Page 2 of Vicious Kings
None of that stopped us being inseparable from the day we left our mothers' sides to start training at the age of five. Tonightwill be the first major moment for either of us that we can't face hand in hand.
If I'm nervous about anything, it's that.
But some armor doesn't come off. Not even in front of your best friend.
The gown goes over my head. Vera's fingers work the lacing at my back, pulling it tight enough to cut into my breathing. The skirt falls in heavy folds to the floor.
I feel like I'm wearing someone else's skin.
"By the Saints, you actually have tits under all that leather," Vera says, mock-horrified.
"Oh, shut up." I try to adjust said tits into something I can breathe around. "I'd like to find the elder who made this stupid rule and see how he likes going through the most important night of his life with his balls trussed up in a vice."
Vera throws her head back and cackles. "You and me both."
Then she sobers. Just like that, one breath and the laugh is gone, replaced by a somber expression that sits wrong on her face.
"Now the mask." She lifts the ornate blue mask from its velvet box. Carved from supernatural bone, inlaid with silver, the eyeholes rimmed with tiny sapphires.
She places it over my face and ties the silk behind my head. The world narrows to what I can see through those holes.
And suddenly I feel like myself again. Hidden and ready.
"You look..." Vera starts.
"Like a weapon dressed up for a party?" I turn to the mirror. The girl staring back is a stranger. A doll, not a killer.
"I was going to say like a princess." She reaches for my hand, and her eyes are wet. "I can't believe we're finally here. If your mom could see you now..."
My throat closes.
I don't trust myself to reply, but Vera has always had enough words for both of us. It's half of why we work.
She hugs me then, fierce and quick and desperate. "Good luck, Billie. Whatever happens tonight, you're the strongest person I know."
I hug her back. I can already feel the distance opening up between us.
She's afraid she won't see me again, which is valid. Hunters go on missions and don't come back. It's the nature of the work.
But I don't plan on dying. I plan on Prince Corvinus's head leaving his shoulders. Everything after that is negotiable.
"This isn't goodbye," I tell her.
We both know it might be.
The temple bells begin to toll, their deep bronze voices rolling through the compound.
Time to go.
I grab Vera's wrist and we sprint across the clearing, formal gowns billowing behind us. Five hundred yards of exposed ground between the residential block and the training halls. I count my steps in groups of five to keep my breathing even.
The Moreau compound sprawls around us with its squat cement buildings, ancient mountains rising on all sides, and pine forests pressing against the wards that keep us hidden from the supernatural world. Our ancestors claimed this valley centuries ago. The stones under our feet are worn smooth from generations of hunters making this same walk.
Some to glory.
Most to death.
"Hurry," I whisper, tugging Vera when she stumbles.
