The Sweetest Liar

By the time I reached the great hall, Kaelen had already blocked the door.

He stood in front of my family with his arms folded and his jaw tight. Soldiers lined the walls behind him.

Tobias leaned beside a pillar, trying to look relaxed and failing.

“I have not decided whether to let them in,” Kaelen said without turning around. He had known I was there before I made a sound. “You decide.”

The night before, I had told him what I saw in the courtyard: the gold flash in Lila’s eyes, and the cups of tea she brought me on my weakest nights. He listened without interrupting. It was not proof, and we both knew it.

I stopped on the top step. Below me, my mother looked up with red eyes and a trembling mouth. My father held his hat in both hands, and I noticed they were shaking.

Cael stood a little apart from them with his head bowed. Lila clung to his arm, small and white and perfect.

“Sera,” Mother whispered. “Oh, my baby. We came as soon as we heard.”

“Heard what?” I asked.

“That you were safe. That the prince took you. We thought you were dead.” She pressed the basket of flowers against her chest. “We were so frightened.”

It was a good performance. If I had not spent nineteen years watching her, I might have believed it.

“You were frightened when I lay in the attic?” I said.

“You were frightened when you told the healer I was as strong as an ox?”

She flinched. “We were misled. Lila’s illness, the healer’s words, it all seemed so urgent. We never meant to hurt you.”

“We were told you were fine,” Father added. He did not lift his eyes. “We were told it was harmless.”

“By whom?”

He did not answer.

Cael stepped forward. His fingers trembled as he held out the cloth bundle he had carried across the courtyard. Inside lay a small wooden doll with a chipped painted face. I recognized it at once.

It was the doll I had saved for Lila on the day she arrived. I had left it on the stairs when I was nine, and I had never seen it again.

“I found it in the attic wall,” Cael said. His voice was hoarse. “Mother must have hidden it. I wanted you to have it back.”

I took it. My fingers closed around the splintered wood.

“I laughed,” he said. “In the healer house. I laughed when you were gray and shaking. I have thought of nothing else for two days. I am sorry, Sera. I am more sorry than I can say.”

I waited for the rush of forgiveness. It did not come.

“I believe you,” I said slowly. “But I am not ready to forgive you.”

Cael nodded, and I saw tears in his eyes. “That is fair.”

“Sera,” Lila whispered.

The whole hall went still. Her voice drifted down the steps, thin and shaking, with a pause before each word.

“I know you are angry with me.” Breath. “I never wanted to be a burden.” Breath. “If I could give back every drop of blood you gave me, I would.”

A few nobles on the balcony murmured. A woman in green silk pressed a hand to her heart.

“Oh, the poor child,” she said.

Lila lifted her chin. A single tear slid down her cheek. “I only want my sister back.”

Kaelen’s hand went to his sword. I laid my fingers over his wrist, and he stopped.

“Not here,” I said quietly. “Not yet. We have no proof that would stand in front of a court.”

“I do not care about a court.”

“I do.” I met his eyes. “I want her to lose. I do not want her to become a martyr.”

His breath left him slowly. Something in his face softened. “You are wiser than I am.”

“I am only angrier.”

He almost smiled. Then Tobias coughed softly, and we both turned.

A tall man in gray robes stood at the top of the opposite stair. He was thin, pale, and stooped, with a heavy gold chain on his chest. A glove covered his right hand.

King Aldric Draven.

I had expected a roaring giant. Instead I saw a tired man with kind eyes and a faint tremor in his fingers.

“My brother tells me we have the last heir of Dark Moon under our roof,” the king said. His voice was dry and gentle. “I would like to hear it from her.”

I bowed, as Nara had taught me that morning.

“I am Sera,” I said. “I was raised as a Vale. I am told I am something else.”

“You are.” The king studied me. For a moment he swayed, and Kaelen took a step toward him. Aldric waved him away. “It is nothing. A passing weakness.”

I noticed the glove. I noticed how he pulled his sleeve down over his wrist when he saw me looking.

I noticed a thin, dark vein climbing above the cuff.

“Your Majesty,” Lila said sweetly, stepping forward.

“My family and I are so grateful for your kindness.

Our home was burned by a fire. We have nowhere to stay.”

I stared at her. “A fire you survived untouched.”

“Sera,” Mother hissed.

“You lit it,” Lila whispered, wide eyed. “I have never told anyone, but I saw you with the candle. You are not well, sister. You have been so confused.”

The nobles gasped. I heard it like wind through dry leaves.

“I am not confused,” I said.

“The poor girl,” said the woman in green. “Perhaps the prince does not know what he has taken in.”

I opened my mouth, and no words came. Kaelen’s eyes flashed gold. The old fear wrapped around my ribs. I was the ox. I was the liar. They would believe anything but me.

“Enough.” The king’s voice was quiet, yet it silenced the whole hall. “The Vale family will stay as my guests until this matter is settled. All of them. The girl Lila is clearly ill and will receive our healers.”

“Majesty,” Kaelen began.

“It is my decision, Kaelen.” He did not raise his voice.

“I will not turn away a sick child at my gate. Not before I understand what has happened.”

He turned and left, one slow step at a time.

***

That afternoon, I began to train.

Kaelen took me to a stone yard behind the citadel, where the wind cut like a knife and the snow lay in blue drifts. Tobias came along, because he wanted to see what a priestess could do.

“Start with your breath,” Kaelen said. “Close your eyes.

Feel her.”

“Feel who?”

“Your wolf.”

I felt nothing. I felt cold, and shame, and the lingering ache of my wrists.

“She is there,” Kaelen said. His voice came closer.

“She has been waiting. Think of the thing you wanted most when you lay in the attic. Not revenge.

Not pain.

The thing underneath.”

I thought of a hand on my shoulder. A voice saying,

Well done, Sera. A door left open.

A warmth rose in my chest. Silver. Quiet. It unrolled through my arms and legs like water over dry stone.

My eyes flew open, and the world turned sharper, brighter, louder. I heard Tobias’s heartbeat. I smelled the pine smoke three walls away.

My hands were not hands anymore. Pale silver fur covered them, and sharp claws curved from my fingertips.

“There she is,” Kaelen said softly. He was grinning.

He looked young and proud. “Moon and stars, Sera.

Look at you.”

I laughed. I could not help it. I ran across the yard faster than I had ever moved in my life, and the wind sang in my ears, and for ten whole seconds I forgot everything.

When I came back, panting, Kaelen caught my hands.

His amber eyes were bright.

“You are magnificent,” he said.

The word went straight through me.

Behind him, in a window high above the yard, a thin figure stood watching. She wore white. A curtain hid half her face.

Lila’s lips moved, and even from that distance, I could read them.

Your wolf is pretty. I will enjoy her.