His face tilted slightly, pushing closer, his eyes dusky, swallowing me. “So, you were using him?”
“It was my job. I don’t regret it.”
“A loyal Rahtan. And that’s all it was?”
“He was an interesting pastime while I searched out Beaufort.”
“But then you valiantly tried to save him, even risking your own life.”
Someone had been reporting my every move to him. Since I couldn’t tell him why I risked everything to save Jase, I embraced the lie instead, letting it become part of me fully and completely, a vow written in blood. I let rage spark in my eyes.
“I was charged by a very angry queen to return the Patrei to his home,” I snapped. I brushed his arm aside, freeing myself. I strutted to the sideboard and poured myself the glass of wine I had refused earlier, then whirled to face him. “I was not happy about the journey back here,” I said, my tone thick with resentment. “The Patrei threw it in my face for every mile we traveled. He seemed to find it endlessly amusing that I had been chastised by my own queen and reminded me that I had overstepped my boundaries. Often. I was minutes from fulfilling my mission and being rid of him for good when we were attacked. Of course I valiantly fought for him! If I failed in my mission—” I looked down, drawing out the effect.
“If you failed, what?” he asked.
Every swallow, every flash of my eyes, was a morsel. Every word and inflection mattered. Spinning. His eyes were transfixed, forgetting the rest of the world. Take your time, Kazi. He is waiting. Watching. Swimming closer.
“If I failed, I might as well not return home. I would face severe … consequences.” I cleared my throat as if the difficult memory were stuck there like a bone. “I had already been on shaky ground with the queen,” I continued. “Unfortunately, we’d had several run-ins. She thought I was too … independent.” I chugged back a gulp of wine. “So yes, of course I was angry, and valiant, and desperate. Not to mention I was stabbed, starved, and jailed. When the Patrei’s hand fell from the bag, it was the final confirmation that my career as a soldier, the job I had brutally trained and worked for, for almost half of my life, had been yanked from my grasp. Gone. I would have no position in the Rahtan to return to. The queen had made that clear. So now that you know what was at stake for me, I imagine under similar circumstances you might be angry and fight for all you were worth too.”
Even he, in his limited knowledge of Venda, knew of the Rahtan and their elite status. He nodded as if he agreed but then added, “Except your queen was wrong. The Patrei was guilty. He knew he was hosting a fugitive, and he conspired with him.”
“I’m afraid the queen only deals in hard evidence, and I had none. Besides, she had what she really wanted anyway—Beaufort—the man who helped orchestrate her brothers’ deaths.”
His lips rolled tight over his teeth as if he were weighing whether it all added up. “Yet the Patrei still wanted you after your betrayal?”
His eyes were expectant. Garvin had told him something, maybe sharing a conversation he’d had with Jase about me. Maybe Jase had revealed to Garvin that he loved me.
“Yes, he did want me. Very much. I’m afraid my initial charade worked a little too well, or more likely, I was just another challenge for him. The Patrei, as you may know, had an ego the size of a mountain and was not one to accept defeat.”
He walked over and took my wineglass from my hand and set it on the sideboard behind us. His pupils had grown to onyx moons.
“And how do I compare to the Patrei?” he asked, his voice husky.
My stomach jumped to my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Am I smarter? More desirable?” He stepped closer. “If he was only an assigned job for you, then you won’t mind if I kiss you. In fact, you’d probably be glad for it. A king is quite a step up from a Patrei, isn’t it?”
Kiss him, Kazi. Do it. It’s only a dry morsel of bread to draw him closer. Gain his confidence. But something tugged inside me. Was it the memory of Jase’s lips on mine? Do what you have to do, Kazi. But the tug pulled harder. A familiar whisper. Listen, Kazi. Hear the language that isn’t spoken. I felt like a quarterlord’s eyes were fixed on me from afar, watching, waiting for me to slip something in my pocket, and then pounce. Something was off. The king wasn’t swimming toward me, like a lured fish, but around me. He is the one with the hook in his hand, ready to catch me.
His face turned and dipped down, his mouth drawing close, but at the last second, I turned my head. His lips brushed my cheek instead, and a small chuckle rippled from his chest. “Well played, soldier,” he whispered, still pressing close. “I wouldn’t expect you to change your feelings toward me instantly—especially since I cost you your hard-earned job. I respect that even. I’d hate for you to use me the way you used him.” His tone was thick with insinuation. He stepped back, leaving me room to breathe again. “And in truth … we both know the stew was only mediocre tonight, don’t we? Never lie to me again. Not even about stew.” His stare pinned me in place. He was far from the clueless, bumbling king I had once thought him to be. But what else was he?
When we got back to the inn, just as we were parting, he asked, “Can Rahtan resign their positions?”
“Yes,” I answered uncertainly. “I suppose so.”
“Good. Then the problem of your position is solved. You work for me now. You can rest assured, you’ll have a far more illustrious career in the Montegue ranks. Your career isn’t over, it’s only just beginning.”
* * *
It was announced two days later—after Banques had reiterated the rules to me. He didn’t want me getting any “independent” ideas like the ones that had supposedly turned the queen against me. This time when I reached the platform in the plaza, Montegue didn’t stand apart from me. While Banques hovered over the children nearby, Montegue reached out and pulled me close to his side, his hand at first lightly pressed to my shoulder, but then it slid to my waist. Was he trying to imply something to the crowd? Or testing me for absolute allegiance?
From the far side of the platform that looked over the plaza, the corpses that still hung from the tembris caught my eye. They watched me. Their heads turned. Their eyes were sharp, waiting expectantly. Was I foe or friend? I blinked, and their gazes were once again dull, dead, but I heard their hearts, the unified thump, hoping for something to happen.
Montegue told the gathered citizens that I would be staying on and lending aid to get the town back on its feet, that my assistance would be invaluable, though he didn’t say exactly what I would be doing. I wondered myself. He nudged me to back him up and repeat his words, which I did.
The announcement was met by the crowd with a low rolling murmur that I imagined to be the word murderer. I was lower than a scavenger in their eyes, lower than vermin, but Montegue was pleased with their reaction. He imagined it to be a different word. I saw relief in the momentary drop of his shoulders. He interpreted the murmurs as approval, and there were no rocks thrown, no shouts. He stood for a moment, still, gazing out at the crowd. His chin lifted, as if he was soaking the moment in, his chest growing with accomplishment.
“They’re forgetting the Patrei,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Moving forward. Soon they’ll only remember me, as it should have been all along.” But I sensed it was more than just progress he wanted. That while he hated Jase, some part of him wanted to be Jase. Power was only part of it. He wanted to be loved, the way Jase had been loved. The way Jase was still loved.
It is not natural, Greyson says.
It is a trick, Fujiko counters.
We stare at the circle of trees growing from piles of rubble.
Even from high on the cliff that looks over the valley we see them change daily.
Magic, I say. It is some sort of magic.
—Miandre, 15
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JASE
My stomach quivers oddly. How can I be nervous? But I am. I am a lot of things I never expected to be. I want th
e moment to be perfect. “We don’t have to do this now. Unless you’re ready?”
“I’ve been ready since the first time I kissed you, Jase Ballenger.”
I smile. “I doubt that.”
“Almost the first time,” she concedes. “But I am ready now. We’ll take it slow.”
She reaches out and pulls my shirt free from my trousers. I help her lift it over my head.
Her fingertips brush along my chest as if she can feel the feathers of my tattoo.
I swallow, wondering how slow I can take this.
She looks up at me, and I am lost in golden pools.
I remember the words she said to me just minutes ago.
I want to grow old with you, Jase.
Every one of my tomorrows is yours.
I bend forward, my lips meeting hers.
Bound by the earth,
Bound by—
* * *
“We’re ready for you.”
I startled awake. Caemus was staring down at me. “Still needing naps?” he asked.
It was his way of saying I wasn’t ready.
“I wasn’t sleeping. Just thinking.”
He snorted. “Oh. Is that what that was?”
“I’ll be right up,” I said.
He turned and started back up the cellar steps. Maybe I wasn’t one hundred percent yet, and sometimes I was dragging by the afternoon, but if I spent one more day wondering where Kazi was, I would go insane. My dreams wouldn’t sustain me. I needed her. I needed to know she was safe.
I pulled off my shirt so it wouldn’t accidentally get stained with dye. The settlement had already worked hard enough to pull together clothes for me. I didn’t want to ruin a good shirt that had come off someone else’s back.
Caemus stopped halfway up the stairs and turned to look at me. “You talk in your sleep,” he said. “But I already knew. I figured it out when you were here building the settlement. You two seemed inevitable. That’s how it is with some folks.”
I kept my eyes fixed on the shirt in my hands. I couldn’t talk about this. “I told you, I’ll be up in a minute.” I snapped the shirt out and began folding it, carefully creasing the sleeves, pulling on the collar, making sure everything was even and perfect. I shook it out and folded it again.
Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you’re not powerless. That you have some measure of control. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another day.
“I know what you’re going through, boy,” Caemus said. “I had a wife once. It wasn’t quite the same. I’d had her for a lot of years, and then a water snake bit her. In a matter of hours, she was gone. It didn’t matter how hard I held her or how crazy I got with wanting her back. It didn’t change a thing. Sometimes people leave us forever and there’s no getting them back.”
My neck flashed with heat. His words were too similar to something Kazi had once said about her mother. She’s dead, gone, Jase. She’s never coming back. But I still saw it in her eyes, the small sliver of hope she couldn’t extinguish. She was afraid to believe, but it was still there, like a saved wish stalk tucked deep in her pocket.
I shook my head, rejecting Caemus’s insinuation.
His voice turned more sober than it already was. “No one saw or heard anything about her when we were there, and trust me, a Vendan stands out in Hell’s Mouth, especially a Vendan soldier.”
“She’s alive, Caemus. I know she is. She’s a survivor.”
His lips rolled over his teeth, like he was chewing on the thought. “All right,” he sighed. “If you believe it, I think it must be true. I just want you to remember there’s other people who need you. You have to keep your head on straight. Don’t go doing something crazy, something that’s going to get you killed. That won’t get her back.”
I nodded. “I don’t plan on getting killed.”
“No one ever does.”
He turned and trudged up the rest of the stairs, and I stared at the folded shirt on my bed, at all the angles that didn’t line up. I knew other people needed me too. It gnawed at me every single day. The town, my family. Hundreds of people I had vowed to protect. Blessed gods, did I know. My father had drilled it into me since the day I was born. Duty. But if it took something crazy to save Kazi, that was exactly what I would do.
CHAPTER TWENTY
KAZI
“It’s not fair. Make her share it with me!”
Lydia held a fisted hand over her head while Nash jumped for it and complained loudly to Oleez.
I stood at the rail of Gods Pavilion, near the entrance to the graveyard, watching them argue. Montegue scheduled a stop here on the way to Tor’s Watch to soak his feet. There was a bubbling hot spring that the marble pavilion had been built around, and at the center three descending circular steps surrounded the steaming pink water. It looked like misty clouds at sunset, and besides its reputed curative qualities, breathing the steam was supposed to impart the blessings of the gods. Though Montegue used the word strength instead of blessings.
I heard him speaking quietly with Paxton and Truko about revenue at the arena and ways to increase it. He wanted more money—and soon. Truko tried to explain that revenue always went down in the winter months as crops were fewer and weather discouraged travel. I wondered at the urgency in Montegue’s voice, the way he lowered it and hissed his words through clenched teeth. Find a way to increase it. With so much at his disposal, why did he need more—and quickly? Was it only to help the citizens as he claimed? Or was he worried about the seer’s prediction of a starving winter?
Banques had instructed me not to speak to Nash and Lydia on the way here—apparently neither of them wanted to be anywhere near me, and I had to ride several paces ahead of them between Paxton and Truko, with a buffer of soldiers just behind us. But when we turned at a switchback, both of the children had their eyes fixed on me.
Nash rode on the same horse in front of Montegue, while Lydia rode with Banques. As young as they were, Nash and Lydia were both competent riders. They used to have their own horses. Now, wedged in saddles with Banques and Montegue, the real reason they didn’t ride alone was suddenly obvious. He is using them for protection. Revulsion burned inside me.
Even with all the soldiers that surrounded Montegue and Banques, they still feared a loyalist might be hiding high on a bluff or just off the trail. No one would risk shooting one of the Ballenger children with an arrow. An unstated threat was there too. Hurt the king in any way, and what would happen to the children? I wasn’t the only one who had to follow rules.
How long before the last loyalist was pummeled into submission and the king didn’t need them for protection any longer? And he was using me as part of his plan to make the town comply. Once Lydia and Nash ceased to be an asset, would they become a liability? A threat to his monarchy? Would they only become more Ballengers who might one day rise up and exact their revenge against him?
But then I watched Montegue laugh as he lifted Nash down from his horse. He ruffled his hair and told him to go play with his sister. They’ve actually become very fond of me. I give them attention, presents. More than he ever did.
Fifteen minutes hadn’t passed when an argument broke out.
“Give it, Lydia!”
It wasn’t like Nash to complain, especially over a common eyestone, nor like Lydia to withhold it. They were always the best of friends. I watched their bickering with interest. Oleez was only mildly trying to settle the squabbling, as if she didn’t really care, and Montegue became increasingly irritated with the noise, his brotherly façade cracking.
“I can help you find another,” I blurted out. “There’s sure to be some over by the wash.” The children stopped arguing and stared at me, a fiery gleam lighting their eyes. Banques’s head swiveled with a start. I had spoken to them against his orders. “Only with His Majesty’s permission of course,” I added.
Montegue weighed the thought for a moment, then looked over at Lydia and Nash. I knew that sending them and
their squabbling over to the wash and out of his earshot was tempting for him.
“Will that solve your problem?” he asked them.
Nash shrugged unenthusiastically. “I guess.”
Lydia frowned. “As long as she doesn’t touch us,” she said, her face pinched with convincing disgust. My throat throbbed. I knew what I saw in her eyes, the juggling, the hatred, the show, the performance expertly spun in every breath and blink. She was someone I recognized—a survivor.
Montegue was eager to get back to his conversation with Paxton and Truko. He nodded to two soldiers assigned to follow the children as they played around the graveyard. “Stay close,” Banques instructed them, then shot me a warning glance, a reminder of the rules of the game. I wasn’t in the inner circle of trust yet.
But I was getting closer.
The king had pressed near to me again this morning after an announcement. He stared at my lips. The ones Jase had kissed. The lips he believed the Patrei had wanted but couldn’t truly have. A riddle filled his eyes, and the answer was just out of his reach.
“Did you love him?” he had asked.
For the first time in my life, I was grateful for my years as a starving orphan. Grateful I’d learned to smile and juggle and pretend I didn’t care about a sour crabapple within arm’s reach as a quarterlord scrutinized every move I made. Grateful for my artful shrugs and indifferent sighs. Grateful that I had learned how to size up a mark and how to patiently feed their fantasy.
Everything inside of me ached with Jase. I would never stop loving him. But my answer to the king was a quick smirk. I threw off his ridiculous question like he was a child asking if the moon was made of cheese, just enough insult to cure him of the notion. And it was a notion he wanted to toss away. The same way he refused to hear murderer murmured through the crowd, but heard long live the king instead.
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