She looked up, her dark eyes alight with hope.
“Don’t get too excited. They don’t like me. This won’t make them like me any more. But I can tell them about these rancor summoning items. Perhaps they might develop a sense of urgency. Do you know if it was the same rancor we fought in the time slip? Is that how it came into this world?”
“I cannot say. They smell alike, but many rancor have a similar odor.”
Rune wrinkled his nose. “I see. What about where you discovered these things?” If they could find out who had summoned the rancor…
“No.” The word came out sharp, like a dagger. “I will not say.”
Ah. Because it was one of their enemies, and she wouldn’t insert herself into the war. Petty mortals and all that.
“I’ll figure out a way to persuade them, or die trying. You returning here will help my case. You’ve already done so much good. Perhaps you could come and tell them about all the malsites you’ve destroyed.”
“I could speak to your council, or I could bury myself in an anthill. They are equally appealing options.”
Rune laughed a little. “I’ve often felt the same way.”
“We could skip the council altogether,” the Nightrender suggested.
“And go straight to ants?”
She flashed a smile. “My army does not have to be Dawnbreakers. Any army would do, including the army Caberwill plans to send to Embria and Ivasland.”
Such an action would leave Caberwill vulnerable to attack from both its neighbors. The king and queen would never agree. “There is no way. My parents wouldn’t consider it.”
“Perhaps they would feel differently if I told them what will happen to Caberwill when the Malstop fails and thousands of abominable rancor pour forth. Rancor have no capacity for mercy. It will be vile havoc. And if there truly is a rancor king on this plane, or on the edge of it, the outcome will be even worse.”
Rune swallowed hard. “Worse?”
“Consider again the things you cannot imagine.”
Rune’s heart sank.
Voices sounded from the hall, muffled, and then a knock.
“Enter,” Rune called.
A palace servant stepped inside, her eyes flitting to the Nightrender—tall and dark and still covered in death—and then to Rune. Behind her, the food cart was being pushed away.
“Your Highness,” said the servant, “you’re needed back in the castle.”
“What’s this about?” Rune asked. “Where is the Nightrender’s food going?”
The servant flushed. “It’s urgent. It’s about Crown Princess Johanne. She’s alive. And she’s here.”
23.
HANNE
“Tell us again how you escaped.”
Hanne had been sitting in the Caberwilline king and queen’s office for twenty minutes, practically suffocating with the heat of so many bodies packed in. There was Hanne, obviously, the monarchs, the monarchs’ personal guards, and then the four guards who’d discovered Hanne when she’d tried to enter the Brink Tunnel—the passage that cut straight through the mountain to permit access to the southern part of Caberwill. The tunnel wasn’t meant to be a secret, as it was important for transport, but she had to admit it was quite well guarded. When the patrols had spotted her (and discovered her dagger), they’d refused to leave her alone. They’d escorted her into Honor’s Keep through the servants’ entrance, and now she was trapped in this sweatbox of human stink.
“Your Highness?” Queen Grace spoke gently, but she was the kind of woman who used that gentleness as a weapon. It was honed to its sharpest, cutting so cleanly the victim didn’t feel a thing until they were already bleeding. “Your escape?”
Hanne had told them already, but she supposed this was the sort of inquisition that required multiple tellings of a story. Forward, backward, from the middle out: they were trying to catch her in a lie.
“I told you, I can’t be sure what happened. Yes, I was caught in the malsite. And yes, I saw Prince Rune and everyone coming to look for me. But then they left. I didn’t see anyone again.”
“And your escape?” the queen asked again.
“The malsite was a time slip. I had weeks to explore it, and after a while, I found a thin spot. I used my obsidian to dig at it, and when it was big enough, I crawled out.” It sounded like a plausible story. As plausible as anything else. And it was simple, which was important, and grounded in the fact that the Malstop was known to have thin spots, so it stood to reason that malsites might, too.
King Opus looked up from his notes. “Rune went back to the malsite days ago. You were not there.”
“I’ve been wandering the countryside for some time.” That was somewhat true.
After escaping Athelney, Hanne had ridden her stolen horse until she came to the border, where she sold her nag to a man who smuggled her across. From there, she’d had to walk the king’s road northeast to the Brink Tunnel, trading her things one by one for room and board, fresh clothes, and the occasional ride in the back of a wagon. It wasn’t Crown Princess Johanne Fortuin’s typical travel style, but she’d gotten where she wanted to go—and no one had identified her until she was ready.
The rancor, thank Tuluna, had not bothered her again. It was done with her, and she was free to complete the journey her patron Numen had set her feet upon months ago. (Although Hanne still hadn’t heard a word from Tuluna since before she’d become trapped in the malsite. The silence was agony.)
Hanne rubbed her face, as though bone-weary. “I’ve never been to Caberwill, Your Majesty. I’m ashamed to admit that, in my disorientation, I became very lost.” She looked it, too, still thin from her stay in the malsite. But she was clean, and though she wore a dress that was unacceptable by princess standards, it was quite serviceable for a person needing to go about unnoticed.
“Hmm.” The king looked at his paper again, frowning. “Lost enough to make it to the other side of the mountains.”
She’d come from the south. From Ivasland.
“There are a lot of passes through,” Hanne said. “I hardly realized I’d crossed until, when I asked for directions to Brink, someone told me to go north.”
Hanne hated playing the fool, the princess who couldn’t find her way out of a wooden box, but people believed it.
“Very well,” said the queen. “Let’s move on. What about how you got into the malsite to begin with?”
This was trickier, and she risked revealing a lie with any answer she gave. And where there was one lie, there were often more. No matter what she said she was in trouble here, because if she revealed the truth—that she and Nadine had intended to meet the turncoat, Devon Bearhaste—then she was conspiring against the Highcrowns. If she maintained the story of simply taking an afternoon walk, then she had a chance…unless they’d forced Nadine to tell them the truth.