“I know.”
“She is nearly five hundred years old. She prizes the old ways, much like your father. Change is not in her blood.”
“I know.”
And I wasn’t sure what I was expecting him to say next, but it wasn’t this:
“This is why,” he said, smoothly, “it would be best if she did not know.”
My jaw fell. Ashraia did such an intense double-take that he nearly toppled over. “Seven skies, what?”
If I hadn’t been so shocked myself, I would have burst out laughing. It took me several long seconds to wrap my mind around what Ishqa had just said.
Pristine, traditional, well-behaved Ishqa.
“That’s essentially treason,” Ashraia growled, attempting to lower his voice and doing a poor job of it. Only Ishqa’s eyes moved, shooting Ashraia a withering stare.
“As general, I was given supreme authority on this mission. Even if I were to contact our Queen and seek permission, we would not get a response for days or weeks. In light of what we’ve seen, I don’t believe we have that time to waste.”
“But the Nirajans are—”
“— the only ones likely to actually know anything. Yes.”
Ishqa’s gaze slid back to me. His face remained stoic as marble, but I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of laughter in his eyes.
“Is your mouth open because you intend to contribute to this conversation, Aefe?”
I closed my mouth and scowled.
Ishqa actually smiled.
“I’m glad you have some sense,” I sniffed.
“Some indeed.” Then he crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed me, the smile replaced with a thoughtful frown.
“Traditions may not be our only problem,” he said. “The Nirajans may not be especially welcoming to a pair of Sidnee.”
“Perhaps a small possibility,” Siobhan muttered, letting out a sarcastic scoff.
It was a fair point.
All of the Fey Houses had cast Niraja into excommunication, marking the kingdom and all its citizens as irreversibly tainted. That alone was bad enough. But the Sidnee — led by my father, when he was still just a young man — had been the only house to attempt to smite the Nirajans completely. More than half of their population had been killed by the Sidnee. It was that battle, in fact, that had earned my father his honor… and my mother’s hand in marriage.
Of its own accord, my left arm twitched.
I knew those stories well. They were inked into my skin, my tribute to my bloodline’s greatest victories. But for reasons I couldn’t understand, I now felt inexplicably uncomfortable. The Sidnee told of these stories often. The story was always the same — the brave, skilled young warrior, driving away the corrupted. And all my life, I had dreamed of leading such a conquest myself. Such a victory had earned him the respect of the Sidnee. And such a victory could earn me his respect, too.
Now? I blinked back the memory of those corpses in Yithara, split open and bleeding on the ground. Is that what it had been like?
I shuddered and shook away the thought. “We do not have to tell them that we’re Sidnee,” I said. “That goes without saying.”
Siobhan shook her head. “Simply not telling them won’t be enough.” She gestured down at herself. Her leathers. The tattoos. All unmistakable marks of the Sidnee Blades.
“No, it won’t be.” A certain spark leeched into Ishqa’s eyes as he looked from Siobhan, to me. “But we can be creative.”
“You look ridiculous.”
Caduan’s voice was low as he leaned over my shoulder to murmur in my ear.
I scowled and resisted the urge to snap at him.
“Aefe, none of this will be terribly convincing if you don’t stop.”
“Stop what?”
Ishqa arched his eyebrows. “That,” he said, gesturing broadly at my entire person.
I threw my hands up. An inordinate amount of chiffon fabric rippled with the movement. “This is unreasonable.”
Caduan placed a very thoughtful hand over his chin, covering his mouth just enough to stifle his obvious chuckle.
“Unreasonable?” Ishqa frowned. “This is what all Wyshraj noblewomen wear.”
I gave him a pointed look. Yes, Ishqa. And it is unreasonable.
The corner of his mouth twitched, and it was only then that I realized that he was enjoying this, the bastard.
I grumbled and looked down at myself. An expanse of skin and floaty, sheer turquoise fabric greeted me. The fabric wrapped all the way around my body, held together with a series of jeweled gold pins — at my shoulders, beneath my arms, around my waist.
Putting the thing on had taken the better part of an hour. It was all an incredible amount of work for something that offered such scant protection from the elements. Most of my skin was exposed in one way or another, whether it be through the sheer fabric or simply left that way intentionally. I resisted the urge to curl up into a ball and cover myself.
I gestured to my exposed abdomen — to the black ink running up its side. I deliberately avoided calling any more attention to the X’s on my other side. This was humiliating enough already.
“Are we not forgetting something terribly important? Or do we intend to convince the Nirajans that Wyshraj have developed a sudden interest in the art of tattoo?”
“I can hide them,” Caduan said, without hesitation. When everyone shot him confused glances, he said, simply, “Magic.”
So matter-of-fact. As if it was obvious.
Ishqa arched a cool eyebrow at me. “Magic, then.”
“It’s quite airy, once you get used to it,” Siobhan remarked. Of course, she managed to look — well, perhaps a little silly, but at least elegant. She was significantly shorter than I was, and as a result, the swath of fabric covered more of her body than mine did. I noted this with some envy.
“It’s not ideal,” Ishqa remarked, finger at his chin. “Noblewomen’s clothing would be more ornate than this. But the Nirajans won’t know the difference.”
Ashraia scoffed. “No one would confuse them for well-bred Wyshraj,” he muttered, and Ishqa shot him a withering look.
“They certainly will,” he said. “No one would dare question the legitimacy of the wife of a Wyshraj noble.”
There was a beat of silence. All eyes turned to Ishqa. Caduan went very still in a way that I deliberately chose not to notice.
“Wife?” I said, finally, voice tight.
“Of course—”
“Wife?”
“It only makes sense,” he said. “If we introduce you as my wife, then it will be clear to them that this is nothing more than a political visit, totally peaceful.”
Of course. That would be true in any House, but the Wyshraj in particular tended to leave matters of politics to the women in a noble partnership. Four military leaders — even Wyshraj military leaders — would be looked upon with suspicion. But a Wyshraj nobleman and his wife? That would be seen as “safe.”
Still. My teeth ground.
“Perhaps Siobhan should be your wife,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Siobhan shoot me an affronted glare just as Ishqa quirked one eyebrow in a cool challenge.
“If you wish,” he said. “But as my equal, I assumed you would want to assume the same rank as me.”
Damn him. He was right. My silence said so, even if my words didn’t.
“Fine,” I muttered, at last.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Max
For awhile, dreams and reality blended. I didn’t remember losing consciousness, at least not the way Tisaanah had, like her entire body just stopped at once. My sense of the world simply seeped away, leaving only dreams. Strange dreams. I was used to nightmares. But this… this was different. The familiar horrors, yes, but with something else hanging over it — a shadow, watching.
But by the time I clawed my way back to reality, dreams were the least of my concerns.
The battle was well over, Nura told me. The clean-u
p effort was underway. The first thing I did upon regaining consciousness was stumble to the windows, watching the activity in the streets below, and the hazy plume of smoke that still trailed up into the sky.
A knot had formed in my stomach.
“I told you not to bring the army.”
My voice was raspy, raw. Nura’s was smooth as ice in comparison as she replied, “We won the war because of what you two did.”
“I told you not to bring them.”
I looked over my shoulder, jaw clenched. Nura stood there with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Hypocritical for you to lecture me about honesty, isn’t it? After what you hid from us.” She cocked her head. “But the two of you were remarkable. You were remarkable, Max. You must know that. Even after hearing the stories from Threll, I didn’t think you would be so…”
Her voice trailed off, eyes going far away. I looked to the Capital, to the smoke still rising above it.
The battle was a bloody, rage-induced haze. Hazy enough that my mind could fill in the gaps with the worst possible scenarios.
My fingers curled against the glass.
“Was there… were there…”
“Was it another Sarlazai?”
A part of me hated that she knew what I was going to ask. She gave me a pitying look.
“No. It was nothing like it. All things considered, the death toll was low. The destruction minimal. And we lost few of your soldiers, comparatively.” Then she said, more softly, “It was nothing, compared to what it could have been without you.”
“All things considered.” “Comparatively.” “Wasn’t that bad.”
All phrases that did little to quell the guilt that sat in my stomach.
I turned away and started to push past her, but Nura’s fingers caught my arm. Her eyes fell to my wrist, and her brow furrowed.
“What are you—”
She pushed my sleeve up, and my voice trailed off. We stood in silence, looking down at my arm and the dark veins that now trailed up it.
I yanked away from her grasp, pushing my sleeve back down. “I have more important things to worry about.”
I was halfway to the door when she called after me. “I meant it,” she said. “Do you ever think about what you could do with power like that? If you let yourself dream a little bigger?”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer. Perhaps Nura dreamed of what she could do with the power that I had, that Tisaanah had. But I dreamed of a world in which power like that never existed at all.
But no matter what I dreamed, the whole world knew what I was, now. And Nura wasn’t the only one who looked at me differently for it. Everywhere I went, stares followed. Even the healers gave me long looks—part fear, part awe—when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. As soon as I could walk, I managed to visit Essanie and Arith’s drills, albeit only briefly, and practically derailed the whole exercise because everyone decided to stop and gawp at me at the same time.
Eventually, the shock faded, but I understood that something had permanently changed in what remained beneath it. They had respected me before. But now, they looked at me with starry-eyed admiration.
I didn’t like that one bit. I wanted to shake them and say, No one deserves to be put on a pedestal. They won’t climb down to save you, and if you’re looking up at them, you’re not looking ahead at what’s coming for you.
Every time I saw those looks, a weight settled over my chest. For the first time, I truly understood how Tisaanah must feel when she stood in front of the refugees.
And that was the other reason why I didn’t spend much time with the army. Tisaanah.
Days passed, and she didn’t wake. She lay in a white bed in her apartment in the Tower of Midnight, looking small and fragile and so unlike the untouchable goddess who had commanded the attention of the refugees. Sammerin healed the wounds on her arms, but they were still covered with scar tissue, crawling over the dark veins visible beneath the translucent pale of her skin.
“She was injured badly,” Sammerin told me. “And she used an extraordinary amount of magic. She just needs to rest.”
He was right. I knew better than most exactly how high of a toll Reshaye’s magic demanded on the body, especially after using so much of it. But I still hovered anxiously at her bedside. Through her window, I watched the sky change, from dusky overcast to bloody sunset, to night and then sunrise and then all over again, and still she did not wake.
Days had passed when she finally opened her eyes. It was nighttime. I was in my chair in the corner, vision blurring over pages of my book.
“Maxantarius.”
A pit formed in my stomach at the sound.
Tisaanah’s voice, yes. But not her words. Not her accent.
I looked up to see Tisaanah — Reshaye — peering at me through those brilliant, mismatched eyes.
I closed my book.
“Where is she?” I asked, my voice tight.
“Resting. She is very tired. As am I.”
“If you’re so tired, then why are you here?”
Tisaanah’s expression was calm and thoughtful, mouth twisted the way a child’s does in deep thought. There was no rage, no anger. An unusual expression for Reshaye to wear.
“You told me once that I did not know what love is.” The wrinkle deepened between her brows. Her hand pressed to her chest. “Does love feel like an open wound? Like skin peeled back from flesh. Like a ribcage exposed. Is that what it is? To be… opened?”
I blinked.
What a strange question. I didn’t know how to respond to this.
I thought of the night I helped untangle Tisaanah’s dress from her hair after the Orders’ ball. I had stood there drowning in her scent, in my own desire, and when she had looked over her shoulder at me, I realized her stare cut so deep because she saw me — even the things I wanted to hide from the world.
“Is love frightening?” Reshaye whispered.
I wasn’t sure why I answered. “Yes. It’s terrifying.”
“It is a painful thing. To be seen. To be given something to mourn. To be reminded of what has already been lost.”
Then that gaze, familiar and unfamiliar, slid back to me.
“I built walls around you, because I wanted us to be the same. If there was no one else for you to see, then you would see me. But I think I understand it now… grief.”
Reshaye rolled over, Tisaanah’s eyes fluttering closed.
“She will come back soon,” she whispered, voice fading. “She dreams of you. Did you know that?”
She was gone before I had time to say more, fading back into a deep sleep, confusion still etched between her brows.
The next morning, Tisaanah finally awoke.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Tisaanah
We had won.
When I awoke after what felt like a million-year sleep, Max was there beside me. He told me of the outcome of the battle, and filled in my murky memories with his crisper ones. He told me of the death toll, and of the victory those deaths had bought.
The Capital was now under Zeryth’s control.
“So the war is over,” I murmured.
“It should be. Though Zeryth has not publicly declared its end. Not that there’s even anyone left for him to fight.”
This made me nervous. I’d been watching Zeryth slowly unravel, his mind withering, and now I found myself wondering whether his paranoia would find new enemies to target within the shadows of his own towering heights.
But I was pulled from this thought when I noticed the way Max was looking at me, his brow creased and a single muscle feathering in his jaw.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“I found the note that was left for you that morning,” he said.
I stilled. I knew immediately which note he was talking about. The one from Fijra, asking me to visit her grandmother. The thought of it still made a lump rise in my throat.
“So. Is that where you were taken?”
I nodded. Perhaps he knew me well enough to see what I wasn’t saying, because his voice was deadly quiet.
“So it was a trap. And that’s why you wanted to go there, after the battle.”
And again, my silence was answer enough.
Max’s anger was so intense that it thickened in the air. “You’re fighting harder for them than anyone else ever would. And they turn you over to him? That’s not just cruel. It’s stupid.”
Before I could think, the justifications that I told myself spilled from my lips. “You say ‘they’ like they are all the same. It was one person. For some, it will be always hard to trust—”
“I thought I was too late, Tisaanah.” He didn’t raise his voice. And yet, the rawness in it was still enough to make me jump. “I thought that I was breaking into that palace to go find your corpse. I thought some of those Ilyzath visions had come true. I have never been that scared. Never.”
His gaze flicked up to meet mine. My mouth closed. That fear was still all over his face. And if I had been in his position…if he had been the one trapped there…
The thought of it made me sick.
“You will not get rid of me so easily.” I pushed a rebellious strand of dark hair away from his eyes, my thumb smoothing the wrinkle of his brow. “Those people were forced into an impossible position. For some, it will always be hard to believe in me.”
He dragged my palm down to his mouth and kissed it.
“If they didn’t before, they’ll believe in you now,” he said, quietly. “They looked at you like you were more than human.”
I wasn’t sure why that thought made me feel vaguely nauseous — even though it was exactly my intention.
“That’s how people looked at you, too,” I said.
And he had deserved it, that wide-eyed reverence, because he had been breathtaking.
Max flinched, looking away. He had confronted his biggest fear by showing the world what he was capable of. It was hard enough for him to do it in Threll. Now, it was out there, beyond even his paper-thin denials.
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