Page 52 of The Arrow and the Alder

However.

It was difficult to freely marvel at this extraordinary world beneath the surface given the man walking beside her.

Prince Alder.

There was so much Seph wanted to say to him—or sayathim, rather—but the cloth sack had made it difficult. Listening had even been a strain, though she’d caught most of the prince’s conversation with Evora––who was hiscousin, not his wife. When Alder had finally removed the sack and she’d turned around with every intention of spewing all of the vitriol she’d been saving up along their journey, the sheer scale of this incredible underground refuge had promptly distracted her. Now she found herself stealing glimpses of Alder instead, wondering how she could’ve missed the truth.

She should have seen it. All of the signs were there. To be fair, she’d believed Massie’s lies about Prince Alder. She’d mistakenly thought he was involved with the depraved. Seeing “Marks” dispatch them without a second thought…well, he couldn’t possibly be workingwiththem if he was killing them. She just hadn’t considered that Lord Massie had created and spread the rumor himself to capitalize on Alder’s poor reputation and Weald’s vulnerability—given that her prince and warriors were at the Rift—to steal the throne. But then how could Seph know the inner political workings of the kith?

And Alder hadn’tactuallylied about who he wasn’t. She’d asked him if he workedforthe Weald Prince; she’d never asked him if hewasthe Weald Prince. So in that respect, he wasn’t a liar.

She was just an idiot.

All this time, he had been using her! He was no better than Massie, or the baron, or any other ruler in this saintsforsaken world who took what they wanted to suit their own purpose no matter the injury to anyone else.

The morning in the woods flashed before her mind—unbidden—that moment when she’d awoken beside him…oronhim, rather. She’d been mortified, but also wracked with guilt because she’denjoyedit. Her error could’ve resulted in their death, but she’d be a liar if she didn’t admit she’d slept better than she had in ages, wrapped in his warmth and his strength. Seph, who believed autonomy her particular strength, but in that moment, she’d begun to doubt, wondering if autonomy was just a fancy word for loneliness.

She stole another glance at the Weald Prince as they followed the priestess down the stone path, only to find herself skewered by those steely grays.

“You’re despicable,” she said.

“So I am.”

Seph’s temper flared. “You used me, and I can’t believe I didn’t…” Seph was so angry and hurt that she couldn’t finish her words, but then their path ended at a pair of mahogany doors.

The doors were enormous, engraved with scenes of wildlife and trees and blooming flowers. A world, Seph imagined, before the curse. Armed kith stood on either side, but as the priestess neared, those armed kith bowed their heads and pushed the doors in.

Seph and Alder followed the priestess through the doors and into an atrium, where Serinbor, Evora, and a few kith robed in silver waited. Light and water pierced through a crack in the canopy above, dusting the center of the atrium floor and the small pool of glittering water depressed within. A table stood off to one side, and a great brick of a tome lay upon it, opened to a page of symbols Seph couldn’t read.

Beside it, rested her grandfather’s coat.

It’d been draped across the table, where its golden threads caught the light and threw prisms of color upon the floor and chiseled stone walls. The sight of it made Seph’s heart leap, all that light and color and power contained, and the ring at her chest tingled to distraction.

“They say you’ve given yourself to the dark, son of Weald,” rang a woman’s voice, filling every crack and high ceiling. “That Queen Navarra took your secrets to her grave while you were off exploiting Canna’s vulnerabilities, using the curse to fashion for yourself a new generation of depraved, to aid you in your selfish ambitions for power.”

Seph followed the voice to a dignified woman, who stood upon a platform, her back to them while she overlooked the vast chasm beyond and its sheer draperies of cascading water. Her hair fell in soft white sheets all the way to her knees, and she wore an ivory robe trimmed in gold with kith enchantments embroidered upon it. Seph immediately thought of her grandfather’s coat. The enchantments were startlingly—eerily—similar, and a strange and uneasy feeling prickled at the back of Seph’s mind.

This was undoubtedly the enchantress that Evora had mentioned, but her greeting did not bode well for Seph’s future.

Evora glanced uneasily at Alder, while Serinbor folded his arms like a man come to witness a long-awaited justice served.

Alder, however, did not shrink. He didn’t even flinch. “It seems they are saying a lot of things, Enchantress Abecka, and I ask that you permit me the opportunity to explain them.”

His words settled in the spaces, and Seph wondered how he could remain so calm and controlled when his fate dangled by a thread.

“Queen Navarra was one of the greatest rulers I have ever known,” the enchantress snapped, still without turning, “and yet she suffered the most at the hands of her own son.”

Her condemnation struck like a gavel, and this time, Alder’s hands clenched, his nose twitching as if those words had hit him square between the eyes.

“I know your play, Prince of Weald,” the enchantress continued with scorn. “Do not think that because you could not see us, that we could not see you. I have survived many generations, and I have seen every sort of man. I know what you are. Even now, while we are at the very brink of annihilation, you would offer me this coat strictly to purchase…” The enchantress had been in the process of turning around when her eyes found Seph. Her words stopped. Everything about the enchantress stopped, as if she were suspended in time, gazing upon Seph.

As if sheknewSeph.

Premonition swept from the back of Seph’s mind all the way to her feet, and her heart stuttered. She couldn’t possibly understand how the enchantress might know her, she’d never beheld such a woman, this kith who wore age like a trophy, like a victory professing all that she’d endured and survived and overcome. Yet Seph felt the tug of connection, the pull of memory.

Abecka’s sharp amber gaze remained anchored upon Seph, and everyone else in the room looked at Seph too.

Which was when Serinbor intervened. “I warned them not to bring a mor?—”

---