Page 97 of Daughter of No Worlds

“I was a slave before I came to Ara. Did you know that?”

His eyes widened. “I— I didn’t.”

“And I got these scars when I tried to buy my freedom.”

His mouth closed, puckered slightly in something between thought and realization — as if he had never considered the possibility of such things existing in the world. I wondered what that was like. To live a life so untouched by such ugliness that the very concept of it was startling.

“I think you look nice anyway,” he said, quietly.

“Thank you, Moth.”

Sammerin regarded me in silence. I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of satisfaction cross his face as he said, “I do too.” Then he lifted his chin, gesturing to the Towers. “Shall we?”

As we started towards those foreboding gold-and-silver doors, I adjusted the white lily that I had tucked into my hair. It was a last-minute addition that I stole from the garden as I left. I figured that Max wouldn’t mind, and besides, it all felt incomplete without it.

How poetic, after all: to wear Esmaris’s sigil as I exposed every terrible thing that he did to me. As if I were carrying him with me, hissing into his ear:Look. Look at everything you failed to destroy. Look at what your cruelty created.

* * *

I could feeltheir stares on me. I could feel it as clearly as I could feel fingers brushing my skin, touching my face, running their hands over those ugly, ugly scars.

Good.

The lobby of the Towers had been completely transformed. Flowers and tapestries covered every surface, the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles dancing over them. Both sides of the lobby were combined into one giant room, the gold of the Tower of Daybreak on one side meeting the silver of the Tower of Midnight on the other. Music permeated the air, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, mingling with voices and slightly-drunken laughter. That mural of Rosira and Araich loomed over it all, their faces drawn to the ground as if casually observing the festivities.

There had to be several hundred people here. All were impeccably dressed — though most more modestly than I was. But that was for the better. With my Fragmented skin and my red dress and my scars, I stood out exactly as much as I wanted to.

Moth disappeared into the crowd almost immediately, wandering around to explore with wide-eyed fascination. Sammerin didn’t try to stop him.

“I know he’s going to get into trouble,” he said with a twitch of a shrug. “Why fight nature?”

I chuckled. Indeed.

“Is every member of the Orders here?” I asked.

“Far from it. There are plenty who chose not to come. These things get a little tedious year after year.”

It was easy to forget, sometimes, exactly how many Wielders existed in the world.

When I looked back at Sammerin, his eyes were drawn off across the crowd. I followed his gaze to a woman lingering near the wall, drink balanced in slender fingers, who sporadically peered back at him through chestnut waves.

I nudged his shoulder. “Go. I will be fine.”

“Go where?”

I arched one eyebrow. “Go.”

He paused, holding back a little smile. “Order events are a special kind of dangerous.”

“So am I.” I grinned. “I’m not afraid.”

“You did come dressed to inflict some damage.” He stepped back into the crowd, then hesitated and turned back to me.

“Max will be here soon, I’m sure,” he added, raising his voice slightly over the crowd.

“Will he?” Max had said, somewhat begrudgingly, that he’d go to the event if I did. But now that I was here, I couldn’t even imagine himexistingin this environment.

“Oh, he won’t miss it,” Sammerin replied, and I caught only a hint of that familiar unreadable glint in his eye as he melted into the party.

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