What the hell?
My eyes adjust to the dark as I start walking again, trying to be careful where I put my feet, to be as silent as I can. I recognize this spot, I realize with a sinking feeling. I’m nearing the same place where Graylin and I went my first night here. Just like then, the forest noises die down in the clearing, like even the bugs and frogs and owls know that something is deeply wrong.
Taya. Taya is standing in the clearing, shovel in her hands. Even though it’s obvious what she’s doing, it still takes a second for my brain to put it together. To process. A pile of soil beside her and the shovel flashing in the weak moonlight.
Just like when I found her in the library last night, part of me wants to walk away. Leave and pretend I never saw anything at all, that nothing has to change between us.
But I can’t. Because she’s digging up the Solarian.
“What are you doing?” I ask. It’s only a whisper, but it cuts through the air in the silent clearing. Taya stops, her head snapping up. There’s dirt and mud on her face and in her hair.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink when I walk up. Not until I grab the shovel and pull it from her, my hands shaking; then her hands fall and she takes a step back from me. She’s shaking too, and I don’t know if it’s from cold or fear or something else entirely.
I give voice to the only thought my mind has room for. “What the actual hell, Taya?” I keep my eyes on her pretty face, avoiding looking into the hole in the earth she’s created. Not wanting to see how deep it goes, or what might have been uncovered.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice sounds too loud in the still night—high and trembling. “I had to check something.”
“Check what?” Horror is crawling over me like a second skin made of ice, the cold seeping through my veins and into my heart. “How did you know where we buried the Solarian?”
I drop the shovel and take her arm. Pull her back and away from the grave, toward a sideways log at the edge of the clearing. I sit, pulling her down beside me. Even through the thick material of her bomber jacket, I can feel her shaking.
“I didn’t find the grave,” she says, the words broken up by ragged breaths. “Max did. He told the staff about it and that’s when he was attacked.”
Cold drops down my spine. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t think the Solarian attacked him,” Taya says. I’m still trying not to look at the open grave, but Taya can’t seem to tear her eyes away, and it’s hard not to follow her gaze. When I do, just for a moment, I catch a glimpse of dull orange scales and my insides heave, the world lurching around me.
Max is awake now, Graylin told me earlier. He won’t talk about what happened to him, no matter how Graylin tries to draw him out, but his soul hasn’t been stolen.
“Look,” Taya says. She holds something in her lap—a dagger as long as her forearm, finely made, but coated in mud and old bloodstains. My head spins. I feel sick as Taya rubs at a spot of dirt on the hilt with her thumb, exposing an unfamiliar sigil. A five-petaled flower wrought in gold.
“It’s Bram’s knife,” she says, after a moment of silence. “Not the Prince’s.”
I look between the knife and her face. She looks terrified and like she hasn’t slept in days, but I can’t read much beyond that, her brown irises turned black by the moon. “I don’t get it,” I whisper. “So what? Why did you dig up the body?”
“The Silver Prince was wrong about Brekken, wasn’t he? What if he’s wrong about other stuff too, like what he saw the night the doorway opened? Or what if he’s lying?” Taya’s eyes burn. “Maddie, I don’t think a Solarian in the woods is the real danger here.” She raises a hand and points back toward the inn, where we can just see the lights of its windows through the trees. “I think it’s in there.”
“You can’t be serious.” I want to laugh—I would, except for the grim expression on Taya’s face. “I’m pretty sure the Silver Prince is the only thing between us and total chaos.”
“Max went white when the Prince visited the infirmary.” Taya’s words are dark. “I saw it. The kid was terrified of him.”
I feel like the ground is pitching beneath my feet, the way the earth heaved when the Fiordens flooded back into their world. “He’s a scary guy, okay. He has strong magic, that’s not a reason to hate him.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Taya hisses. “I’m saying don’t trust him, for God’s sake. Do I have to spell it out for you what happened to Max?” She points an accusing finger toward the fresh-turned grave. “No one else knew about this body except you and Graylin and the Prince. And I can’t see Graylin ordering an attack on a kid.”
“If you want to say something, just say it.” I don’t have time for this. I only came out here to keep her safe, and now it feels like she’s shitting on every action and choice I’ve made as Innkeeper.
“Fine.” Taya takes a deep breath, sets her jaw. “I think the Prince opened the door to Solaria. I think he found a beast somewhere else, or lured it through, and he’s using that threat as a distraction while he takes over the inn.”
Genuine shock jolts through me. I almost laugh, thinking she’s joking. But her eyes are round, her face dead serious. “And the Solarian is just, what?” I ask incredulously. “An innocent victim?”
I hear Taya’s teeth grit together. “Maybe …?” She nods in the direction of the inn. “How long did Solarians live there in peace with everyone else before everything went to hell? Maybe they’re not really monsters. Maybe they fight back when someone threatens them, like, oh, everyone else in the world.”
Somehow, though I don’t remember deciding to stand, I’m on my feet, my nails cutting painful half moons into my clenched fists.
Nate was never a threat.
“You’re wrong,” I say, hearing my voice come out quiet and cold. “Or you’re lying.”
She stands up too, eyes narrow. “I’m just trying to help,” she says, articulating each word like a razor blade. “Seeing as you don’t exactly have everything under control as it is.”
Fury shoots through me. “Leave, then,” I say. “I’m trying my best, but if that isn’t enough, I don’t know what to tell you.” I almost tear off the crystal bracelet the Silver Prince gave me, the charm that lets me cross the gravity barrier, and snap it in two. I shove one half toward her. “Take this and you can go home if you want. At least then I won’t have to follow you around and make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”
She takes the broken bracelet but not the bait. “You could leave too,” she says softly. “Leave right now, with me. We can figure it out—”
I make my voice as icy as I can. “Not in a million years. This is my home. If you want to go, go.”
Taya’s face goes white, her mouth flat.
“Maybe I will,” she says, and turns and walks from the clearing.
18
After a few hours of restless sleep, I give up and let my feet take me where they want—to the Heiress’s room.