“Nothing right now,” she said through clacking teeth. “I just want to warm up and go to bed.”
When they reached Lily’s quarters, Margot shut the door firmly on the other curious priestesses who had followed them. She marched Lily over to the hearth of a large fireplace where a fire already blazed.
The flames in Camael’s own hearth never died. Gratefully, Lily sank onto a pile of large floor pillows, scooting as close as she could to the warmth.
Squatting beside her, Margot grabbed her hands and rubbed them briskly between her own, her mouth set in tight lines. “What drove you to return in such an outlandish manner? Did he mistreat you?”
“No!” she exclaimed. Then she added more quietly, “No, he didn’t. He treated me very well, actually. I just… A lot happened, and I have to sort through it all. He was going to send me back this morning anyway, but there was a chance I might be discovered. I wanted to leave before that happened.”
“If he found out who you were, he might not have let you go,” Margot said acutely. “Okay. Can everything else wait until you’ve warmed up and gotten some rest?”
“Y-yes, I think so. No, wait.” She gripped Margot’s hands when the other woman started to pull back. “I don’t believe he’s responsible for the weather magic, and in any case, no matter who is responsible, we can’t stand idly by and let it continue. For one thing, if it isn’t stopped, it’s going to force him to do something desperate.”
“And we may not like what he does next,” Margot muttered.
“Right now he’s trying to be courteous, but if he’s given no other choice, he will take over the town,” she said. “He’s got to protect his troops. And for another thing, that weather magic is wrong, Margot. It’s just wrong. If it continues, it’s going to kill people if it hasn’t already. And if we let it happen when we have the capability to stop it, we become morally culpable too. I want six teams comprised of our most experienced priestesses and Defenders to go hunting for the sources and to stop them by any means necessary.”
Margot’s reaction was complex, both fear and satisfaction moving in her green gaze. “I’ll confess, it’s going to feel good to take action. But if you do that, we lose any semblance of neutrality in what comes next.”
Shaking her head, Lily said impatiently, “I’ve told you before. We never had any hope of remaining neutral anyway.”
“War is coming, and we can’t stop it,” Margot whispered.
“No, we can’t,” Lily said. “One way or another, Calles is going to fall—either to Guerlan or to Braugne. Our days of remaining an independent principality are over.”
6
Margot’s expression tightened. “How long do you think we have?”
“I don’t know. Not long.”
“Can you see how it’s going to happen?”
“No.” She rubbed her tired face. “But it’s up to us to see that when we do surrender our autonomy, we do it in a way that creates the best outcome for our people. Camael has been preparing me my whole life to deliver this one message. Every vision and dream she’s ever sent me—everything—leads to this.”
“I believe you.” Margot rubbed her back. “But when we assemble those teams and send them out, the council is going to fight us. It’s not that anybody questions your appointment. The whole abbey attended the Choosing ceremony, and Gennita anointed every one of our foreheads with oil—and we all witnessed that magnificent flare of light when the oil touched your skin. But people are people, and this is a massive, frightening change they’re facing.”
“Well, we’re not picking an allegiance yet,” Lily said. “We’re just taking action because it’s the right and lawful thing to do. We need to save lives.”
“I agree, but there are going to be consequences. You might not be picking a side yet, but you will, for sure, be making an enemy of whoever is responsible for the weather magic. Not everybody is going to be okay with that.”
“Which is exactly why I created the position of prime minister.” Turning, Lily laid her head on Margot’s shoulder. “You handle the council while I figure out which outcomes are the best for us and what steps we have to take to get there.”
“That was our agreement,” Margot said wryly.
“So this is your battle to fight, not mine,” Lily told her cheerfully. “And we all know how much you love a good fight.”
Laughing, Margot hugged her. “I used to think there was nothing more that I wanted in the entire world than to become Camael’s Chosen, but now… I don’t envy you, Lily.”
“Smart woman.”
After Margot took her leave, Lily stared into the flames for a long time, hoping beyond hope to gain answers to the questions that plagued her, but the goddess’s presence had withdrawn.
Somehow she had to make the choices that would get Calles and the abbey to the right destination. She had to pick one of two men, the wolf or the tiger.
The invading force from Braugne or the neighboring kingdom of Guerlan.
One of them would open the door to a better future. The other one would destroy it.
No matter how Lily strained for clarification, Camael never allowed her to see too far past that one essential choice, but Lily could sense that the right choice would be… somehow better than okay. There was prosperity down that path, even the prospect of happiness.
Whereas the wrong choice would lead Calles into the worst disaster they had ever seen. If they went down that path, many wouldn’t survive. Perhaps Ys itself wouldn’t survive.
Lily was too new to her position. She’d not yet had the chance to meet Guerlan’s King Varian, but Guerlan had always kept peace with Calles and the abbey, and the letters Varian had sent to her were well written. She didn’t know if he was kind, or if he had a sense of humor, but he did come across as measured, thoughtful, and fair.
And now she had met the Wolf of Braugne.
Had met him, had liked him, and was drawn to him in ways she had never been drawn to a man before. The rogue who had teased her with such knowledgeable sensuality was all but irresistible.
That very same man was a savage killer who had the soul of a conqueror. But it didn’t feel wrong. He didn’t feel wrong.
She had always thought she would recognize the right man as soon as she had the chance to assess him, but she’d been wrong. Everything she had hoped for when events would reach this moment, everything she had thought she understood, had fallen into disarray.
If Lily were Margot, she wouldn’t envy her either.
Finally, her limbs dragging with exhaustion, she went into the bathing chamber to wash. It felt indescribably good to get clean, pull on her oldest, softest nightgown, and crawl into her own bed.
She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow and slid into a dream.
A man slipped into her bed and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder.
Yawning, she complained, You swore this time you wouldn’t be so late.