wondered if it were simply habit, if she’d even realized she’d done it at all.
It had been easier inside, where the confusion and ugliness of the attacks had been concealed behind a thick veil of smoke. Out here, the destruction was all too clear, far too apparent. We could all see just how much damage had been done. How many lives had been lost.
I gazed down at my feet as I walked, trying not to look at the bodies that littered the wreckage, trying not to remember how I’d once envied those who walked upon these gleaming, polished steps.
It was the halo of golden hair I saw from the corner of my eye that caught my attention, making my steps falter. I froze midstep. My breath caught in my throat as I blinked hard, telling myself it wasn’t her. . . . It couldn’t be her.
But as I moved closer, something in my gut told me I was wrong.
I stopped in front of the girl lying facedown on the stairs, her limbs at odd, unnatural angles. There was a single bloodstain square between her shoulder blades. She’d been shot while she was trying to escape.
With trembling fingers, I brushed aside her hair, needing to see the truth for myself, needing to be certain.
Beneath the golden curtain, her face, turned to the side, was ashen, and her wide eyes were vacant.
My heart ached as I lifted her hand, clutching her cold fingers. . . . Fingers I’d held not so long ago during a riot in the park, a day that I’d decided to save her life, when we’d gone from being rivals to friends.
And suddenly I wished I’d listened to Brook when she’d warned me about her father. When she’d warned me he’d made threats against me.
Except she got it wrong.
I wasn’t the one in danger by being here today. I wasn’t the one who’d been injured.
It was everyone else.
Somewhere below me I heard a strange clicking sound, and I set Sydney’s hand down reverently, once more brushing my fingertips over her cheek. A final farewell.
Zafir reached for my arm. “We have to go,” he insisted, ushering me down the steps.
I heard another click, this time closer, and I glanced up to see a man, just a few steps below me, holding a camera. It wasn’t something most people owned, the camera. It had been a luxury item even before the days of Sabara’s rule, and seeing it here, in the streets, seemed odd and out of place.
I thought Zafir might take it from the man since he was pointing its lens right at me, snapping photo after photo. Instead, the guard moved to stand in front of me, signaling to one of the soldiers near the top of the steps who rushed down and escorted the man away from us. I didn’t know if they’d let the man keep his images, or his photography equipment. It wasn’t my concern at the moment.
When we reached the bottom of the steps, the woman who’d been screaming the boy’s name—Phoenix—stopped us.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said weepily, still forgetting to speak in Englaise as she clutched her small boy to her heart. “Thank you for saving my son.”
I smiled, but guilt coursed through me as Zafir shepherded me into the awaiting vehicle, a different one from the one we’d driven to the school this morning, and I wondered if the other had been destroyed. I wondered, too, where this one had come from. I said nothing, though. I just waited until the door was closed behind me before letting myself cry.
I saw Max running toward our vehicle long before the palace had come into view.
“Stop!” I shouted at the driver as I was climbing over Brooklynn to reach the door.
I stumbled only a few feet over the pitted road before I fell into his arms, which came around me and lifted my feet off the ground as he hauled me against him. “You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . .” he whispered over and over again.
I was shaking all over but I somehow managed to find my voice. “It’s okay, Max. I’m okay.”
I inhaled the scent of his skin—wondering when I’d
It had been easier inside, where the confusion and ugliness of the attacks had been concealed behind a thick veil of smoke. Out here, the destruction was all too clear, far too apparent. We could all see just how much damage had been done. How many lives had been lost.
I gazed down at my feet as I walked, trying not to look at the bodies that littered the wreckage, trying not to remember how I’d once envied those who walked upon these gleaming, polished steps.
It was the halo of golden hair I saw from the corner of my eye that caught my attention, making my steps falter. I froze midstep. My breath caught in my throat as I blinked hard, telling myself it wasn’t her. . . . It couldn’t be her.
But as I moved closer, something in my gut told me I was wrong.
I stopped in front of the girl lying facedown on the stairs, her limbs at odd, unnatural angles. There was a single bloodstain square between her shoulder blades. She’d been shot while she was trying to escape.
With trembling fingers, I brushed aside her hair, needing to see the truth for myself, needing to be certain.
Beneath the golden curtain, her face, turned to the side, was ashen, and her wide eyes were vacant.
My heart ached as I lifted her hand, clutching her cold fingers. . . . Fingers I’d held not so long ago during a riot in the park, a day that I’d decided to save her life, when we’d gone from being rivals to friends.
And suddenly I wished I’d listened to Brook when she’d warned me about her father. When she’d warned me he’d made threats against me.
Except she got it wrong.
I wasn’t the one in danger by being here today. I wasn’t the one who’d been injured.
It was everyone else.
Somewhere below me I heard a strange clicking sound, and I set Sydney’s hand down reverently, once more brushing my fingertips over her cheek. A final farewell.
Zafir reached for my arm. “We have to go,” he insisted, ushering me down the steps.
I heard another click, this time closer, and I glanced up to see a man, just a few steps below me, holding a camera. It wasn’t something most people owned, the camera. It had been a luxury item even before the days of Sabara’s rule, and seeing it here, in the streets, seemed odd and out of place.
I thought Zafir might take it from the man since he was pointing its lens right at me, snapping photo after photo. Instead, the guard moved to stand in front of me, signaling to one of the soldiers near the top of the steps who rushed down and escorted the man away from us. I didn’t know if they’d let the man keep his images, or his photography equipment. It wasn’t my concern at the moment.
When we reached the bottom of the steps, the woman who’d been screaming the boy’s name—Phoenix—stopped us.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said weepily, still forgetting to speak in Englaise as she clutched her small boy to her heart. “Thank you for saving my son.”
I smiled, but guilt coursed through me as Zafir shepherded me into the awaiting vehicle, a different one from the one we’d driven to the school this morning, and I wondered if the other had been destroyed. I wondered, too, where this one had come from. I said nothing, though. I just waited until the door was closed behind me before letting myself cry.
I saw Max running toward our vehicle long before the palace had come into view.
“Stop!” I shouted at the driver as I was climbing over Brooklynn to reach the door.
I stumbled only a few feet over the pitted road before I fell into his arms, which came around me and lifted my feet off the ground as he hauled me against him. “You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . .” he whispered over and over again.
I was shaking all over but I somehow managed to find my voice. “It’s okay, Max. I’m okay.”
I inhaled the scent of his skin—wondering when I’d
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