“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She led him back over the rubble to where a group of Maridrinian soldiers waited on their horses, their eyes widening in shock at the sight of him. “Say nothing of His Grace’s presence,” she ordered
them, and though he could see the blame in the men’s eyes, they obeyed. Testament to their loyalty to Sarhina.
One of the soldiers sacrificed his mount to Keris, and then the group made its way through the city.
On the eastern half, soldiers worked to gather bodies, loading them into carts to transport out the eastern gates.
“Better that you run. Falsify your own death and return to your lover’s side. Allow someone who will To where the mass graves had been dug.
At the sight, Keris leaned over the side of his horse and vomited. Sarhina said nothing, only handed him a waterskin and then led the group onward to the tents in the distance. He pulled his hood up before they reached them, not wanting to be recognized.
Away from the city, the stink of ash and rot was absent, but not the marks of war. Injured soldiers rested on rows of cots, bodies bandaged, many missing limbs. Babies cried, and children, many of them likely orphaned, sat staring with blank eyes as they rode past.
A slow burn of fury filled Keris’s chest that this had been done to them, no small part of it directed at himself.
Sarhina dismounted near a tent. “Is Lestara inside?” she asked the guard standing out front, but the man shook his head.
“Just the young princess. The lady Lestara is checking on the welfare of Prince Royce.”
“Something she does with regularity, despite his wounds being well healed,” Sarhina muttered.
“You go. I’ll keep watch.”
Keris entered the tent, his eyes immediately going to his little sister, who sat reading on one of the narrow cots.
Sara’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Keris! You came back! I knew she was a liar!”
He held a finger up to his lips, then crossed the room to sit on the cot next to her. “Are you all right?”
“Just how,” Keris asked softly, “did the King of Cardiff, who is on the far side of the Tempest Seas, His little sister nodded. “It’s been awful.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “The Valcottans destroyed Vencia. The palace is ruined, everyone forced to live in tents or outside. And many died in the attack.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to keep you safe,” he said, wishing there was time to comfort her, but he needed answers. “Has Lestara given you anything to keep for her? Papers? A locked box?” His heart sank when she shook her head. “Has she given you anything?”
“Clothes and shoes.” Her eyes brightened. “And a book about stars.”
Keris’s stomach dropped. Even before Sara reached down to retrieve the book hidden in the folds of the blanket, he knew what volume it was.
With icy fingers, he took the familiar small book from her hand, a tremor running through him as he opened it to flip through the pages of constellations and the stories the Cardiffians believed that they Wheels began turning in his head, a thousand little pieces of information falling into place to form atold. The book she’d all but begged him to return despite having had it in her possession this entire time.
But how?
Keris wracked his mind for when he’d last seen it. Zarrah had been holding it when she’d leapt across the spillway. It had been in her hand when he’d fumbled the lock to the room in the inn. And inside, she’d set it on the table.
Where it had been abandoned.
Unbidden, Serin’s voice filled his head. I thought the whore in Nerastis would yield something, but all she could tell me was that you wouldn’t touch her and that you’d disappear into the night,
returning hours later smelling of lilac. She believed you were visiting a lover, and an innkeeper swore a man of your description rented one of his rooms in the company of a Valcottan woman.
The very innkeeper who would have found the book when the room had been cleaned for the next customer, later to be given as proof to Serin. Who had subsequently given it to Lestara, sowing seeds that would see to Keris’s destruction even after the Magpie was in his grave.
“Keris, are you all right?”
At the sight, Keris leaned over the side of his horse and vomited. Sarhina said nothing, only handed
“No.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard, his fingers tracing over the inside of the cover, which was bulkier than he remembered. Pulling a knife from his boot, Keris cut open the stitching and extracted a piece of paper with Serin’s spidery writing.
Lady Lestara,
I wish to return to you this book, which you once gifted to His Grace as a token of great sentiment. I regret to inform you that he abandoned the tome in a Nerastis inn, where it was subsequently discovered by the owner. I was told that he had spent the night with a young Valcottan woman, though her identity has yet to be proven. His disrespect of your gift is not surprising, for it is in his nature, but I hope having it back in your care is some comfort to you.
Serin
Keris stared at the letter. Why hadn’t Serin revealed Zarrah’s identity?
Understanding flowed over him, along with renewed appreciation for the Magpie’s cleverness.
Lestara wouldn’t have trusted anything that came from Serin’s lips, but the letter would have been enough to spur her to investigate herself. And the conclusions she’d come to had clearly been damning.
Setting down the book, Keris shifted to look at Sara, who was staring at him with wide eyes. “You ruined my book.”
His only regret was that Zarrah hadn’t thrown this book into the waters of the Nerastis spillway along with his coat. “When I came in, you said something about someone being a liar. Who were you speaking of?”
“Lestara.”
“What did she lie about?”
Panic filled her gaze, and Sara looked away, shaking her head. “Not long after you left for Ithicana, Lestara told me you weren’t coming back. That you’d told her you were tired of taking care of all of us, especially …” She swallowed hard. “Me.”
His hands fisted, mind readily supplying a vision of Lestara manipulating Sara’s greatest fear.
“I told her she was wrong. That you’d gone to Ithicana to see Aren and Lara to negotiate, but that you’d be back once that was completed. She said, if that were the case, why hadn’t you brought me with you?” Sara chewed on her bottom lip.
“You know why,” he said. “Because we were going to sail south to rescue Zarrah, which would be very dangerous.”
Silence stretched, and Keris fought the urge to drag the details out of her. Except this was his fault.
He’d burdened his little sister with the truth and then left her in the clutches of Lestara, a grown woman raised on deception and intrigue.
“She told me that you were angry that I’d returned to the palace. That you’d deliberately left me at Greenbriar because I was too much of a burden, and that you regretted not allowing Royce to take me.” Her chin quivered. “She was dreadfully upset, because you’d apparently said you loved her and wanted to marry her, but you’d run away because of me. She said that it was my fault she wouldn’t be queen. That’s when I knew she was lying, because Zarrah is the one you love.”
“Did you tell her that?” he asked, already certain of the answer.
Sara wiped her nose on her sleeve, then nodded. “She called me a liar. Said that you’d never tell which was bulkier than he remembered. Pulling a knife from his boot, Keris cut open the stitching and me your plans because I’m only a child. That I was making up stories to feel important. She made me so mad, so I told her that Lara and Aren were going to help you rescue Zarrah, and that you were going to marry her. That Zarrah would be queen and that you’d send Lestara back to Cardiff.”
Keris squeezed his eyes shut, imagining how well Lestara would have taken that statement.
“She left me alone after that, and has been kind ever since.”