“Leave, Kymora.” This comes from Kellyn. “I have great respect for what you have done for our kingdom, but your weapon is gone. Trouble us no more. There’s no reason for this to get ugly.”
Kymora turns her gaze to the mercenary. “If you hadn’t aided these two, I might have offered you a position among my ranks. I’ve heard you can do remarkable things with that sword. But you’ve irritated me, and I don’t do well with irritations.”
Kellyn tries again. “There’s no need to fight.”
“You’re right. There will be no fighting. Ziva will come with me willingly. She may have rendered my original sword useless, but if she built it once, she can do it again.” She looks right at me as she says, “When your mother denied me, I didn’t know there were two little girls sleeping upstairs. Threatening your father didn’t work to make her see reason, but I bet using you would have. I won’t make that mistake again. So believe me when I say, Come with me now, Ziva Tellion, or I will start carving up your sister in front of you.”
I take just a moment to steady my pounding heart and accelerated breathing before stepping forward. Temra yanks me back.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispers. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Kymora seems amused by the exchange, but then, as though just remembering something, she looks around at our small company.
“Where is my son?” she asks.
Her son?
My eyes do a sweep of the area. All the villagers have returned to their homes, likely running at the first sign of trouble. There’s no one in sight save me, Temra, Kellyn, and Pe—
Wait, where is Petrik? How long has he been missing? I don’t actually recall seeing him after the warlord appeared.
Did he abandon us?
“I don’t like repeating myself,” Kymora says.
“We don’t know your son,” Kellyn says. “We have no idea who you’re talking about.”
The moment seems to grow more tense as we wait to see what Kymora will do. I need to go to her. I have to protect my sister. I have to protect Kellyn. But I still seem stuck on the fact that Petrik is nowhere in sight and my parents’ murderer is right before me.
“I’m here, Mother.”
Something’s not right, because the voice doesn’t belong to a newcomer. No, Petrik comes out of the dead smithy’s forge, his hands clasped behind his back as he steps in front of us.
If it were possible for her to look more displeased, the warlord somehow manages it.
“What happened to you?” Kymora asks. Each word comes out so slowly, it feels like its own sentence.
Petrik looks over his shoulder to say, “Go wait in the smithy. I need to speak with her.”
Temra’s mouth unhinges, falling to the floor. “No. She’s mistaken. You can’t be—”
“Her son? I’ve wished it weren’t true many times myself. Not the most loving person, is she?”
Kymora snorts at his words.
“Go inside. Now.” Petrik’s voice changes, and as I stare at him, I realize the similarities between the two of them. They hold themselves the same way. Petrik’s skin may be dark while hers is fair, but they have some of the same features.
Kellyn recovers the quickest, grabbing Temra and me by the arms. Leading us to the smithy.
“Go round the back,” Kymora says to half her men. “Make sure they don’t get any ideas about leaving.” She steps toward her son so her men can’t overhear the conversation.
We get ourselves into the smithy’s forge and shut the door. Temra leans against the back of it. I’d been working in here. The kiln is still raging, which means the windows are open. We can hear every word of their exchange.
“What have you been doing?” Kymora demands.
“Working on my book,” Petrik says. “You know why I followed you to Lirasu. I had my own agenda with the bladesmith.”
“You came because you knew I would get her to Orena’s Territory. You were permitted to question her once she was in my employ.”
“Well, Ziva didn’t want to go with you, so I had to change my plans.”
I can practically hear the warlord grit her teeth from here. “So instead of telling me of her intention to flee, you decided you would just jaunt around Ghadra with her?”
“You always manage to sound in such a way as to suggest that I owe you something. I was raised in a library. I saw you maybe once a year while I was growing up. I thought this journey would be a nice time for us to finally spend some quality time together. But the whole trip you were consulting with your men. Making plans for world domination, I later learn. So, yes, I didn’t tell you where the smithy was going. It would have upset my plans.”
“Your little book is of no consequence compared to what I’ve been working on for decades.”
“Can you believe him?” Kellyn asks to no one in particular, interrupting my eavesdropping.
“He lied to us,” Temra says, so quietly it hurts my heart.
He may have lied, but he’s doing something to help us now. I’m sure of it. Why else would he drag out the conversation with his mother?
“He’s stalling,” I say as the realization hits me. He saved Temra before. He’s trying to save us now.
“What?” they echo.
“He’s giving us time. He means for us to do something. We need to figure out what it is.”
“He’s arguing with his mother,” Temra says, “or did you not catch that part?” She rubs her upper chest, right above her heart, as though it aches. I don’t think she’s conscious of the action.
Kellyn’s gaze shifts to me. “What should we do?”
“Look around. Maybe there’s … another exit? Something underground or—I don’t know.”
Kellyn humors me, starts scouting the area, moving around workbenches and tables, stepping on slats on the ground. Temra is stricken, unable to do anything but stand there, her thoughts turning inward.
I do a sweep of the forge.
I have to be right. Petrik has to be stalling her. He can’t have betrayed us like this only to send us into a nice little cage for his mother to collect after they’re done speaking.
And why in the twin hells didn’t he tell us who he is?
Would you have let him join you on the journey if you had known who his mother is?
Absolutely not.
My eyes trail everywhere. The tables, the floor, even the ceiling. Come on, Petrik. What am I looking for?
“So many things make sense now,” Temra says without any emotion. “The way he barely hesitated when he joined us on the road and we warned him dangerous people were following us. He knew exactly who was following us and that she was no danger to him.
“And the time that guard hesitated before trying to kill him. Right before Kellyn saved us? Petrik must have been telling that soldier who he was. Telling him Kymora wouldn’t want him dead.
“He’s been with us because he never really cared if we succeeded or not. He knew he would be safe, and he wanted to pick Ziva’s brain for information for as long as he had her.”
She growls then, sends her fist slamming into the door behind her. “How dare he?”
“Temra, focus,” I say. “We have to—”
And then I see it.
The kiln. The handles hanging out. I didn’t put anything in there aside from the iron I was melting, and neither did the smithy. He wasn’t working on anything. He was too curious to see what I was up to.
And now he’s dead.
I swallow that thought and reach for the first metal handle.
It’s attached to a cart axle, one end bright red, ready to be magicked.
The next one is a pitchfork, the tines simmering with heat.
And the final piece is a pair of tongs holding a forging hammer.
Petrik did this. He put them in the kiln, heating them for me.
He believes in me.
Enough to go against his mother.
He’s chosen us as his family. Not her.
And though he may never get Temra to understand, I do.
I grab the axle and set to doing what I do best.
But first, “Kellyn, give me your sword.”
He hands it over, and I shove the tip into the flames.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
I’ve always forged my own weapons. I enjoy the process of creating something out of nothing. The magic is wonderful, too, but I love shaping steel into what I need.