A Thousand Heartbeats

I laid the strands of Annika’s hair across my desk, watching as they pulled up into a curl on their own. I was going to be forced to kill her, wasn’t I? I was trying to remember a time since I’d been here that I was taught to show mercy. No such lesson came to mind.

Perhaps Annika would be a different case. The last time we’d had someone with royal blood in the castle, I was the only one who could manage to kill her. If I refused now, who’d tend to Annika?

Thistle whimpered from the window.

“Are you coming or going?” I asked.

She moved down, landing on my bed, lying with her head on her paws. I wasn’t sure if foxes could feel concern, but her eyes said she was worried about me.

“Don’t be,” I assured her. I crossed the room, bending down to pet her head. As I did so, I looked at my hands. Was I really going to take the same hands that I used to care for Thistle, to show the maps in the stars, to build up an army . . . and put them to Annika’s neck?

I took up my branch, wincing from my cut as I bent to get it, and threw my cape over my shoulders as I made my way outside.

The wind had picked up again, blowing my cape as I marched up to the cemetery. I took my small branch, still green and holding its leaves, and piled it on the others covering her mother’s grave.

“Another tribute,” I said, placing it down. “I met her. I met your last prayer,” I told her. “She’s angry. She doesn’t look like she wants to be, but she is. I wonder where she gets that from. Not you.”

I looked back at the castle. The side I could see showed the shabby windows down the back side, where the newest recruits lived. The legends said we’d once built fine structures. I’d never seen them.

I swallowed. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill her. I don’t want to, but . . . she’s too . . . observant. She already knows too much.”

For the first time in a long time, tears welled in my eyes. I was so tired. Tired, and angry, and so ready for something new. But here I was, tied to this forsaken land and this dying castle and this plot of dirt that held a woman who cared for me too much in the few minutes she knew me. And I suddenly hated her for it.

“I don’t understand why I come back here. You’re dead! You couldn’t save yourself, and you certainly can’t save me. I’ll never make sense of the kindness in your eyes, or why I feel like I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing to you. Your husband took my father! He’s the reason my mother is in the arms of that pig! A life for a life.”

I turned around and screamed into the night.

“Why did you have to be so gentle?” I shouted. “Why did you do that to me?”

I stared at her headstone, knowing I would forever be haunted by her. When I thought across all the people I’d killed, she was the only one I remembered. She didn’t beg for mercy. She didn’t spit in my face. She accepted the end, accepted me, and walked toward death like she’d been waiting for years to meet her face-to-face.

“Sometimes I feel that way, too,” I confessed. “Sometimes, I think anything would be better than here. But I have a feeling, if the worlds are divided on the other side, that you and I won’t be in the same place when it’s my turn.”

A tear fell down my cheek, the last one I would allow, and I looked at the headstone. I could still see her, and the image was more vivid now that I’d met her daughter. I’d remember them both forever.

Never run away, never look away, never explain it away. This was how I survived. So I would have to follow through now. I would have to get something out of Annika so I could present it to Kawan. I would have to be merciless. I refused to be seen as a failure. I’d backed myself into this corner, and now I was going to fight my way out.

No one stopped me as I stormed into the castle, winding my way down to the dungeons. I pulled the key from the far wall and jammed it into the lock. I could see through the bars in the door that she was huddled up on her bed with her back against the wall and her knees tucked under her chin. She looked over when she saw me, and I tried to read her eyes. There was still sadness there, but also a composed defiance that made me uneasy.

“Have you reconsidered?” I asked, shutting the door behind me.

“I’m in no mood to speak, especially not to you. Murderer.”

The word hurt as much as the wound she’d made on my chest back in the woods.

“I prefer to think of myself as an enforcer. Besides, there hasn’t been another infraction between our two peoples since that day. I’d call that progress.”

“Says the man who kidnapped both me and my guards,” she commented, rolling her eyes.

I nearly laughed, she was so painfully right.

“Listen, Your Highness, I need—”

“Stop calling me that,” she said, turning to face me. “Not with that disdainful tone. My position is a product of my birth, and not one I could control. And I don’t deserve your judgment for it.”

“You’re judging me for my birth, aren’t you? My people are dregs to yours, so low we didn’t deserve to keep what was ours, and now—”

She held up a delicate hand, unbothered by the cuffs still dangling from her wrists.

“Granted, my tour of your home was limited, but could you tell me, is there a library in this shack?”

I crossed my arms. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. Now, how exactly are you so sure you have any claim on my kingdom?”

“Our history is oral, passed down from generation to generation. Every last one of my people knows.”

She shook her head, sighing. “I wasn’t alive when Kadier was founded, and neither were you. You say its history is one thing, and I say it’s another. I’d like to think, since I actually live there, that I know the truth. It’s not disrespect; it’s not judgment. Furthermore, I also know that you are the person who stole my mother from me. And I want nothing to do with you.”

Her words were smooth and sharp.

“Very well, then, Annika. If you’re so smart, then I’m sure that somewhere in that brain of yours, you’re holding on to the information I need. And I am holding on to things I know you want. Things you probably want more than the chance to go home. If you cooperate, there’s a chance I can give you both.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You’re not taking me home, so don’t pretend that you are.”

Her tone was so calm, resigned to the possibility of death, but I told her the truth all the same. “If I can, I will take you back to Dahrain myself.”

“Before or after you invade?”

I clenched my fists and inhaled deeply. “It would be wise for you to, at the very least, stop being so difficult.”

“It would be wise for you to stop murdering people.”

I stood up and kicked the stool. It rolled across the room and left a huge wake of silence.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I looked back at her, surprised.

“I’m tired,” she admitted, looking down at her hands and fidgeting with her fingers. “In a day, I’ve been taken from my home and witnessed the death of four of our best guards. I have no idea what happened to my fiancé, and I’ve learned more about my mother from you in five minutes than I have from anyone else in the last three years. It’s overwhelming, given my gender and upbringing. I need sleep. If you let me sleep, I’ll talk.”

Fiancé. Huh. Maybe I should have grabbed him after all.

My plan had been to wear her out. To make her so delirious she wouldn’t be able to help but talk. So far, all that was accomplishing was making her lash out and leaving me looking foolish.

“I’ll be back at dawn. Be prepared. If you don’t give me something, they’ll want you dead.”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she continued to toy with her hands. “I understand.”

I went to leave, but then, because I couldn’t help myself, I turned to her one last time.

“Do you have a favorite constellation?”

She looked over at me in surprise, which was fair. Then she made a face as if she was confessing this in spite of her better judgment.

“Cassiopeia.”

I scoffed. “She’s hanging upside down. Forever. Why her?”

She toyed with the ring on her finger—an engagement ring, I assumed. “There are worse ways to exist,” she said quietly. And then, as if she might regret even asking, she peeked over and asked, “What’s yours?”

“Orion.”

“That’s so . . . everyone says Orion.”

“Exactly. The guard of heaven. Everyone knows Orion.”

She looked over at me, her face suddenly softer. “A decent role model, I suppose.”

I nodded. “I suppose.”

“You know, Orion was no saint,” she said. “You could aim higher. Do better.”

My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I had to put up my armor, refusing to let her touch my soul. Her words tiptoed dangerously close to her mother’s, and I couldn’t hear them again. I swallowed. “I’ll be back at dawn.”

“Dawn.”

I pulled the door behind me, locking it—and my tired heart—tight.