Page 69 of The Stolen Heir

Oak reaches into the pile and pushes a black sweater, leggings, and new socks toward me. “Hopefully they’ll fit well enough for travel.”

Oak must see the suspicion I feel writ in my features.

“When we return from the north,” he promises, hand to his heart in an exaggerated way that lets me know he considers this a silly vow rather than a solemn one, “they will wake to find their shoes filled with fine, fat rubies. They can use them to buy new leggings and another roast chicken.”

“How will they sellrubies?” I ask him. “Why not leave them something more practical?”

He rolls his eyes. “As a prince of Faerie, I flatly refuse to leave cash. It’s inelegant.”

Tiernan shakes his head at both of us, then pokes at the foodstuffs, selecting a handful of nuts.

“Gift cards are worse,” Oak says when I do not respond. “I would bring shame on the entire Greenbriar line if I left a gift card.”

At that, I can’t help smiling a little, despite my heavy heart. “You’re ridiculous.”

Hours ago, I would have thought he was generous, to joke with me after what happened at the Court of Moths. But that was before I knew he was going to trade me for his father, as though I were one of those gift cards.

I pick at a wing of the chicken, pulling off the skin, then meat, then crunching the bird’s bones. A jagged bit cuts the inside of my mouth, but I keep eating. If my mouth is full, I will not speak.

When I am done, I take the clothes that Oak brought back for me and duck behind a tree to change. My beautiful new dress is coated in mud, not to mention ripped up all along the hem. Already well on its way to being worse than my last one. My skin feels clammy as I pull it off.

It has been many years since I wore mortal clothes like these. As a child, I was often in leggings and shirts, with sparkly sneakers and rainbow laces. My younger self would have delighted in having naturally colorful hair.

As I pull the sweater over my head, I hear Tiernan speaking quickly under his breath to Oak. He must be telling him about spotting Bogdana with me.

As I return to our lean-to with the weight of suspicion on my shoulders, with the schemes of Lady Nore and Bogdana and Oak winding around me, I realize that I cannot wait for fate to come to me.

I must leave them now, before they discover what I know. Before the moment when Oak admits to himself that he plans to give me to Lady Nore. Before he realizes that everything will be easier if I am bridled. Before I go mad, waiting for the inevitable blow to fall and hoping that I find a way to avoid it when it does.

Better to go north on my own from here and kill my mother, the one who shaped me from snow and filled my heart with hate. Only then will I be safe from her and all those who would use my power over her, no matter their reasons. I am a solitary creature, fated to be one and better as one. Forgetting that is what got me into trouble.

Once I realize the path I must take, I feel lighter than I have since Bogdana caught me in the woods. I can enjoy the sweet stickiness of the peach nectar, the slight plastic flavor of the water.

Tiernan gives a sigh. “Suppose wedogo through the Stone Forest,” he says. “Despite the deep pits that lead to oubliettes, the trees that move to make you lose your way, the ice spiders that wrap their prey in frozen gossamer, the mad king, and the curse. Then what? We don’t have Hyacinthe to get us inside the Ice Needle Citadel.”

“It’s supposed to be very beautiful, the Citadel,” Oak says. “Is it beautiful, Wren?”

When the light went through the ice of the castle, it made rainbows that danced along its cold halls. You could almost see through the walls, as though the whole place was one large, cloudy window. When I was brought to it for the first time, I thought it was like living inside a sparkling diamond.

“It’s not,” I say. “It’s an ugly place.”

Tiernan looks surprised. I am sure he is, since, if he stole Hyacinthe from Lady Nore, he knows exactly what the Citadel looks like.

But when I think of it, what I recall is grotesque. Making people betray themselves was Lady Nore’s favorite sport, and one in which she was very skilled. Tricking her supplicants and prisoners into sacrificing that which they cared most about. Breaking their own instruments. Their own fingers. The necks of those they loved best.

Everything died in the Ice Citadel, but hope died first.

Laugh, child, Lady Nore commanded, not long before our trip to Elfhame. I do not remember what she wanted me to laugh at, although I am sure it was something awful.

But by then I had retreated so far inside myself that I don’t think she was certain I’d even heard her. She slapped me and I bit her, ripping open the skin of her hand. That was the first moment I thought I saw a flicker of fear in her face.

That is the place I need to return to, that cold place where nothing can reach me. Where I can do anything.

“For now,” Oak says, “let’s concern ourselves with getting to Undry Market. I don’t think we can risk ragwort again, even if we could find another patch. We’re going to have to go on foot.”

“I’ll leave first,” the knight says. “And start arranging for the boat. You take a different route to confuse our trail.”

Somewhere on Tiernan’s person—or in his pack—are strands of my hair. But even if I found them, can I be sure they don’t have more? Can I be certain there isn’t one stuck on the cloak Oak draped over my shoulders? Can I be sure Oak didn’t pilfer another when he was brushing my hair?

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