Page 2 of Fallacies

In one brutal second, Esme becomes a shell of what she once was. Everything she’d ever wanted is now inside, and she is out here…empty.

She exhales.

Esme lets her head fall back against the tree bark, and then she does something she hasn’t done in a while. She prays. She pleads to the sky. To anyone who might be listening. To the wind, the seas, and the stars. To all three Matrons—if they even still exist. But her final prayer goes to Fate.

Because Fate likes Esme.

When she runs out of prayers, she lifts her head, and moves. She slips back through the forest, keeping that last image of her little girl burning in the back of her vision, deep into her retinas.

Her little moon. A bright spark in the deep black.

A drop of hope in a sea of nothing.

Esme’s way back through the woods is twice as cold, her arms empty, and when she steps out onto the ledge of the canyon, she takes in the dying sun through the heavy clouds. Rain still pours, sideways over the rocky expanse before her, but the sun is there. Bleak and partially hidden, but there.

She grips the carcass of the rabbit she’d caught in the woods. It’s about the size of a baby, but she pushes that image out of her head as she numbly tosses it over the edge, shuddering as it splats onto the canyon floor.

Forging on through the slowing of her heartbeat, Esme reaches into the deep pocket of her bag and brings the tattered baby blanket up to her nose. She inhales greedily, and another tear slips down her frozen face. It’s the sweetest thing she’s ever smelled—her little moon.

Esme memorizes it, tucks it where she’s kept the image of her bright, little face, then she tosses the torn fabric over the cliff’s edge, watching as it snags on a branch below.

With nothing left, nothing at all, Esme begins reciting. Words she was never meant to say.

“Veyren Talis’mir,” she whispers. “Veyren Talis’mir.”

Valorous words spill out into the canyon. She can’t stop them. No matter how badly she wants to.

“Veyren Talis’mir.”

Damning words.

Esme tilts her head back, watery eyes to the sky, deciding that she isn’t afraid of it, death. No, she’s going to welcome it. She’s going to greet it with a smile, because she has the kind of spirit that can endure.

If the deep black rushing in to claim her is a forest fire, then Esme is a deeply rooted tree.

Flames lick the ends of her wild hair as she takes that fatal step over the edge, smiling softly as the burning dark consumes her.

A bright spark in the deep black.

It’s Esme’s final thought as she falls to the unforgiving stone.

The canyon walls echo its sentiment, and the scorched ground absorbs it, that final thought. Its ripple is like a shockwave that whispers it back to the world. To the stars. To the sea.

To anything the light touches and everything the darkness clings to.

A drop of hope.

PART I

1

Callan

Areckless, foolish, brilliant woman. With a pink twinge to her cheeks and a wicked glimmer in her hazel eyes, boldly stealing all the air from the room.

Wild tendrils of Lucina’s hair frame her face, dark in contrast to the glorious Solian warmth of her olive-toned skin. Her lips are still parted from the words she’s just spilled into the room. She said them so simply. So confidently. That no one is quite sure what to do next.

I want to be his.