Kilorn watches me the entire time, green eyes dancing. I don’t feel scrutinized, though. He isn’t watching to make sure I keep control. He knows I don’t need him to do that, or anyone else. I’m my own.
“So what am I walking into?” I mutter, noting the lights in the city. Some are transports, weaving among the streets. Others are windows, lamps, lanterns, flickering on as the afternoon gives way to purple dusk. How many belong to government officials or soldiers or diplomats? Visitors?
The premier’s estate is above, the same as I remember. Is he there already?
“Things are buzzing up at the premier’s,” Kilorn replies, following my gaze. “And in the People’s Assembly. I don’t live up that way anymore, got a little place down the hill in the city, but it’s hard not to notice the constant traffic going up the mountain. Representatives, mostly, their staff, some military filtering in. The Scarlet Guard mouthpieces arrived yesterday.”
What about him?
Instead a different name falls off my tongue. It tastes like relief.
“Farley.”
She’s the closest thing I have to an older sister. I immediately wonder if she’ll be up at the estate with us, or housed somewhere in the city. I hope the former, for my own sake as well as my mother’s. Mom has been dying to see baby Clara and will probably end up sleeping wherever her grandchild is.
“Yep. Farley’s already here, and already bossing everyone around. I’d take you to see her, but she’s in meetings right now.”
With the baby in her lap, no doubt, I think, remembering how Farley carted my niece into war councils. “And what’s going on over in the Lakelands? There’s still a war happening.” Here, there, everywhere. It’s impossible to ignore the threat still looming over all of us.
“On hold, more like.” Kilorn glances at me and notes my confusion. “Didn’t you read the reports Davidson sent you?”
I grit my teeth. I remember the packets, pages of typed information that arrived at the cabin every week. Dad spent more time with them than I did. Mostly I scanned for familiar names. “Some.”
He smirks at me, shaking his head. “You haven’t changed at all,” he says with some pride.
Yes I have, I want to reply. I cannot even begin to list all the ways I have changed, but I let it go. I’ve only just arrived. I can give Kilorn a little time before I inundate him with my problems.
He doesn’t allow me a chance to wallow.
“Basically, yes, we’re still at odds.” He holds out a hand, ticking off names on his fingers. “Lakelands and Piedmont against the Republic, the Guard, and the new Nortan States. But we’re in a standoff for the moment. The Lakelands are still regrouping after Archeon, Piedmont isn’t willing to strike alone, and the Nortan States aren’t in any position to pursue or go on the offensive for now. We’re all on the defensive, waiting for the other side to make a move.”
I picture a map of the continent as we walk, with pieces upon it set in motion. Lines of division clearly drawn, armies waiting to march. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Somehow, up at the cabin, I could pretend that the rest of the world was moving on too. Recovering from the violence as I was. If I ignored the reports, avoided news from the south and east—it might just all come together without me. A sliver of me thought the war would end beyond my reach. But the war was hiding too, catching its breath as I was. The bitch was waiting for me.
“Lovely,” I mutter, drawing out the word. The paved pathway is dotted with frost beneath the shadow of the pines, still clinging where the sun cannot reach. “So no progress made.”
Kilorn shakes his head, laughing. “I didn’t say that.”
“It’s fine.” I shrug my shoulders with exaggerated motion. “I don’t expect you to know anything of importance.”
He gasps and puts a hand to his chest, the picture of wounded pride. His jaw drops open to hide a grin. “Excuse me, I am incredibly important to the cause. Who do you think helps Carmadon catch fish for his dinners?”
Who organizes charity drives for refugees in the Nortan States? Who petitions the Montfort government to aid war orphans scattered across the battlefields we made? Who all but sleeps in Representative Radis’s office, working with officials both Silver and Red? Kilorn, of course, though he isn’t the type to brag about such things, admirable as they may be. Strange, the most worthy people are often the least likely to say so.
“And at these dinners, do you ever find yourself in . . . female company?”
A scarlet flush swipes up his neck and onto his cheeks, but he doesn’t dodge. Kilorn doesn’t have to do that with me. “Cam isn’t keen on parties,” he mutters.
I don’t blame you, Cameron.
“So you’re . . . ?”
“We’re spending time together when we can, that’s all. She’s got much bigger and more important priorities than me. But we write letters. She’s better at it than I am.” His tone is matter-of-fact, without a hint of jealousy or even annoyance over her time spent elsewhere. He knows Cameron has her hands more than full with the Nortan reconstruction. “And neither of us is a soldier. There’s no pressure to rush into anything we aren’t ready for.”
He doesn’t mean it as a rebuke. Still, it’s impossible not to draw parallels to my own life. Every romance I’ve ever been involved in had a sword hanging over it. Sometimes quite literally. Cal kissed me when I was his brother’s betrothed, before he was sent off to war. When I was a deadly secret hiding in plain sight. Maven loved me as he could beneath terrible circumstances, where death threatened me, and where Maven himself was the greatest threat of all. In truth, I don’t know what it’s like to be in love without a storm cloud overhead, ready to erupt. The closest I can think of is my time at the Piedmont base, days spent training with Cal. Training for war, of course, but at least we weren’t afraid of dying in our sleep.
I snort at the thought. My definition of normal is incredibly screwed up.
The path curves downward, breaking into steps that wind through the high meadows above the city. The premier’s estate is just ahead, awash in golden sunlight. The pines seem to bend over the palatial compound, taller even than the highest tower.
The windows are shut fast against the chilly autumn air, each one polished to a high sheen. We’re too far away to see inside, but I squint anyway, searching the dozens of glass panes for a familiar face.
“Are you going to ask about him or keep dancing around the subject until I break?” Kilorn finally huffs.
I don’t miss a step. “It seems you have broken.”
He huffs again.
“Cal’s supposed to be in tomorrow morning at the latest.” He gestures vaguely at the estate. Tomorrow morning. My heart thuds wildly in my chest. “With Julian and his granny in tow, as well as other members of the Nortan delegation. Reds, Silvers, newbloods. An even spread.”
Members of the former High Houses, lords and ladies who would rather skewer a Red than sit beside them. If not for Cal, if not for Montfort. I can’t imagine what the delegation looks like, or how rife with chaos and conflict it must be.
With Cal at the center of it all, no longer a king. Little more than a bystander, a soldier, another voice in a crowd of many. I can’t imagine him like that either.