Page 138

Cressida goes to Alvira now. Hesitantly, she touches the nape of her neck with her fingertips. “Veer,” she says. “It isn’t too late. Even the greatest queens must right what is wrong.”

Alvira’s back tenses. Her chin rises. She turns to meet Cressida’s eyes. “I do not recognise you,” she says coldly, and her voice is so filled with ire, Cressida takes a step back. How many times has she seen this fire in her wife’s eyes? Now she burns in it.

“There is a choice to be made, Alvira.” Her voice is beginning to fail her. Fear returns. “There will be a battle. You will need to pick a side.”

“And you ask me to side with those who cannot win?” she seethes. “You ask me to throw Terrsaw to the mercy of the Glacians?”

“The guards will fight with us,” Cressida rushes. “The Ledge people will not be taken peaceably. And the mixed-blooded… Yennes believes they will join us, Alvira. The fight will be even!”

Alvira only stares without blinking, shadows clouding her irises. “I rid the world of Dawsyn Sabar, only to have mywifebetray me.”

Cressida swallows. “Please…”

“The fight will not be even,” she says icily. “The guards will follow my orders alone when I place myself on that battlefield and you will stand beside me.”

“Alvira, I cannot–”

“YOU ARE MYWIFE!” she shouts, spit flying from her lips and speckling Cressida’s eyelids. “And you will not leave me to stand alone in the mess you have made!”

Cressida shudders, the weight she has carried on her shoulders sinking to her feet. Grounding her. She meets the eyes of the woman she loves. “I’ve stood by you in every failing, every triumph, every transgression,” she tells her, her own tears finally breaking free. “And I can stand by no longer.”

Cressida watches her wife’s eyes shutter with each word. Alvira swallows thickly. She leans forward, until the sides of their noses come together, their foreheads touching. Alvira’s fingers gently slide through Cressida’s hair behind her ear, tender and familiar. And Cressida sighs. They loved each other well, didn’t they? They stood the test of time. Surely, enough love remains that some compromise can be found, some–

“Then you have betrayed me a second time,” Alvira says.

Cressida feels the shunt of the blade as it buries between her ribs, but the pain is slower, more subdued. She has already sunk to the floor by the time it begins to bloom, blood climbing up the walls of her throat and filling her mouth, dribbling over her lips.

And the ghosts arrive. Only now, they do not care to stay. They nod to Cressida and leave, one by one.

Alvira’s face is the last thing Cressida sees. It hovers over her, wretched and anguished. Her love. Her wife. Hands stroke her face lovingly. Whispers beg Cressida for forgiveness, but she cannot give it. She is already slipping away.

The Queen Consort closes her eyes and listens to the last remnants of Alvira’s voice, and she does not fear.

Finally, she sleeps.

CHAPTERFORTY-NINE

Dawsyn knows she is being watched.

Ryon hovers persistently, as though she might fold away to Glacia at any moment and drink the pool dry. He remains at her heel as their party prepares to leave the mountainside camp, not allowing her out of his sight.

They will soon fly to the outskirts of the Colony and make their plans to infiltrate it.It is the best way to reach the palace undetected,Rivdan had said.After that, Mother help us.

“Where are you going?” Ryon’s low voice reaches her. She halts in the process of turning away from the cave, where the others are gathering their belongings.

Dawsyn sighs quietly. “Would it pacify you to come with me?”

He grumbles something but crouches his way out of the cave behind her, straightening to his full height in the morning sun. He rolls his shoulders with a groan and for a moment the tips of his wings appear, then quickly vanish before they can extend.

Mother above, but he is an impressive creature.

“Come,” Dawsyn says, taking one of his hands in hers.

“Where are we going?”

“I only wished to walk a while,” she tells him. “And it seems I’m not trusted to do so alone.”

Ryon narrows his eyes. “It is not a matter of trust.”