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Chapter 18
‘Oriane.’
A voice, quiet, familiar. Oriane did not want to hear it. She did not want to hear anything.
‘Oriane, you need to eat something. Or drink some water.’
Why did she keep speaking? Did she not see that Oriane could not respond, even if she wanted to?
Silence fell again. It pressed on her, heavy, the same way the darkness pressed against her eyes. Someone held a candle beside her, but Oriane turned away from it, staring into the black.
A sigh, so quiet as to almost be inaudible. A gentle pressure on her arm, there and gone like an insect lighting briefly on a flower.
‘I’ll come back later. Try to get some sleep.’
Oriane did as she was told.
‘Oriane?’
A man’s voice this time, rich with sympathy. Kitt. He had not brought a candle, so the room remained in shadow. Oriane could sense him, over by the door.
‘Oriane, I … I am so sorry. I cannot … I don’t—’141
He cut himself off. He was kind to her, Kitt; he had been from the moment she had met him. The kindness was painful now, his pity keen as a blade on her skin. And that blade felt tipped with poison, too, for no matter how he’d treated her, he still worked for the king.
‘Is there anything I can get you – anything I can do?’
She was so tired that she had started seeing shapes in the darkness before her, like fish swimming in the deepest part of the ocean. Like black flames flickering against a black sky. She watched them without interest. Her eyes had begun to smart and sting.
‘I will not forgive myself for my part in this.’ Kitt’s voice sounded quiet, almost strangled. ‘I do not expect you to do so either.’
He was gone, but Oriane had not noticed him leave. She was still focused on the shapes, which now looked less like fish or flames, and more like blades.
She was on the floor, but did not remember how she had got there. The rug was thin, the stone beneath it cold. Oriane set her focus on that stone. She willed it to swallow her, to turn her to stone, too, and send her back beneath the earth.
Time passed. She did not know how much. Warm hands were upon her at one point, propping her up, holding water to her lips and making her drink. Smoothing her hair back from her face.
More time. Oriane was in bed now, buried beneath a mountain of quilts. Still she did not sleep. Or perhaps she did; there was no way to142distinguish sleep from waking, not now she was living in a nightmare made real.
‘The king is going to come soon, Oriane.’
When had Andala come back? Had she been here the whole time?
‘It’s almost morning. He … he wants to make sure you will transform.’
To make sure? As if Oriane had a choice. As if her nature, and her stupid, selfish desire to share it with the world, had not brought her here in the first place. Of course she would transform. Of course she would sing another meaningless day into existence. Of course the cycle would go on.
She had never felt anything like the torrent of hatred that tunnelled through her at the sound of King Tomas’s voice. There were others speaking, too; he had brought people with him, perhaps to help himmakesureshe would transform. But it was the sound of the king’s voice that pierced her, the vile noise of it ringing in her ears like the echo of a thunderclap.
Light; an onslaught of light, after who knew how many hours in darkness. Oriane closed her eyes against it. The usual warmth in her chest felt muted today, as if her power, like her, had no desire to bring another day into being. The king’s voice continued, and the other voices. She ignored them. Her eyes remained closed. Andala’s hands – Oriane knew the feel of them now – guided her carefully out of bed. She stood, swaying slightly, throat dry, the pain impossible to swallow. The warmth behind her ribs grew hot.
Transforming brought no relief. She had not really hoped that it143would. She was still the same when she was the skylark, still Oriane, and as long as that were true there would be no relief to find.
There was no flight this morning, no triumphant swooping around an audience hall, no joyful song. The notes came as they always did, but Oriane remained on the ground, her wings tucked behind her as her song poured forth. And the moment it was done, she was human again.
Her eyes were open now. Someone had pulled back the curtains and extinguished the candles, and in the first pale, gossamer strands of morning light, Oriane could see the outline of the king. Tomas was looking at her, his face still in shadow, its expression indiscernible. And there it was again, deep in her gut: hatred. Oriane did not recall having felt it before, but she knew it for what it was now. Shehatedthis man. It was his fault, all of it. And she would never forgive him.
‘Leave,’ she said, in a voice she did not recognise as her own.
