A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

Farah eyed me, a quiet satisfaction crossing her expression. There wouldn’t be an All Sister’s Day, not this year. There was still a shock settling over the room, a confusion spreading amongst each girl of what they would do. I knew most would stay—it was what they knew, what they were comfortable with. But I only smelled freedom.

The pressure growing heavier and heavier on my chest each day closer to All Sister’s Day lifted, and I could finally breathe. I sucked in a breath, turning and walking in a daze up the stairs. A lightheaded relief filled me the whole way.

Shutting the door behind me, I leaned against it for a minute.

How could ten Superior Sisters just disappear? There was no way they’d all have gotten lost. Was it the Court of Mages who we rivaled with? Or something else? When my gaze ran across my room, it caught on my desk. My heart stilled, and I only stared for a moment.

With hesitation, I walked to the desk, looking down at my list and a note sitting nearby.

I swallowed, my throat feeling thick. Pain started thumping in my chest. It was his scrawl. Somehow elegant yet masculine.

Number thirteen was in plain view. And not knowing everything I’d written in the waves of anger I’d had for him, I had to read it.

I hate that you didn’t save me. That I am now in an order I can’t escape. That I have to marry someone I don’t want. I hate that you didn’t save me. And I hate even more I expected you to.

My heart felt so heavy as my gaze went to his note beside it. To three little words that burned the back of my eyes.

Marry your blacksmith.

My mind whirled, knowing he had done something so drastic based on some notes I’d written when I was angry and alone. It wasn’t even his fault I was a Sister. It would have happened eventually, no matter the circumstances.

I slid down the wall to the floor, holding his note loosely. I pulled my legs up to my chest, and I sat there for a long time. Because there was an invisible fist around my heart and I didn’t know how to release it.

The feeling of unsettlement followed me all day. The girls all congregated in Farah’s room, and it was very quiet. It seemed we were all stuck in our thoughts about the decision to be made. Option one: run from the Sisterhood and be free to marry who we chose—but have the Druids from breaking the alliance, Mages, and other foes after us. Option two: stay in the safety of the Sisterhood and marry who was forced on us.

Carmella was the only one truly happy with her situation, having found love with one of the Druids, but the rest of us were left in a tumultuous silence. Even Juliana seemed thoughtful, and I wondered if I should tell her about Alis, but maybe, just maybe, she was figuring it out on her own with the inquisitive glances she gave me.

I’d dreamed of being free of the Sisterhood, but as I lay on Farah’s bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling, the only thought consuming me was a departing ship from Symbia to Elian.

The reality truly hit us when Farah hopped off her bed and began packing a leather pack. We all watched her in complete silence, before she headed for the door, but stopped before it. Turning around, she gave us an uplifting smile, and it brought one to my lips as well. “I’ve always wanted to see the north. Maybe the Marshlands, and then maybe . . .” She shrugged. “Find home.” And then she was gone.

Find home. Those words worked their way into my chest, settling there. I wasn’t sure where home was, but I desperately wanted to find it. I walked the house, feeling out of place, realizing that Agnes had made the decision to leave as well. I wanted that decision, to just run, find Grandmother, find home, but I didn’t get to be as carefree as that, not with a Fate over my head. It sent resentment rushing through my blood, burning, blackening.

After a few hours of getting my thoughts together, l headed to my mother’s to see what she thought of the news.

“Oh, good, you’ve come,” she said as I entered her drawing room. “Clinton has been gone all day trying to understand what’s happening with the Sisterhood. If we can just find our Superior Sisters—”

“You’re not going to find them,” I told her, pouring a glass of wine from the side table.

Her gaze shot to me as she set down the gossip rag she’d been consumed in when I arrived. “You know something about this? What have you gotten mixed up with?”

I chewed my lip thoughtfully, before supplying, “Bad men, Mother.”

“Ei.” She looked to the ceiling

. “I don’t know what to do about the trouble you get into.”

I nodded. “I suppose being a mother is a difficult thing twenty years late.”

She rolled her eyes, then shouted, “Samira!”

A moment later, the servant came to stand in the doorway, giving my mother a blank look.

“If you’re so good with advice, then what do you do when your daughter is mixed up with bad men?”

“Has she tried sleeping with them?” She wasn’t serious; she was mocking us from the last time she’d given me advice, but when my mother glanced to me as if in question, dry amusement filled me.

“Yes,” I answered truthfully.