Page 73

I flipped to Briar’s page, the borders only half-drawn and the words hastily written. The halfhearted text made me wonder if the scribe had given up after Sawyn’s attack. How the book ended up in a Taigoska library, I had no idea. Perhaps the scribe fled from Olmdere along with so many other humans. Curious, I skimmed over Briar’s biography.

Born under a full moon, Briar Marriel, the first child of King and Queen Marriel, was betrothed to Prince Graemon of Damrienn upon her birth. Nicknamed the Crimson Princess for the blood that was spilt on the night of her birth. Her whereabouts remain unknown and many believe her dead.

My mouth dropped open. I had always thought they called Briar “the Crimson Princess” because she had red hair, but the moniker originated from something much darker. No one even knew she had red hair, I realized. No one had known her at all except Grae, King Nero, and Vellia.

My fingers trembled over the pages. It was too much. Everyone on these pages was dead or cursed, or both. The only Gold Wolf that still lived never made it into the book to begin with. A book of sons and daughters... and then there was me—both and neither. I traced my name over the blank parchment. I existed between the ink and the pages. I existed in the breath after a long-held note. I existed safe in my mother’s womb before the world could tell me who I was. And even if the world forgot those silent spaces, those in-betweens, in that moment I knew I had always been entirely whole—that I existed, remembered or not.

I shut both heavy books, the loud thwack echoing in the silence.

I hefted the tomes into my arms and returned to the nook to shelve them. When I turned into the last row of shelves, I smelled the smoky earth scent of Grae before I even saw him. I craned my neck down the stacks, seeing the whipping wool of a cloak. I hastily shoved the books back onto a random shelf and followed, cutting down a narrow row and popping out in front of him.

He halted, hood shifting backward just enough so that I could see his tightly clenched jaw and vexed eyes.

“Is this what we’ve come to? Tailing me, but also avoiding me?” I asked, leaning back to check again that the library was vacant. “I saw you in the plaza.”

“Your performance was beautiful, little fox.” The sound of his voice made my body respond with a deep, sorrowful twang. I missed his voice, his smell. I’d been mourning him this past day without knowing it, and now I felt it all rushing into me.

I folded my arms, trying to hide my trembling hands. “And why are you here now?”

“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“I’m safest when I’m with you.” I peered up into his shadowed face, feeling his eyes pierce into me. “Would it really be that bad? To be with me?” I repeated the words he had asked me so many days ago in that tent.

“No, little fox.” He reached out and swept a thumb across my cheek. “It wouldn’t be bad at all.”

I covered his hand with my own, holding his palm to my cheek as I fixed him with my gaze. “Talk to me.”

His eyes guttered and his hand pulled away. I let it drop, knowing that I had just touched upon some festering poison within him.

The library door swung open and two humans walked in, shoulders raised against the torrent of snow that followed them in the door. Grae pulled the rim of his hood higher, concealing his face again.

“Talk to me,” I pleaded, searching for his eyes in the shadows of his hood.

“Not here.” He turned his hood toward the direction of the humans perusing the shelves. His warm hand reached out and threaded his fingers through mine. That gesture meant more to me than he would ever know. I knew he was battling with himself not to pull away from me.

“Come,” he said. “I have a place in mind.”

Twenty-Seven

“Tell me you said no.”

“I couldn’t!” I lifted my shoulders. “What was I supposed to say? Tell the Queen I won’t perform for her?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what you should have said,” Grae growled.

I snorted, stomping harder through the deep snow. “That’s rich coming from one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas.”

I squinted against the gale, keeping my head down as we trudged toward the pine forest at the eastern edge of Taigoska.

“You are also one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas,” he muttered.

“No. Ishouldbe, but I’m without a kingdom or a pack, remember? That secretary thought I was a human. To him I was a nobody, and I couldn’t say no.” We broke into the tree line and I sighed with relief. My cheeks tingled with the wind’s absence, my nose numb. “Besides, it’s a masquerade. No one will see my face anyway, and we were planning on going to steal the nitehock—”

“Theplanwas to stay hidden amongst the human servants,” Grae said. “Not parade in front of the entire pack of Ice Wolves. You’d be walking straight into the belly of the beast, Calla.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing going after Maez?” He didn’t reply, so I moved on. “You don’t have to come with me,” I insisted. “In fact, you and the othersshouldstay back in the wagon.I’ll perform, get the nitehock, and get out. The fewer of us in the palace, the better.”

“No. We’re coming.”