Violet Made of Thorns (Violet Made of Thorns #1)(5)

Still, a title and a tower don’t erase a fear of things people don’t understand. When something as strange as magic lives in someone as strange to them as a foreign-faced girl, I will never stand a chance. I should remember that when I get arrogant with the prince, even if I am right.

After drying off, I yank on my nightgown and tumble into bed, exhausted.

When I shut my eyes, something clinks downstairs.

Then again, in repetition: kak-kak-kak.

Cabinets settling? I frown.

Kak-kak-kak-kak.

Snickering.

My heartbeat fills my ears. No reason I wouldn’t be alone. Slipping out of bed, I grab the closest blunt object I can find in the dark—a long-handled brush by the tub. I hold my breath and pad downstairs, careful to not make the stairs creak.

In the pitch-black, I circle the room, feeling along the ridges of the walls, but the only sound is the scrape of my own feet against the floor.

There’s no one here. But I ask the dark anyway, just to settle my skin: “Who’s there?”

I hear a hiss like a tongue meeting hot steel. Swinging the brush in a wide arc, I strike something solid that clatters and skids across the floor.

A wooden tray and bowl. I exhale.

Laughter bubbles forth. Hah-hah-hah.

Vi-o-let.

I swing around again, stumbling. The echo of my name sticks to the back of my skull, here and nowhere all at once.

What a fitting

name

you have,

Vi-o-let.

Words layer upon each other—many voices, merging into one. My heart hammers; this is no earthly sound.

Vile.

Vi-o-let.

Violet of the Moon.

I’ve never heard these voices before, yet they’re familiar as instinct, innate as a layer of my soul. “Who are you?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

Two dim lights flicker in the distant dark. My breath catches in my throat. Nothing makes that kind of glow in this room.

We grant you your power, wretch.

Brush held in front of me, I approach the lights with stuttered steps, toeing around the tray I knocked over. I recognize what I’m walking toward: the offering fountain, where my patrons toss in gifts and coins. And carved at the top of it is the faceless statuette they sometimes pray to.

Formerly faceless.

The blue-copper statuette has been worn smooth for as long as I’ve seen it, barely recognizable as a figure at all, let alone one of a Fate. It’s only remarkable for an antique, said to be nearly as old as the first Seer.

But as I near, the grooves of the statuette form a woman, coldly serene, draped in a cloth that flows from her like a waterfall. Her eyes blaze blue fire. From her mouth spills a chorus:

Seven years gained,

one life owed.

You saved the crowned boy

who was ours to claim.

Diverted his death

so you could live in your tower.

It is time to pay it back.

Memories rise: the prince running through the Moon District marketplace. Me, pulling him away from the crush of a horse-cart. We were barely more than children then. Felicita was still alive. It was long ago. “I don’t understand.” Every vein in my body pulses, aware of a danger I can’t place. “Is this a threat?”

There is always a price for defying destiny.

One life owed.

The boy must die

before summer’s end,

or you will burn.

“Why? But I didn’t—” My grip on the brush’s wooden handle shakes, the only tether I have to anything solid. My feet have gone numb.

The boy must die

for all tales must END.

Wind rushes through the room—or did I imagine it? Is this how Felicita went mad? I can’t really be talking to the gods. This is impossible.

The voices surge, deafening, solid enough to fill the dark:

IT IS TIME,

AT LAST, AT LAST,

BLOOD AND ROSES AND WAR.

I slam the end of the brush into the statuette. The top half of its body smashes to the ground. Black tendrils erupt from the marble stump, spiderwebbing down the fountain. A cackle bounces off the walls. I clutch my head, keening.

I’m going mad. This is mad. I scrabble around on the floor for anything to make the laughter stop, and I slice my hand on broken marble. I cry out at the bright pain. Lightning flashes. The room shudders, as if divinely struck.

YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF ANY LOVE THAT WILL SAVE YOU.

I breathe in smoke.

The tower bursts into flames.



* * *





I wake gasping from a memory of ash, hands curled around my throat, legs twisted in the sheets. Fire sears my skin for a white-hot second. Another blink, and the night is dark and cold. Above me, the gems studded into the tower’s ceiling wink, unburnt, as if they know what I saw.

Slowly, I unclench my hands from my neck.

Was it a prophecy or—? What else could it have been? A hallucination? It was so vivid.

It didn’t feel like any prophecy I’ve had. None have spoken directly to me before.

None have threatened me before.

Kicking off my covers, I crawl out of bed and put on my robe with trembling hands. A chilled wind rushes up my knees as I push through the balcony doors and press myself against the railing. Dawn is brightening. The scaly rooftops of the Sun Capital glimmer below. Beyond the city walls, the land dips into shadowed valleys.