Irrik jerked away, holding me at arm’s length, and my body screamed for him. My mind streamlined through the haze. Lord Irrik was all I saw.

“I need to report.”

“She’s too pretty—lavender eyes and that long hair,” a woman said with a shake of her head.

I didn’t care about her.

“Yes,” Irrik said, jaw clenched. “Can you get her ready?”

The woman sighed and tugged at my sleeve. “Come with me, missy. You can’t go to the king looking all ‘innocent harvest girl.’”

The young woman had mousy brown hair drawn back in a low ponytail that accentuated ghastly scars on both her cheeks. Her face was splotchy and her eyes red, like she’d been crying before coming to get me, but the brutality of the scars had me transfixed. Like I was reading a map of some horrific journey she’d endured.

“Quick now,” she said, pulling me up the courtyard, toward a side entrance into the king’s castle. The way was a blur I knew I’d never be able to retrace.

I blinked, trying to make sense of her tears. “Did the king do that to you?”

Her eyes widened, and she darted a glance behind her and then past me before whispering, “Shoot, missy. You don’t know nothing, do you?”

I shook my head slowly, and my bottom lip trembled as a deep sadness assailed me. What I was sad for eluded me. I only knew that Irrik wanted to help.

Irrik!

I whirled, searching for him.

“He’s gone to report to the king to give us time. I saw that kiss. I’ve never seen him kiss a girl before, just the breath usually. Probably why you’re wavering like you’ve spent three days on the brew. Don’t be angry at Irrik, though. He tries to make it hurt less, and having you look so pretty could make it worse, especially if one of the guards takes a fancy to you. Come on now. Let’s hurry and see what we can do. Won’t be long before the king loses patience, and then no one’s safe.”

The girl tugged me up two flights of narrow stone steps, squeezing past several other scurrying people. We climbed more intervals of winding stairs before arriving on a long, narrow landing. She ushered me into a small room with a chamber pot and a large shining square object where a girl who looked just like my escort stood next to another girl with hair the same as mine. “There are two of you?”

The scar-faced girl barked a short laugh. “Never seen a mirror before, have you? Well, don’t fall in love. You won’t look that way for long, but it’s all for your own good.”

She extracted several jars from an old set of drawers and opened them. Dabbing her fingers into one, she rubbed an ointment on my cheeks and then another one in my eyes. My eyes immediately burned and watered.

“Mistress Moons, missy. You’re one of those people who look decent when they cry. No good,” she muttered. The girl returned the ointment and grabbed another one.

This time, my vision blurred and the burning was so fierce I couldn’t open my eyes because of the pain.

I felt her grab a fistful of my cinnamon hair, Mum’s hair. My heart clenched, and emptiness swirled deep inside. When I heard the sawing of a knife, I tried to twist away.

“Don’t be moving now. I don’t want to nick you in the neck. Whatever you use to dye your hair has left it a clumped mess.”

I wiped at my eyes, tears streaming as they tried to clear whatever noxious substance the girl had rubbed there. Something about it smelled like the soap Mum used for my hair, and I wanted to tell the girl about the soap because she was mistaken, it wasn’t dye. Suddenly, my head felt lighter on my left side, and I watched as the heavy strands fell to the floor.

The stone room stole my attention as I wiped at my blurry eyes again. Despite being a servant’s quarters, it was finer than our house.

She grabbed another handful of hair so hard my scalp tingled. Confusion overtook the numbness, and I whispered, “Why are you doing this to me?”

The girl sniffed and continued her snipping. I didn’t for one second think she was feeling sorry for me.

“What did Irrik drag you in for?” she asked.

“I’m not a rebel.”

The woman came around to stand in front of me and lifted my chin, pinching it. “Listen to me, and listen good. There is a one-way path from here. There’s no happy ending for you now, but there are ways to make your life less painful. So, you better get smart quick, missy, or he’ll break you before you can blink.” The girl’s fierce stare turned inward. “He breaks everyone in the end.”

“Even you?” I mumbled.

She stepped to the side, revealing the reflective surface. The girl staring back at me had only tufts of brown hair standing in uneven chunks. My eyes, a purple-gray that people described as lavender, were rimmed and puffy, the color now resembling a watery gray. My skin was now the same splotchy color as the girl standing next to me, but mine was still smooth and unmarred.

The girl studied my appearance with obvious disapproval. Then she answered, “The best you can hope for is to find a place they can’t touch and know the rest isn’t necessary for survival. Your body is a shell. Your skin—the wrapping. Your will, theirs. But somewhere deep inside you, there is a place, whether you see it as the corner of your mind, your heart, your soul, whatever, and that part is yours. That is the difference amongst the people here. Figure out what’s necessary, and let everything else go.”

She had to be younger than I was, but I felt like a toddler in her presence. Even so, something deep within protested what she said. To give up everything I was except a sliver of my soul? I didn’t think I could live that way. How would I determine what was necessary?

The girl placed the scissors in the drawer and dusted off her white apron. “I’ve done the best I can with what I’ve got. Now, we need to go. I’m only showing you to the throne room, mind you.”

My mind felt as though I was clawing out of a fog. It felt . . . familiar.

The girl continued her morose chatter as she led me from the washroom. “Most days, I don’t know why I don’t just give up and become fertilizer for the fields like everyone else. Did you know that King Irdelron heard decomposing matter nourishes the soil? The bodies are piling up out there now; my friends, my family. Beats me why I keep trying, but I do. I think it’s just habit. Ain’t that awful?” She smiled sadly at me, her scars pulling tight. “Maybe it’s because the crops ain’t gotten no better for it. I could never abide waste.”

A gruesome image of a field of dead bodies flashed through my mind, and my stomach churned. Then an image of my mother flashed across my mind, dagger in chest, and I searched blindly for a wall to support me. My mind experienced the same snapping sensation of an hour before as it cleared.

Kiss fog. My hate for Lord Irrik returned and multiplied until I was shaking as memories assaulted me once more. I wiped my lips. How long had I been out of it? Minutes? Hours? I could’ve been escaping this whole time.

“That bastard,” I hissed, and then I scrubbed at my lips.

“Shh,” she hissed, glaring at me. “Don’t even think—oh, you’re talking about Lord Irrik?” She chuckled then whispered to me, “Don’t be upset with him. He didn’t mean nothin’ by it, ’cept to help. Usually, he doesn’t even bring anyone in. He’s not the worst of the two. That’s for sure.”

Not the worst of the two. Was that meant to be a recommendation? I’d claw his eyes out if I ever got a chance. A part of me saw that my bitter hatred for the Drae was incased by large doses of my own guilt and self-hatred, but whatever my role had been in Mum’s . . . death—I pulled in a ragged gulp of air—he’d definitely played a part by signaling the king’s guard to follow me in the first place. We hustled through a passageway the size of my entire street, and my heart began to thud as the last of Lord Irrik’s kiss wore off. Guards lined both sides of the hall as we neared a huge set of double doors, which extended to the ceiling and were covered in gilded designs.

The guards were dressed in their navy aketons with black trim, each holding a spear with a sword strapped at his side. They didn’t look at us as we passed. But I felt their complete attention on me and picked up my pace.

What would happen beyond those doors? I scrambled to make sense of what had happened thus far: Irrik had followed me, set tails on me, and when the guards came, Mum . . . I squeezed my eyes shut and saw her blood everywhere. She’d taken my place. There was something I was missing, and it made me want to pull out what remained of my hair.

On the surface, the king thought I was a rebel, and what I said next would determine if I lived or died. I knew that. But there was something more, a whole other importance that mother was terrified to have the king know, something she was willing to die for. Or she could’ve tried to run with me. She’d been trying to keep me from notice. She’d had a blade with Phaetyn blood.

As we reached the gilded doors, I forced my legs to move, certain I was about to die.

I wished there was a way to get a message to Dyter. To Arnik. To anyone. I didn’t want to die without saying goodbye. They’d find my mother’s body and would never know what happened to me. I chewed on the side of my lip and ran my hand through my hair—what was left of it—and a few long strands, which must’ve been missed when the girl cut it, came off in my fingers.

Two huge guards, nearly as large as Lord Irrik, broke from the lines and hauled open the doors of the throne room of King Irdelron.

The girl beside me whispered something, but her words were lost in the terror of my mind. With a last shove to get my feet moving, she retreated with the door, keeping out of sight.

My feet took me into the room, stuttering just like my heart.

Long tables, twice the size of my bed, lined one entire wall, and were laden with food. Roasted birds with golden skin sat atop platters loaded with root vegetables, the rich juices of the birds soaking into the potatoes, carrots, and turnips. A hunk of meat, at least the size of my torso, was cut into slices, revealing a tender pink center to its dark seared crust. There were plates of breads in every imaginable shape and size, and next to the piled rolls were ceramic crocks. Bowls of greens, containing fresh leaves of lettuce and cooked beans sat beside an entire pig with an apple in its mouth in the very center. There was roasted orange squash and a platter of grilled corn.

A table with dainty finger cakes, cookies, and pies the size of my palm sat beside it. There was so much food, enough to feed several Harvest Zones, and the air was rich and sweet with the scents, but no one was eating.

I glanced through the room. There were two dozen other empty tables, and the opposite side of the room was barren, except for the raised dais where King Irdelron sat on his throne, a gilded monstrosity. The back of the throne was a handspan taller than the Drae standing next to it. Lord Irrik.

Next to the king, on the other side, was a smaller throne, much less ornate and also empty. How many queens had sat on that chair? He’d had many wives during his life, extended as it was with Phaetyn blood. How many queens had he murdered when he tired of them? How many of his own children had he slain to ensure he remained king?

King Irdelron appeared nothing like I’d expected. First, he looked far too young for his alleged age of one hundred and thirty, more like forty. His hair was like maize, so golden and fair it didn’t seem natural. His eyes were a vibrant green, the color of the leaves on Mum’s pea vines. And his skin was smooth and fair, like he and the sun were unacquainted. I couldn’t believe the rumors. How could he be over one hundred? And then my gaze landed on the gilded vial that hung around his neck.

“You’ve kept me waiting, girl,” King Irdelron said from his throne. His voice was calm and quiet, but there was a thread of something cold underneath.

I glanced at the Drae, but Lord Irrik’s face could’ve been carved from stone where he stood in the shadow of the throne.

The king raised his eyebrows and said, “I don’t take kindly to waiting.”