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“No,” he said from behind me. “You’re not. You’re just afraid.”
Whipping around, I gaped at him. “Afraid?”
“Of your Ascension. Yes. You’re afraid. There’s no shame in admitting that.” He came forward, stopping in front of me. “At least, not to me.”
But to others, like my guardians or the Priests, it wouldn’t be something I could ever admit. They would see that fear as being sacrilegious, as if the only reason I’d have to be afraid would be due to something horrible and not the fact I had no idea what would happen to me upon my Ascension.
If I were to live.
Or die.
I closed my eyes.
“I understand,” Vikter repeated. “You have no idea what will happen. I get it. I do, but Poppy, whether you take these u
I opened my eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
“Because no matter what you do, you’re not going to be found unworthy,” Vikter said. “You will Ascend.”
Vikter’s words kept me up for most of the night, and I ended up skipping our normal morning training session held in one of the old rooms in the all-but-abandoned part of the castle. Unsurprisingly, Vikter hadn’t knocked on the old servants’ door.
If that wasn’t evidence enough of how well he knew me, I didn’t know what would be.
I wasn’t mad at him. Honestly, I could be a
I was afraid of my Ascension. I knew that. Vikter knew that. Who wouldn’t be? Although Tawny believed that I would return as an Ascended, no one could be sure. Ian wasn’t like me. There’d been no rules imposed on him when we’d been in the capital or while we grew up here. He’d Ascended because he was the brother of the Maiden, the Chosen, and because the Queen had petitioned for the exception.
So, yes, I was afraid.
But was I purposely pushing the envelope and happy-dancing over the line in hopes of being found unworthy and stripped of my status?
That was…that would be incredibly irrational.
I could be quite irrational.
Like when I saw a spider, I behaved as if it were the size of a horse with the cold calculation of an assassin. That was irrational. But being found unworthy meant exile, and that was also a death sentence. If I were afraid of dying upon Ascension, then getting myself exiled didn’t exactly improve the situation.
And I was afraid of dying, but my wariness of the Ascension was more than that.
It wasn’t my choice.
I had been born into this, in the same way that all the second sons and daughters were. Even though none of them seemed to dread their future, it wasn’t their choice either.
I hadn’t been lying or trying to cover up a hidden agenda when I helped Agnes or exposed myself to Marlowe. I did that because I could—because it was my choice. I trained to use a sword and bow because it was my choice. But was there another motive behind sneaking off to watch fights or swimming naked? Visiting gambling dens or lurking in parts of the castle forbidden to me and listening in on conversations that I wasn’t supposed to hear? Or when I left my chambers without Vikter or Rylan just so I could spy on the balls held in the Great Hall and people-watch in Wisher’s Grove? What about the Red Pearl? Letting Hawke kiss me? Touch me? All of those things that I’d done, I did because they were my choice, but…
But could it also be what Vikter had suggested?
What if, deep down, I wasn’t just trying to live and experience everything I could before my Ascension? What if I was, on some kind of unconscious level, trying to ensure that the Ascension never happened?
These thoughts troubled me throughout the day, and for once, I wasn’t all that restless in my confinement. At least not until the sun began to set. Having dismissed Tawny hours before supper since there was no reason for her to sit around while I did nothing but morosely stare out the windows, I finally got a
Only to find Rylan lounging across the hall.
I drew up short.
“Going somewhere, Pen?” he asked.
Pen.
Rylan was the only one who called me that. I liked it. I let go of the door, and it slowly inched back, bumping my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
He gri
Glancing behind me to the windows, I saw that it was dusk. Surprise flickered through me. I’d wasted an entire day in self-reflection.
Priestess Analia would be thrilled to hear that, but not the reasons. Either way, I wanted to punch myself in the face.
But it was time. I nodded and started to step out—
“I think you’re forgetting something,” he said, tapping a finger on his bearded cheek.
My veil.
Good gods, I’d almost walked out into the hall without it or a hood. Other than my guardians—the Duke and Duchess—and Tawny, only Vikter and Rylan were allowed to see me without my veil. Well, the Queen and King could, and Ian was permitted, but obviously, they weren’t here. If anyone else had been in the hall, they would’ve possibly fallen over in a dead faint.
“I’ll be right back!”
His grin increased as I whipped around and hurried back into the room, slipping the veil over my head. It took a little more than a couple of minutes to clasp all the little chains so it was secured in place. Tawny was so much faster at it than I was.
I started back out—
“Shoes, Pen. You should put some shoes on.”
Looking down at myself, I let out a very unladylike groan. “Gods! One moment.”
Rylan chuckled.
Totally scatterbrained, I toed on my well-worn shoes, which were nothing more than satin and a thin leather sole, and then reopened the door.
“Having a bad day?” Rylan mused as he joined me in my room.
“Having a weird day,” I countered, heading for the old servants’ access. “A forgetful one.”
“It must be for you to not realize the time.”
Rylan was right. Unless something was going on, both he and Vikter were always ready for me just before dusk.
Our pace was quick as we hurried down the narrow, dusty staircase. It emptied out into an area beside the kitchen, and while we took the old access to avoid being seen as much as possible, it wasn’t completely avoidable. Kitchen servants stopped mid-step as Rylan and I passed them, their brown garb and white caps making them nearly indistinguishable from one another. I heard a basket of potatoes hit the floor and the harsh, biting reprimand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw blurred faces bow their heads as if they were praying.
I swallowed a groan while Rylan did what he always did and pretended that there was nothing off about their behavior.
You’re the child of the gods.
Agnes’s words came back to me. The only reason they thought that was because of the veil and the paintings and various artworks representing the Maiden.
That and how often it was that they didn’t see me.
We started toward the banquet hall. From there, we could enter the foyer and be able to access the Queen’s Garden. There’d be more servants, but there really wasn’t any other way to access it from within the castle that didn’t require scaling a wall. We made it halfway past the long table when one of the many doors on either side opened behind us.