Page 58 of From the Myths of Kings

The underguards filed out of the prison block, leaving Sloane to stand alone before Saoirse’s cell. Her crimson dress pooled at her feet like a mockery of the blood adorning their clothes. Sloane’s pearlescent eyes shone in the dim light like slivers of moonstone. Her mouth parted for a moment before she slammed her painted lips closed. A velvet-sleeved arm shot forward, her hand slipping between the cell bars. She crushed something through the slats and promptly jerked her hand away, hurrying out of the prison block in a flurry of swirling red skirts.

Saoirse eyed the crumpled scrap of parchment warily. Was this a trick? After ensuring all the underguards had gone, she gingerly picked up the parchment and smoothed out the folds. Her eyes went wide as she read the charcoal letters smeared across the cream-colored paper.

You haven’t lost all of your allies. Survive the next two trials. I will help you escape. May glory be given.

26

ROOK

Princess Yrsa stared at herself in the age-spotted mirror.

She wore a thin, gauzy dress she imagined would flow beautifully in the water. The pale color reminded her of silken lily petals. Her eyes followed the long braid that hung over one of her shoulders, entwined with a ribbon that matched her lily-white gown. She took in the familiar sight of wings sprouting from her shoulders and felt a stab of regret in her heart. It was the last time that she’d see those snowy feathers. Soon, they’d be removed for good.

No Auran had ever traded their wings for the ability to breathe underwater. While the Mer could transition to and from land with the aid of titansblood, no such potion existed for her. When Lorsan had first asked her to marry him, it was naturally assumed that he would forgo the sea and live on land with her. Lorsan readily agreed to abdicate the throne to his brother, Isandros. He was willing to leave his homeland behind and live with her in Coarinth, content to drink titansblood for the rest of his life. Yrsa had been touched by his devotion. It was a tempting offer at first. She could keep her wings and continue living as she always had, married to the love of her life. But Lorsan was a good king. She did not want him to abdicate his birthright.

Besides, she had never quite fit in with the Aura.

She knew even her closest family members secretly whispered of her strangeness. They’d always looked down on her obsession with painting and considered her abhorrence of state affairs to be a flaw. They didn’t have to say it to her face for Yrsa to know they were disappointed in her inaptitude for combat or political strategy, two pillars of the Adonis House. Perhaps, if she’d been born with the ancient ability of Sight, she might’ve held an honorable position in her father’s court. It was said Aurans once held the magical ability to see into the future. If the legends were true, the gift of Sight had once manifested every few generations, producing Oracles who could utter prophecies and forecast the future. Yrsa liked to think she would’ve made a good Oracle. But that ancient, inherited magic had died out long ago, along with the myths describing its origins. With her paintings and soft-spoken voice, Yrsa had nothing to offer her powerful family in the way of politics. She was ready for a new life in Kellam Keep, ready to be free of the stifling Auran court.

The only problem was that an Auran couldn’t become a Mer. The magic of shapeshifting and metamorphosis were the things of myth, ancient abilities lost alongside the gift of Sight. Or so she’d thought. On the night she’d gotten engaged, Yrsa had met a strange witch who promised to make all her dreams come true. The only price? She must give up her wings. Magic was strange like that. Every bargain came with a steep cost. Every desire required something to be given in return. She’d agreed to the witch’s demands, consenting to undergo the amputation of her wings without Lorsan’s knowledge. He’d never approve. But all her life, she’d been told what to do, how to act, and who to be. The decision to cut off her wings and become a Mer was a choice no one could take from her. For the first time in her life, she was in control of her fate.

Yrsa passed a hand over her downy feathers, admiring how soft they felt under her fingertips. She would miss them, of course. She loved flying through the sky at dawn, collecting mental images of the pink-streaked sky and the ribbons of sunlight that spun the clouds into tendrils of gold dust, storing them in her mind to paint later. But there would be new things to paint, new wonders to capture on a canvas. The new life she would live in Kellam Keep with Lorsan was worth any cost.

“Are you ready, Princess?” A smoky voice purred.

A new face appeared in the mirror behind Yrsa. The woman was beautiful in an ethereal, unsettling way. With dagger-sharp cheekbones, cat-like eyes, and a sheet of glossy black hair falling nearly to her knees, the witch was captivating in the way a predator was, both lethal and graceful at once.

“Yes,” Yrsa managed to reply. “I’m ready.” Her heart fluttered with nerves as the woman’s clawed fingernails trailed down the sides of her wings. She could’ve sworn the witch licked her lips.

“Excellent. Make yourself comfortable, then. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

The woman gestured for Yrsa to lie down on the canopied bed at the center of the bed chamber. A gentle smile touched the witch’s mouth, and she gave Yrsa a reassuring nod. “Oh, I almost forgot. You may take this potion to help with the pain.” The woman pressed a small vial into her palm.

Yrsa obediently drank the dark liquid, wincing as it burned down her throat. She was ready to get this over with.

She found herself lying face down on the mattress, her body sinking into the soft sheets as though she were merely going to sleep. She shut her eyes, suddenly feeling tears well up. She could feel the potion beginning to take effect, a tingling sensation that began in her fingers and crept up her limbs like frost. Her wings went limp as the elixir saturated every nerve of her body with numbness.

“I’ll just need to take a bit of your blood, my dear. To seal our bargain.”

Yrsa nodded, burying her face into the silken pillow to keep herself from crying. The full weight of her bargain hit her then and she was barraged with conflicting emotions. Her mind had begun to fog up like breath against a windowpane. The woman sliced open her arm, though whether she cut her skin with a knife or with her sharpened fingernails, Yrsa couldn’t tell. She felt the lip of a cold vial press against her arm as the woman collected her blood.

“As per our agreement, I will take your wings and in return grant you the ability to breathe underwater. You’ll be so happy with your beloved in the sea, won’t you?”

Yrsa felt herself nodding, though she could hardly think straight anymore. Lorsan’s face surfaced through the fog of her cloudy mind and fresh courage calmed her racing heart. She could do this. It would be worth it. She wanted to clench her fists into the sheets, but her fingers were paralyzed. The witch was saying something now, but her words were warbled and incoherent as the potion dulled her senses and addled her brain. Blissful numbness settled over her like a blanket of snow.

A blade cut into her wings, just above her shoulder blade. But she felt no pain as the witch worked. Darkness fell over Yrsa, the last dregs of consciousness crumbling to ash. Lorsan’s face vanished from her mind like the fragments of a forgotten dream.

When Rook awoke from the dream, he half-expected to find his own wings sliced off. It had been so real he could still feel the phantom cutting of Selussa’s knife through his numbed flesh. He was laying on his stomach, cheek pressed to the cold stone of his cell rather than against a silken pillowcase. Somehow, finding himself in the prison block was less terrifying than being locked in a chamber with Selussa. He’d stopped waking violently into consciousness after so many dreams now, but the visions that haunted his sleeping mind were no less disturbing.

He knew that Selussa had made a deal with Yrsa in the same way that she’d made a bargain with Saoirse, but seeing it play out before his own eyes made it real. His heart broke for his great-aunt Yrsa, a gentle soul who wanted nothing more than to marry her beloved and spend her days painting. It was horrifically tragic that her desire for a new life had been taken advantage of and used against her. Such an innocent bargain had catapulted Revelore into the War of the Age and splintered their kingdoms irrevocably. And in the end, she and Lorsan had lost both their lives.

Rook pushed himself up from the ground, a hiss of pain slipping out from between his teeth as he sat up. Hasana had performed a miracle yesterday in the quarry. Her healing magic had reversed some of the infection’s progress, as though the golden light from her palms had soaked up the rot like a sponge. But though he was much improved, the wound still throbbed against his skin. Already, he could feel the threads of inflammation leaking out across his body once more, stubbornly resistant to Hasana’s magic.

Rook peered out of the barred walls of his cell, eyes settling on Saoirse across the block. A rush of emotions swirled through him at the sight of her curled up against the limestone wall. Relief that she’d survived the first trial. Regret that they even had to endure Grivur’s games in the first place. Frustration that he hadn’t gotten the chance to beg for her forgiveness for the way he’d cut her off in the hanging gardens. Anger that he’d gotten himself captured before he could send word for Aurelia and Sune.

Saoirse opened her eyes. Her pale blue eyes found him and burned right through his heart. Titans, she was so beautiful. Even with her blood-soaked clothing and dust-smeared cheeks, she was still the most breathtaking creature he’d ever seen. It wasn’t just her physical appearance that sent his heart sputtering like a dying candle flame. It was her unyielding determination to beat Grivur at his own game, to find hope where there was none. He’d been such a fool to think he could endure being parted from her, to think he could maintain the self-imposed distance he’d so stupidly put between them. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn, hadn’t rejected her openness?—

Rook’s thoughts scattered when the prison door creaked open. He braced himself for a flood of armed underguards to come and take them to their next trial. It couldn’t be that time already, could it? They’d only just survived the Wyrms in the quarry mere hours ago. His stomach clenched with a strange sense of fear and acceptance. Like the dreams that plagued him, the trials were inescapable.

---