Page 20

Inside the cave, Therion’s altar is lit by a row of candles. The air is golden and shifting, my shadow thrown large against the smooth stone walls as I approach.

My brothers came here earlier to prepare the chamber. And if I were an ordinary bride, I would spend the rest of tonight here alone. I would sip from the flask of chthonic liquor as the candles burned down. I would recite the betrothal prayer, and after the end of the bonfire, I would return home for one final time before traveling to meet my intended.

I lay my hand on the altar, between two pearlescent shells. It feels strange to think of reciting a prayer to the creature whom I’m about to meet. But I bow my head and begin to whisper the words. “Therion, lord of sea and woods and salt…”

Before I can finish, a sound echoes from the opposite side of the cave, where the grotto opens into the ocean. I turn quickly toward it. There, bobbing gently on the surface of the waves, is a boat. I peer through the gauze of my veil at it in wonder.

The boat is a swan, tied to the rocks with a length of nautical rope. Its neck arches, cirriform as a harvest blade. Wings, carved cloudlike tomimic the pattern of feathers, frame the small interior that’s cushioned with a folded pastel blanket.

A startled sound escapes me. I press my hand to my mouth beneath the veil. To the altar, I say, “You really have thought of everything.”

The main entrance to our family’s salt mine is on the clifftops: a large gateway that opens to a set of stairs leading down and down and down. But there’s another way in that can only be reached by boat. With this strange swan, I can sail to Therion rather than walking across the cliffs.

Now is the moment of no return. Once I step into the boat and leave for the mine, I will be on a path that will take me far from home. Into another world. I won’t see the sky or the ocean or my brothers until the end of the harvest season.

“It’s only for six months,” I tell myself. “It won’t be very long.”

But right now, it feels like eternity.

I gather up my skirts, ready to cross through the shallow waves and climb into the boat. Then a sound comes from behind me: a flurry of seabirds, calling raucously, as they take off from the shore and rise into the sky. I turn sharply and narrow my eyes to the beach.

Night has marked everything in dusky shadows, turned it faded as the smeared ink of a photostat. But there, in a darkened space near the edge of the rocks, I glimpse movement. The flutter of fabric. The shift of footsteps.

My heartbeat rises. I wonder for a brief, foolish moment if my brothers have come to try to dissuade me one final time. It’s not what I want, but there’s a fleeting quaver in my chest as I take a slow step toward the figure.

“I don’t recall the wordsIt’s only for six monthsbeing part of the betrothal prayer. But I haven’t studied it closely, I admit.”

Camille Felimath steps out onto the shore. She smiles, one brow arched mischievously. I let out a startled laugh as I realize that shewas the girl I noticed in the crowd, the one who seemed so familiar. “Camille! What are you doing here?”

“I just got back from Trieste. I’ve finally graduated from Beauvoir Academy. That wretched place—I had to take an extra term because my grades were so bad. I don’t care, though. It’s so nice to be home, especially since Father is away and can’t lecture me.”

I stare at her, disoriented by the fact that she is so near. For more than a decade Camille has been such a distant, ephemeral creature. My childhood friend, Alastair’s exiled sister, so far away, an entire ocean between us. Now, though I recognize her features—those storm-gray eyes and her heart-shaped, clever face—she feels so different from the girl I sat beside in the village school.

“No,” I falter. “I mean, what are you doinghere?”

I glance behind Camille, wondering if anyone else has followed her. But the beach is empty save for the twin rows of our footprints on the sand. A distant orange glow lights the sky near the clifftop where the bonfire still burns.

“I wanted to offer my congratulations on your betrothal, of course.”

She moves forward. I go to meet her at the grotto’s entrance, because I don’t want her to come all the way in and see the swan boat, tethered at the other side of the caves. The wind has drawn her hair from her velvet bows. A dark strand crosses her cheek, striping her smile. Framed by ocean and sky and darkness, she’s lucent as the moon.

Camille offers her hand to me. I hesitate for a moment, then reach out to clasp it. Her palm is warm and smooth. She has a ribbon tied around her wrist, matching the ones in her hair. And I’m both terribly sorry and hopelessly glad that I’m leaving tonight. I’ve missed her so much that it aches, but after what happened between Alastair and me, it’s impossible that Camille and I could ever be friends in the way we once were.

A wave crashes against the rocks. Far out on the starlit water, aseabird calls with a high, keening cry. Camille traces her thumb against my wrist, smiles her mischievous smile.

“You look very beautiful, Lacrimosa,” she says, and the luring, secretive gleam in her eyes makes my stomach swoop. She lifts her hand, smoothing a crease from my veil. Softly, she asks, “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

Bright heat crosses my skin. A brief flicker of memory passes over me, of my first and only kiss—Damson’s mouth on mine, her eager grin as she announcedNow we’ll always belong to each other. Of Alastair and me in the field at the summer bonfire, our foreheads pressed, the hitch of his breath, how badly I wanted to close that distance but never did.

The only intimate moments I’ve shared have been with people who both despise me now. I imagine it being erased by Camille’s touch. Camille, who was once my friend, who braided ribbons in my hair and held my hand as we walked home from school. Who, in this moment, is drawing a strange, sharp-edged wanting from me. A flicker of desire like a guarded flame.

She reminds me of a time when I didn’t hurt.

Slowly, I nod. Camille raises her hand to my jawline. Her thumb is beneath my chin, tilting my face upward. A dark thrill goes through me, and I feel bold and dangerous. She brushes her lips against my cheek, kissing me through the veil. Then she pauses, as if waiting to see what I will do next. She still wears the same perfume I remember. It smells sweet and syrupy, like glazed strawberries.

Her hand goes to my waist, fingers tracing an unhurried caress through my gown. There’s a question in her eyes, in the arch of her brow, in the way she touches me. I’m overtaken by fierce, helpless longing. I want to preserve this forever, to hold her close, to start all over again.

I rock onto my tiptoes, kissing Camille on her lips. My veil is between us, all rasp and silk. I taste salt, and an electric current goesall the way down my spine. My eyes scrunch closed as Camille kisses me back. She’s still smiling; I can feel the shape of it against my mouth.