Marie Rutkoski

Hers, an inner voice—sinister, upsetting—had sometimes disagreed.

Not hers.

Hers.

The words echoed now with the rhythm of Javelin’s hooves.

Kestrel could say that she’d learned that one’s life is also the lives of others. A wrong is not an egg, separate unto itself and sealed. She could say that she understood the wrong in ignoring a wrong. She could say this, but the truth was that she should have learned it long before.

In war, her father sometimes said, you might live, you might die. But if you panic, death is the only outcome.

“Stories,” she blurted. “The mosaic told stories, didn’t it?”

“Yes, old ones.”

“I’ll tell them to you.”

His eyes cracked open. He didn’t remember closing them. “You know those tales?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn’t hurt. “You,” he breathed, “are such a faker.”

“Don’t interrupt.”

Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images—it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor’s details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake’s tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn’t even make sense.

“Do this again,” he said, “when I have strength to laugh.”

“As bad as that?”

“Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian.”