“Are you sure you don’t need an escort?”
A half smile tugged on Nesryn’s mouth as she found him watching her sidelong. “I can handle myself, Prince, but I thank you for the honor.”
Sartaq looked her over, a quick warrior’s assessment. Indeed, he was a man who had little to fear when stepping beyond the palace walls. “If you ever have the time or interest, you should come for a ride. The air up there is open—not like the dust and brine down here.”
Open enough where listening ears might not hear them.
Nesryn bowed deeply. “I should like that very much.”
She felt the prince still watching while she strode down the sunny avenue, dodging carts and conveyances fighting for passage. But she didn’t dare look back. She wasn’t entirely sure why.
CHAPTER
7
Chaol waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.
“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Dorian had studied it.
A dip of the chin was her only answer.
“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grim … he didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”
Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head low. “Yes,” she said simply.
He knew she was likely answering to one of the royals or viziers in this palace. But his asking for more information, while certainly a detail to mark, wasn’t any threat to his cause. And if they deemed it weak or stupid to be concerned for his country, they could go to hell.
“Good,” Chaol said, the chair beneath him groaning as he wheeled it forward a foot and tried not to scowl at the sound, at his silent body. “And there is another favor I would ask of you.”
Just because Nesryn was occupied with her family didn’t mean he had to be idle.
But as Kadja deposited him in Arghun’s chambers, he wondered if he should have waited for Nesryn’s return to have this meeting.
The eldest prince’s entry room was as large as Chaol’s entire suite. It was a long, oval space, the far end opening into a courtyard adorned with a sparkling fountain and patrolled by a pair of white peacocks. He watched them sweep by, the mass of their snowy feathers trailing over the slate tiles, their delicate crowns bobbing with each step.
“They are beautiful, are they not?”
A sealed set of carved doors to the left had opened, revealing the slim-faced, cold-eyed prince, his attention on the birds.
“Stunning,” Chaol admitted, hating the way he had to angle his head upward to look the man in the eye. Had he been standing, he’d be a good four inches taller, able to use his size to his advantage during this meeting. Had he been standing—
He didn’t let himself continue down that path. Not now.
“They are my prized pair,” Arghun said, his use of Chaol’s home tongue utterly fluent. “My country home is full of their offspring.”
Chaol searched for an answer, something Dorian or Aelin might have easily supplied, but found nothing. Absolutely nothing that didn’t sound inane and insincere. So he said, “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
Arghun’s mouth tugged upward. “If you ignore their screaming at certain points of the year.”
Chaol clenched his jaw. His people were dying in Rifthold, if not already dead, and yet bandying words about screeching, preening birds … this was what he was to do?
He debated it, whether to parry more or get to the point, but Arghun said, “I suppose you are here to ask what I know regarding your city.” The prince’s cool glance finally landed on him, and Chaol held the look. This—the staring contest—was something he could do. He’d had plenty, with unruly guard and courtier alike.
“You supplied your father with the information. I want to know who gave you the details of the attack.”
Amusement lit up the prince’s dark brown eyes. “A blunt man.”
“My people are suffering. I would like to know as much as I can.”
“Well,” Arghun said, picking at a piece of lint clinging to the golden embroidery along his emerald tunic, “in the spirit of honesty, I can tell you absolutely nothing.”
Chaol blinked—once, and slowly.
Arghun went on, extending a hand toward the outer doors, “There are far too many eyes watching, Lord Westfall, and my being seen with you sends a message, for better or worse, regardless of what we discuss. So while I appreciate your visit, I will ask you to leave.” The servants waiting at the door came forward, presumably to wheel him away.
And the sight of one of them reaching their hands toward the back of his chair …
Chaol bared his teeth at the servant, stopping him dead. “Don’t.”
Whether the man spoke his language, he clearly understood the expression on his face.
Chaol twisted back to the prince. “You really want to play this game?”
“It is no game,” Arghun said simply, striding toward the office where he’d been ensconced. “The information is correct. My spies do not invent stories to entertain. Good day to you.”
And then the double doors to the prince’s office were sealed.
Chaol debated banging on those doors until Arghun started talking, perhaps pounding his fist into the prince’s face, too, but … the two servants behind him were waiting. Watching.
He’d met enough courtiers in Rifthold to sense when someone was lying. Even if those senses had failed him so spectacularly these past few months. With Aelin. With the others. With … everything.
But he didn’t think Arghun was lying. About any of it.
Rifthold had been sacked. Dorian remained missing. His people’s fate unknown.
He didn’t fight the servant again when the man stepped up to escort him back to his room. And that might have enraged him more than anything.
Nesryn did not return for dinner.
Chaol did not let the khagan, his children, or the thirty-six hawk-eyed viziers get a whiff of the worry that wracked him with every passing minute that she did not emerge from one of the hallways to join them in the great hall. She had been gone hours with no word.
Even Kadja had returned, an hour before dinner, and one look at her carefully calm face told him everything: she’d learned nothing new at the docks about the attack on Rifthold, either. She only confirmed what Arghun claimed: the captains and merchants had spoken to credible sources who’d either sailed past Rifthold or barely escaped. The attack had indeed happened, with no accurate number on the lives lost or the status of the city. All trade from the southern continent was halted—at least to Rifthold and anywhere north of it that required passing near the city. No word had come at all of Dorian’s fate.
It pressed on him, weighing him further, but that soon became secondary, once he’d finished dressing for dinner and found Nesryn had not arrived. He eventually yielded and let Kadja bring him to the banquet in the khagan’s great hall, but when long minutes passed and Nesryn still did not return, it was an effort to remain unaffected.
Anything could have happened to her. Anything. Especially if Kashin’s theory regarding his late sister was correct. If Morath’s agents were already here, he had little doubt that as soon as they learned of his and Nesryn’s arrival, they’d begun hunting them.
He should have considered it before she’d gone out today. Should have thought beyond his own damn problems. But demanding a guard be sent out to search for her would on
ly tell any potential enemies what he valued most. Where to strike.
So Chaol fought to get his food down, barely able to focus on conversation with the people beside him. On his right: Duva, pregnant and serene, asking about the music and dancing now favored in his lands; on his left: Arghun, who didn’t mention his visit that afternoon, and instead prodded him about trade routes old and proposed. Chaol made up half the answers, and the prince smiled—as if well aware of it.
Still, Nesryn didn’t appear.
Though Yrene did.
Halfway through the meal, she entered, in a slightly finer yet still simple gown of amethyst that set her golden-brown skin glowing. Hasar and her lover rose to greet the healer, clasping Yrene’s hands and kissing her cheeks, and the princess kicked out the vizier seated on her left to make room for her.
Yrene bowed to the khagan, who waved her off without more than a glance, then to the royalty assembled. Arghun did not bother to acknowledge her existence; Duva beamed at Yrene, her quiet husband offering a more subdued smile. Only Sartaq bowed his head, while the final sibling, Kashin, offered her a close-lipped smile that didn’t meet his eyes.
But Kashin’s gaze lingered long enough while Yrene took her seat beside Hasar that Chaol remembered what the princess had teased Yrene about earlier that day.
But Yrene did not return the prince’s smile, only offering a distant nod in return, and claimed the seat Hasar had conquered for her. She fell into conversation with Hasar and Renia, accepting the meat Renia piled on her plate, the princess’s lover fussing that Yrene looked too tired, too skinny, too pale. Yrene accepted every morsel offered with a bemused smile and nod of thanks. Deliberately not looking anywhere near Kashin. Or Chaol, for that matter.
“I heard,” a male voice to Chaol’s right said in his own language, “that Yrene has been assigned to you, Lord Westfall.”
He was not at all surprised to find that Kashin had leaned forward to speak to him.
And not at all surprised to see the thinly veiled warning in the male’s gaze. Chaol had seen it often enough: Territory claimed.
Whether Yrene welcomed it or not.
Chaol supposed it was a mark in her favor that she did not seem to pay the prince much heed. Though he could only wonder why. Kashin was the handsomest of the siblings, and Chaol had witnessed women literally falling over themselves for Dorian’s attention during those years in the castle. Kashin had a self-satisfied look to him that he’d often glimpsed on Dorian’s face.
Once—long ago. A different lifetime ago. Before an assassin and a collar and everything.
The guards stationed throughout the great hall somehow turned looming, as if they were kindled flames that now tugged at his gaze. He refused to even glance toward the nearest one, which he’d marked out of habit, standing twenty feet to the side of the high table. Right where he’d once stood, before another king, another court.
“She has,” was all Chaol could manage to say.
“Yrene is our most skilled healer—save for the Healer on High,” Kashin went on, glancing at the woman who still paid him no heed and indeed seemed to fall deeper into conversation with Renia as if to emphasize it.
“So I have heard.” Certainly the sharpest-tongued.
“She received the highest marks anyone has ever attained on her formal examinations,” Kashin continued while Yrene ignored him, something like hurt flickering across the prince’s face.
“See how he trips over himself,” Arghun muttered over Duva, her husband, and Chaol to say to Sartaq. Duva swatted at Arghun’s arm, snapping at him for interrupting her fork’s path to her mouth.
Kashin did not appear to hear or care for his elder brother’s disapproval. And to his credit, Sartaq didn’t, either, choosing instead to turn to a golden-robed vizier while Kashin said to Chaol, “Unheard of marks for anyone, let alone a healer who has been here for just over two years.”
Another seedling of information. Yrene had not spent long in Antica, then.
Chaol found Yrene watching him beneath lowered brows. A warning not to drag her into the conversation.
He weighed the merits of either option: the petty revenge for her taunting earlier, or …
She was helping him. Or was debating it, at least. He’d be stupid to alienate her further.
So he said to Kashin, “I hear you usually dwell down in Balruhn and look after the terrestrial armies.”
Kashin straightened. “I do. For most of the year, I make my home there and oversee the training of our troops. If I’m not there, then I’m out on the steppes with our mother-people—the horse-lords.”
“Thank the gods,” Hasar muttered from across the table, earning a warning look from Sartaq. Hasar only rolled her eyes and whispered something in her lover’s ear that made Renia laugh, a bright, silvery sound.
Yrene was still watching him, though, an ember of what he could have sworn was annoyance in her face—as if Chaol’s mere presence at this table was enough to set her clenching her jaw—while Kashin began explaining his various routines in his city on the southwestern coast, and the contrasting life amongst the horse-tribes on the steppes.
Chaol shot Yrene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.
He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”
Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.
And somehow Chaol knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.
It did not entirely explain Yrene’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Yrene’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Chaol’s direction.
He might have called her out on it, might have demanded if this meant she’d decided not to treat him. But if Kashin favored her, Yrene’s subtle rejections or not, it surely wouldn’t be a wise move to get into it with her at this table.
Footsteps sounded from behind, but it was only a vizier’s husband, come to murmur something in her ear before vanishing.
Not Nesryn.
Chaol studied the dishes strewn over the table, calculating the remaining courses. With the feasting, last night’s meal had gone on for ages. Not one dessert delicacy had been brought out yet.
He looked again to the exits, skipping over the guards stationed there, searching for her.
Facing the table again, Chaol found Yrene observing him. Wariness, displeasure still darkened those golden eyes, but … warning, too.
She knew who he looked for. Whose absence gnawed at him.
To his shock, she subtly shook her head. Don’t reveal it, she seemed to say. Don’t ask them to look for her.
He knew it already but gave Yrene a terse nod back and continued on.
Kashin attempted to engage Yrene in conversation, but each time he was promptly and politely shut down with simple answers.
Perhaps the healer’s disdain toward Chaol that morning was simply her nature, rather than hatred born of Adarlan’s conquest. Or perhaps she just hated men. It was hard not to look toward the faint scar across her throat.
Chaol managed to wait until dessert arrived before feigning exhaustion and leaving the table. Kadja was already there, waiting by the farthest pillars of the hall with the other servants, and said nothing as she wheeled that chair away, every rattle making him grate his teeth.
Yrene didn’t say a word of parting, or offer a promise of returning the next day. She didn’t so much as look in his direction.
But Nesryn was not in the room when he returned. And if he searched for her, if h
e drew attention to the threat, to their closeness and how any enemy might wield it against them …
So he waited. Listened to the garden fountain, the singing of the nightingale perched in a fig tree within it, listened to the steady count of the clock on the sitting room mantel.
Eleven. Twelve. He told Kadja to go to sleep—that he’d care for himself and get himself in bed. She did not leave, only took up a place against the painted foyer wall to wait.
It was nearly one when the door opened.
Nesryn slipped in. He knew it, simply because he’d learned her sounds of moving.
She saw the candles in the sitting room and strode in.
Not a mark on her. Only—light. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brighter than they’d been this morning. “I’m sorry I missed dinner,” was all she said.
His reply was low, guttural. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
She halted, hair swaying with the movement. “I was not aware I had to send word of my comings and goings. You told me to go.”
“You went into a foreign city and did not come back when you said you would.” Every word was biting, slicing.
“It is not a foreign city—not to me.”
He slammed his palm onto the arm of the chair. “One of the princesses was murdered a few weeks ago. A princess. In her own palace—the seat of the most powerful empire in the world.”
She crossed her arms. “We don’t know if it was murder. Kashin seems to be the only one who thinks so.”
It was utterly beside the point. Even if he’d barely remembered to study his dinner companions tonight for any sign of the Valg’s presence. He said too quietly, “I couldn’t even go looking for you. I didn’t dare tell them that you were missing.”
She blinked, slow and long. “My family was glad to see me, in case you were wondering. And they received a brief letter from my father yesterday. They got out.” She began unbuttoning her jacket. “They could be anywhere.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Chaol said through his teeth. Though he knew that not knowing where her family was would eat at her as much as the terror of the past day of not knowing whether they lived. He said as calmly as he could, “This thing between us doesn’t work if you don’t tell me where you are, or if your plans change.”
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