Page 67 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

There’s no world beyond the Storm. There’s no escape, no distant refuge. There’s nothing but the Storm.

The wind shrieks. Dalca murmurs into my ear, his breath warm on my skin. “I once tried to find the edge of the Storm. I flew as far as I could go... and still I saw nothing but the Storm. I nearly lost my way, coming back. I couldn’t find it. Our home is so small a thing against all this darkness.”

I press my lips to his ear. “How did you find your way?”

“I didn’t. I despaired. I nearly fell in. In falling, I saw a glimpse of the palace, and that was enough. It was as if the city came to me.”

Coldness sinks into my bones. Maybe we’ve all been cursed, all of us together, the whole city. “Did we do something to deserve this?”

The wind makes a dark halo of his hair. “I don’t know. All I know is that this city is a sanctuary. Perhaps the last one. It’s all we have, and the only weapon we have to defend it is a stronger Regia.”

As we hang in the sky, I find the truth in my bones; what he fights for is the same as what Pa fought for. But Dalca sees the city and Storm through eyes accustomed to power, through the eyes of a prince brought up in the first ring, through the eyes of an eagle, where peopleare as small as ants. His empathy is the empathy of a king. Can he care for the little people, like Amma did? Does he see the people of the low rings like I do? Has he seen orphan children playing by the Storm, and cried for them?

Here in his arms, with his hope for his city echoing in my ears, it’s hard to remind myself that Dalca is my enemy. I want him to know me.My name is Vesper Vale. My father is Alcanar Vale. I want what you want.

I can’t say it.

There’s good in him, more than I ever imagined. But perhaps there’s a difference between being a good man and a good king.

I remember the way Casvian wrecked Amma’s without a thought, the coldness in Dalca’s eyes the first time I saw him. The golden coin he tossed so callously. That, too, is who he is.

His eyes are the same color as the sky behind him. I see in them a vision of another Vesper. She stands hand in hand with Dalca, in ikonomancer’s garb, her eyes shining with love for him, devoted to making his dream come true, to making him great. That Vesper would live a hero’s life, fighting the Storm, protecting the city. She would lose him when he became Regia, but it wouldn’t be a bad life, not with the power that comes with being Regia’s consort, power she could use to help the fifth.

I’d only have to renounce Pa and Ma, forget Amma and the stormtouched, forget myself. I’d only have to chain myself to a man who speaks of protecting the city but doesn’t speak up when his closest friend spits bigotry, who’s cruel when he’s afraid, who will commit another thousand small evils before he’s done the good thing he hopes to do.

Amma was wrong: blood is a leash. His leash stretches back for hundreds of years, but mine’s no less tight.

“Take me back.”

Dalca obeys. Wordlessly, he takes me down, the golden curves of the palace rising to meet us, twinkling ikonlights in each window, dotting the open spaces, marking the spiraling, winding path through the garden. Lit like this, from above, the garden almost looks like an ikon.

My breath catches. Just like Dalca’s secret tunnel from the Ven to the palace,the garden is an incomplete ikon. In my mind’s eye, I see Dalca kicking at the ground the first time I saw him in the garden. It wasn’t out of frustration like I thought, but to connect a line made by a hedge. I hold the shape of garden in my mind, burning it into my memory.

We land on the balcony, and I free myself from Dalca’s arms. He catches my hand in a loose grip and presses a kiss to my fingertips.

“I know that it’s overwhelming. But we can change it. Nothing is fated.”

I open my mouth, but there are a thousand things that can never be said between us. He’s my enemy, and I can’t face the hope in his eyes.

He lets me go, but I feel his gaze on my back long after I leave the first ring.

It doesn’t matter.

I know how to get to Pa.