I push the thoughts away before I can go too far down that road.
“What time are you going to the antique shop?” I ask her, trying to steer us away from topics of Brekken and leaving and guilt and regret, back toward practical, safe ground. “I can get you some security—”
But a knock at the door cuts me off before I can finish the thought. The Heiress snaps to full alertness, her head turning in the direction of the door, her spine going army-straight. She catches my eye and points to the wardrobe in the corner.
I stare at her questioningly. Even with the curfew, there’s no rule saying people can’t visit each other’s rooms. But as she makes a stabbing motion for emphasis, something inside tells me not to argue.
I stand quietly, pad over, and slip into a world of perfumed fur, silk, and velvet just as another knock comes and a man’s voice sounds.
“Lady Heiress?”
I reach out and pull the wardrobe mostly shut just as the Heiress goes to the door and opens it.
“Lady Heiress.”
I don’t recognize the voice, but the man’s accent is Oasis. One of the Byrnisian delegates, maybe.
“The Silver Prince asked me to tell everyone of importance that the Solarian beast has been captured.”
I suck in my breath without meaning to, the Heiress’s floral perfume that clings to her coats scratching my throat. But I guess the messenger doesn’t hear me, because he keeps talking.
“Everyone is invited to come view the beast in the ballroom, if they wish.”
“It lives still?”
Even from here I can hear the skepticism in the Heiress’s voice.
“The Prince is deliberating with his advisors on what to do next. He plans to interrogate the beast.”
“Then I wish him the best in that endeavor,” the Heiress says, crisp and cool.
The door shuts. I hear her footsteps tread close, and then the wardrobe opens, blinding me for a second.
“Well?” she asks me as I stand there amidst her coats, a sneeze caught in my lungs and my heart beating fast with mixed relief and terror. “I suppose you’ll want to go see this beast?”
When we get to the ballroom, there are already more than a dozen delegates there—mostly Byrnisians, but a few of the remaining Fiordens too, and a handful of human security guards. Sal and his team of guards are standing in a circle in the middle of the room, facing outward to keep the small crowd back.
Behind them I see the tops of iron bars, rising and converging. I can’t see much else, but my body knows. It tells me in the racing of my heart, the sweat gathering at my palms and trickling down my back, and the sick twisting in my stomach.
Solarian.
Predator.
Enemy.
The Silver Prince stands off to the side, talking with Willow. He catches my eye when the Heiress and I walk in and gives a small smile. Not proud or elated, just a small acknowledgment of me, as if in catching the beast at last he is doing only what’s expected of a leader of Havenfall. That’s what he wants.
He lifts his hand and gestures toward the cage, an invitation for us to come forward, and the crowd parts as if by magic.
My feet seem to have a mind of their own. They carry me forward. This isn’t like the encounter in the forest, when adrenaline and the need to fight kept true fear at bay. Now I only feel fear. I sense everyone’s eyes on me and I know people are looking, waiting to see how I’ll react. The ballroom around me is dim and fuzzy, and sound becomes muted, like it’s reaching me through a wall of water. The only thing that’s clear is the monster in front of me.
The Solarian.
The cage wall cuts up my view of it, thick metal bars interspersing a long curve of blue fur. The monster is on its side with its back to me, its blood-matted fur crushed against the polished tile floor. Muscles ripple under its skin as it breathes, but the motion is shuddering, trembling. Its head is tucked against its chest, its tail lying limply on the ground. Its shoulder is wounded, torn open by some jagged blade, and I can’t look too long at the wet blue-black flesh beneath without feeling sick. Smears of blue blood mark the floor around the Solarian, and, I realize, trail all the way from the door of the ballroom. There are blue footprints on the tile where the crowd walked in Solarian blood. It’s on my shoes.
Has the Prince dragged the Solarian in all the way from the forest? Why has he brought it here for us all to gawk at, rather than locking it up secure in the tunnels? Why didn’t he just kill it?
Guilt spears through me, and I check those thoughts, digging my fingernails into my palms. If I’ve learned anything over the past week, it’s that my gut can’t be trusted. My instincts lead me wrong. The Silver Prince was the one, in the end, who finally brought the beast down, and if he thinks we can learn anything by it, I can’t let my squeamishness get in his way.
That would make me no better than Marcus, forgetting what the Solarians really are. And with the beast captured, at least that means Taya is safe. For all my anger with her, I’m glad about that. Hopefully she’s on a bus by now, headed somewhere far away from here.
I turn to find the Silver Prince, only to realize he’s already right behind me. I didn’t hear him approach at all. I feel a drop of sweat slide down my spine, but I force myself to get it together.
“Thank you,” I say, gesturing blindly to the Solarian. “For getting the job done.”
I hate how I sound. Weak, trembling. No one would look at the two of us and think I was the Innkeeper.
But the Silver Prince just nods with his usual graciousness. “I thought the hunting parties might have been scaring it off, so I went to the woods alone.”
And sure enough, I can see the toll the fight took on the Prince. I see the scratches of branches across his face, and the way he’s favoring his left leg. He went after the beast alone. He risked everything to do what I couldn’t.
And all at once, I know what has to come next.
Being the Innkeeper means doing what’s right for Havenfall no matter what. Even if it shames you. Even if the words taste soap-bitter on their way out.
“I’ve made my decision,” I say. “I’ll write Fiordenkill out. I’ll accept your alliance.”
19
The Silver Prince calls a council meeting afterward. He invites me to come, but I make up some excuse about checking on Marcus. I know it’s a coward’s way out, but I can’t stand the thought of sitting next to the Prince in Marcus’s office and pretending I still have anything under control.
I can’t stop thinking about Brekken—about how he would feel if he knew what I’ve just done. The severing of our official alliance with Fiordenkill feels more than just political. It feels like I’ve cut off a limb. All the dreams I’ve had of one day seeing Brekken’s home with my own eyes—the aurora’s curtains of light in the sky, the great wolves that fly across snow without breaking the frozen surface, the ice palace blazing with reflected stars—vanished. With the signing of one page of paper, the shake of the Silver Prince’s hand, I’ve slammed the door on my oldest friend, burned the bridge between our worlds. I’ve given up on the last person who really knew me for me. Who loved me for me.
Or so I thought.
I feel sick.
It takes everything in me to walk, not run, from the growing crowd in the ballroom. With the threat of danger gone, the delegates are laughing and gasping at the caged Solarian, or exclaiming over the Prince’s brave deeds. The mood in Havenfall has definitely shifted.