“I was the fifth in line, you know. We haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Kalen, which of your brothers can remain behind to help us?”
“Terrence, Andres, Kingston, Levi, Farrgut, and I.”
“That gives me the seniority, then.”
“Lady Polaire, I don’t think—”
“I’m placing you in charge of the remaining Deathseekers, Kalen, but you’re not in charge of me. In the absence of any other senior brothers, I can assume command.”
“But you’re not on official business from the council, and regulations state…” Kalen trailed off at the look on her face. “Gibbons has a broken arm but no head injuries. I can put him in charge of the wounded.”
“Smart decision. Fox, help the rest of the brothers get to Lizzet.”
“No,” my brother said. “Where Tea goes, I go.”
“There’s not much you can do against a daeva, Fox.”
“That’s not important. I’m not going to go off to safety while Tea remains behind. And if there’s one less thing you need to worry about when I’m involved, it’s putting an extra life in danger.”
Polaire paused. “True enough. I keep forgetting that. Keep Tea out of trouble.”
“Tea is already in trouble,” Zoya murmured. “So are we for disobeying the council, for that matter.”
“Keep Tea out of more trouble, then. Are you sure about this?” she asked me in a softer whisper as the other Deathseekers began making their preparations. “We’re treading in unknown territory, and I’d hate to die on a ‘maybe.’”
“The runes may not work, but I can still sense it. And I was able to control it to some extent back in Ankyo.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Zoya said from behind us.
“As I recall, you insisted on coming,” Polaire pointed out.
“It’s never too late to regret things.”
“Can you still feel the azi?” Fox asked. “How long do we have?”
“Not very long, I think.” I could feel it slither along the edges of consciousness. “I think it could wake in another hour’s time.”
“No sense in delaying, then. Move faster, people!” Polaire ordered. “Injuries don’t give you an excuse to be here once the sun goes down!”
There were more wounded than I had thought. As I watched a few of the Deathseekers borne away on improvised litters, I couldn’t help but shudder.
Fox laid a protective hand on my shoulder. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Tea.”
“I love you, Fox, but Polaire is right—there’s not a lot you can do for this fight.”
“Enough to drag you out of here if things take a turn for the worse—kicking and screaming if I have to.”
Despite their previous assertions, even the other asha showed signs of nervousness. Zoya kept scanning the waters like she expected the azi to rise at any instant, and Polaire chewed on her fingernails at intervals, realized what she was doing, and firmly brought her hands down, only to bring them back up to her mouth again after a few minutes.
“Are they going to be all right?” I asked Kalen as we watched the long line of injured Deathseekers begin their journey to Lizzet.
“Let me be blunt, Lady Tea. I’m doing this under protest because Polaire commanded me to and because she’s my superior. This does not make us friends.”
“What did I ever do to you?” I demanded. “We barely see each other enough for you to hate me. You tell me not to see Prince Kance and expect me to kowtow to what you want without telling me why. Whatever you think about me, you at least owe me an explanation.”
He glared back at me, but something in his expression wavered, like he wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “I know how you feel about Kance,” he finally said.
I felt like a hole in my stomach had opened, and my heart had plummeted right through it. “What?”
“That first night at the party. When you raised those dead rats.” He looked down at my heartsglass. “You’ve been pretty good at hiding your emotions since then but not that first time. Asha aren’t the only people who can read heartsglass. It’s not mandatory for Deathseekers to learn, but it’s a good skill to have.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I thought you were just another inexperienced asha with a schoolgirl’s crush. I’ve seen enough girls throw themselves at him, and I can see the early signs of infatuation. But then you raised those rats, and I realized you were a lot more than that. I’ve spent almost all my life protecting Kance from danger, and I knew you would put him there from your presence alone.”
“Conneries,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s what Polaire says when she thinks someone’s talking out of their ass. You’re right. I do like Prince Kance, but I’ve tried my best not to let that get in the way of my duties as an asha, and I never intended to let him know, much less do anything about it. You talk about being able to read my heartsglass, but you forget that I can read them as well as you, even better. You lied just now.”
He paused. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“When you said that you thought I was just another inexperienced asha, your heartsglass flickered. You knew I was a Dark asha even before Zoya and her friends told you.” And then realization dawned. “You knew who I was as soon as you saw me that first night at the Falling Leaf, didn’t you? But when?”
He stared at me, and I watched as his heartsglass shifted color from a dark silver to a deep blue and then back again before settling for a brighter gray tint. “That wasn’t the first time we met,” he finally said. “When I was fifteen years old and you and Lady Mykaela had come to Kneave to perform the Heartsrune ceremony for my uncle.”
I stared at him. “There was a boy in a hooded cloak and a silver heartsglass…”
He frowned. “I wore the cloak, yes. But my heartsglass had not yet turned silver then. I was with Councilor Abadiah when he requested for the king to begin the Heartsrune ceremony.”
The boy in the brown cloak accompanying the nervous councilor. The one with the beet-red heartsglass, heavy with anger.
He nodded. “You remember now. Ten years ago, a daeva rampaged through Holsrath, where my family lived. The Dark asha tasked to face it lost her nerve and fled. Other asha managed to put it down, but not before the town suffered many casualties, my mother and Kalen’s among them.” He paused, then added stiffly, “I don’t like my father, but I share his anger at Dark asha. I question how King Telemaine could welcome them with open arms when they caused his wife’s death, though I would never turn against him like my father had. But I was angry, and you were the easiest person to lash out at. I owe you an apology for what I said then, but I stand by what I say now. You must stay away from Kance.”
“Any minute now, Tea,” Polaire said grimly, her head tilted back to watch the sky. She nibbled at a thumb. “I don’t want to have to do this in near darkness.”
“We can talk later,” Kalen said grimly, looking back out at the waters, “if either of us gets through this in one piece.”