Gold was everywhere in Gonaro.
That was the first thing travelers noticed.
The second was usually how little of it belonged to the people who lived here.
Gold covered the domes of the temples.
Gold climbed the palace towers in curling patterns of suns and lions.
Gold edged the fountains in the wealthy districts, glittered from noblewomen's wrists, hung from merchants' necks, decorated the saddles of royal horses, and flashed from the armor of King Idias's soldiers whenever they marched through the streets.
Even the kingdom's name had become inseparable from it.
Gonaro.
The Kingdom of Gold.
Beautiful from a distance.
Cruel when you lived inside it.
I was grinding feverroot when someone screamed downstairs.
I didn't look up.
The pestle continued circling beneath my palm.
Crush.
Turn.
Crush.
Turn.
Another scream followed.
Male this time.
Then laughter.
Definitely drunk.
Still not my problem.
"Twenty copper says he falls down the stairs."
I glanced toward the doorway.
My mother leaned against the frame with one shoulder, looking far too amused for a woman who had spent most of the night entertaining men who couldn't remember her real name.
Her clients called her Snow.
Idiots.
Nothing about my mother reminded me of winter except her hair.
It spilled almost to her waist in pale waves, platinum so light that the strands occasionally looked silver beneath candlelight. Her loose blue robe covered most of her body, though she'd wrapped it hurriedly enough that I could see the bruising along one collarbone.
I looked away before she noticed me noticing.
Crena noticed everything.
Unfortunately, so did I.
"Thirty," I said.
She raised one eyebrow.
"Thirty?"
"He's heavier than he sounds."
Another crash came from below.
Someone cursed.
Then—
THUD.
My mother grinned.
"Pay me."
"I never agreed."
"You answered."
"That isn't legally binding."
"We live in Gonaro. The king decides what's legally binding according to how much wine he's had."
I winced.
"Mother."
"What?"
"Perhaps don't insult the king loudly while standing beside an open door."
She glanced toward the hallway.
Then deliberately raised her voice.
"OUR GREAT AND NOBLE KING, WHO CERTAINLY DOES NOT HAVE THE MORAL CHARACTER OF A DISEASED GOAT—"
I lunged across the room and slapped a hand over her mouth.
Her silver eyes sparkled.
Exactly like mine.
That was one of the problems.
People noticed the eyes.
They always noticed the eyes.
My mother's were iridescent silver, shifting between pearl, lavender, and the faintest blue whenever light touched them. Mine had inherited the same strange quality.
According to Mother, they came from her family in Riedana.
According to everyone else, they looked unnatural.
Men had paid ridiculous amounts simply to stare into hers.
Which was one of several reasons I rarely looked strangers directly in the face.
"Are you trying to get us arrested?"
Mother kissed my palm.
I recoiled.
She laughed.
"Disgusting."
"You used to let me kiss your hands."
"I was four."
"You were sweeter then."
"I was stupid then."
"Also true."
I returned to the table.
Our room wasn't much.
Calling it our room was generous.
It occupied the uppermost corner of the brothel, beyond the nicer chambers where wealthy customers were entertained. The ceiling slanted low enough that I had struck my head on one beam approximately two hundred times during childhood.
One narrow bed belonged to Mother.
I slept on a padded mat beside the window.
Half the remaining space had been claimed by my work.
Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters.
Rosemary.
Feverroot.
Dried lavender.
Golden sage.
Moonmint.
Bloodvine.
Bitterleaf.
Three varieties of moss.
Six flowers the Madame insisted were weeds until I sold one tincture for more than she made from three customers.
After that, they became our valuable medicinal crop.
Funny how quickly money improved a person's appreciation for botany.
Shelves covered one wall, crowded with clay jars, glass bottles, cloth packets, knives, mortars, pestles, scales, and handwritten notes.
The room smelled like dried herbs, candlewax, old wood, and jasmine oil.
The last came from Mother.
She always smelled like jasmine.
Even when she came upstairs with someone else's perfume clinging to her.
I hated that smell.
Not jasmine.
The others.
Men left pieces of themselves on her.
Perfume.
Wine.
Sweat.
Bruises.
Coins she never got to keep.
Sometimes blood.
I ground the feverroot harder.
"Dama."
"I'm fine."
"You nearly powdered the bowl."
I stopped.
A thin crack had appeared along the edge of the mortar.
Wonderful.
"That's coming out of your profits," Mother said.
I looked at her.
She smiled.
I did not.
Her smile faded.
She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the stool opposite me.
Up close, she looked tired.
Not ordinary tired.
Not I didn't sleep enough tired.
It lived deeper than that.
Around her eyes.
In the slight tremble of her fingers.
In how carefully she lowered herself into chairs when she thought I wasn't watching.
Years had settled inside her body even if they hadn't touched her face much.
Crena was still beautiful enough to make people stare when she walked through a market.
That beauty had never protected her.
It had simply increased her price.
"How bad?" I asked.
She knew what I meant.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
"Mother."
"A little sore."
"Where?"
"Dama."
"Where?"
She sighed.
"Shoulder."
I stood.
She caught my wrist.
"No."
My gaze dropped to her fingers around me.
"Let me see."
"I said I'm fine."
"And I said you're a terrible liar."
"I'm an excellent liar."
"Not to me."
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then she released me.
I pulled the robe carefully aside.
The bruise spread over her shoulder in ugly shades of violet and black.
My stomach tightened.
There were finger marks.
I knew exactly what they were.
I had treated enough women downstairs to know.
My hands became very still.
"Who?"
"No."
"Who?"
"Dama."
"If someone hurt you—"
"Someone always hurts someone here."
Her voice wasn't bitter.
That somehow made it worse.
I stared at her.
Mother reached up and touched my cheek.
"Don't make that face."
"What face?"
"The one where you're deciding which poison would be hardest to detect."
I said nothing.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Dama."
"Purely academic."
"You reorganized the poisons last week."
"They were alphabetically offensive."
"There is no such thing."
"There is if you have standards."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
I pulled a small jar from the shelf instead.
"Hold still."
I spread a cooling salve over the bruise.
Mother hissed.
"Sorry."
"You're not."
"No."
"Terrible bedside manner."
"I'm an herbalist, not a priestess."
"Perhaps you should become one."
I snorted.
"Can priestesses poison people?"
"Probably."
"Then perhaps."
She laughed quietly.
I liked that sound.
I wished I heard it more.
Outside the little window, morning had begun spreading across Gonaro.
From here, I could see the upper towers of the royal palace gleaming in the distance.
Gold.
Of course.
The first sunlight struck the domes and reflected hard enough that I had to squint.
The palace looked magnificent from this district.
Everything did from far enough away.
Mother followed my gaze.
Her body stiffened.
Only slightly.
Most people would have missed it.
I didn't.
I never did.
"Don't," she said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking."
"Unfortunately, I do that sometimes."
"Dama."
I returned the salve to its shelf.
My father lived in that palace.
Somewhere behind those golden walls.
Idias.
King of Gonaro.
The man whose face appeared stamped onto every royal coin.
The man people bowed to in the streets.
The man priests praised during public ceremonies.
The man whose soldiers beat people bloody for failing to pay taxes while nobles threw gold dust into wine because apparently ordinary drunkenness lacked sufficient sparkle.
My father.
He didn't know I existed.
At least—
we prayed he didn't.
Mother rarely spoke about him.
She didn't need to.
I knew enough.
I knew she had been taken from Riedana while still young.
I knew she'd been transported across borders with other captives.
I knew she'd been sold.
Then sold again.
Then eventually purchased by the woman who now owned this brothel.
I knew King Idias had noticed her shortly afterward.
I knew he had become obsessed.
I knew Mother had not wanted him.
I knew that hadn't mattered.
And I knew I had been born because powerful men were rarely required to care whether a woman said no.
Mother had never once looked at me as though I reminded her of him.
That might have been the greatest kindness anyone had ever given me.
She told me I was hers.
Never his.
But blood was inconvenient that way.
My skin carried his bronze coloring.
Mother's was golden-brown too, though mine deepened more easily beneath the Gonaran sun.
My face—
according to people who remembered Idias when he was younger—
carried traces of the royal family.
My cheekbones.
My jaw.
Something around my mouth.
I avoided asking.
The rest belonged unmistakably to Crena.
Her platinum hair.
Her silver eyes.
Her strange Riedanan beauty that made people stare a second too long.
My mother had spent nineteen years making certain King Idias never stared long enough at me.
Tomorrow—
I turned twenty.
Not that the king cared about my birthday.
But Mother did.
She always became strange around it.
Restless.
Quiet.
Watching the windows.
As though she expected something to arrive.
I had asked why.
She always gave the same answer.
"Twenty matters where I come from."
Apparently that was all the explanation I deserved.
"What?"
Mother was looking at me.
"You disappeared."
"I'm sitting directly in front of you."
"You know what I mean."
I tied the salve closed.
"Thinking about tomorrow."
Something moved across her face.
There.
Gone.
Fear.
"Don't."
I frowned.
"Don't turn twenty?"
"That would be convenient."
"I'll see what I can arrange."
"Dama."
"What?"
Mother stared at me for several seconds.
Then shook her head.
"Nothing."
Liar.
Before I could push, someone pounded on the door.
"Dama!"
I recognized the voice.
Mira.
One of the younger women downstairs.
"Dama, please!"
I was already moving.
Mother followed.
I opened the door.
Mira stood barefoot in the hall.
Her brown hair hung loose.
Blood covered both hands.
My stomach dropped.
"Who?"
"Not me."
"Who?"
"Leina."
I grabbed my healing satchel.
Mother caught my arm.
"Dama—"
"I have to go."
"I know."
Her expression had changed again.
That same fear.
"Just..."
"What?"
She swallowed.
"Be careful today."
I stared at her.
"I'm going downstairs."
"I know."
"Mother—"
"Go."
So I went.
The brothel had been called The Golden Veil long before I was born.
Everything in Gonaro required gold in the name.
The Golden Veil.
Golden Palace.
Golden Market.
Golden Temple.
Golden Guard.
I once suggested we rename the city We Have Gold, Please Notice.
Mother thought it was an improvement.
The Golden Veil occupied three floors near the eastern market.
The front rooms were lavish.
Red silk.
Gold curtains.
Perfumed lamps.
Polished tables.
Music after sunset.
Beautiful women dressed in expensive fabrics they did not own.
Behind those rooms was the truth.
Cramped sleeping quarters.
A kitchen that became unbearable in summer.
Storage rooms.
Laundry.
Narrow staircases.
Locked doors.
And women who owed debts calculated by people who benefited from those debts never being repaid.
I descended the stairs behind Mira.
"How bad?"
"Knife."
"Where?"
"Side."
"Still conscious?"
"Yes."
"Breathing normally?"
"I think."
"Who did it?"
Mira hesitated.
That told me enough.
"A customer?"
"Guard."
Of course.
"Royal?"
She nodded.
Wonderful.
We entered Leina's room.
She lay curled on her side on the bed.
Two women held cloth against her ribs.
Too much blood.
Far too much.
"Move."
They moved.
Leina looked at me.
She was thirty-two.
She had three missing teeth, a laugh loud enough to frighten horses, and an eight-year-old son living with relatives in the southern district.
"Dama."
"I'm here."
"I think he got me good."
"I've seen you survive worse."
"Have you?"
"No."
She managed a breathless laugh.
"Terrible healer."
"So I've been told."
I cut away the fabric around the wound.
Deep.
Not immediately fatal.
Probably.
I pressed around it.
Leina cursed me creatively.
"Good," I said.
"What?"
"If you can insult my ancestry, you're not dying yet."
"Your ancestry can go fuck itself."
"Excellent."
I cleaned the wound.
Packed it with clotroot.
Pressed.
Waited.
Blood soaked through.
I added more.
One of the women crossed herself.
Another whispered a prayer.
I ignored both.
"Boil water."
Mira ran.
"Needle."
Someone handed it to me.
"Wine."
Leina looked offended.
"That's mine."
"It's going on the wound."
"Then absolutely not."
"Leina."
"Use the cheap bottle."
Despite myself, I smiled.
"There she is."
I worked.
This was the part of my life that made sense.
Bodies obeyed rules.
Mostly.
Blood needed stopping.
Wounds needed cleaning.
Infection needed preventing.
Pain could be reduced.
Fever could be controlled.
Plants had purposes.
Leaves.
Roots.
Bark.
Seeds.
Flowers.
Even poisons followed rules if you respected them.
People were harder.
People lied.
People hurt one another.
People called cruelty law and greed commerce and captivity debt.
Plants were more honest.
Belladonna never pretended it wasn't poisonous.
By the time I tied the final stitch, Leina's breathing had steadied.
"Sleep," I said.
She closed her eyes.
"I have a customer in an hour."
"No, you don't."
"The Madame—"
"Can argue with me."
Several women exchanged looks.
One muttered, "You enjoy death."
"No."
I washed blood from my hands.
"I simply enjoy being correct."
The door opened behind me.
The room went silent.
My shoulders tightened.
I didn't have to turn.
Only one person could silence twenty women that quickly.
"Can I?"
The Madame's voice was smooth.
Always smooth.
Like silk dragged over a knife.
I stood.
Madame Vesra entered.
She was nearly sixty and somehow appeared forty from a distance.
Up close, powder settled into the lines around her mouth.
Gold rings covered eight fingers.
A ruby rested against her throat.
Her dress probably cost more than Mother had been allowed to keep in nineteen years.
She looked at Leina.
Then me.
"What happened?"
"Royal guard."
"Which?"
"Ask her when she wakes."
"She has an appointment."
"Not anymore."
Vesra's eyes moved to mine.
"Excuse me?"
"She was stabbed."
"I can see that."
"Then we're making remarkable progress."
Mira choked.
She turned it into a cough.
Madame Vesra did not blink.
I had learned something about powerful people while growing up around them.
They disliked open defiance.
But they absolutely despised being laughed at.
"Dama."
"Madame."
"Outside."
Wonderful.
I packed my supplies.
As I passed Leina, she caught my fingers.
"Don't get yourself killed."
"I'll try."
"Try harder."
Then I followed Vesra.
She didn't stop until we reached her office.
Gold everywhere.
Naturally.
Vesra closed the door.
"You embarrassed me."
"Leina was stabbed."
"That does not answer what I said."
"It explains why I don't care."
Her jaw tightened.
"You become more like your mother every year."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
"Still accepting it."
She moved behind her desk.
A large ledger sat open.
Names filled the pages.
Numbers beside them.
Debts.
Everything had a price here.
Food.
Clothing.
Rooms.
Medicine.
Security.
Punishment.
Women paid for the privilege of being trapped.
I had once calculated Mother's supposed debt.
If Vesra told the truth—and Vesra considered truth a personal insult—Mother had repaid her purchase price approximately eleven times.
According to the ledger, she owed more now than when she'd arrived.
Magic.
Not the interesting kind.
Accounting.
Vesra watched me looking.
"How much have you saved?"
My eyes snapped to hers.
She smiled.
My blood went cold.
"What?"
"For your mother."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Dama."
That one word contained nineteen years of threats.
I held her gaze.
"Why would I be saving for Mother?"
"Because you're not stupid."
Neither are you.
She didn't say it.
She didn't have to.
Vesra leaned back.
"Crena has become less profitable."
My nails dug into my palm.
"She's a person."
"She's property."
"Not forever."
That smile returned.
"Everything is forever if no one can afford the price."
I wanted to reach across the desk and break every finger wearing gold.
Instead I breathed.
Anger made people careless.
Mother taught me that.
Plants taught me patience.
"What's the price?"
Vesra's eyes sharpened.
"There it is."
"How much?"
"You don't have it."
"Name it."
She did.
For one second, I thought I'd misunderstood.
Then she repeated herself.
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
"That's enough to purchase a house."
"A small one."
"Two houses."
"Unpleasant ones."
"Four horses."
"Depends on the horses."
"Are you negotiating livestock now?"
"I'm making a point."
"So am I."
I stopped smiling.
"You don't intend to let her go."
Vesra's expression softened.
Almost maternal.
I hated that expression most.
"Oh, sweetheart."
"Don't call me that."
"Your mother has lived here for twenty years."
"Nineteen."
"Close enough."
"Not to her."
"She has no family here."
"She has me."
"Precisely."
Silence.
Something changed.
A sensation beneath my ribs.
Warning.
Vesra folded her hands.
"You are becoming quite famous."
There it was.
I said nothing.
"Merchants ask for your medicines."
Silence.
"Soldiers."
Nothing.
"Even nobles."
I waited.
"Men ask about the beautiful herbalist with silver eyes."
My body went cold.
Vesra smiled.
"I've protected you."
"You've hidden me because Mother made you more money cooperative than grieving."
"Such an ugly interpretation."
"Such an ugly situation."
Her smile disappeared.
Then she said quietly:
"The king is asking questions."
Everything inside me stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
"What questions?"
Vesra examined one of her rings.
"Apparently His Majesty has developed an interest in locating certain... indiscretions."
"Bastards."
"Such an inelegant word."
"Accurate."
"Several have already been found."
My mouth went dry.
"Why?"
"Politics."
Of course.
The answer people gave when greed wore expensive clothing.
"Some daughters have been married into useful families. Sons have been placed in military commands. Others..."
She paused.
"Others what?"
"Disappeared."
Mother's warning returned.
Be careful today.
She knew.
She knew.
And hadn't told me.
"Does he know?"
"About you?"
I couldn't breathe properly.
Vesra watched me enjoyably.
"No."
Air returned.
"Not yet."
Gone again.
"What does that mean?"
"It means one of his men visited yesterday."
"Who?"
"I don't believe you know him."
"What did he ask?"
"Whether Crena ever had children."
I stared.
"And?"
"I told him no."
"Why?"
That amused her.
"You sound disappointed."
"Why protect us?"
"I protect investments."
There.
The truth.
Always uglier.
She stood.
"You should be grateful."
"I'll schedule it."
Vesra walked around the desk.
"Your mother owes me."
"No."
Her brows lifted.
"Your ledger says she does. Reality disagrees."
"And what will reality do about it?"
Something hot moved under my skin.
For just a second.
I looked down.
Nothing.
Vesra hadn't noticed.
"You think being clever makes you powerful, Dama."
"No."
I met her eyes.
"I think powerful people underestimate clever ones."
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Not yet.
"Careful."
"I usually am."
"I know whose daughter you are."
There it was.
The chain she had wrapped around Mother for nineteen years.
My father's blood.
Vesra stepped closer.
"If you cause trouble, if you try to remove Crena from this house, if money begins disappearing, if either of you attempts to flee..."
She lifted one shoulder.
"Perhaps I remember something."
My pulse thundered.
"You'd lose Mother."
"I would lose an aging prostitute."
I wanted to kill her.
The thought came calmly.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
I knew seven poisons in this building alone capable of killing Vesra.
Three would resemble illness.
One would kill slowly enough for her to spend a month wondering.
Another caused paralysis while leaving the victim conscious.
A sixth—
No.
I pushed the thoughts away.
Mother wanted freedom.
Not revenge.
There was a difference.
Sometimes.
Vesra touched one strand of my hair.
I slapped her hand away.
Her eyes flashed.
"You have her beauty."
"Don't."
"Perhaps more."
My stomach turned.
"And unlike Crena, you're untouched."
I went very still.
"No."
Her smile returned.
"You don't even know what I'm offering."
"I know."
"Your mother's freedom could be arranged."
Everything changed.
Vesra saw it.
Of course she did.
She had been waiting.
"What?"
"Crena leaves."
I stared.
"Free?"
"Free."
"No debt."
"None."
"Written release."
"Signed and witnessed."
My heartbeat became painful.
"In exchange for?"
Vesra looked at me.
Really looked.
My skin.
My hair.
My eyes.
I already knew.
Still—
hearing it hurt.
"You."
Silence.
"The Golden Veil needs a new jewel."
I couldn't feel my hands.
"You'd take her place."
"No."
"Then your mother stays."
I turned toward the door.
"Think about it."
I stopped.
"You could save her."
My fingers curled around the handle.
"By becoming exactly what she's spent my entire life trying to protect me from."
"Love requires sacrifice."
I looked back.
"People like you always seem strangely eager for someone else to make it."
Then I left.
Mother was waiting upstairs.
I closed the door behind me.
She took one look at my face.
"What did Vesra say?"
"You knew."
Her expression broke.
"Dama—"
"You knew the king's men came."
"I was going to tell you."
"When?"
"Tonight."
"Why tonight?"
She said nothing.
"Mother."
"Because tomorrow you turn twenty."
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"More than you understand."
"Then explain it."
"I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
Her eyes closed.
I hated immediately how sharp my voice had become.
I lowered it.
"Mother."
She turned away.
I watched her pull the blue robe tighter around herself.
For the first time, she looked small.
Crena had never looked small to me.
Even here.
Even trapped.
She had always possessed something no one had managed to buy from her.
A center.
A place inside herself that belonged only to her.
"Dama..."
"What happened in Riedana?"
She froze.
I continued.
"You never talk about it."
"There's nothing to tell."
"Lie."
Her shoulders tightened.
"You tell me twenty matters there."
Silence.
"You taught me remedies no healer in Gonaro recognizes."
Nothing.
"Half the herbs in my books are supposedly extinct."
Her head turned slightly.
"You have silver eyes no one here has ever seen outside our family."
"Dama."
"And sometimes—"
I stopped.
Mother slowly faced me.
I hadn't meant to say that.
"Sometimes what?"
"Nothing."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Dama."
I looked toward the window.
"Plants do things."
Her face lost color.
"What things?"
I laughed nervously.
"You're going to think I'm ridiculous."
"What. Things?"
The fear in her voice frightened me.
"Sometimes I know what they need before I touch them."
She didn't move.
"I know that's normal for an herbalist, but..."
"But?"
"Dead ones aren't always dead."
Mother stared.
I swallowed.
"I had a moonrose last month. Completely dried. I forgot it beside the stove."
Her fingers began trembling.
"I touched it."
Nothing in the room moved.
"It bloomed."
Mother sat down.
Actually collapsed onto the bed.
"Mother?"
"No."
"What?"
"No, no, no..."
I crossed toward her.
She grabbed my hands.
Her grip hurt.
"When?"
"A month ago."
"Anything else?"
"Why?"
"Anything else, Dama?"
I hesitated.
"Sometimes I dream."
Her expression became worse.
"About?"
"A place."
"What place?"
"I don't know."
"Tell me."
"Purple sky."
She stopped breathing.
"Mountains."
Nothing.
"Some of them float."
Mother's eyes filled with tears.
"Rivers that move the wrong direction."
"No."
"And someone—"
She gripped me harder.
"Someone?"
"A man."
The room seemed suddenly colder.
"I never see him clearly."
Mother whispered something.
Not Gonaran.
I recognized the language.
Riedanan.
She had taught me fragments as a child.
The word sounded like a prayer.
Or a curse.
"What does that mean?"
She stood so abruptly our foreheads nearly collided.
"We're leaving."
I blinked.
"What?"
"Tonight."
"Mother—"
"Pack your medicines."
"What about Vesra?"
"I don't care."
"She'll tell the king."
"I don't care."
"Five minutes ago you cared enormously."
"Dama."
Something in her voice silenced me.
"You turn twenty tomorrow."
"Yes."
"And you've started dreaming."
"Apparently."
"The plants?"
"Yes."
"And the man?"
I nodded.
Mother covered her mouth.
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
I had seen Crena angry.
Exhausted.
In pain.
Amused.
Disgusted.
I had almost never seen her afraid like this.
"Mother, who is he?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I don't know which one."
That made absolutely no sense.
"Which what?"
She looked at me.
For a moment, I saw something ancient inside my mother's eyes.
Something she had spent nineteen years hiding.
"Dama."
Her voice trembled.
"There are things about Riedana I never told you."
Outside—
a bell began ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
Not the temple bell.
Not noon.
Royal warning.
Mother and I turned toward the window.
People were moving in the street below.
Merchants stepped away from their stalls.
Pedestrians hurried aside.
Soldiers entered the district.
Gold armor.
Royal insignia.
Six horses.
Then twelve.
Then twenty.
My stomach dropped.
At their head rode a man wearing the black-and-gold cloak of the king's personal guard.
They stopped outside the Golden Veil.
Mother whispered:
"No."
A soldier dismounted.
Then another.
Madame Vesra appeared downstairs.
I couldn't hear what they said.
Didn't need to.
The officer pulled something from his coat.
A parchment.
He unrolled it.
Mother's nails dug into my wrist.
"Dama."
I looked at her.
Her face had gone completely still.
"Pack."
"Mother—"
"Now."
Below us—
someone knocked on the brothel doors.
Three heavy blows.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
A voice carried from the street.
"By order of His Majesty King Idias of Gonaro!"
Every sound inside the brothel died.
My heart hammered.
The officer continued.
"We are searching for a woman formerly taken from Riedana."
Mother stopped breathing.
"Known in Gonaro as Crena."
My blood turned to ice.
"And any children born to her during her residence within the kingdom."
Mother closed her eyes.
For nineteen years, King Idias had not known I existed.
For nineteen years, my mother had hidden me beneath his nose.
For nineteen years, we had survived.
One more day.
We had needed one more day.
Tomorrow I would turn twenty.
Tomorrow, according to Mother, something was supposed to change.
I still didn't know what.
I only knew we were out of time.
Another knock shook the building.
Mother reached beneath her mattress and pulled out a small leather bundle I had never seen before.
She pressed it into my hands.
Heavy.
"What is this?"
"Something that belonged to my mother."
I opened the cloth.
A pendant lay inside.
Old silver.
A stone at its center shimmered with colors that shouldn't have existed inside any ordinary gem.
I stared.
The moment my fingers touched it—
the world stopped.
Not metaphorically.
Stopped.
The curtains froze halfway through moving.
Dust hung motionless in the sunlight.
Outside the window, a bird remained suspended above the street with its wings spread.
A horse below stood perfectly still, one hoof lifted from the ground.
The sound of the city vanished.
No voices.
No bells.
No footsteps.
Nothing.
I couldn't breathe.
"Mother?"
Crena wasn't moving.
Her hand remained outstretched toward me.
Frozen.
Everything was frozen.
Except me.
Then—
tick.
My head snapped toward the wall.
We owned no clock.
Tick.
The sound came again.
Behind me.
I turned.
Nothing.
Tick.
Closer.
My heart pounded.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Then a man's voice whispered directly beside my ear.
A voice I had heard a hundred times in dreams.
Warm.
Ancient.
Relieved.
"Finally."
I spun around.
No one stood there.
The pendant burned cold against my palm.
Then time crashed forward.
Sound exploded back into the room.
Mother gasped.
The bird vanished beyond the window.
The horse's hoof struck stone.
People shouted below.
And the royal soldiers began breaking down the doors.
I stared at the pendant.
Then at my mother.
"What," I whispered, "just happened?"
Crena looked at the stone.
Then at me.
And for the first time in my life—
my mother answered a question about Riedana without lying.
"Your blood woke up."
The doors downstairs shattered.
Mother grabbed my face between both hands.
"And whatever you do, Dama—"
Her silver eyes locked onto mine.
"—do not let the king find out what you are."
I swallowed.
"What am I?"
Another crash thundered through the building.
Boots filled the halls.
Mother pulled me toward the hidden stairs.
She looked terrified.
Not of my father.
Not of the soldiers.
Of something much larger.
"I'll explain if we survive."
We ran.
And somewhere beyond the world I knew—
a clock began to move.
For the first time in thousands of years.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.