He was unexpectedly warm to the touch. If I hadn’t been watching as keenly as I was, I might have missed the flicker of bemusement rippling across his stoic features. It was there and gone, but the meaning was unmistakable.
The Nizahl Heir was not a man who often found himself in error.
I raised my brows in a mockery of concern. “Is anything the matter, my liege? You’ve grown pale.”
I meant to land a barb, though it seemed only the growling soldiers felt the weight of my insolence. It would be in my best interest to keep far from the brawny one if I didn’t wish to suffer a fatal fall from my horse.
The Commander remained infuriatingly unruffled. “My natural complexion, I assure you.”
To my horror, he held his horse’s reins to the east. “You can’t mean to come to Mahair yourself,” I blurted.
“Sire!” the guard exploded. “If you would allow me to answer this insult—”
“Vaun.” The Commander aimed a quelling glance at his guard. “I’ve long meant to pay Mahair a visit. I have heard it is an honest and hardworking village. Have I been misled in this belief?”
I stared at him. Marek was wrong. They were all wrong. Arin of Nizahl’s greatest power did not lie in any supernatural ability. If I offered any resistance, I would raise their suspicions. If I agreed, he would say his visit to Mahair was on my invitation. He was three steps ahead in every direction I turned.
I pictured his mind as a thousand tiny serpents, moving in a rhythmic, seething coil. A snare within a snare, and I was caught fast within it.
“Not at all, my liege,” I said. “Mahair welcomes you.”
We rode into the village, outlined against the setting sun. The crowd from earlier had thinned. A hush fell over the remaining stragglers. If the silver hair and crest on his horse did not declare the Nizahl Heir, the unequivocal air of authority did. His soldiers flanked him in the colors of their kingdom, cutting space through the street.
I was the outlier. An Omalian commoner riding in the Heir’s cavalry. I shrank into myself as we moved, wishing my hair was not braided back from my face. Between this and my offer to carry Adel into the woods, my anonymity had been compromised more effectively than if I’d danced naked through the main road.
I brought my horse to a stop when we reached Rory’s shop front.
“I am expected here,” I said. “Thank you for the honor of your escort.” I hitched my leg to the side of the mount and dropped to the ground. “I do hope you enjoy your time in Mahair.”
When the Commander dismounted and handed the reins to one of his men, my budding optimism that this nightmare was over died.
“Allow me to explain your extended absence to your employer.”
Did he expect I’d lead him into a room riddled with evidence of magic? I strangled the basket’s arm and tipped my chin. “Your thoroughness is a merit to Nizahl.”
I hoped Rory had left his eviscerated frog experiments scattered over the counter. I wanted something to assault the Heir, even if just his sense of smell. I passed ahead of him, giving Vaun a wide berth. The bell above the door jangled with each entering guard. A cavalcade of uniformed doom. Rory sat on a bedraggled cushion, sorting salves and scribbling in his tattered record book. At my entrance, relief slackened his thin frame. “There you are, Sylv—my liege!”
“Your name is Sylv?”
“Only twice a month,” I said. Rovial’s tainted tomb, what hare-brained specter had possessed me?
“Sylvia!” Rory balked. “Forgive her, Your Highness, she is young and foolish. Hand me my cane, Sylvia, I can’t—” He leaned over, toppling the book from his lap.
With an unpleasant jolt, I saw why Rory was adamant to reach his cane. He’d cast it aside after lowering himself onto the cushion, and he could not kneel to the Heir without its support.
The Nizahl Heir seemed to draw the same conclusion. “Be at ease,” he told Rory. I was briefly surprised he’d dismiss Rory from his duty to kneel. But then, what was one more supplicant when you had thousands? “Your apprentice has not failed in her duties. We delayed her.”
“Certainly, it is forgotten,” Rory said, clutching his cane against his chest. The chemist quaked like a newborn foal. “Please, it would be my honor to prepare a tea for Your Highness and your men.”
“His Highness wished to see me returned safely,” I said hurriedly. “We mustn’t impose on any more of his time.”
The Commander’s mouth twitched. My efforts to see the back of him seemed to be as entertaining as they were transparent. I was relieved when Vaun turned his head to speak quietly in the Commander’s ear. When he stepped back, the Commander tipped his chin and said, “Another time. Enjoy your evening.
“Sylvia.” A chill crept along my spine. It was the wrong name in his mouth, but it perturbed me no less. When he met my gaze, the anger fled from my bones, replaced with pounding terror. His eyes were flinty, colder than rain on my skin. I forgot Rory, Adel, the dead soldier. I forgot Mahair in its entirety.
I was a ten-year-old Heir sitting at an ancient oak table as the sky erupted in fire, as black lightning bolts struck the earth. I was shivering, starving, covered in ash and blood in Essam Woods. Reaching for the woman who bent over me, the sun pouring through her like she was little more than a netted shroud on its glorious surface.
I had encountered death in every incarnation of my life, but I had never looked it in the eye until now.
“Your Highness.” I averted my eyes.
The Commander and his guards withdrew. I waited until the thunder of beating hooves disappeared to turn to Rory. He’d climbed to his feet, but I doubted it was the exertion leaving him ashen.
A heavy silence remained in the Heir’s wake. When Rory finally spoke, it was low and racked with horror. “You led them into Mahair.”
I blinked. “I did not lead them here. I was helping with Adel, and they happened upon me. He insisted on escorting me to the shop. What would you have had me do, Rory? Shove the Commander into Hirun and steal his horse?”
A storm waged inside the old man. My worry deepened. The sight of the Nizahl Heir would surely send Mahair into unmitigated hysteria, but I had not expected Rory to fall among them.
Despite his tantrums, Rory held ground as a man of medicine and fact, subservient to the callings of higher reason. Though the Supreme was no friend of science, I doubted he would send his son to mete out justice against a small village chemist.
“Rory,” I said slowly. “What are you hiding?”
Resignation weighed down the proud line of his shoulders. “I am not the one hiding, Essiya.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The ground rocked beneath my feet. Instinct struck, and my dagger was in my grip before sense could follow. Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t want to hurt Rory.
The last person to call me Essiya was Hanim. Jasad’s exiled Qayida found me bruised and matted in ash after the Blood Summit. How I had quaked in relief to hear my name in her mouth, anticipating a quick exit from the unforgiving woods back to Usr Jasad. Instead, she kept me in the woods for five years as Jasad burned.
The name Essiya brought darkness wherever it went.