Page 83 of Lore of the Wilds

“I think I look very beautiful,” Lore said, breathless and beaming.

The attendants exclaimed in agreement and began to drag her from the room toward the celebration.

When she entered the ballroom, Lore was handed a cup of wine with delicate flowers floating on top. Gone were the sleeping folks strewn around the room—in their place, a revelry in mid-swing. There were musicians stationed in every corner. The music filled her up and made her body hum.

A male in a velveteen vest and slippers took her hand and led her to the dance floor. His hand gripped her waist and pulled her to him. She threw her head back and danced with him before being passed to a woman wearing nothing but chiffon and an orb filled with moths upon her head.

It was the queen. Lore’s legs turned liquid under the queen’s gaze, her attention a toxin of its own.

“You look lovely, Tella.” The queen reached out, cupping Lore’s cheek.

“Not as lovely as you,” Lore breathed. Her breath mingled with the queen’s own.

The queen laughed, euphoric. “Dance with me.”

“I would be honored.”

The designs on the walls seemed to twist and twirl along with Lore, and the vines along the ceiling grew and began to sag with ripe fruit. Lore reached up, plucking a purple one from a vine, and bit into the flesh, laughing as the juices exploded from her lips, rich with sugary sweetness. She held the fruit out to the queen, overcome with joy when the queen gripped her hand and pulled it to her, biting into the plump fruit.

The juices dribbled down her pointed chin. Lore was mesmerized by the sight. She reached a hand out and wiped the juice, which seemed to shimmer withSourceitself. She brought the shining liquid to her own lips to taste.

The queen’s eyes fluttered with desire, and Lore’s core clenched in response.

The night was lost to dance. As Lore spun from eager hands to hands, the music flowed through her like a waterfall, until she lay down beneath a sparkling chandelier, breathless. Her cheeks were sore from laughing.

Her chest heaved with breath, just as her stomach gave a sudden twinge and pain blinded her for a moment. It was like a knife stabbing into her abdomen, twisting, yanking, and pulling.

But when she pressed her hands to her stomach, there was no knife. No wound. Just internal, cramping pain.

As the chandelier began to come into focus, the haze of the wine began to lift. Lore remembered the bark she’d peeled from a tree and chewed for hours as she followed the map and found her way to the palace. She’d swallowed it just before she climbed into the farmer’s wagon, and nuzzled in with the sleeping sheep, the taste of bitter bark coating her tongue.

Finally, it had soaked up the properties in the wine, allowing her to remember.

Now, she just had to pretend to still be heady with wine as she sought out Grey.

***

She found him swaying to music by one of the many hearths in the ballroom. Despite the smoky heat from the flames, he shivered, his skin covered in goosebumps.

“Grey.” The breathless cry of his name fluttered from her mouth, though he did not turn. She wanted to pull him into her arms, grip him tightly, and shake him until he looked at her, but she dared not. Nobody had seen her stumble over here with a decanter of wine clutched in her hands, as she pretended to drink from it. “Would you like more wine?” she asked him.

He turned to her then and smiled.

Her heart fluttered with joy as she pulled him into an embrace. She thought of the moment he’d found her after the earthshake. It was so different from now, as his arms did not lift or wrap around her.

She leaned back, looking into his face—at his wavy, black hair and the piece that always fell in front of his eyes. Dread marred herjoy. The marks of his time here were clear on his face: his bloodshot eyes; dry, cracked lips speckled with ruby beads of blood; and the hollows in his cheeks more pronounced than when she’d seen him in the vision in her scrying bowl. His shoulders were bony where she pressed against them, sharp through the fabric of his tunic.

“Wine?” His voice was rough, gravelly.

She steeled herself, clenching her jaw. “Yes. I have wine for you, see?” She swirled the wine in the decanter for him to see. She felt gross and evil as she tempted him with the very thing that was killing him, but there wasn’t time for another plan.

She hadn’t truly believed that he wouldn’t recognize her. She was having to scramble now.

Grey leaned into her, toward the wine, and she pulled him, tugging on his wrist, until he took one halting step, and then another. She led him from the room, wishing more than anything that she had her grimoire. The palace was filled withSource, but without her book, it would not come to her when she called it.

She dragged him from the palace, sticking to the shadows. Her breath hitched when they passed a guard or a couple pressed together, but despite the danger around every corner, Grey followed Lore’s whispered promises of wine, soon.

They burst out of the palace and raced toward the protective wall. Icy wind kissed Lore’s glistening skin, and the moon greeted her like an old friend.

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