I’ll be a girl who can’t do anything but wave a sword around and quip emptily. A girl who has no idea what it means to be mortal anymore. A girl who has no idea what it’s like to be alone in her own head. The next time she throws herself in front of valkerax fire for ten celeon guards, she will not live to tell the tale.

The hunger has made me miserable. But it’s made me bold, too. It’s made me irreverent and brave. It let me protect others and myself. Even in my lowest moments, it’s given me a twisted sort of confidence, in that I always knew I’d live no matter what happened. No matter what happened, I could always rely on the hunger being there. Steady. Constant.

everything you are is my doing.

I am not the hunger. But it has made me in its own image.

If I leave it behind, what is there left to lean on?

20

20

The Splinter

When Varia returns from the Moonskemp, I tell her what happened with the valkerax before her maids come in. The crown princess is utterly silent for a good half. She peels off all her jewelry, placing it carefully on her armoire, before she finally speaks.

“Lucien has asked for your presence at his breakfast.”

“I’m not going,” I retort automatically.

“You misheard me, Lady Y’shennria.” She refers to me with my family name intentionally. “His Royal Highness Lucien d’Malvane has requested your presence at his breakfast.”

It’s a not-so-subtle flaunting of the royal family’s power over the other noble families. The prince is calling. And so, if I am still intent on being an Y’shennria, I must go. She calls for the maids, and they swarm in through the door. She stands from the armoire, going over to her closet and pulling out a simple peach muslin dress. She presses it to my dirt-smeared chest.

“He knows,” I say. “Malachite must have told him by now. Lucien knows I’m talking to—” I dart my eyes over to the maids. “To Evlorasin.”

“But he doesn’t know why,” Varia says coolly. She nods to the maids, and they take the cue instantly, undressing me with quick, sure fingers. I squirm out of the dirty dress, only half offended when they gently urge me into a silver tub of steaming herb-laced water in the bathroom and scrub me clean.

Varia picks up the letter from Yorl I’d left on the table, reading it as she speaks. “You still have feelings for him, don’t you?”

I open my mouth, but she interrupts too quickly.