Now, this could all be over by nightfall.
If they could get back into the city. If they could get to Serena—
Miriam stared at the model of the city, and then back to the knights. “Send out the best scouts,” she said to one of them. “As many as you dare. I want to knowexactlywhat we’re facing out there. Chart me a path to the castle.”
The knight nodded, and swiftly left the room.
“The rest of you”— Miriam surveyed them carefully— “give me every worst-case scenario you can think of. And then give me five more.”
Juliana was not given a scrap of a moment for reflection for the next three hours. Every fraction of a second was dedicated to planning and organising. When they weren’t actively strategising, they were checking equipment or polishing swords, as if a single blunted blade could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
She wanted to pause, to rest, to speak to Hawthorn. It seemed ridiculous to be afraid now, to be pausing here when she’d fought so hard to get to this point.
“Please,” she said to Miriam at one point. “Let me rest for a moment. Let me see if I can scout in the dreamscape. Talk to Hawthorn. He might be able to help.”
Miriam nodded, clicking at a sentry to escort her to the rudimentary dorms. “It’s a good idea,” she said, as Juliana was halfway out the door. “We should all take some time to rest and reflect. Just…”
Don’t be too long.
The longer this went on, the greater the chances of discovery or death. The remains of Ladrien’s army could march on the city. Ladrien could realise the flaw in his plan and remove Princess Serena himself.
They had lost people already. Juliana could see that much from the thinning numbers, the absent faces. She’d asked about Aoife, earlier. No one had seen her since she fled the palace.
It was difficult to imagine an Acanthia without her. Difficult to imagine one without Dillon. Difficult to imagine a future without her father.
Enough death, enough loss.
It had to end.
She didn’t think she’d sleep easily when she finally crept into a bunk, but exhaustion overruled trepidation, and after a few minutes of sitting in the still and quiet, she began to drift.
She woke in the throne room, but the air seemed thunderous, distorted far worse than it had been that first day, like she was trapped in a storm. Sound crackled at her eardrums.
“Hawthorn!” she called. “Hawthorn, where are you?”
He did not answer.
Juliana forced herself to move, but every step was like pushing against a tide, expecting each step to rip her under. She pressed onward, towards the castle doors, trying to take note of everything she saw but finding it hard, her vision plugged up with darkness.
She called his name again. Still nothing.
Panic increasing, she flitted through the palace, out into the gardens, searching, calling, crying—reaching for that tug. The pendant wasn’t cold, it felt… empty. Like something was stopping it, or there had never been anything in it to begin with.
“Hawthorn!” she called, amazed at her voice’s capacity for wretchedness, how it stumbled and crackled on his name. Her throat was raw from shouting.
How much could he love her if he wasn’t willing to set his pride aside and speak to her now, when her very life—his, even—depended upon it?
Perhaps he didn’t love her as much as he thought, or perhaps the merest hint of rejection had broken it. He rarely took the same lover twice. Perhaps he was already done with her.
It didn’t feel right. The logic didn’t match what she felt in her bones. But what other explanation was there?
Unless something was wrong.
It might not be him. It might be something she’d done, some default in herself—
“Please come,” she whispered, still struggling against the tide.
But a second later, she lost her footing, and was wrenched away from the dream.
