“What did you want with the knife?” she asked.
I didn’t know, but it frightened me to realize what I had been doing. I had no memory of picking up the knife, and I certainly would never have gripped it by the blade, not in my right mind.
Loelle finished wrapping my hand, fastening it tight with a pin; then she went to the fire and added two logs before coming to sit beside me. There, she patiently waited until I was ready to explain myself. Which I could not do.
After several minutes of silence, I said, “I think Simon’s sister is an Ironheart now. I think she was one of the archers out there with Celia.”
Loelle took that in with a steady breath. Finally, she said, “I knew Simon’s sister, Rosaleen. I knew Celia too, and I’m sorry you had to see what happened to her. But we must keep moving forward, or Celia’s sacrifice will be in vain. All that you are now sacrificing will mean nothing if we do not succeed.”
I glanced away, finally speaking the truth that I’d kept buried since almost the very moment of becoming the Infidante. “I will succeed, Loelle, because I must. But I fear that I will not survive to see the fruits of it. Not with what is happening to me.”
Another long pause, then Loelle’s whisper. “I should have warned you.”
“Simon already tried to warn me, when I saved him from the river below King’s Lake. I didn’t listen to him. I wouldn’t have listened to you either.”
“But you feel it now.”
“Yes. I’ve felt it for some time, even before coming here. I didn’t realize—”
“With the Endreans—your people—corruption usually comes on slowly, over several years or more. With you, it came on within a week. How did it happen so fast?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know.” She blinked a few times, then in a notably gentle tone, asked, “Before you escaped from Brill, how did their palace explode?”
My eyes darted. “I’ve already explained that—”
“No, you haven’t, not really. I told you that I was nearby when it happened, and I saw you race away shortly afterward. But how did it explode?” When I still didn’t answer, she added, “Was Lord Endrick there with you?”
“It’s as I said before, I did not cause that explosion. Lord Endrick did, in his anger at me.”
“Why was he so angry?” Loelle took a deep breath. “Kestra, before you escaped, did you and he come into direct contact?”
I hesitated, replaying those few minutes in my head, as I had often done since coming here. He had reached for me with the intention of killing me, but I had taken hold of his leg, pulling strength from him to heal myself. It had created a cycle of give-and-take between us, one that would be fatal for whichever of us let go first.
I looked up at Loelle. “I think that I pulled in so much of him that it would be impossible for me not to have been corrupted by it.”
“And then you have spent a month here, pulling in his curse to yourself.” Loelle sighed. “I believe what you have done here is your only chance to succeed as Infidante. But I am deeply sorry for it. I have been searching for a way to remove the corruption.”
“I don’t want the corruption removed.” I saw her eyes widen with alarm, but there was no reason for it. “Corruption doesn’t make me evil, like Lord Endrick. It allows me to see things more clearly, to see beyond the pettiness of life and understand what is really important.”
“Which is?”
“Power! Not as Lord Endrick uses it, to control the people and keep them in constant fear. But power to give the people of Antora the kind of lives they ought to have had. Power to protect against war and disease and poverty. I can do that for them, Loelle, if I defeat Endrick!”
Loelle shook her head. “You can’t do those things, or you shouldn’t. Your task is to defeat Lord Endrick; then the people will speak for themselves on how they wish to be ruled.”
I let that go, for now. There was no point in arguing something that, to her, was only theoretical. However, my future after I killed Endrick could not be left to chance, nor to the whims of a people who had hardly shown me friendship. I had to make plans, whether she was aware of them or not.
But before that time came, I had to fight him. And that, I was beginning to understand, was the very reason Loelle had brought me here.
“How can I succeed against him?” I asked.
“Lord Endrick knows now that you have magic, and he has some idea of what it is. You will not be able to get anywhere near him on your own. You will need an army.”
If I did, it wouldn’t be the Coracks. Captain Tenger was surely making plans to replace me as Infidante.
It wouldn’t come from Reddengrad. Their losses had been the heaviest in the battle at King’s Lake. Even if Basil were still alive to command them, he had been captured by the Dominion.
Nor would Brill come to my aid. I didn’t know if they fully blamed me for the explosion of their palace, but they certainly knew I’d been involved.
And what of Simon? Would he come, and bring the Halderians, who hated me? Hated me for being half-Endrean, their enemy race. Hated me for having been adopted by the Dominion, their enemy clan. And hated me for having been chosen as the Infidante, a position they felt should have gone to Trina or maybe to Simon’s wife-to-be, Harlyn Mindall.
No, Simon would not come, nor did I want him to come. He had no claim upon the Scarlet Throne. If anyone should be the heir to that throne after Endrick’s death, it was …
Me.
Sir Henry was dead, which made me the heir to Woodcourt, and heir to the throne.
“I am alone, then,” I mumbled.
Loelle took my hands in hers. “No, my lady. You have a large army who will follow you into battle. At the command of—”
“Joth Tarquin.” My eyes widened. “Joth can communicate with the spirits here. Loelle, it won’t work. If he and I are separated during the attack—”
“It’s almost certain that you will be. But if your magic is compatible, and if you are able to unite your powers, then he will go into the battle sharing in what you can do, and you will enter the battle able to command an army that Endrick cannot kill, because there isn’t enough life in them to be killed.”
I said to her, “What do you mean, if our magic is compatible?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.”
From behind me, Joth said, “If this works, then together, you and I will ensure Endrick’s defeat.”
It was very late when Harlyn and I rode into Highwyn. Rawk probably wasn’t far away, but with these tall buildings and narrow roads, I couldn’t see the dragon anywhere. The streets were exceptionally quiet, even for this time of night. Usually I would have expected to evade endless patrols of Dominion soldiers, but perhaps with so many soldiers sent to All Spirits Forest, and after his losses in our battle last fall, Lord Endrick had fewer soldiers to spare. I hoped that was the case, anyway.
Near the center of Highwyn, the Coracks kept a small base disguised as a Loyalist home for those occasions when we needed to be in the capital. For safety reasons, we rarely had more than two or three people here at any given time, but the last I had heard, my younger sister, Rosaleen, had been one of those stationed here. Much as I loved her, I had mixed feelings about seeing her again. It had been almost a year since our last meeting, and my life had almost entirely changed. Her life had too. I wasn’t sure if she knew that our mother had died, and how it had happened, and why. Every time I had started to write her a note, I changed my mind and crumpled it up. This had to be something I told her in person.