by Natalie Mae
I squeeze my eyes shut against the thoughts. This is dangerous thinking, and the last time I hoped for him nearly cost me everything.
It won’t last. I must stop him.
I won’t let him fool me again.
* * *
The days start to pass like dripping water. Each the same, and gone far too soon.
Every morning I ask Jade if she’s seen the quiet bird or anything else in the night that shouldn’t be there. Every morning the same answer: No. I go to my Influence lessons, carefully timing it so I never have to walk with Kasta, especially now that I’m regularly sneaking into his room. My Influence strengthens. Soon I can not only identify emotion from a distance, but also amplify it by reinforcing the emotion with my own feelings, until my volunteers are overcome by joy or sadness or fear.
Each lesson I leave shaking. From the oily feeling of having manipulated someone; from the intoxicating satisfaction of being looked upon—me, a once-lowly Whisperer—with such fascination and respect.
Kasta still can’t do more than occasionally name the right emotion. But though I always glance over his clothes for blood and his skin for scratches, all I ever notice is how tired he looks.
My tutors teach. Hen and I sneak into Kasta’s rooms again, and the first day we find a mercifully smaller pool of blood than I feared I’d left behind in the closet, as well as the scorpion tunic pin that stabbed me. But we clean up the blood, and there is nothing else. Day after day, nothing. Melia reports on Kasta’s unremarkable training sessions each night, and Marcus stops in to recharge the necklaces.
My anxiety grows. In desperation I recruit a pair of green-eyed rats—animals known for their penchant to steal and get into impossible places—to start searching Kasta’s walls and ceiling. It’s a lot of trust to place in wild animals, but I’m running out of time.
And every night I write to Jet. First with Hen, who helps me read that Jet’s “negotiations” are going well, which I take to mean that Sakira has accepted his help, but she still doesn’t want anyone to know she exists. Here’s how to write “I miss you,” Hen shows me. Here’s how to write “Come home soon.”
But in bed, with parchment on my lap, I draft a different letter. One that’s mostly symbols, because I don’t know how to write the right words. One that Jet will never read.
I feel like I’m losing myself, I write. I think something’s wrong.
* * *
The morning that Jet is due to come home—the sixth day since he left, and one day before the debut party—I stand before my mirror, powdering the dark circles under my eyes.
Another week down; another week without any evidence against Kasta.
A reckless impatience is taking hold of me, like a fever rising. I smear red pigment onto my lips, my fingers agitated, and think—this failure, this inability to find anything on Kasta when I know he killed Maia . . . this is how Kasta felt when his magic wasn’t surfacing. This is how it was for him in the weeks before his eleventh birthday, when he knew he’d have to show some kind of magical aptitude or else be turned onto the streets with the rest of the Forsaken. This is what pushed him to study poisons and become someone else.
My mind drifts to the binding necklace. Do I really need to wait for proof? What if I did the same as him . . . and made the outcome I wanted?
I could have Hen track down pelts. I could have her fabricate them. She’s used to working with feathers; she could make cotton look like fur. I’d only need a couple of them. And why would the Runemaster or Marcus or Jet even think to doubt me, the honest good girl, especially once I prove what Kasta is?
My heart quickens with the want of it, with the promise that this could be over that easily. But I can already see Jet’s frown, warning me against being hasty, and still comes that annoying, soft voice in the back of my head: What if you’re wrong?
“I’m not wrong,” I tell my reflection. “All these good things Kasta’s doing are just an act, and it’s only going to last until he’s crowned. It’s not real.”
My reflection gives me a look, and with a jolt I remember Kasta accusing me of the same thing: that I was plotting against him with Jet, that my kindness was an act to deceive.
I growl and drop my brush. “Fine. I won’t fake any evidence, but I’m going to find something on him, and then you’re going to apologize for ever doubting me.”
I realize talking to myself like this is possibly another sign that I am not all right. But I decide to give myself a pass. I’ve been studying and preparing for the debut party all week, no time to relax, with the overhanging knowledge that I could be partially responsible for a war depending on how I handle things tomorrow. And so I feel allowing myself a few mirror arguments is more than justified.
I straighten the golden ivy leaves on my head and leave for my Influence lesson.
As usual, I arrive early, and without Kasta.
The Mestrah sighs, long and low, when I sit on the curved white bench before him. For a moment he says nothing, the glass eyes shifting restlessly in his hair, a warm breeze slipping under the collar of my jole. I study my nails, listening to the calls of morning jays. Sun, they sing. Food. Mine!
The king drums his fingers on his bare knee. “You have not walked with Kasta once since the hunt.”
A week ago, I might have studied his sandals and declined to answer. Now I meet the king’s eyes. “No.”
His fingers curl, noticing. “Why?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You think he’ll hurt you?”
“No.”
His brow rises, the quickness of this answer startling me as much as him, and now I do have to look away.
“Then what is it?” the Mestrah asks.
Words tangle on my tongue. I’m confused; I’m running out of time. I don’t want to talk to Kasta, to let him draw me in again, when I must stay focused on stopping him.
The Mestrah taps his knee. “I do not ask much. These are important opportunities you are missing to speak to Kasta when there is no business to speak of. I don’t expect you to become friends, but you do need to be able to tolerate each other. It should be no ordeal to spend a few minutes at his side.”
This is temporary, I want to say. It doesn’t matter. “Yes, Mestrah.”
“Zahru.”
I’d looked away, toward the servants’ entry in the wall of the garden. Impatient for the volunteers to emerge. “Yes?”
“I will not require it. But I am hoping, when you are ready, you will show me by honoring this.”
I nod. I am hoping Kasta is in chains before then.
And then Kasta arrives, and it’s a small miracle that I don’t blurt something that would give away my entire plan.
All week he’s looked exhausted, dark circles haunting his eyes, and his focus has been off, often not bothering with a crown or even eyeliner. But today bronze leaves twist through his hair, kohl borders his eyes in sharp, dark lines, and his olive skin glows. As if he got a week of sleep in a day.
Or, more likely, like he ate someone and feels much better.
He catches me staring, and I hastily look away.
But despite the nearby servants now whispering about how long I looked at him, relief settles over me like sunshine. Obviously appearing refreshed is hardly damning evidence on its own, but these are the little inconsistencies that stack up, that prove I’m not just going mad.
The Mestrah waves over today’s volunteers.
A petite woman in a tan working slip moves before Kasta, but the man approaching me comes over with a smirk, and the burst of triumph I’d felt vanishes. He does not look like a palace servant. Lines age his russet skin, and embossed silver armors his tergus kilt. Tattooed lanterns cover his muscled chest, marking the lives he’s delivered to Rie, the god of death, in the name of our country. He looks down at me with a square jaw and vivid yellow eyes
.
An ex-commander. Behind him, three Healers pause at the wall—two more than we usually have on hand. Warning bells are sounding in my head even before the Mestrah speaks.
“Kasta,” the Mestrah says. “Today you will again work on identifying emotion. Be patient with yourself. Focus only on looking beyond what she’s showing you, and give yourself time with it before answering.”
Kasta stiffens at this, as he does every day. I bite back a flare of satisfaction that I continue to be the one who excels at the magic he tried to trade my life for.
“Zahru.” The Mestrah turns to me. “Your only direction today is to get this man to tell you his name. Which means you’ll need to change his mind, since he has been promised far more in reward for not telling you than for giving it.”
The soldier’s grin widens with the confidence of a war veteran who could keep a secret under more torture than I could ever imagine, and the Healers whisper, making bets on whether I can do it. Kasta’s not even making an attempt with his volunteer. He watches me, waiting.
All of them, waiting to see if I will change this man’s mind. By force.
My Influence stirs in my chest, electric and ready. The man’s certainty fills my head, as much a part of me as my own breath. In a blink, I could amplify his bravado and have him strutting around the yard, boasting of his war conquests. But the thought of taking this confidence away, of twisting it to something I want—
I should say no. I should say amplifying emotion is the furthest I ever want to go, that I’m not ready to change people, that I don’t want to do this.
But the soldier jeers down at me with every expectation that that’s exactly what I’ll do. He assumes that if I try, I will fail. I’m only a Whisperer. I’m only a girl.
My fingernails dig into my palms, and I steel myself. It’s just a name; it’s just one man. I won’t use this part of my power otherwise unless I absolutely have to, and I really might need it for emergencies, for when it could protect someone else. A sword is not a killing tool unless it’s used for killing. I’m just learning how to hold it, how to swing.
Is that what you’re telling yourself now? comes that small, savage voice in my head. Except now it sounds like Kasta, and though I know the thought is mine, I look over as if he’d spoken. He crosses his arms, his interest waning. He doesn’t think I’ll do it, either.
I relax my hands. “But what do I do? The last time I tried this, the man passed out.”
The soldier’s bravado flutters, for a satisfying second, in my grip. He glances at the trio of Healers. I really want to tell him we usually only have one.
The Mestrah strokes his braided beard, thinking. “Try again what you did the first day, letting his emotions in instead of keeping them at the surface. But this time, ease into it. Like cracking a door open instead of flinging it wide. Then hold it at that low level and send your will through.”
Thinking of how that felt, that momentary flash of being out of control, sends gooseflesh down my arms. But so does the realization of how close I was to succeeding at this on my first day.
I meet the soldier’s yellow eyes.
And I’m very grateful Fara is not here to see this.
The garden and the murmuring Healers fade away. The soldier’s confidence hums between my fingers, slick and ethereal, but I picture absorbing it instead, letting it in. My heart quickens. My skin warms. His certainty climbs my throat and swirls my ribs, as intimate and terrifying as touch, but unlike the first volunteer’s fear, this emotion is far more stable. It feeds my want to do this, my own surety that I can. New pictures flip through my head: our allies eagerly signing treaties; myself as Mestrah without Kasta. And this time when I push back, when I think about how I want the soldier to yield, the emotion shifts beneath my fingers like water.
The soldier’s smile drops. The Healers go silent.
I shudder, hating how natural this feels. “Tell me your name.”
The soldier opens his mouth—and shakes his head. “Not that easy, dōmmel. I’ve been promised a palace east of the river for keeping it to myself.”
Or maybe it just feels natural because I’m doing it all wrong. I shake my arms out, dropping the connection between us, and the Mestrah settles back in his throne. Kasta chews the inside of his cheek, his expression ever warring between jealousy and frustration.
I try four more times, each time letting the man’s confidence in a little more, but I’m terrified to go too far again, to knock him out like I did the first volunteer. The Mestrah tells me to let go of that fear. I try; I almost do knock the soldier out. The Healers lean against the wall, chatting, having entirely lost interest. Kasta names three correct emotions and fails on three more. My frustration grows. I know how to do this. I need to do it, so I can stop coming to these lessons.
I’m just starting to reach for the man’s confidence for the tenth time when Kasta says, “You know, if you don’t actually want him to tell you, he isn’t going to.”
The connection shatters, and I grit my teeth. “I’m sorry, would you like to come over here and show me how?”
I will now confirm I get very snappy under stress, though I’m not entirely proud of this last statement. Regardless of our history, I’ve just mocked someone who has never used magic before for having trouble using magic. Which is really not my style.
I have the Healers’ attention again, though not for the reason I want.
Kasta sneers. “My apologies, gudina. But I’d remind you that just because I don’t know how to use the magic doesn’t mean I don’t know how it works in theory. But fine, ignore me. You know best, of course.”
Every one of those sentences is layered, a reminder of who we used to be: powerless, but not worthless. I shake my head and try to focus. The last thing I need is Kasta rattling me when there are already too many people watching, and the Mestrah with his expectations, never mind that I don’t even want to be doing this—
I close my eyes. I don’t want to do this. Damn Kasta for knowing that about me before I even recognized it myself. Of course the soldier isn’t going to tell me his name if I’m secretly hoping it won’t work. And now I either continue to fail and keep having to come to these classes, or I give Kasta the satisfaction of being right.
The Healers slip closer, and the soldier straightens when I turn, his confidence overflowing because of my failures. Certain I’ll fail again. But I press my fingers between my eyes, not even looking at him, not needing to, because I’ve already practiced this part of it ten times. I just wasn’t sending back the right message.
I let his confidence seep over me, thick as mud, and I imagine this being the last time I come to this garden, the last time I have to do this. But in order for that to happen, I need him to trust me. To remember he doesn’t need a second house by the river. It’s only a name.
“Let’s try this again,” I say. “Tell me your—”
“Alistar,” he says. The Healers gasp and laugh, and the man’s certainty vanishes from my grip. He turns to the Healers, confused. “What? She didn’t do anything; I just feel sorry for her. My family and I just moved into a nice place, we don’t need something new . . .”
He continues defending his answer as if it was his idea, as if I didn’t use magic, and the Mestrah stands, clapping, looking between Kasta and me like we’re made of gold. I expect Kasta to bask in this, but the prince only stares at his own volunteer, something like sadness softening his face. I try not to let it affect me as the Mestrah asks what the woman is feeling, and Kasta shakes his head. He doesn’t know.
Good, I tell myself as the soldier insists again that I did nothing. Kasta would be far too dangerous with this power, too.
Except I can’t stop watching him. Secret Shifter powers or not, Kasta still sacrificed everything to get the knife’s magic—he sacrificed me—and yet, instead of being enraged that he can’t use it . . .
he’s helping me.
The Mestrah drops a heavy hand to Kasta’s shoulder. “Magic always was a challenge for you. Perhaps it’s for the best.”
I try not to care as Kasta watches his father leave.
XX
I throw myself into my morning classes.
If I’m focusing on foreign policies and the Pe minister’s estranged cousins, I’m not thinking about the addictive aftertaste of changing the ex-commander’s mind. If I’m crying over this brain-melting concept in mathematics called variables, my memory won’t keep replaying the betrayed way Kasta looked at me after I snapped at him. And if I ask enough repetitive questions of my writing tutor, to the point that she starts pulling her hair and gesturing dramatically, I definitely have no time to wonder why, despite how I’ve treated him and when it could only serve to make him look weak, Kasta would help me to become even more powerful.
I ask my writing tutor again what a noun is, and her eye twitches.
Lunch comes and goes. I finally convince myself that the only thing to take away from this morning’s lesson is that Kasta has recently eaten someone, and turn my mind to what’s ahead. With the debut party tomorrow, the Mestrah has canceled all of my afternoon classes, leaving space instead for a meeting with Kasta to discuss our strategy for each kingdom and to decide what we’ll say in our welcome speech. After which I plan to watch the rulers come in with their entourages, as all of them will arrive at the palace by the end of the day, and to meet up with Jet, who should be back by sunset. And finally I’ll have his help again, and the steadiness of his presence.
But I still have a little over an hour before my meeting with Kasta, and that’s precious time I plan to use. I call Jade over, who tells me again that she’s seen nothing unusual outside as I stroke her spotted back. The rats I recruited haven’t returned since I sent them over. I drum my fingers on a hidden compartment in my bedframe, where the rune necklaces lie inside a hollowed leather book of gods’ stories—but if a week of searching Kasta’s room hasn’t turned up anything, I doubt a week more will. We need a new strategy.