“Tierri?” Edlyn threw herself at him, but it was just like running into a wall. “Let her go! What are you doing?”
Danyll hissed and pulled her off of Tierri, then turned her by the shoulders to face Rayne. Something wet and salty dripped into Rayne's mouth—tears or blood, she couldn't be sure. “Meet your Iblia assassin,” Danyll said. “She's been trying to kill you all along.”
It was true, but it still hurt to hear the truth spoken aloud. It still hurt to see the realization on Edlyn's face. To see the resignation on Tierri’s. All the fight went out of Rayne and she crumpled in Tierri’s arms.
“No, you're lying,” Edlyn said, but she didn't look away from her sister. Rayne knew what she was thinking, felt the betrayal as real as if it had been done to her instead of by her. She saw the moment Edlyn understood that it wasn't a lie at all. “Rayne.” It was said in a breath, on a sigh, a simple exhalation and she gave up, turning away.
Danyll laughed. Flames licked at one of his hands as he found his power again, and he pressed it against Rayne's shoulder, dragging his fingers down her arm. Rayne screamed, the smell of burning flesh more rancid than the fish in the market had ever been. The last thing she saw before the pain took her was the back of Edlyn's head. Her sister walking away from her. This was what she deserved. It wasn't over, though; the end was just beginning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sibba
Evenon blinked up at Sibba, a wrinkle between his furrowed brows. He was so pale and gaunt that the scar on his cheek, the one her mother had given him, seemed to glow a vicious, unnatural pink. Days had passed, but Sibba hadn't let Tola heal him. The wound the boar had given him in his abdomen was festering, filling the house with the sharp stink of rotting meat.
“He'll be dead in days,” Tola had said, trying to appeal to Sibba's better nature, the thing that she was doing her best to hide.
Sibba, who had not left his side, had shaken her head. “You can heal him when he tells me what I need to know.”
“A dead man can't tell you anything.”
Sibba begged to differ. She had heard the dead speak, but it wasn't an experience she wished to repeat. Still, his life was her greatest bargaining chip, and she wasn't going to give him anything else for free.
So Tola had settled on giving him a potion to dull the pain, something that would trick his mind into bringing him back and loosen his tongue at the same time, lowering his inhibitions. After all, the quicker he gave up the information, the quicker Tola would be able to heal him and they would be able to move on from this place.
“You,” he said. She was relieved to see the anger in his eyes. It was better than the unresponsive stupor he had been in after leaving the draugnvithr. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked, echoing her own question to him just days before.
“It would be my right,” she answered, just as he had. “For the wrong you have done to me and my family.”
“But I’m still alive.” He looked ruefully down at his stomach and grimaced. “Barely. Clearly, there’s something you want or you would have let me perish in the forest.”
“No one deserves to become one of those shadows,” Sibba said, “but you’re right. There is something I want, and I want to know if you’ll give it to me, in exchange for your life.”
Evenon coughed and winced, gripping his side. “I don’t know that you can uphold your end of the bargain. The boar made fine work of my innards.”
“Tola can heal you,” Sibba explained. “And she will, once we’re done here.” Tola and Estrid were outside with the boar, butchering it and packing it as best as they could to prepare for the trip to Ydurgat. But she knew that Tola would have one eye on the door, ready to jump into action when she was called.
His eyes slid to her. He was wary of Tola’s magic, which was strange considering she was certain the tattoos that painted his torso and arms had some sort of magical origins. “What do you want in exchange?”
Sibba shrugged. “Information. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know why you and your brother were on Ey Island and why you killed my mother, and why you stole her circlet.”
“That’s a lot in exchange for my pitiful life.” He leaned his head back. The muscles in his jaw twitched, revealing the tension and pain he felt in spite of his nonchalant attitude. “I also want the crown, and I want the freedom to leave.”
The familiar anger welled up inside of her but she took a deep breath and stared him down. “You get to live. The rest will all depend.”
Evenon coughed, and blood stained the corner of his lip. Neither of them moved to wipe it away. She thought maybe he wouldn’t say anything. That maybe he was too close to the edge of death. But then he spoke. “My brother and I were assassins sent by King Innis Crowheart to kill your mother.”
“Why my mother? She was…nobody.” Even as she said it, it felt wrong. Memories like dreams bounced around in her head, ethereal and blurry.
He scoffed. “She was the lost Malstrom queen,” he said. “If ever there was anybody who wasn’t nobody, it was her.”
“What does that mean?” Sibba asked. Queens and Kings and assassins—her mind swam with words that were familiar but still meaningless in her world. There was no political intrigue in the Fields. There was battle and honor. Chiefs and their heirs and the endless feuds over borders.
“After the War of the Five Families,” he explained, “Casuin split into five kingdoms. The Malstrom family was arguably the most powerful of them all, ruling the largest country of Hail on the eastern coastline.” How many times had Sibba looked west, trying to see the distant continent from which her mother had come? How many times had someone else been looking back at her? “Your grandsire named Darcey as his heir after he fell sick with the Blood Flu. Darcey was betrothed to Wynn Crowheart, King Innis’s younger brother. That marriage would have brought four of the five countries under Crowheart rule.” He looked at Sibba, then explained further. “He’s restoring the Crowheart Empire that existed when his ancestor first discovered Casuin.”
“But the Malstroms weren’t having it.”
“Right. There are reasons they went to war in the first place. So when your mother became sick, the Crowhearts took Hail by force.”