My chambers are an empty pit of silence, there is nothing for me to do there, so I take that leap and venture through the castle. Listening to Renit pace back and forth is not how I want to spend my morning after scarfing down as much food I could eat without vomiting. My entire being is stressed enough and the more I'm around him, the worse my anxiety will become.

Renit won't tell me what his plans are. I don't bother asking but I've come to understand the prince and his plans are best served in secret. If he sends me to the dungeons...I can't fault him for choosing that. He's said time and time again that his loyalty lies with the crown and with his father, cruelty and all.

I don't blame him. His father is a safety net, as much as the king might avoid to catch him when the prince falls. Without his father, Renit has nothing. His status would become nothing more than a lowly prince who shakes the hands of lords and stands idle at parties and celebrations. With his father, he is something. The king's weapon. Without a king, Renit loses the title.

After taking a bath and combing out the knots from my hair, I change into a black tunic with gold embroidery. I stuff my trousers into leather boots and take one last look in the mirror. I frown at myself through the silver glass. From being in those abandoned dungeons with lack of food, I've lost some of the frame to my face and I'm nearly back to where we started.

This is the first time in years I've been able to pull back my hair. The scarlet strands are long enough now and after being washed and brushed out, my hair is silky and holds a shine. Feeling emptiness around my face, I stick two golden earrings through my lobes—the daggers I wore on the night of our engagement celebration. That's the only pair that interests me.

With the king departed from the castle, there is a much easier feel in the halls. The servants aren't stressed, running about with baskets of clothes and sheets for guests. Instead, they walk at an even pace and smile at me when I pass. They've never done that. The departure of the king has changed everything about this castle, even the guards and how they maintain their posts.

Although still professional, they aren't scared to talk to each other.

This carefree behavior...this is how the castle should be. We shouldn't be scared to talk to each other or smile at those we pass in the halls of stone. I try to avoid thinking about how this could become an everyday occurrence with someone else on the throne but that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to think about it anymore.

Celestine's door is shut and no sounds come from the other side. In this small stretch of hall, empty except for the torches on the walls and a brazier crackling in the corner before another stretch of hallway, there are no other doors.

My sister is lonely down here in the crown prince's tower. Only one window looks out to the courtyard, now cleaned except for the adjustment of stone and the construction of a new fountain. At least something pleasant came from my foolish mistake of trying to kill Darius.

Instead of knocking, I peek my head inside her chambers and find Celestine sitting at her desk, her back to me. From the doorway, I can hear the pen scratching against a clean piece of parchment in one of her journals. I wonder how many she has filled, if Silas ever got the chance to give them to her in the first place.

Celestine's hair is unbound, flowing down the back of her dress in gentle waves. Her feet are bare, her ankles crossed—just as she used to sit at her desk in Arego. At the memory, tears prick at my eyes but I shove down that sorrow. I cannot allow myself to break here, I cannot always go to Celestine with my troubles of the past.

Not wanting to startle her, I rasp my knuckles on her door. "Not now, Hallie. I'm almost done, just give me a few more minutes," she says without turning to look at me.

"I'll come back later," I respond, loud enough for her to discern. She turns quickly, hair whipping to the side, and her mouth falls open in shock.

She croaks a sob and runs for me, throwing her arms around my shoulders. I'm rocked back but I keep my ground and squeeze her tight. Like all the times I've done before, random moments throughout the day, I breathe in the scent that Celestine carries with her. The scent of a witch of gardens. Flowers, grass—a meadow. Exactly where the king is headed.

"You're back," she croaks. Her chin moves against my shoulder.

"As of last night." I break away from her and she holds me at arm's length like she might want to grip onto me for a little longer. I never want to leave her again. My eyes drift back to the desk she abandoned. "What are you working on?"

She shakes her head. "That's not important. Tell me what happened." My sister leads me to the two chairs sitting in front of the fireplace and forces a plate of fresh cookies into my lap once I've seated. I'm not the only one that's noticed my weight-loss, then. Is that why the servants smiled at me in the halls? Because they were feeling sorry?

No, it's because of the king.

Celestine pulls her legs against her chest and folds her hands together. She's been hanging around Hallie too much. Ignoring that, I begin, "We were captured by rebels. Renit was injured so we couldn't fight back."

My sister gasps and places one of those delicate hands against her mouth. "That's terrible. Did the rebels reveal who they were? Where did they take you?" She asks, leaning closer as if that'll help her absorb the information easier.

"Bren...Bren is alive," I say easily. Her skin blanches. "He's the leader of the team that captured us." I take a bite of the sugar cookie as Celestine takes in the information, the little I've provided.

Tears swell her eyes. "He's alive?"

I nod. "He's the only reason I'm still alive. Otherwise, they would have killed me."

Celestine leans back in her chair and stares towards the flames. I've seen my sister stunned before, even at a loss for words, but this is a new low. She's never been quiet this long, always had something to fire back with right away. All this time, we believed Bren was dead. The truth was a shock to me, too.

"And they took us to Fosux. We were held in an abandoned part of the mines, their dungeons, until we managed to escape," I lie. We didn't escape, Bren was the one that let us go. Tesha's backlash had to be monumental.

"That's terrible." Celestine shakes her head. "Did they injure you and Renit?"

I roll my neck back and forth, considering. I tell her everything that happened, from the arrow wound to me killing that man on the trail. Bren never told me his name, never revealed the man's past. That makes it easier, I suppose, to know I could have just killed a rebel and not a blacksmith from Flitsea with a wife and four kids or a merchant from Ducoria trying to support his mother through a difficult illness.

Celestine listens attentively next to the flicker of the fire in her silent chambers. Slowly, that weight on my shoulders begins to lift as those words find their way into the air and the world beyond. This story doesn't belong to just Renit and myself anymore. The truth belongs to my sister—the entirety of it.

I tell her of Tesha and Akeno, the calm and the storm to Bren's operation and the man he has become. She smiles at the memories of him and the relief that he is not decaying somewhere, alone on an Arego battlefield. That is what the village has become, it is no longer a safe haven for those that need it.

Once I'm done and there's a lightness in my chest, I sit back in the chair and cross my legs together. I'm so tired. I didn't sleep a wink.

"This is...crazy," she says. Celestine laughs underneath her breath.

I fiddle with my hands, rolling my thumbs together. "That's not the end of it, either," I mumble.

Her brows furrow in confusion and she purses her lips. "What do you mean?"

"If I tell you the truth, you can't say a word to anyone." My eyes dart to hers and find nothing but fear in her freckled gaze. "Can you do that?"

Celestine's throat bobs but she nods despite not wanting to. I have to trust her because there's that small pebble in my chest, the only weight left behind. If I can't tell her this, then I made a mistake telling Renit in the first place. I am supposed to trust her more, not the prince. Celestine is blood.

"The reason I escaped is because Bren let me go. We devised a plan behind Renit's back to send the king to the flower meadows. The rebels will be waiting and upon his arrival, they'll engage." I shake my head. "He left this morning and he will not be returning."

At first, Celestine is silent. She doesn't move except to blink and if I move, I fear she'll attack me for ever being so foolish in the first place. "You're a fool," she hisses. She braces her hands on the armrests of her chair and leans towards me so the words don't leave this corner of the room. A flash of my mother shines on her face, a sign that a stern talking-to is coming. "You'll get yourself killed."

"Not if you don't tell anyone." I've said that too many times recently. "The rebels won't speak a word and if you care about me, neither will you. This can work—if everything goes smoothly."

Celestine stands quickly and begins to pace in front of the fire. Her dress swirls around her knees, twisting with each spin she makes to the other side of the room. "You made a plan to have the king killed, Roux. This doesn't come to light without consequence. You...you need to leave! Escape before the king discovers you were part of this."

"I'm not leaving again, Celestine. That's not the plan. No one will find out."

My sister scoffs. "You're so sure of yourself. You never stop to think; you never have and you never will. Is Renit in on this?" She stops her pacing to wait for a response.

"He knows what I did and he's currently pissed at the moment," I confirm.

"Rightfully so." Celestine jerks her chin in a nod. I'll add another to the list of how many witches have come to hate me in a matter of hours. I'm at a running tally of three, including Dalis.

My throat is dry. I've run out of things to say and so has Celestine as she stops her pacing to stand in front of the fire. She's always been the one to carry the burden of my actions, even if they are mine to bear. But Celestine has always wanted the best for me, she's looked out for me, and without her—I would be in much worse condition.

She was my beacon growing up, I wanted to do everything she did. The village adored her and I wanted that same affection so whatever Celestine found herself doing, I matched her step for step. At times, she was annoyed. Being mirror images of each other, I was annoyed as well. That didn't stop until I realized it was a lost cause, no one was going to love me in the same way they loved her.

Even our parents loved us differently. At least I believed so. None of that matters now, the days I spent hating myself for my power and the fear it caused. My parents are dead now and I can't fix that. The realization still hits me like a slap to the face. I want to believe they're out there somewhere, amongst the cities or starting another village. But they're not.

"Is Silas alive?" I ask carefully. I keep my eyes on the rug underneath my leather boots. Changing into a pair of nice clothes seems like a mistake now.

Running her fingers through auburn locks, Celestine nods. "He's alive but...he hasn't been the same since that day. Silas seems lost." Something loosens inside my chest, something that had been locked away since that day. I had been waiting to hear the truth I desired and now that I know...the weight inside me has lifted. Silas can be king. She turns to face me, my mother's determination taking over. "And it's all because you had to show Darius what you were worth."

Although I'm relieved about Silas, that doesn't halt my ire. "I didn't come here for you to pound me further into the ground," I snap.

Regret flickers in her eyes but she shakes her head. "You came here because you needed to spill your guts to someone. Make amends, whatever." Celestine shrugs. "You dug yourself deep already, might as well keep going."

I stand from my chair quickly, rising to meet her withering stare. "It was nice to see you again. I'll be going now, unless you have more insults to throw my way."

"No, I'm done," she whispers. Celestine looks me up and down one last time, as if memorizing every last bit of me before I depart from her life again. My entire body is pounding with rage and I need to let it out before my power decides when the right time to do that is.

I wish for a titanium band but I will not clamp another around my skin for a long while. Those days in the dungeons, my power was waiting, growing, gathering as one, and now every time I blink—the power twitches in response. It wants a release. And not one I will be able to control.

Without taking another look at Celestine, I shut her door quietly behind me. I press my back against the stone wall, feeling the ancient truth underneath, and breathe easy. My power seems to be the only beacon I have these days, the one thing I used to hate with every second of every day.