Thread of Ash and Fire

Ch. 62: All Over Now

Anna sat on the window bench.

Moonlight wrapped the bodies scattered across the lawn in silver shrouds. A fire blazed by the drawbridge. Soldiers raised their hands to the flames, their faces illuminated in an eerie orange glow; they were keeping watch for any enemy forces, although Anna didn't see the point. When Lucia came for them again, it would already be too late.

The goddess had won.

It was all over, now.

Anna rested her chin on her knees. A keening noise rose over the treetops, followed by the anguished howl of wolves. Someone was sobbing in the next room. Unsurprising, really; Penny's despondency had settled over the castle like cobwebs, clinging to everything it touched. Nobody could wriggle free from it.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Cidarius?" Ryne called.

She didn't bother to lift her head. "Come in."

Ryne pushed into the room. He wore a pair of loose-fitting trousers and a grey jumper, and he smelled of rosemary soap; damp hair curled around the nape of his neck. He held out a mug. "Here. I brought you this."

Anna sniffed it experimentally. "Is it poisoned?"

"No," Ryne said. "But I'm alarmed by the optimism in your voice." His gaze flicked over her. "You didn't bathe?"

Anna shrugged. "What's the point?" She took a sip. Honeyed tea flooded her senses, along with something like vanilla. There was a disappointing lack of arsenic. "We're all going to die tomorrow, anyway."

"Ah," Ryne said. "So that's the level of fatalistic nihilism we're operating on this evening. Good to know." He sunk onto the bed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Anna stared into the tea. "Grayson's dead." The mug burned her fingers. "He died. And none of us could save him."

The words felt awkward in her mouth. Clumsy, somehow, as if she were trying to use cutlery for the first time; she couldn't make sense of them. Ryne's green eyes were steady. "There's still tomorrow."

"It's pointless." Anna looked out the window. "I'm not strong enough to kill her."

Ryne leaned forward. "That's not true."

Anna grimaced. She knew that she looked a state; dried blood streaked her face, and her hair was half-falling out of its plait, curling around her face. Her fingernails were caked with mud. She wished that she could be like her father — Benji Cidarius, the Raven King, riding bravely into battle with ravens trailing behind him like a cape — but she wasn't. She was just her. Just Anna.

She'd borrowed a god's magic. And even that hadn't been enough.

Anna drained the tea. "Maybe it's better if we both die tomorrow. Then we don't have to worry about what comes next."

Ryne's face was unreadable. "I already told you. I have a solution."

"Marriage," Anna said, and her voice was hollow. "That's your solution."

He laced his fingers. "Yes."

"That's not a solution," Anna said. "It's a compromise."

Ryne shrugged. "I may not have much experience with marriage, but I've been told that it's almost entirely about compromise."

"Do you know what people will think?" Anna asked. "When they see us sitting on thrones, side-by-side?"

Ryne's smile was wry. "That couple is wearing an alarming number of knives?"