Page 36 of The Princesses of Ruin
He grunts and nods. “A fresh start for a fresh start.”
A pregnant pause fills the space between us. Will we succeed in destroying a goddess? Can we even survive the trials to earn us the necessities for the ritual?
“You’ll be fine,” Gareth says, gripping my opposite shoulder. “Go now.”
I turn without another word and climb the stairs to the atrium. Lily comes out of the kitchen with saddlebags full to bursting and grins at me. “I packed only the finest wine and cheese for your excursion.”
I take the bag from her and open the flap. It’s filled with several skeins and cloth-wrapped bundles of food. “Tell me you didn’t pack only wine and cheese.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not an idiot. I packed the wine for myself!”
She skips off, leaving me holding the bag of who-knows-what.
I open one of the skeins and take a sniff. Just water. The bundle holds a fresh loaf of bread, still warm. There’s a rune carved in the side, and I pull back more of the cloth to reveal the rest.
“A sustaining enchantment,” Cecillia says from the kitchen doorway. Her loose bun is spilling half down her shoulders, and dark bags line her eyes. “It was Lily’s idea. Carved into the dough beforebaking. Brilliant. The bread won’t mold for weeks. If you’re careful with it, should last the whole trip.”
“Thank you,” I say, sealing the bread once more.
She comes closer, dusting her flour-covered apron. “I don’t need your thanks. I need you to protect my girl.”
I dip my head. “With my life.”
She smooths the collar of my shirt, then weaves her magic to repair a small rip at the neck. “If you die, she’ll die, and this world will die. Don’t. Die.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiles and the years of her life reveal themselves in the wrinkles beside her eyes. “Good boy. Now, go get yourself a whatever-it-is-you-need and kill that bitch of a queen.”
I turn away, passing Ada in the filing room. Her desk has accumulated significantly more extravagant trinkets beside her lavish lamp. She salutes me and her cigarette ashes on the desk.
Stepping through the hall to the entrance feels like walking out of my body. The once plain space has livened since I married Scarlett and welcomed her sisters into the Nest. Portraits and paintings, maps and star charts. Life has been breathed into this space.
And I’m leaving it behind with no promise of return.
The Underbelly is gray and cold, a dusting of snow covering the cobblestone street outside the Nest. Scarlett is petting the white mare, Winifred, and the hell-beast Kor’Tar stomps his hooves at me impatiently.
“You’re sure they’ll know the way home?” Scarlett asks as she tugs her fur-lined hood closer to her cheeks.
“If they take a detour, Alastair will know,” I say, flicking the runic crest on Kor’Tar’s harness.
She’s stillreluctant to take the beasts with us, and I need to assuage whatever worry lies there with logic.
“Even if we travel by spindle, we can’t keep the pace of a horse or carry the supplies we’ll need to get us to the Hollow Forest.”
“You’re right,” she says. “And it would be dangerous to take them into the thick of it.”
“We’ll need to make camp in the trees at night to protect ourselves from predators, and we can’t bring the horses with us.”
Scarlett laughs as she pats Kor’Tar. “I could only imagine trying to hoist his fat arse off the ground.”
Kor’Tar chomps in her direction and huffs twin curls of steam from his dark nostrils. His feistiness makes me chuckle. Scarlett turns to me, her black eye wide with shock.
“What?”
Her face softens. “It feels like I haven’t heard you laugh in a lifetime.”
I place the saddlebags over Kor’Tar’s hips and move toward my love. She melts into my touch, a rare display of vulnerability for all the world to see—from their windows at least.
