I am a traitor, just not how Arrin thinks.
But he shrugs, nonchalant, and I know he’s about to outmaneuver me. “Did you hear Leannya took her testing two weeks ago? She’s always kept such a low score, so I told her to try her best this time, to make Mother proud, because I know she’s better than that. And you know what? She did. Turns out, she’s as smart as you. Perfect scores.”
My grip loosens on the bottle.
“Yes, that’s right, Athan. Another brilliant child. Better make some room.”
My anger reaches a new level, one I didn’t know was possible without an entire forest burning around me. “Now she’s useful, Arrin! Is that what you want for her? Right as we’re heading into another war? She didn’t want others to know! She doesn’t want to get involved in any of this.”
He succeeds in snatching the bottle back. “No, that’s you. You didn’t want to get involved in any of this. Leannya’s just never had anyone tell her she could, which is a shame, because she’s got enough spirit for it.”
Now I’ve reached furious. If I could, I’d hit him dead in the face and anywhere else I could manage before he pinned me to the ground. He can’t want her thrust into the middle of this hell. He’d better just be drunk and forget everything tomorrow. I’d like to forget everything tomorrow. That’s not going to happen.
“You’re taking us to war,” I say. “For God’s sake, don’t do it through a bottle.”
Then I’m headed for the door.
“You know what your problem is?” Arrin says at my back. “You don’t know what the hell it is you’re fighting for. You’ve never known.”
I whirl around, ready to hate him, finger on the trigger and ready to fire. But then I stop. He looks damn pathetic sitting there, hiding in this office while everyone else plots the war he’ll have to win, Kalt leaning on an elbow, lighting another cigarette with shaky hands.
It’s too quiet in here. Too empty and forgotten, like a grave.
“No, I do know what it is I’m fighting for. It’s the thing I’ve always wanted. The thing I’ll never stop wanting.” Away. “But I also know what needs to be done, and I’ll do it, even if it means destroying a part of myself. Because there’s no other choice. I get that now.”
I look at my brothers and everything aches, not just the past, not just this moment, but the future. I walked into a Southern gun and almost took the fall for Father. But if this goes bad with the entire Nahir, it won’t be a single gun Arrin faces. It will be an entire army that falls betrayed. It will betray him, betray Kalt.
Even Leannya.
But I can’t tell Father what happened in Etania. If I tell him, he’ll confront Havis, his ghost, and God knows what would happen then. Havis would slander Ali if it meant some sort of gain for him. He’d never think of Ali first, only himself.
I’m trapped between loyalties.
Losing either way.
I hit the doorframe with a fist. “You’re my brother. You know I’d fight for you. Where you tell me to go, I’ll go. What you ask of me, I’ll do. And I hope you get everything you want. The entire South and whatever else you need to please him. But this isn’t who I’ll be forever. I’m not you and I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks about that.”
Then I turn and leave.
* * *
Outside, the sun’s sinking lower in the west, casting shadows along the runway. My fighter’s fifth in the lineup of Safire planes, and I crawl inside the cockpit and hide, sketching the squadron logo I want to use when I’m captain. The bright sun of Rahmet for Cyar. A chamomile for Mother. And a dark horse rampant against the whole thing, for Ali. I have nothing of my own to put on here. But I have her. And in the days to come—years to come—I’ll make sure she’s with me every moment, through every foot of breathless sky, glorious on the flank of my plane.
She promised me a thousand days. Of course I can promise the same.
That’s three years, and then I’m only twenty-one. Maybe I can stay alive that long. Maybe I can at least give us that, because I won’t give it up without a burning fight. I’ll fight for my days with everything I have, every scrap of nerve I’ve inherited from this rotten family.
I scrawl the squadron motto against the bright sun.
There’s a knock on the glass.
Cyar’s sitting on the wing, leaning against the cockpit, and I hand him the sketch. He studies it thoughtfully.
“Eyes on the horizon,” he says, reading the motto.
“Always. Looking to the end, to the hope.”
“I like that.”
“Me too.”
He smiles, then together we watch the sun disappear, exhausted and frightened and damned determined.
40
AURELIA
Hathene, Etania
The days after the coup are exactly my worst fears come to life. I’m confined to our palace, ten guards in every hall, while soldiers prowl the gardens, the woods, and beyond. I’m trapped. The sad faces and confused whispers only add to the sense of imprisonment. Eight of our courtiers are dead, including sweet Lord Marcin. I know I’ll have to stand beside Violet at his funeral, holding her, and the thought unnerves me. I’d rather it were me crying.
It was my masquerade that killed him.
Lark’s body is also in a casket, ready to be sent back to Resya with Havis, and no one says anything about the hole in his neck. They’re too relieved that Havis, Lark’s compatriot, is declaring it suicide and no one’s about to contest that and call it something else.
Only Havis knows my terrible secret, and he gives me a sharp smile before he leaves.
It’s there, in the shadow of his power over my fate, that I know what I must do.
I find Reni in Father’s library, surrounded by the ever-present silence that permeates our home. My brother, like the palace, has been wordless and made of stone since the coup. He’s seen the dark side of our tiny kingdom, and now his twentieth birthday taunts from ahead.
There’s a metamorphosis taking place, all of him changing beneath the quiet.
I don’t yet know what will emerge.
“I’m accepting Havis’s proposal,” I say, as I sit beside him. “I have to go to Resya, and he’ll take me. Someone needs to find out what’s happening there, and since you must stay here, it will be me.”
He draws my hands into his. “Ali, you can’t go there. I won’t let him take you from us.”
“He’s not taking me. I’m going.”
“Why?”
I tremble at his question. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t tell anyone. “It’s safe, Reni. The League has ruled against the Safire petition for war. The General’s an honourable man and I know he will accept it. But we have our own trouble there, with Uncle, and now that Lark’s dead, Havis is the only one who can help. And … I did something, Reni. Something that I must deal with myself.”
Lark’s last letter to me is an order I must follow. I have to apologize to his sister, to his father, and whoever else might be there. I have to see if I can continue our mission. There’s always a way, as he said. But I see the fear in Reni’s eyes, and I resist the urge to admit it all. The murder, the debt, the threats to our throne. The fact that I killed our cousin, blackmailed the General of Savient, and kissed a boy I can never have in the shadows of a forgotten room.
I’m not sure how I will emerge from this either.
“You have to trust me, Reni.”
“But what about the University?” he asks sadly.
“Perhaps later,” I say after a moment, but we both know there might not be a later. To accept Havis’s offer is a risk, more dangerous than Reni can know.
I have to go.
I have to make amends with our family, in so far as I can.
“I’ll get you a tutor,” Reni vows, “in any subject you wish. The best in that field. I’ll order him to teach you, even in Resya.”
I smile. “A tutor?”
“The best in their field, I swear it. You want to learn a language? Isn’t that it?” He pauses. “Savien?” he ventures, sounding afraid of my answer.
“I’d be thrilled,” I whisper, overwhelmed by my love for him.