Page 49 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
After I collect my sparse belongings, I’m marched back downstairs and out the front doors of the castle. My heart is pounding in my chest, my blood racing in my ears. I’m about to meet the members of House Harkyn. Myblood. The family I’ve been looking for all these years. The answer to all the questions that have burned in my soul since I awoke that night eight years hence.
Except, something in my gut screams that this iswrong.
I don’t know why, but I’ve got the feeling this isn’t going to be some warm reunion with loved ones. Every instinct in my body is telling me to run the other way, like it did all this time. And if I weren’t magically bound to this, that’s exactly what I would do.
The giant portcullis is approaching, and I can see a small party on horseback gathered on the other side. I can’t tell if they’re men or women, because they’re all wearing red cloaks pulled up over their heads, shadowing their faces. I catch flashes of weapons in the bit of sun that peeks out from behind the steel-gray clouds overhead: the tip of a sword, the edge of an axe blade, a leather sheath of arrows. Their horses are small and wiry, their coats thick as if they come from a colder climate.
The nightmare at the gate growls, the sound vibrating the air around me. Its eyes glow, hunger gleaming in them as if I am an enemy. I’ve been an outsider ever since I arrived, and months later, that hasn’t changed one bit. A strong wind sweeps down from the mountains to the north, whipping my curls behind me, along with my green cloak.
Julian is waiting by the gate, as is Commander Thornne. The former gives me a tense smile and a nod, as if telling me to be strong, and the latter eyes me like the nightmare did. With grim satisfaction, and also a kind of certainty. We lock gazes as I walk slowly past, and I can tell in his eyes that he has no intention of heeding Julian’s warning. The moment the tournament begins, I’m fair game. He’s viewed me as an enemy all along, and now I’m literally enemy number one. A challenger to the crown, a threat to his Queen. My death shines in his eyes, and I shiver because I know it’s not just him.
Every single house of the dozens present at the tournament will be planning the same thing.
When I reach the portcullis, the guard closest to me shoves me forward so hard that I stumble and almost go down in the mud. But I grit my teeth and keep to my feet. I will not give them the satisfaction of falling to my knees on my way out of this place. And I will not face my new family in disgrace. As I straighten and take another step forward, I can’t help but feel like a prisoner exchanging hands. I am not walking to freedom. I’m merely changing captors.
I stop a few paces beyond the gate.
“Aye, girl,” calls one of the hooded figures. “Come here.”
But I don’t obey. Not yet. I turn instead and look back through the gate to Shadow’s Keep in all its glory. The looming castleand the monstrous nightmare and the lush valley and the stark mountains in the distance. The wind whips down again, blowing my hair and my cloak behind me. My gaze sweeps across the small crowd gathered there, but I don’t see who I’m looking for. Somehow, I thought Daemon would be here to say goodbye.
But he’s nowhere to be seen.
Sucking in a deep breath, I turn to face my family, and my fate.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Little is saidas one of the riders leads an extra horse up to me. There is no warm welcome, no exclamations of relief at having finally found a long-lost member of House Harkyn.
Not that I was expecting that, exactly.
But I was maybe expecting some sort of explanation.
I mount the small black horse I’m given and the riders gesture for me to follow them away from Shadow’s Keep, down the narrow winding road through the rolling meadows at the foothills of the mountains. In the distance, a dark fringe of forest hugs the path, which splits before it reaches the trees. When we reach the fork and head left, to the northeast, I finally break my silence.
“Does anyone plan to tell me what’s going on here?”
The closest rider, a man around my age with brownish-red hair, turns around to look at me, his eyes wide as if shocked by my manners. But I’m tired of this.Allof this. If these arethe people who have been hunting me for nearly a decade, and if they’ve orchestrated this entire ruse, invoking an ancient tournament and naming me as champion, using me as a pawn to take over Aureon or whatever end game they’re playing at, I’m not just going to sit here and say nothing.
I deserve a goddamn explanation.
There’s a woman riding at the head of the group of five riders, and she also turns and looks at me. She is older, perhaps by twenty years, and I can see wisps of red hair peeking out from the folds of her cloak. Red hair like mine. Her expression is one of quiet appraisal, and also one that brokers no argument.
“I suppose I could ask you the same question,” she says.
I stiffen on my horse. “You’re the ones who showed up, claiming to be my family and dragging me off to some insane tournament to take the crown from the Queen.”
“Claimingto be your family?” The woman chuckles.
And then it occurs to me—something that should have occurred to me sooner. But everything had happened so quickly...
“You may not realize this, but I don’t know who any of you are,” I say slowly. “I don’t remember anything about my life before eight years ago. I don’t know who my family is.”
Silence falls among the riders, and for many moments the only sound that can be heard is the hoofbeats of the horses and the rustling of the grasses around us.
“Well,” the flamed-haired woman finally says. “That is very, very interesting.”
I wait for her to say more, but after several more moments pass, I realize she’s not planning to elaborate. “I’m glad my amnesia is interesting to you, but I’d still like to know why I’ve been summoned and where we’re going.”
