“Sarai,” Carmella said, “does that gossip rag have th
e announcement for the festivities tomorrow?”
“No, the only thing that’s in today’s is the news about our Prince Weston killing his father, the King.”
It took me a moment to process that and then my eyes widened. “What?” escaped my lips, just as five more sounded throughout the room. Everyone’s eyes shot to Sarai, as she pulled a loose parchment from the middle of the gossip rag.
“Says he killed him.” She shrugged. “Looks like it too.” She turned around the drawing of a Titan Prince I used to know, holding his father’s head by the hair.
My heart stilled. Earlier, curiosity had overwhelmed me, and I’d asked the librarian about who drew the posters around town. Well, they were drawn by painters in our magic capital, Rainer, who could remember the slightest detail of an actual moment. The picture Sarai was holding was real, and my stomach turned at the cold look in Weston’s eyes.
“Our Prince is a king!” Juliana exclaimed.
“No, he’s not. That’s not how it works in Titan, Juli,” Magdalena said.
“Then how does it work, miss know-it-all?”
“There’s a tourney for the position. Whoever wins gets the crown.”
Juli rolled her eyes. “Our Prince will win, no doubt.”
I tuned them out after that and headed to my room when they began to pass the poster around. Leaning against the closed door, I fought the strange feeling in my chest. The man responsible for my death was now dead. I should have felt free, liberated. But strangely enough, I’d never felt a certain Titan’s grip on me tighter.
I’d thought escaping Weston would save the land and myself. But now that I was doing it all on my own, I’d learned that freedom is nothing but a dream. That once you think you’ve found it, you realize that freedom doesn’t taste so free. That what we have now is only newer chains than what we had then.
The Southie streets were still. I could almost see the dust settling back down after the long day of preparing for the festival.
Laughter and heavily drunken voices rose and then faded as I walked past a mainland tavern and in the direction I saw the menagerie was being set up.
I wasn’t Girl in Black tonight. I’d given up on her for a while, being only myself. Calamity. A girl in a white dress walking through empty streets. Everyone must have been starting the festivities early, but I didn’t mind when I saw I would have the entire menagerie to myself. There were wooden posts blocking the street off so that no one got in without paying, but at this hour it was closed, and with no one around, I walked around the blockades.
Soft animal huffs, flapping wings, and the unmistakable sound of monkey shrieks reached my ears as I walked down the lantern lit street.
Wooden cages sat on platforms down the sides of the street, containing some creature or another. I passed close by a barred wagon, trailing my fingers across the bars and meeting gazes with a moment from the past: the amber eyes of a tiger looked back at me, a gravely purring noise leaving the beast.
From monkeys, snakes, tarantulas, to a giraffe, gazelle, and even a pinned off elephant made up the attraction.
I stopped in front of a giant net that encased, what had to be, a hundred butterflies. Some danced around, the orange glow from the lanterns playing on their colorful wings.
I laced my finger through the net; a butterfly landed right on my knuckle, flapping its wings gently—and somehow, it reminded me of home.
My heart squeezed painfully. I missed my grandmother. I even missed Alger, and the simple life we led there.
It seems we always want what’s out of reach.
How inconvenient that is.
I didn’t want to be a part of the Sisterhood as much as I didn’t want a Fate over my head like a hanging cloud I couldn’t control. But I didn’t get a choice, and that fact made resentment heavy in my chest.
I stood there for a few moments, letting my thoughts work themselves out. I wouldn’t let some order stop me from living a life that I wanted, that I chose. Sometimes life already has stones laid beneath your feet, but that only means you need a new path.
But I only had that thought for a second, because subtly, as if the breeze switched direction, the hair raised on the back of my neck.
I stopped breathing, all the air getting caught in my chest.
I didn’t know how I could’ve ever had curious, fanciful thoughts about the man I was certain was standing close behind me. This wasn’t paranoia anymore, this was real life. There was nothing more than apprehension rushing through me like I’d been injected with it directly into my veins.
A tingly, hot awareness danced across my spine and played down the back of my thighs. The butterfly on my finger flew away as if he sensed the danger as well.