Page 71 of In the Ravenous Dark
“Where no one can overhear,” Crisea recites in a hard voice. “I wonder, were you going to invite me to this secret meeting? I didn’t get a note.”
“Because you make itsoeasy to talk to you, now, don’t you, dear cousin?” Japha asks breezily. “Or should I saysister? I suppose there’s no need to hide it now that you’re locked away in here.”
Lydea rolls her eyes. “Of course we were going to contact you eventually, you dolt. We just didn’t know how you’d react, so we were playing it safe. You’re proving our caution was wise.”
Bethea steps forward as if reasserting her authority, and yet she looks too sickly to command much. She grips the opposite edge of the stone slab more to steady herself than anything. “You’re all forgetting thereissomething wrong with this, beyond misusing this room. Acolytes aren’t allowed to meet with outsiders, let alonefamily, until they’ve been raised to the rank of shadow priests. You’re breaking the rules by even sending notes to Delphia, never mind speaking with her.”
“Then we’re breaking the rules by speaking with you, too,” Lydea says cannily. “So why areyouhere instead of some withered priest to reprimand us?”
“Maybe I want to talk,” Bethea admits, both her gaze and voice dropping. She picks at the stone with a ragged fingernail and then looks up at me. “And you, Rovan? You have nothing to say to me?”
She’s right: I’ve been standing here, mostly frozen, my mouth open like a simpleton’s, unable to take my eyes off her.
“Or have you forgotten me?” she continues, before I can speak. “You didn’t try to pass me any notes or pay me any secret visits. It must have been hard to remember me, living in the palace, in luxury, while I was sent here to die in dust and darkness.”
Japha arches a questioning eyebrow. “I’m guessing you two know each other?”
Lydea looks back and forth between Bethea and me, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Is this about us breaking the rules or your feelings getting hurt?”
“I didn’t know that they’d sent you here!” I insist to Bethea, willing Lydea to stay quiet.
“And you didn’t bother to check,” Bethea says, her hand tightening on the stone, her knuckles whitening. Her fingernails look bluish. “You didn’t even try to find me. You didn’t care. You’re just like the rest of the royals, throwing us commoners away like we’re trash when you’re done using us.”
“I amnota royal.”
“Your new friends are,” she says. Her glare takes in Lydea and Japha. “Yourbetrothedis. Yes, I’ve heard about him, even in here.”
“You think I wanted this?” I burst out, throwing up my arms. My baggy sleeves fall away to reveal the red sigils streaking my skin. “You think I want the crown princeorthis bloodline?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. What has your powerful blood magic done to hurt you?” Her voice is flat, but her sarcasm sharp. “Has it given you a new life in the palace? Status and wealth? Must be terrible.”
“It got me caught, bound to a dead man, and engaged to a monster! Itkilledmy father when he gave me his bloodline, and my mother—”
“Death magic killed my mother, too!” Bethea nearly shrieks, and I briefly hope the walls block the ears of the living as well as the dead. “They sent her here with me, and she died almost immediately.”
For a moment, I’m too stunned to speak. I didn’t know Bethea’s mother well, but she told fortunes and communed with the dead in a manner not exactly sanctioned by the necropolis. She charged people a lot less than shadow priests do, for one, and she didn’t have any formal training. My mother knew her better, and had often given her spare loaves of bread or fabric.
Gone.
“And I’m dying almost as fast!” Bethea continues, reaching up to grip her lank hair. “The whispers are louder in my head every day, telling me what to say to call the darkness. Sometimes I can’t shut them out. Sometimes I can’t resist drifting closer to them.” She chokes on a half laugh, half sob. “You should have just let me fall from the gazebo that day. You saved my life, but then you threw it away. I was left all alone, with only death for company. Ineededyou,” she nearly spits, slapping the stone slab. “Ilovedyou.”
I can’t hear anything over the thudding of my heart. I don’t know how I feel about Bethea—how Ieverfelt—other than temporarily happy to be with her. What I do know is that a pit of shameis opening up inside me. “But I couldn’t—I don’t—” I stammer. “You’re not even allowed to… you know.”
“I didn’t need you likethat,” she snaps, jerking her hand back. “It’s not only passion that holds off death. It’s any light in the darkness. The warmth of a friend is just as powerful.”
I know this from Japha already. It’s something I could have given Bethea without question or hesitation. And yet I didn’t. She’s right. The thought shames me even more.
Bethea takes a deep breath. “If not for Crisea, I—”
“Crisea?” I can’t help but exclaim.
Crisea takes a strong step forward and seizes Bethea’s hand. “Yes. We’re friends. Maybe we’d be more, if we were allowed. What of it, bitch?”
“Nothing,” I say, stunned. “I just didn’t think you couldmakefriends, is all.”
She sneers. “I didn’t think you could, either. Not true friends, I mean, who you weren’t just using to get ahead. You even used your father’s life for gain.”
For a moment, my vision narrows to Crisea’s face and what I’m going to do to it—with sigils, fists,anything. Then I feel a hand take mine and squeeze tight, anchoring me.
