Page 104 of Claiming Glass

“Can everyone stop telling me to run?” I said, unable to muster the fear and awe her Spirit speaking should have brought. “Even in death, you try to control the situation. How about you help me instead?”

Since she appeared like a giant mage light imploding, the guards at von Lemerch’s manor had been shouting. We would soon have company.

Lumi gave Dimitri a suspicious look. “I’ll tell you what I know but I won’t help him.” Something inside her softened. “Love blinds everyone.”

“Like I would trust your words,” he said, cutting off my objections both to her love declaration and distrust.

“Can’t you two stop fighting?”

This was not the place to voice a lifetime of grievances.

Lumi’s magic, somehow mixing with mine, sang of Spirits approaching, death coating Tal, while mine played an accompanying tune, the guards’ approaching steps beating inside me.

A summer party lit up the nearest manor, nobles on the lawns already playing Day of the Dead games of chance on tables lit by colored paper lanterns, cheerful and unknowing of the death so close. Had they seen the Spirit light? The music had quieted, the tension running through Tal too high for even nobles to ignore.

“We have to go.”

The fear that had so far been absent slammed into me. I would not be caught again. Locked up. Judged. Hung.

My actions might result in death, but it would be my own decision.

“The dead walk Tal,” Lumi said, ignoring me. “And they never leave. If the body is not shed of their flesh, if Spirits are not calmed and cling to life, they can rise. And mages, they’re stronger than any others… You cannot fight this, V.”

“How do we kill them?” Dimitri asked, apparently able to put aside his dislike after all. I saw the king he’d become in his stance. A determination that had sometimes surfaced when he previously talked of revenge.

Lumi’s shining form shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything other than magic touch them. Possibly fire or dismemberment. Are you willing to burn down your city in the process? The fire already got away once.”

The answering silence said enough. He could not take the risk.

“Just call off the wedding. Delay the festival.Find her.” Even as the words left me, I knew how they sounded. Like the jilted lover. The discarded one.

“I didn’t choose this. I told you it’s too late to stop.”

There was pain in his voice that I forced myself to ignore. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Tal. About you.”Yourlife.

“Tempest, please don’t push this. Tal expects a queen. And there are parts of being the king of Tal I cannot speak of. If Solovyova is right, not marrying is even worse.”

“Who do you think I’ll tell?”

“A promise is a promise independent of the intention in breaking it. Ask Morovara if you want to know. She was there, listening in.”

Lumi tugged at something inside me, her worry rising.

“What’s happening?” I asked, as the soldiers talked to one of the men who had followed Dimitri and me through the city, believing I did not see them. I was glad he brought guards, less so that they had seen me, and I did not know what they were telling the others.

“We should leave. Now.” I was already retreating.

Dimitri remained a solid silhouette against Lumi’s light.

“Are you coming?” I asked.Will you believe me? Listen?

“This is not your world, Tempest. I—I wish it could be you. That the world was different than it is. It is not. You’re a thief. I’m a king. Or I’m trying to be.”

“That’s it?” I was no longer sure why I argued, only that we could do nothing else, perpetually perched on opposite sides. I had wanted to run, was a thief, and had certainly not been arguing for him to marry me.

“That’s all it can be.”

I retreated another step. “What you still do not understand is thatthis”—I spread my arms wide—“does not belong to the people celebrating behind their gates and walls any more than it belongs to the rest of us. You can only be king with citizens. I’m not leaving Tal. I don’t know why I thought I ever could. I tried to tell you…Even in the final moment, be on your guard. She’ll come for you in the crypt.”

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