“Is this for me?” She held up a simple silver pin, a silhouette of a fox dotted with small crystals.
“I’m sorry. It’s not much.” The tiniest of the turquoise gems in her hair had probably cost twenty times more than the trinket. A soldier’s paycheck did not offer many options.
The princess of Kion laughed and hugged it to her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll wear this forever.”
Fox blinked and looked up into the sky. “Tea?”
I flushed at the private memory. I’m here, Fox. Sorry. I woke up and saw you were gone.
I’m training with the guys. Want some company?
No, just checking up on you. I paused. I think I should get more rest anyway.
Good. Don’t overexert yourself.
Gently, he nudged me away from his mind, and I retreated guiltily back into my own head, focusing on my bed, my room, the book on my lap. The Scrying rune had opened up a new link between us—I had better access to Fox’s thoughts, which made it easy to stumble into his mind without meaning to.
I thought about my brother and the Kion princess. I thought about how our laughter sounded that night after the engagement announcement. My infatuation with the prince was a one-sided affair. I imagined promises the prince never whispered, knew enough of myself to understand that I could catch him no more than I could catch a shadow on the wall.
But without selfishness clouding my judgment, I saw how Fox mourned a relationship with the princess. His grief was sharp, and it sliced him deeper than any aeshma’s spike could, in places my magic could not heal.
Khalad had said memories were no one else’s business but their owners’. And as close as Fox and I were, some memories were too private to be shared.
Trembling, I stared at my hands. Learning these runes was surely a lesser transgression than hiding and abetting an azi. I could tell Mykaela at least. I could…
I paused. Mykaela was too weak, and she didn’t need this stress right now. Polaire then? Altaecia?
Polaire’s words drifted to memory. To wield anything that the Faceless would, from the most terrible of daeva to the most innocent-seeming runes…there must be no compromise.
Did Mykaela care for Illara as much as she had cared for me? Did my mentor hesitate before delivering the killing blow? Would she hesitate with me? Surely Polaire was exaggerating. There is so much power in this book that could be harnessed in Kion’s favor. So what if they had been the runes of the False Prince, guarded by his Faceless? A rune by itself did not define the righteousness or the immorality of the magic they cast—its user did…
No, telling anyone about this magic would be premature, I decided. I should study the runes first, give myself more time to assess how harmful they could be. I laugh now at how foolish I had been then, thinking I knew enough to tell the difference.
But fear is a powerful motivator. I had already compromised myself by taking in the azi. If I was to be condemned anyway, then I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
I turned the book over. The inverted crown stared back at me.
“I will master you,” I told it. “I will protect everyone from you.” If only I were as confident as I had sounded.
“And what spell from the book did you learn to raise Kalen?” the Heartforger asked.
The bone witch grinned, suddenly impish. “It was not a spell from that book.”
“May I?” Lord Khalad inspected her heartsglass, placing a finger against the dark surface. There was a faint spark as his finger met the glass, but the forger did not react. He watched the colors of her heart swirl and ebb before removing his hand.
“You raised him from the force of your own heartsglass, channeled by the strength of all seven daeva. Did you know it would succeed?”
“No. But they promised I could achieve everything with shadowglass. So why not this?”
“I don’t understand,” I interrupted. “It is no secret that Dark asha can raise the dead. What is so different this time?”
“Those with silver heartsglass cannot be brought back to life. But Kalen should never have died.” Anger was a potent venom sustaining her determination.
“If you raised Kalen,” the Heartforger began, a sudden wild hope in his eyes, “then can you… Would you…?”
The bone witch bowed her head. “I don’t know. But I will try. I can promise you that.”
“Thank you,” Lord Khalad whispered, still trembling, and turned to the corpse, unfazed by the eviscerated remains. “Blighted?” he asked.
She nodded. “We must be vigilant.”
“I will inspect every soldier for symptoms,” the Heartforger promised, turning to the wounded. At Lord Kalen’s command, the injured had been carried in, and the room soon filled with groans and cries. Those who’d survived the daeva unscathed hurried in, lugging heavy pots of water behind them.
“Set them up at the end,” the asha instructed. “Keep them boiling hot.”
The men obeyed. The aeshma watching them curiously coupled with the thought of the other daeva waiting outside made them compliant. They barely spared a glance at their former emperor, still under the beast’s watchful eye.
“You’re going to treat them?” The bone witch had talked about laying waste to Daanoris, to bring the kingdom to ruin. Yet she bade her monsters not to kill, to allow most of the population to flee unharmed. And now she treated the wounded.
“The Heartforger will think less of me if I do not at least try,” the asha said even as she pulled up the sleeves of her hua, folding them up her arm like a fisherman’s wife might before she took in the daily catch.
“I have never thought less of you, Tea. No matter what anyone said. And the sooner we are done with these men, the sooner I can finish the heartsglass I promised you.”
“L-Lady Tea?” It was a stuttered whisper, an unfamiliar voice. A frightened young Daanorian girl stood, hiding behind Lord Kalen’s back. The asha smiled. “It is good to see you looking well, Princess Yansheo. I am sorry to meet again under unfavorable circumstances.”
“But the kingdom! My people—gone! The monsters at our doors! Lady Tea, what have you done?”
“Upheavals come with every new ruler. Your people have fled, but they shall return. Your army will heal. I have come only to rid Daanoris of a malignancy, and chaos was the quickest way to bring it festering to the surface.”
“But what malignancy do you speak of?”
“Do you need to ask? Who confined you to your rooms these long months? Who made you a prisoner in your own palace?”
The princess glanced at the emperor and looked away.
The bone witch’s voice gentled. “Do you miss him still?”
The young noblewoman trembled. “Yes.”
The Dark asha sighed. She wrapped a poultice made from herbs around a wounded soldier’s side and rose to her feet. She walked toward the girl and took the girl’s hands in her own.
“Yansheo. Some days will be better than others. Some days you will wake up crying, his name the first to fall from your lips. Some days, you will look up at the stars in the sky from a lonely beach and know none of them look down on him.” Her eyes slid briefly to the Deathseeker, who had taken his place among the injured, and then returned to the princess. “That is the nature of grief. But to grieve means you have loved. To love opens up the possibility for grief. There cannot be one without the other.”
“But, milady,” the princess choked, “it isn’t fair. He died so terribly—and for me.”
“Life isn’t fair, dear one. And sometimes, neither is death.”
8
“Tea! Are you in there? Tea!”
I shoved the book underneath my pillow and scrambled out of bed. I cursed the time, myself, even Kalen at my door, bellowing for blood, and then myself again for good measure. I had forgotten about practice!
“There is no excuse for being this tardy!” Kalen exploded the instant I opened the door. His brown hair was tied back from his face and his hand was raised, ready to punch the door again had I been a second slower to respond. “Spare me your explanations. If you’ve enough time to slack off, then you’ve enough time to spar. Let’s go!”