Page 84 of Hearts on Fire

She lifted her onyx eyes to mine. “Because I refused to go to the battlefield. I wouldn’t fight forhim.”

I recalled her slumped shoulders as she’d left the Great Hall the last time I’d seen her. The king had chosen me over her for that last midday meal before the final battle. We’d had no chance to speak since that day. I never thought I’d get a chance at all. I thought she’d died along with thesalamandras, burned on the side of the mountain.

“Zenada… I’m so happy you’re alive. And I’m very sorry about what happened. You know I never wanted any of that. I never wanted King Edkhar—”

“I know.” She interrupted, reaching for the bowl with plums. “That didn’t make it any easier to accept, though.”

She ate a plum in silence before speaking again. “I always knew I was just one in the long line of many. I knew that one day, someone else would catch his fancy, no matter how hard I tried to keep his attention on me.” She stroked the strip of a scar below her neck. “Yet somehow, I allowed myself to have hope. He’d taken me flying. He’d never done that with any of the Sanctuary women before. And I thought…” She inhaled heavily. “I hoped that might mean something…” She chugged the water from the goblet as if it were wine. “I was stupid. And I’ve paid for that. But after that day, after he rejected me, I refused to fight for him. I could notrejecthim, but I was not going to help him win. I told Mother I wasn’t coming to the battlefield, even under the threat of execution for desertion. That morning, I didn’t get ready. I just sat on this very perch and told her that even if she carried me on her back down that mountain, I still would take no part in it. I thought she’d get the guards to kill me. But she just locked me up in here and said she’d deal with me later.”

The “later” never came for Mother. Now, she was dead, her ashes strewn by the wind between the rocks and over the poppies.

“It was a good thing you didn’t go, Zenada. They’re all dead now.”

She flinched as if I’d struck her. “All of them?”

I nodded. “Mother, too.”

The weight of my own words pressed heavily on my chest.

Zenada blinked, turning to the window. “How? How did they die?”

“By dragon fire. They died instantly. And together.”

She clenched her hands in her lap, staring out of the window. Her eyes brimmed with tears. For better or for worse, the Sanctuary had been Zenada’s home for far longer than it had been for me. She’d lived with thesalamandrasside by side, surviving the hunger and the hatred of the villagers. Now, the women were dead. It must feel like losing a family. All at once.

I touched her knee. “Let me take you out of this room, please?”

She sniffled, brushing a tear off her cheek. “Where would I go?”

“To another room where…” Where the ghosts of the dead women wouldn’t haunt us. Where the guilt of staying alive while everyone else was gone might be a little less excruciating. Where the sadness might be not as suffocating. “Where it’s…nicer.”

She nodded.

I held her under her arm, and she leaned heavily on me while getting off the perch.

Gabrik moved our way. “May I help, my lady?”

Zenada gave him a cautious look. “Who are you, anyway?”

He straightened his back with a grunt. “Gabrik. At your service.”

“He’s with Elex,” I explained.

Zenada arched an eyebrow. “The king’s favorite?”

I didn’t correct her. She looked exhausted by everything as it was. The rest of the news could wait until she’d been made more comfortable.

“All right.” She gave Gabrik her hand.

Instead of holding it, he wrapped her arm around his neck, then lifted her into his arms. She inhaled sharply but didn’t protest, placing her other hand in her lap.

“Where to?” he asked me.

“This way.” I led him up the stairs, then to Elex’s old bedroom. This was the only decent room in the castle I knew and felt comfortable bringing Zenada into. I didn’t want her to spend another night downstairs on that narrow perch of hers, next to the chain that had held her prisoner.

“This is beautiful,” she said after Gabrik had placed her on a floor cushion by the window. “Who lives here?”

“You.” As the new king, Elex would likely move to the royal chambers at some point. I didn’t think he’d object if Zenada stayed in this room for now. “No one will bother you here. I’ll just change the sheets on the perch for you.”

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