Page 257 of Lady for Embers

She didn’t know because she couldn’t feel him. She couldn’t fucking feel him.

Because he was no longer her twin ?ame.

His breathing had shifted to a deep and steady rhythm when she slipped from his lap like the wraith she was. She dressed in a close-?tting black tunic and pants and grabbed a cloak before she slipped out of their rooms. She left the princess’s wing all together, making her way down to the small den with the piano, her resolve growing with each step.

She laid the cloak over the back of an armchair before pouring herself a knuckle’s length of liquor. She took a sip, then set theglass on top of the piano as she settled onto the bench. Her ?ngers hovered over the keys, her eyes going to the window where the mountains were dark splotches against the starry night sky.

But she wasn’t staring at the mountains.

She was staring beyond them, at the forest she could not see that was hidden deep inland.

She began to play, and her song was one of sorrow and grief as she worked through everything going on in her soul.

Sorin. Cassius. Cyrus.

Drake and Tava and Callan. Briar and Ashtine.

Her song shifted to chords of anger, and then they became the sound of tenacity and conviction. Because she had been working something out for weeks, trying to ?gure out how to keep Sorin from losing his power. It had come to her one night while studying the Sorceress’s spell book. She hadn’t told anyone, not wanting to get hopes up unfounded, but while she had listened to Sorin’s heart beat beneath her ear tonight, the ?nal pieces had clicked into place. It shouldn’t work, but she had both Witch gifts from Eliné and the blood of a goddess in her veins.

She could feel Sorin’s ?re under her skin, her star?re ?aring within it, and she’d be damned if this was the last time she would feel this. She would not allow it. The gods, the fates, could not take one more thing from her.

Her brother stepped from the air. She could just make out the concern lining his features in the few ?ickering candles in the otherwise dark space. “Scarlett?” He took a tentative step towards her. “I got your message.” She looked up at him, ?ngers still moving over the keys, and he took in her tear-stained face. “It is done,” he said sympathetically, glancing up at the ceiling as if he could see where Sorin slept.

“It is done, but it is not over,” Scarlett said, her song ending on a chord that clanged in a challenge. She picked up the liquor, knocking back the last of it. She stepped from behind the piano, moving to the armchair and slinging her cloak around her shoulders, beginning to fasten the buttons.

“There is nothing to be done about this, Scarlett. The gods did this.

TheFatesrequire balance.”

Her head tilted, a cold smile ?lling her face. “I make my own fate,” she said, ?nishing the last button. She took a step towardshim, and he had the good sense to take one back. “And if the gods want me to ?ght in their petty war, then they will bow to me.”

“There is nothing to be done, Scarlett,” Cethin said again, his voice low and tense, a thread of panic slicing into his words. “Think about this before you do something you cannot undo.”

“Too late,” she breathed.

She pulled a dagger strapped to her thigh, dragging it across her palm and letting her blood drip onto the ?oor.

Onto the Mark she had drawn there before she’d sent Cethin a message to meet her.

Onto the Mark she had created.

“What did you do?” Cethin demanded in a horri?ed whisper.

“Imake my own fate,” she repeated.

The snarl of a big cat broke through the still of the night. Shirina prowled from the shadows, large paws silent on the ornate rugs.

“Scarlett, do not do this,” Cethin pleaded.

“You named me, brother,” Scarlett replied, darkness coiling up from the Mark between them. Shirina prowled around her, tail switching, eyes glowing. The darkness swirled and wove, dark mist dancing with itself, until it became an archway to a void of nothing. “A Lady of Darkness belongs in the dark, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Scarlett...”

But she stepped into the dark, letting it swallow her whole. Letting it take her to Shira Forest.

To the goddess of shadows and night.

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