It must have been a shrine to the Lady of the Wilds. There was a large statue of her inside—I recognized her features from storybooks I’d read as a child. I nodded to one of the citizens leaving as I went in and found myself alone staring up at the beautiful woman. Long chains of flowers stretched throughout the temple—across the walls, over her arms, and down across the floor. Her stone hair was untamed, made of vines and moss and wildflowers, and she stood naked on the pedestal, but where I was usually embarrassed by such things, I was simply awed. The way the statue carried herself, the way she looked out to the entrance, welcoming everyone inside . . .
The smell of flowers was sweet, and my heart ached because it reminded me of the flower shop, and Papa, and how far away I was from home, and how, at the moment, my home really did not exist anymore.
Everyone I loved was a monster.
I don’t know how long I stood there, but it must’ve been long enough for Fox to come and find me. “I wondered where you wandered off to,” he said quietly, but still his voice echoed in the cavernous shrine. He came up beside me, and I handed him back his warm wine as he looked up at the stone statue of the Lady of the Wilds.
I wondered where she’d gone, if she wasn’t here in Voryn. I wondered why she’d left all these people defenseless. Was the Lady of the Wilds responsible for the curse? Had she lied to her own people?
And that made me think of the things we believed in Aloriya. The things that had since proven false. Did King Sunder know they weren’t true when he returned from the wood with the crown all those centuries ago? Was Aloriya built on a lie, too?
The music from the bonfire drifted into the small shrine, and the candles danced to the melody. A gentle breeze swept into the shrine and played through Fox’s long hair. Some parts of his skin were still a little red and blotchy from the woodcurse. He looked . . . tired.
I was tired, too.
“What was it like?” I asked.
“Oh, the meat pie was excellent—”
“No.” I laughed a little, and then said more quietly, “The woodcurse.”
He stilled. He didn’t say anything.
I took a deep breath. “When I was nine, I got lost in the wood, and my mother came to save us. She . . . disappeared. With the prince and his guard. But a few days later, she came back. Or at least a part of her did. The wood had taken her. She tried to kill me. So I guess I just wanted to know . . .”
“If she knew it was you?” he guessed.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded.
He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself, and then said, “I was hungry. Not like I am now.”
“Like you pretty much always are.”
He nodded. “Not like that. I was voracious. It was the kind of hunger that burrowed down to my bones. It was all I could think about. I don’t even remember feeling it start. The hunger just was. So, to answer your question . . . she might’ve known it was you, Daisy, but she didn’t care anymore.”
That was the answer I was afraid of. “And you? Did you care?”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then—
“No. I doubt Wen would, either. Seren, though, he was different. He seemed to have control over himself, even if he is controlled by the wood like the rest of the bone-eaters. And that’s why . . .”
“What?”
“I think you did something to him, Daisy. Or your blood did. When he found me in the wood, he was . . .” He breathed out through his nose in frustration. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Maybe it was a trick. Seren was good at those when he was alive. He was good then, though. The best squire on the Sundermount, and he knew it, too. Kingsteeth, he was so full of himself, and he always complained about having to babysit us, but . . . we knew he liked hanging out with us brats.”
“Because he got reassigned, but he asked to stay where he was.”
I cast Fox a surprised look. “Yeah—that was a good guess.”
“He seemed like the type,” he replied smoothly, and nudged his head toward the exit of the shrine. “C’mon, let’s go see if we’ve lost our guards yet.” We started out as another woman came in to honor the Lady. She braided a flower into the chains that looped over the stone woman’s arm. The braid was familiar—it wasn’t a style anyone in Aloriya knew, but my mother had taught it to me. I touched the braid in my own hair.
As we made our way toward the bonfire, even more people arrived to join the wedding celebration. The two brides swirled in the middle of the dance, their gowns fluttering behind them in trails of blue and gold silks. Most people lingered on the outskirts of the dance, clapping along to music that reminded me of the ballads played in my village’s tavern in the evenings, when everyone had had just a little too much beer. It reverberated against the stone buildings, and laughter sang across the expanse like shooting stars.
In the middle of the courtyard stood the gigantic bonfire, decorated with beautiful golden chains and feathers laced into ribbons slowly catching fire as the flames climbed higher. The brides spun each other around the fire, joining with the rest of their wedding party.
And the guards were still there.
Annoyed, I returned my attention to the dance—when an idea struck me. “Fox, dance with me.”
He snorted. “Foxes don’t dance.”
“Fine.” I stopped a man with cool, tawny skin and a neatly trimmed beard, in a waistcoat the color of saffron seeds, and asked, “Would you want to dance?”
The man gave a grand smile. “It would be an honor.”
I handed Fox my half-empty cup. He squawked in protest, but the man was already leading me onto the dance floor, and all he could do was watch. The steps were familiar—I moved slowly at first, my feet unsure, but I had been the witness to too many garden waltzes to not catch on quickly. The charming man guided me around the dance floor, and I stumbled after him, but I was laughing nonetheless, and he was gracious enough to correct me when I misstepped. I tried to keep up, staring down at our feet.
Three steps to the left, one back, one over, turn—
On the next spin, the man grabbed my hand again. But his hand felt different, softer, not as callused—
I glanced up, and Fox smirked at me. “Your partner had to move on,” he said almost apologetically. Over his shoulder, I saw that the man was dancing with another partner now. I suspected that he hadn’t changed partners because he’d wanted to.
I laughed. “Were you jealous?”
He inclined his head. “Of course not. I’d suspect that anyone here would love to dance with me. I am, if you haven’t noticed, quite gorgeous. And I’ve just discovered: a fantastic dancer, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ugh.”
He positioned one of my hands on his shoulder as his sank to my waist, our other hands clasped tightly together, and gave me a smile so radiant, it took my breath away. I had never seen him smile like that before, wide and genuine, and my heart pounded against my rib cage.
“So what’s your idea, Daisy?” he asked.
I tried to reel in my treacherous heart. “Bring everyone onto the dance floor. Get them all moving. Lose the guards in the packed group of bodies.”
His eyes sparkled. “Create some chaos. I like it.”