She canted her head to one side quizzically. “Do something? No. Not at all. You’re perfect. I want you here. Let me show you how much.”
“No, wait,” he said, taking a step back as she took one more toward him. “This feels… what happened? A second ago you were… and now…?”
Ravenna flipped her wet hair out of her face and inhaled sharply. “I just had a moment. It’s nothing.” She moved forward again, but now he could smell the copper brandy on her breath, harsh and crude compared to the gold. “Scorio. I’ve…”
He raised his chin. “You’ve what?”
“I’ve…” She gave a hiccupping laugh. “I’ve dreamt of this moment since I first set eyes on you.”
It sounded utterly insincere.
“Ravenna.” Scorio’s wits were slowly returning. “That’s a bald-faced lie.”
She clutched at her head then straightened. Lowered her hands and raised her face to his. “Scorio. I… for a moment there I felt… not myself. It’s gone now. Come on, let’s… just relax, and enjoy each other’s…” Her words became little more than heavy breathing as she approached him, hands reaching for his sash, pushing against his hands.
“Ravenna, stop. Stop.” He retreated before her, but she was insistent, and finally, he pushed her back. “Stop!”
She staggered, caught her balance, then sagged against her kitchen bar once more. “Damn it,” she whispered. “I told them I’d be no good at this.”
“Told who?”
Again she straightened, but this time it looked as if the feverish intensity had left her. She looked tired, resigned, indifferent. “Use your head, Scorio. Whom do you think?”
And she took up the bottle of copper, crossed the living room, and stepped out onto the balcony.
Scorio followed, thoughts swirling, anger and confusion and a bone-aching frustration making it hard to focus.
Ravenna had picked a seat at the end of the balcony and hiked up one foot onto the chair’s seat, kicked out the other so that her heel rested on the base of the railing.
Scorio crossed his arms and leaned against the archway. Rain sheeted down still from the sun-wire, occasional flashes of light shining through to illuminate Ravenna, her pale legs, her black hair, her bleak expression.
“Octavia.”
“Mmhmm.” She lifted the bottle and drank.
“What was this? A recruitment attempt?”
“It was sloppy, is what it was.” She raised her other hand and began to count off on her fingers. “I’m House Kraken. We met in the Academy. I’m pretty.” She hesitated. “That’s all that went into this calculation. Staff was instructed to hover close by with drinks. Golden elixirs that weren’t being served to anyone else. As a Tomb Spark, you were supposed to need twice as much to lose your judgment, but I guess three or four drinks were enough. Then all I had to do…” She smiled bitterly. “Was reel you in.”
“And then what?” Anger was pounding in his temple with his pulse, a growing headache. “We go at it all night and I sign up in the morning?”
“Octavia was casting a wide net. She didn’t rule out your growing infatuated with me, though at her suggestion I laughed. But I was meant to ask you about your meetings with the White Queen in the Fiery Shoals. If you spoke with Moira while there. Why you were choosing Manticore. What might sway you to joining Kraken. And at the very least…”
“At the very least?”
Her stare was direct. “At the very least ensure you became invested in one of House Kraken’s members.”
“Damn it.” Scorio moved to the railing and stared out into the rain.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice grew soft. “I told them I was the wrong candidate for the job. They didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“And you still want to be part of their House?”
“My House. I swore a Heart Oath.”
Scorio stared at her, incredulous. “That’s…”
“Outrageous? Ridiculous? Tantamount to signing away my free will? Well now.” She took another sip from the bottle. “In hindsight, I’d agree with you.”
Ravenna stared fixedly at the bottle in her hands. “I’m not like you, Scorio. You… whenever you’re knocked down, you just get back up. But after my fight with Jova…”
Scorio remembered that match. He’d watched it with avid interest. Ravenna had been pummeling Jova with her hurled rocks, and might have even won if Jova hadn’t disappeared as she’d hit Tomb Spark. Only to return and hit Ravenna with her fear aura, causing the other woman to curl up in terror and be easily knocked out of the ring.
Before the massed ranks of students, instructors, and notable spectators.
“Jova showed me what her power can do.” Just the thought made him shudder. “It’s… overwhelming.”
“Yeah.” Ravenna’s voice was a croak. “I saw her whenever I closed my eyes. I couldn’t sleep for a week. Nearly fell apart. You don’t know how important sleep is til you can’t get it.”
Scorio grimaced. A week? Maybe because Ravenna had been an Emberling…?
“So…” Ravenna leaned her head back against the wall. “I lost my fire. I guess. I don’t know. I felt humiliated. Exhausted. And the very fact that I’d lost my will to train made me feel all the more like a failure. A downward spiral, I suppose you’d call it.”
“Ravenna, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She smiled bitterly at him. “I didn’t reach out to help you. Why should you do the same for me? I came in 178th in the final Gauntlet run. Not bad. Enough that I could continue at the Academy. But when Octavia singled me out and made me feel special, made me feel seen again… well.” She took a swig. “I didn’t care what she made me swear so that I could join her House.”
“She asked us to join, too.”
“But you were smart enough to tell her to go to the Pit.”
Scorio had no answer.
They stood in silence, watching the rain fall.
“Do you want to leave Kraken?”
“Yes.” Ravenna’s tone was low and dead certain. “But only Octavia can release me from my oaths. Until then I’m trapped.”
“There has to be a way.”
“They’ve had centuries to perfect these oaths, Scorio.” She sounded genuinely amused. “Don’t be naïve.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned this past year is that nothing’s impossible. I should have died beyond the Final Door. I should never have been able to Ignite my Heart in the ruins. I shouldn’t have been able to help distract Imogen the Woe. I shouldn’t have been able to use the Delightful Secret Marinating Technique. Shouldn’t have come first in the Gauntlet with a busted hand and a cracked Heart. Shouldn’t have been able to convince the White Queen to interfere in the rebellion. But you know what?”
Ravenna stared at him. “Nobody likes an overachiever.”
He chuckled. “Tell me about it. But you get what I’m saying.”
She frowned at the bottle.
“If you want out, Ravenna, then it’s on you to make it happen.”
She bit her lower lip. For a moment her shoulders hitched, her body shook as if she were about to sob, and then she mastered herself, the spasm of emotion washing away so that her expression cleared smoothly.
“You’re right,” she said at last. “It’s on me to break free. And if Octavia is the only one who can release me, then I need to earn her favor. I need to earn enough political capital that I can demand it as my reward.”
Scorio hesitated but then bit back his protest. He didn’t know the nature or extent of her oaths. “Do what needs to be done. That’s all there is to it.”
Ravenna nodded grimly. “I will. Perhaps you can help me.”
“How so?”
“If I’m to earn Octavia’s favor, I need to return to her tomorrow with something. Is there anything you can tell me—any secret, any information, that would be of worth to her?”
Scorio frowned.
Ravenna rose, swayed, took another sip from the bottle, and then padded down the length of the balcony to stand before him. The rain was a constant drumbeat, an endless background downpour. She looked up at him in the gloom, her eyes catching what little light there was.