“Now leave.” The new king’s heartsglass glowed a bright red, fierier and more royal than I had ever seen any king’s.
“You are being unfair, Kance,” Kalen said.
“I am doing what must be done for the safety of my kingdom, Kalen. I do not need your approval.”
“But you need Telemaine’s. That’s what you have always wanted but rarely gotten.”
“Do not raise your voice to me, Kalen!”
“Barely even a week, Your Majesty, and already you sound so very much like your father. Has the crown always been this heavy?”
The two cousins locked gazes; Kance was angry and Kalen sad. But after several moments, the fury drained from the royal noble’s face, and he turned away. “I have been asleep for so long that I no longer recognize my own friends upon waking. I release you from your vow to protect me, Kalen. I cannot ask that from you any longer, knowing what my father did to yours. Do whatever you wish. The same goes for you, Khalad.”
“Then I shall stay here awhile longer,” Khalad decided. Kance looked surprised. “I haven’t been around as much as I should have, given my duties as the forger’s apprentice. We have some catching up to do, Kance.”
The king hesitated. “I would like that.” Kance looked back at me again. “Go with the gods, Tea.” There was not as much anger in his voice, but the regret in its timbre hit me harder. “May you one day put to rest the demons that still hold you.”
? ? ?
“Why didn’t you defend yourself?” Fox asked me as we left the palace. “You know you had no choice in what happened.”
“But I did. I shouldn’t have raised a hand against Telemaine. Guilty or not, he was the king. Kance deserved every chance to hear the old king’s deception from his own mouth, with his own words. I took that away from him.” I closed my eyes. If you had been stronger, a voice inside me whispered, if you had been better, then Telemaine would be sane and Polaire would need not be dead. “Shouldn’t you be with Inessa?”
“She understands.”
“We have different lives to lead, and sharing a bond makes that much more difficult. I…I don’t know what you want to do, but if we have an option to break our—”
“No!” My brother leaned forward and wrapped me in a fierce hug. “We need someone in our heads to tell us whenever we’re being idiotic. It’s the Pahlavi way.”
I returned his embrace. “But we don’t need to be in each other’s heads all the time. The best thing you can do for me is to live the life you want, Fox, and I know that is with Princess Inessa. I’m fine. I’ve been exiled, but Kance isn’t going to lop off my head.”
He glared at me. “Are you reading my thoughts again?”
“A wise man once said: ‘We need someone in our heads to tell us whenever we’re being idiotic. It’s the Pahlavi way.’”
Fox sighed. “I’ll get the horses. Best to leave Kneave before Kance has second thoughts.”
As my brother took his leave, Kalen said, “You’re good at hiding things from him, despite your bond.”
“How would you know that?” I asked.
“I’ve been with you long enough and can tell that Fox doesn’t read heartsglass. Polaire’s death wasn’t your fault, Tea.”
“Then whose fault was it? I brought these events to fruition. I killed Aenah. I drove the king mad. If I was responsible for those happenings, why can’t I be responsible for anything else?”
“Tea.” Kalen’s hands were on my shoulders. He did not argue, he shared no words in my defense, but his eyes were soft and his heartsglass glowed several brilliant shades of white. How strange it is, I thought, that Kalen knows my guilt, knows my culpability, and yet, it doesn’t matter to him.
“You cannot let your cousin dismiss you like that,” I whispered. “You cannot let what I did affect your relationship with Kance.”
“It doesn’t matter. As soon as I learned that Telemaine was responsible for my mother’s death and my father’s imprisonment, I knew I could not stay here in this kingdom. We will mend our bridges one day.”
He took my hand. “I am no longer of the prince’s guard nor his protector. I have no position to speak of other than Deathseeker and nothing but the sword on my back. I…I am not sure how much use I can be to you.”
“You really are a bumbass.” I kissed his hands. “If it wasn’t for me, you would not have lost favor with Kance, and I will always bear that burden.”
“What are you planning, Tea?”
“The elder asha are complicit in all this intrigue. Vanor said they did not conspire with Aenah, but I saw them in her head, Kalen. They shared common goals—enough that the elder asha were willing to look the other way when it came to Mykkie’s heartsglass. I hold them just as responsible for Polaire’s death as…”
Saying her name provoked another fresh bout of tears. “I have to find out, Kalen, for my peace of mind. I want to know why the elders are keeping secrets from the other asha. I want to know why they wanted Mykaela’s heartsglass to stay hidden. Whatever falsehoods Aenah said, in this I know she spoke the truth: the elder asha are not what they claim to be. You should return to Holsrath and…and mourn.”
“Are you turning me away, Tea?” His fierceness broke my heart.
“I can’t ask you to stay. You just lost your father…”
“I lost him a long time ago, Tea. I’ll mourn in my own way, and it won’t need to be at Holsrath.”
“But there’s something wrong with me, Kalen.” I unfastened my cloak, letting the fabric fall down my shoulders. My heartsglass gleamed in the fading light. Amid the hues of silver were the telltale flecks of black swimming in and out of view.
“Aenah talked about black heartsglass, and I can feel it starting within me. I killed her so brutally…and even now, I feel no remorse. Kance was right. Fox was right. I am changing—and not for the better. I don’t want anyone else to die.” I stumbled over the words. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You will never lose me, Tea.” Kalen kissed me gently. “And your heartsglass is all the more reason for me to be by your side. Turn me away if you want to, but that will not stop me from following your lead.”
“Promise me one thing,” I said. In the days after Polaire’s death and Telemaine’s madness, I could feel the darkness swirling inside me grow, the urge to give in to the darkrot became more appealing than ever. I felt no guilt over Aenah’s death, and even with Telemaine, my conscience was affected only because he was Kance’s father.
But that darkness eased whenever Kalen was near. I knew I would not break his trust for even the sweetest of the Dark. I remembered the comfort of his heartsglass when I had lain injured in the gardens, his Heartshare warming me like no antidote could. “Don’t let me become a monster like Aenah, Kalen.”
“You aren’t a monster, Tea.”
Not when you are with me, I’m not. I closed my eyes and lifted my face so Kalen’s lips could find mine. With you by my side, I thought, I could never be a monster.
It was early dawn.
She watched the sun rise and the stars fade beyond her reach. Her daeva were gathered around her, like children devoted to their mother, and the Deathseeker was at her side. She had healed them with her blood and a touch, but she remained fractured and broken herself, the never-healing scars inside her soul bearing the names of friends long gone.
“You were right, Kalen,” she whispered. “We should have run—as far as we could, for as long as we could. I thought I had nothing left to lose, but I keep being proven wrong, time and time again. Stupid. So stupid. I will not lose Khalad. I will not lose Fox. I will not lose any more of the friends I abandoned in Kion and Odalia. Let us finish this. I…”
The Dark asha’s voice wavered. She took a deep, shuddering breath. When she spoke again, the steel in her voice had returned. “Let us finish this.”
The daeva rose to their feet. I moved, but she stopped me. “You will not be going with us, Bard.”