Chapter 3: Three Days

Lyra

They drag the Alpha of the North out of my cell like a man carrying a corpse.

I watch it happen with one wrist still chained to the wall. Cassian's boots scrape the stone. His head lolls. Right before the door slams, his eyes find mine, and they're still gold, and they're terrified.

Then the lock clicks, and I'm alone with the dripping water and my own thoughts.

If she dies, so do we.

I didn't hear it. Nobody did. But I saw his face when it happened, and I've watched two hundred and six people die. I know what it looks like when a mind goes to war with itself.

Cassian Draven ordered my execution, and his own wolf nearly killed him for it.

"Great," I tell the ceiling. "Fantastic. I'm the most wanted woman in the north, and the man who wants me dead can't stand up."

The ceiling doesn't answer.

Hours crawl. I try to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see myself standing in that burning city with a silver blade in my hand.

That's the part I can't shake. Not that he died. That I did it, and I looked at his body like I'd never been more horrified in my life.

My whole life, I've been terrified of exactly one thing. Not death. Death and I have an understanding. I'm terrified of becoming what people already think I am.

A ghoul. A curse. A woman who brings death wherever she goes.

And now I've got proof.

---

The door bangs open at dawn.

"Up," says Captain Bram. He looks like he hasn't slept either. "The Council's here. The Alpha wants you in the Hall."

"The Council? Already?" I let him unlock me. "Did somebody send a raven?"

"Somebody did." He doesn't say who.

The Great Hall of Blackspire is enormous, all black stone and iron chandeliers, and every seat is full. I'm marched down the center aisle in chains, with two hundred pairs of eyes on my back, and I'd give a year of my life for a bath.

At the far end, on a raised dais, sits Cassian.

He's pale. Shadows dig under his eyes, and there's a fresh cut on his lower lip, but he's upright and controlled and absolutely icy. If I hadn't seen him choking on his own roar six hours ago, I'd never guess.

To his right stands Seraphine, silver-gray and serene, her cloudy eyes resting on me like a hand.

To his left sits a heavy-set man in a scarlet robe with a Council sash. Councilor Ferran Voss. I know his face from the tax notices.

"Bring her forward," Voss says.

The guards shove me to my knees.

"This is the Death Seer," Voss announces to the room. "Found bare-handed on the body of a Draven soldier. Found with an unexplained quantity of blood on her person. And, by the Alpha's own account, the woman who has foreseen his murder." He turns his thick neck toward Cassian. "I ask again, Alpha. Why is she not dead?"

"Because I have a question," Cassian says.

His voice fills the hall. It's low, calm, and it doesn't shake at all. That's what makes my stomach flip.

"Miss Veyne. You said you saw a burning city. I want the details. Everything. Slowly."

I blink. "You want me to describe it?"

"Yes."

I shut my eyes and go back in.

Smoke. Towers. The sound of screaming. The taste of copper. And then, slowly, other things I hadn't noticed before, things at the edges of the memory, like the bottom of a painting you only see when you lean in.

"There were banners," I say. "Long, red and gold ones. Hundreds of them, strung between the rooftops. They were burning." I frown. "And lanterns. Paper lanterns, floating up out of the streets. Thousands of them."

A rustle passes through the hall.

Cassian's face goes still.

"Red and gold," he repeats. "Lanterns."

"Yes."

"Alpha," Seraphine says softly. "The Emberfall Festival."

Emberfall. The night of the first frost. Every household in Ashgate, the city below the keep, hangs red banners and sends lanterns into the sky. It's the biggest celebration in the north. Even I know that.

"When is Emberfall?" Cassian asks.

Nobody answers for a long moment.

"Three days," Bram says at last.

The hall erupts.

Voss is on his feet, shouting. Councilors are shouting back. Someone's yelling about the treaty, and someone else is yelling about the poor Alpha, and through it all, Cassian just sits there, staring at me like I've just shown him the edge of a cliff.

Three days.

Three days until I murder him.

"Silence," he says.

It isn't loud. But the whole room obeys.

"So the murder is real," Voss says into the quiet, almost triumphant. "It has a date. It has a place. And it has a killer. The Council's decision is clear. By the Treaty of Five Moons, any wolf foreseen to murder an Alpha is to be executed. Immediately."

"By a Death Seer," Cassian says. "Whose practice is illegal, and whose testimony is inadmissible in any Council court."

"You signed that law."

"I did. Which means I know exactly what it says." Cassian's eyes never leave Voss. "You want to hang the only witness who can identify my killer, on evidence you yourself would throw out of court. Are you so sure it is her? Or is it that you want this settled by Emberfall?"

Voss goes red. "You are protecting her."

"I am protecting the truth."

"The guards say you called her mate."

The hall goes so quiet I can hear a candle spit.

I stop breathing.

Cassian doesn't blink. "My reasons are my own."

"Alpha —"

"I am the ruler of this territory. Under the Treaty, prisoners in my custody are mine to hold. She stays alive." He pauses, then adds, softer, more dangerous: "If Emberfall passes and I am still breathing, she hangs on the fourth day. If I die, the Council may do as it pleases. But not before."

He rises. The whole hall rises with him.

"The Seer will be held in the North Tower. Under guard. Under my guard. That is my decision."

And he walks out.

Seraphine lingers, her small hands folded. She glances at me. Her cloudy eyes crinkle in a gentle smile.

"Three days, little Seer," she whispers as the guards pull me up. "Try to be kind to him."

It should sound like a kindness.

It doesn't.

---

They lead me up the North Tower stairs at dusk.

It's a long, curling climb. Two guards flank me. Captain Bram brings up the rear. And at the top, waiting at the door of a room that is not a dungeon, stands Cassian.

He's changed his coat. He's still pale. He doesn't look at me.

"The room has a bed," he says, staring at the wall. "A window. A basin. You'll be fed."

"How generous."

"It's practical."

"Ah. So you're keeping me alive. Because it's practical."

A muscle jumps in his jaw. "Yes."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I don't lie."

"Then say it again."

He turns. For the first time since the cell, our eyes meet, and the air between us crackles like a lightning strike is on its way.

"Go inside, Miss Veyne."

I step toward the doorway. My boots are too big, and my chains are too long, and I'm so tired that the world tilts, and I catch my toe on the top stair.

I pitch forward.

Cassian catches me.

It's reflex. His hands close around my forearms, warm and strong, and my sleeve has ridden up, and his bare palm lands on my skin.

Click.

I'm falling.

The burning city again. Smoke. Screams. Blood on his chest. Gold and red banners aflame above us. It's the same vision, the same terrible lantern-lit sky, but this time it doesn't stop.

This time, the memory turns.

Cassian's head drops. Through his failing eyes, I see his hand fall from his chest. I see myself, standing in front of him with the silver knife, hands shaking, mouth open in horror.

And behind him, standing in the smoke, something moves.

A figure. Tall. Slender. Draped in a silver-gray gown that doesn't stir in the wind.

She isn't afraid. She isn't screaming.

She's watching. Calmly. Her hands folded in front of her, her cloudy blue eyes fixed on his back, like a woman waiting for a candle to burn down.

I've seen that face on every notice board in the north.

I've seen it smile at me twice since midnight.

Seraphine Vale.

The Oracle Queen was standing behind Cassian Draven when he died.

And she didn't look surprised at all.