“Nothing of note,” his father said dismissively, but seeing the look on his son’s face, he sighed good-naturedly. “These things take time, Tristan, and often the information we glean takes even longer to piece together into something usable.”
They left the dining hall soon after, his father to his rooms inside the administrative building that had become his home, and Tristan to the Eyrie.
The rockwine sang in his veins as he approached the archway, and he veered right, toward the apprentice barracks. He lingered outside the building, staring at the window where he knew Veronyka’s hammock hung. He stood there for a long time, imagining tapping on the windowpane or crawling in through the open shutter. What would happen then? His heart raced at the thought, but then he remembered his father’s words.
We developed a friendship, a foundation, and didn’t allow our feelings to distract us from our duty. There was no resentment or regret.
The last thing Tristan wanted was for Veronyka to resent him. He’d almost crossed that line during their most recent match, when his feelings for her had become a problem, a barrier to her success. He couldn’t risk it. Maybe his father was right and waiting would make it sweeter.
Tristan walked away, past the scorched walls and still-charred remnants of what had once been a storage shed. Maybe his father was wrong and waiting was going to get them all killed.
Later, I realized my parents were more like falling stars,
destined to light my world for only the briefest of moments.
There and then gone again, my life colder after their passing.
Except, of course, for my sister.
- CHAPTER 7 - SEV
FOUR DAYS LATER, SEV was set to meet with Lord Rolan in the governor’s rooms instead of his own. If Sev thought the small chamber he was sleeping in was grander and more finely appointed than anywhere he’d had the privilege of entering before, Rolan’s personal suite of rooms was a palace in and of itself.
There was marble everywhere, from the shining white floors to the fountain in the center of courtyard gardens, visible out the open double doors, to the massive fluted columns with their gilded capitals carved in flowers and twisting vines. Golden sculptures were perched on pedestals and in carved niches, while the fabrics ranged from the thick velvet hangings on Rolan’s bed, embroidered with silver thread, to the whisper-thin silk tulle curtains stirring in the evening breeze.
Sev had seen grandeur in the rest of the compound—even the plates and cups were beautiful pieces of art that he was terrified to drop—but the corridors where soldiers and servants prowled were different from those Lord Rolan used, the walls punctuated with paintings and niches of statuary and the floor plush with rugs.
Rolan’s personal attendant, Bertram, met Sev at the door and quickly guided him into a side chamber. It was a bare-bones room—probably once used for storage—and featured a simple wooden desk and three chairs, as well as a second door in the opposite wall, which undoubtedly led into the servant corridors.
The walls were pristine, as if they had been newly painted, and the lingering scent of lemon and pine oil told Sev that the room had recently been scrubbed down. Something about the stark plaster and the windowless walls caused apprehension to tighten his gut. This was no longer a simple storage space… it was an interrogation chamber.
Rolan was already seated. He waved Sev toward the chair next to him, and Sev sat gingerly, unease prickling his skin and making his shoulder, wrapped in a sling, ache.
He had been thinking about this moment every day since their first meeting, running through the possibility of who he might be faced with and how he would respond. He didn’t want to condemn anyone, and his instincts told him to fall back on his old trick—playing dumb—but if he declared them all innocent, or said he didn’t know anything, wouldn’t Rolan become suspicious? What if Rolan started to question Sev’s loyalty? Not only would his life be in danger, but his mission here as a spy would be over before it had even begun.
Sev didn’t want to lie and claim someone was guilty when they weren’t…. But what if they were? What if he came face-to-face with some of his fellow conspirators?
His instincts warred with one another, old and new.
The old Sev would have looked out for himself no matter what, but he didn’t want to be that way anymore. But if Sev’s new self served a greater purpose—protecting the Phoenix Riders and opposing the empire—then it was his duty to do whatever he could to help, which in this case meant remaining in place as a spy. Which circled back around to self-preservation.
Sev’s head spun. In order to be better, he had to do his worst.
Bertram had barely shut the door behind Sev when a firm knock came from the other.
“Enter,” Rolan called, and one of the estate’s guards opened the door wide, ushering in an old, bent-backed and gray-headed bondservant. He had leathery brown skin and short bristly hair, and even when he straightened, he barely reached the guard’s shoulder. He took the chair opposite them at the guard’s command, placing his bound wrists on the table before them. The knuckles were knobby, and his fingers twitched and trembled.
Sev remembered him at once, though they’d never spoken a word to each other. The tightness in his stomach eased. This man was innocent, and whatever Sev might be willing to do to protect himself, condemning an innocent man wasn’t it.
Rolan looked at Sev expectantly, while the man stared at the table, refusing to meet Sev’s gaze. Luckily, Sev’s other instincts kicked in—the ones that had him noticing every detail and memorizing every face. He knew this bondservant was innocent, and he could prove it.
“Well, Sevro?” Rolan prodded. “Do you remember this man?”
“Yes,” Sev said, and Rolan straightened beside him. “He was part of the hunting party. A fisherman.” It was a rare ability among animages, communicating with fish, but this man could get fish to swim directly into whatever nets or baskets he had set up. He spoke little and kept mostly to himself. “And the night of the attack, he was finishing the salt-trout rations for the return journey. No fish was served that night.”
The bondservant seemed surprised by Sev’s words, and the tremor in his hands lessened. Maybe he expected nothing good from a soldier. Sev remembered thinking the same thing, once.
Rolan’s face was inscrutable. He glanced down at a sheaf of papers he’d brought in with him, as if confirming Sev’s story against the details written there.
“Did you happen to catch his name, Sevro?”
“Alastor,” Sev said, and Rolan nodded. He gestured to the guard standing by the door, who helped the bondservant to his feet and led him back out the door they’d come through.
Before Sev could guess what would happen to Alastor, another knock sounded on the door, and the guard returned with a young woman. She was probably only a few years older than Sev’s eighteen, and despite having her hands bound like the old man before her, she held her chin high.
Sev studied her face, but he didn’t recognize her. Her expression was defiant, if a bit cowed by Rolan’s cool, indifferent stare.
“I’ve never seen her before, my lord.”
“She was stationed with the secondary forces and would have arrived around the time the poisoning took place,” Rolan said, glancing down at his papers once again. “We are assuming the poisoning was at the hands of Captain Belden’s bondservants, but I wish to be thorough. You never saw her near the cook fires or food stores?”