PEARL'S POV
The crack in the stone presses ice into my cheek as I listen. Above me, Bisca's shadow shifts, her boots whisper against the courtyard gravel.
She's opening it.
A bead of sweat trickles down my temple, though my skin is frozen. My fingers slide under the guard's cloak and grip the key he pressed into my palm just moments ago; it's cold now. Now everything is cold.
The orchard will roar with hunting horns before my feet ever touch the river, and if Bisca sees the bracket covered in my blood and the empty shackles, she will call Aleric or scream for Kaela.
For a minute, I considered crawling back and hiding my raw wrists in iron, giving in to the chain. It is better to be chained than shot through by Aleric's arrows, or even still broken than ashes by sunrise.
But then her voice flickers through me as poisoned wine. "Pearl, I'll always stand by you."
Behind the door, Kaela listened as her lips whispered orchard secrets close to my ear. Her soft hands smoothed my hair while she counted my bruises, which she would later tell Kaela about, spinning my weakness into gossip for her favor.
Stupid, I hiss at myself. Blind. I let her braid my hair before the mating ceremony, wrap me in ribbons, and feed me hope that Aleric would choose me, that someone, anyone, could see past the dirt they threw on my name.
Now, in the silence beneath the orchard wall, as Bisca's boots pause over my cell, I can see it. I see her tilt her head, her hair brushed perfectly, while mine stank of the stables.
"Don't fret," she'd purr. "When he sees you, he'll know you're special. He'll see you're the real Luna."
Lies. I saw the twist of her mouth when she pulled the ribbon tight enough to choke me.
I can see the sparkle in Kaela's eyes when Bisca told her about my foolish daydreams.
In the hallway outside the banquet, I saw them laugh together, and Bisca leaned in close to my sister as though they had both been betrayed by the same person.
A sound that could be a snarl or a sob clamps down on my throat.
The hinge above me groans once more. Is it open or closed? Has she noticed the cuffs being empty yet? She might have slipped inside to look at the stone floor corner where my hope died.
Inside, I growl, no more chains and no more sweet poison.
With my knees scraping the tunnel's roots and my palms burning from the frost, I push forward. The silence behind me persists. The silence that lies ahead tastes like the icy kindness of the orchard.
At the tunnel's mouth, raw wind cuts my skin. With tangled roots clawing at the frost-bitten stones, the orchard wall looms.
I climbed as Frost cracked the stones in the far corner.
Blood dripping from my ripped wrists and seeping through the guard's borrowed cloak, I scramble to the break. In the silence, my breath echoes louder than Bisca's final mutter, "Believe me."
My knuckles are torn raw as I dig my fingers into the crevices, and a stone bites beneath my fingernails; while the orchard trees' bark rustles like bones in the wind, I pull myself up, knee-slamming mortar, boot slipping.
Halfway up, my forehead hits a cold stone. My mother's words, "Run so far they can't drag you back," pierce the ice.
Bisca's ghost laughs: "Too late."
The cloak snags on a rusty nail as I swing my leg over at the top, causing roots to scratch my calf before I fall on the other side. With my hands buried in frost-burned moss and my knees split on frozen loam, I land rough after it tears free of me.
Then. I hear footsteps behind me and a voice that freezes my marrow.
"Pearl," Aleric hisses, his voice as warm as grave soil, and steel sings free of its scabbard.
"Keep running," Kaela calls. "The dogs need the taste of you."
My ribs crack like old ice as I throw myself up. As branches lash my face, roots trip my feet, and frost bites my lungs, I find solace in the orchard's quiet.
Flashback: Gullible Pearl
That night beneath the white blossom tree in the orchard, with Bisca's head resting on my lap and the stars shivering overhead, I see it once more.
"Promise me you'll never leave me alone here, Bisca."
Her fingers patiently and gently braided my hair.
"Never. I'd die before I betrayed you, Pearl. You're my family, too.
"I believed her, like a starving pup licking the hand that feeds it poison.
When Kaela's punishments bled beneath my skin and the whip cut my back for the first time, Bisca sat at the foot of my bed, her hands cold on my fevered brow and her eyes wet.
"If only you'd listen better, Pearl. Then Kaela wouldn't have to be so harsh."
I let that rot coil around my ribs like a warm blanket.
I was poisoned into believing my secrets and hers. I gave her every bruise and dream, and she gave them back to me with a smile on her face, Kaela.
Now I can see it clearly, as distinct as the arrow Aleric is drawing behind me.
I should have noticed, but I was desperate for any voice that didn't spit worthless words and any hand that didn't hit.
The edge of the orchard, the mist of the black river winding up like ghost fingers, and the border stones so close I can smell the iron tang of Vartun's woods are all brought back to me by the cracking of the frost beneath my boots.
My palms sink into the cold muck as I fall to my knees after stumbling.
Aleric's voice closes behind me enough that I taste bile.
"Pearl!" His bow creaks; the string is a promise of death.
I'm not looking back. With blood trailing my wrists like a broken oath and mud engulfing my fingers, I crawl forward.
In the quiet of the orchard, the arrow hums.
I fling myself to the left; behind my shoulder, the shaft splits bark and screams past my ear.
Pain blossoms behind my eyes, bright and glorious, as I slam into frozen reeds.
"Alive!. I am still alive."
The ancient granite, encrusted with Vartun's wolf crest, is covered in moss, and the border stones loom. "My knees burn, raw against the ground, while the cloak trails behind me in the mud."
Aleric's footsteps break the stillness behind me, and his growl reverberates through the trees:
"You're mine, Pearl. Run, crawl, it won't matter!"
The black river coughs mist behind me as I drag my ribs over the first stone. The hiss of the arrow pierces the silence—gets closer—gets too close —
I move forward. In the mud where my throat would have turned red, the arrow buries itself.
I release my breath in a ragged bark that could be a laugh. One last drag, one push. My stomach rubs against granite. My lips sting from the frost. I'm crossing.
On Vartun's edge, the hounds of the orchard choke, and Pandara's silence dies behind me.
Aleric's yell splits the trees, but he has to stop. The laws of Vartun demand blood from trespassers. These stones are beyond the reach of Kaela's claws.
I feel dizzy.
[Pearl collapses].
Mud swallows my face, and frost bites my ears. It is the black lullaby of the river.
"I am out!!! I am finally free."
A shadow obscures the moon, broad shoulders, and fur-lined leathers; the wolf beside him flicks its ears and opens its yellow eyes like twin lanterns.
He kneels, and for the first time in far too long, I feel the warmth of a living thing.
His gloved hand gently but firmly removes the frost from my temple.
His breath, which tastes of winter and iron, lingers in my ear.
"Not dead yet, are you, little stray?" Old woods, wild silence, and Vartun's teeth all permeate his voice. "Good."
As the wolf sniffs the blood smeared on my wrists, its muzzle dips, and steam curls from its nostrils. It flashes its teeth, but not at me, at the ghosts behind me.
I swear I hear the orchard sigh somewhere, Kaela's cry smothered by trees that will never care for her.
The man's rough, bark-calloused fingers slide under my chin. He tilts my face in the direction of the moon. I can see his eyes; they are alive but as cold as the river.
"He whispers, "Looks like Pandara lost something valuable tonight." His mouth corners up in a smile that is more menacing than consoling.
"Or perhaps it at last spat out what it was unable to kill.
I wish to inquire, "Who are you?"
But before I can form the words, the silence slips down my throat.
The last thing I see is the man's grin, which is as sharp as freshly cut bone, and the wolf's eyes darting to the orchard.
"Sleep, stray," he whispers. "You're ours now."
The orchard behind me then crumbles like a dream I no longer belong to as the darkness envelops me.