enough that it’s usually surrounded by cloud cover, and yeah, seeing the lava flow is intimidating.”
“Quite honestly, it looks like the entrance to hell.”
“Okay, sure, I guess I could see that from a Christian perspective. We don’t really do underworlds and damnation here. Your soul not ascending to the firmament with your ancestors is the worst fate we can dish out. Auralians tend not to be big on punishment.”
“No, seriously. This place is scary.”
