“Where is she?”
* * *
The inside of the carvachi was dim except for a thin blue flame flickering in a bowl of sweetly scented tallow—to keep the scent of death away. I carried a bucket of warm water floating with pungent leaves inside with me.
She was propped up on pillows in the bed at the back of the wagon, feather light, gray ash to be blown away. I sensed death hovering in the corners, looking on. Waiting. Her long silver braid was the only strength I saw, a rope that kept her moored to the living. I pulled a stool close and set the bucket down. She opened her eyes.
You heard her. Get the girl some goat cheese.
The first words I’d ever heard her speak swelled in my chest. You heard her.
She was one of the few who ever did.
I dipped a rag into the bucket and squeezed it out.
I wiped her forehead. “You’re not well.”
Her pale eyes searched my face.
“It is a long way you’ve traveled, and you have farther yet to go.” Her breath faltered, and she blinked slowly. “Very far.”
“I’ve only traveled far by the strength you’ve given me.”
“No,” she whispered. “It was always in you, buried deep.”
Her eyelids closed as if their weight was too much to bear.
I rinsed the rag and wiped her neck, the elegant folds marking the days she had spent on this earth, the beautiful lines crowding her face like a finely drawn map, ancient, but now, in this moment, not nearly old enough. This world still needed more of her. She couldn’t go. Her hand inched on top of mine, cold and papery light.
“The child Natiya. Speak to her,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Do not let her carry the guilt of me. What she did was right. The truth circled and gathered her into its arms.”
I lifted her thin wraithlike hand to my lips, squeezing my eyes shut. I nodded, swallowing the ache in my throat.
“Enough,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I was almost eaten by wolves. Did I tell you? Eristle heard me crying in the woods. When the skies quaked with thunder, she taught me to shut out—” Her eyes opened, her pupils large black moons floating in a circle of gray, and she weakly shook her head. “No, that is my story, not yours. Yours is calling. Be on your way.”
“Why me, Dihara?”
“You already have the answer to that question. It had to be someone. Why not you?”
These were the same words Venda had spoken to me. Cold fingers danced up my spine. This world, it breathes you in … it knows you, and then it breathes you out again, shares you.
Her eyes drifted shut, and her tongue reverted back to her native one, her voice as faint as the flickering of the candle. “Jei zinterr … jei trévitoria.”
Be brave. Be victorious.
I stood to leave. It felt like it was impossible to be either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RAFE
Sven tapped the table near my plate. “Colonel Bodeen will be offended. You’re not eating.”
“And these are the best bison chops I’ve ever had,” Orrin added as he sucked the last bit of sauce from a bone. “Don’t tell him I said so. I claimed mine were better.”
Tavish leaned back, his boots propped up on the table, scuffing the polished wood. He stared at me, not saying anything. We had taken a break from our discussions and were holed up in Bodeen’s office while the other officers ate their midday meal in the meeting chamber.
Sven stood and looked out the window. “Don’t worry, boy. All this will fall into place. It’s a lot to take in at once.”
“Boy?” Tavish said. “He’s the blooming king now.”
“He can strip it from my hide.”
I pushed my plate away. “It’s not just court matters on my mind. It’s Lia. She had a run-in with Hague.”
Sven grunted. “So? Everyone has run-ins with Hague. Nothing to worry about.”
“What about the other officers?” I asked. “Have any of you gotten a sense how they feel about her?”
“They don’t hold her kingdom against her,” Tavish said flatly. “Belmonte, Armistead, and Azia were like captivated pups when they met her.”
Sven squinted, continuing to look at something out the window. “That’s all you’re worried about? If they like her?”
No. That wasn’t even half of it. Out on the veranda I had seen her eyes—they spoke as much as her words before I cut her off. I had avoided the subject on our way here by stressing that our only goal was to reach the safety of the outpost. But now we were here. Her questions were harder to avoid. I leaned forward, rubbing my temples. “No. That’s not all I’m worried about. She wants to go home.”
Sven spun back to look at me. “To Morrighan? Why would she want to do a fool thing like that?”
“She thinks she needs to warn them about the Vendan army.”
“The Komizar may have conveyed his big plans to her, but that doesn’t mean they were a reality,” Sven said. “When was anything he said not tainted by his own ambitions?” He reminded me that even some of the governors thought he had inflated his numbers.
Orrin licked his fingers. “And a few thousand soldiers can look like a hell of a lot more when you’re frightened.”
“But we’ve known for some time that their numbers were growing,” I said. “It’s what helped push us toward a marriage alliance with Morrighan.”
Sven rolled his eyes. “There were many motivations for that.”
“And numbers aren’t the same as an army with centuries of training and experience like we have,” Tavish countered. “Not to mention they no longer have a viable leader.”
Jeb frowned. “But there was that small flask of liquid Lia gave to Rafe to blow up the bridge. That’s a weapon none of the kingdoms have.”
“And it took out the main gear, which had to be twelve feet of solid iron,” I said. “It’s a worry.”
Sven sat back down. “There are not bridges on a battlefield, and brezalots can be taken down, assuming they even march. The Council members will eat one another alive long before they ever get that bridge fixed.”
Orrin reached for another chop. “You’re king. You just tell her she can’t go.”
Tavish snorted. “Tell her? You don’t just tell a girl like her that she can’t do something,” he said, then turned a long, dissecting stare at me. He shook his head. “Oh, holy hell. You already told her you’d take her there, didn’t you?”
I blew out a puff of air and looked up at the ceiling. “I may have.” I pushed back my chair and stood, pacing the room. “Yes! I did! But it was a long time ago, back at the Sanctum. I told her what she needed to hear at the moment, that we’d go back to Terravin. One day. I didn’t say when. I was just trying to give her hope.”
Sven shrugged. “So you told her what was expedient at the time.”
Tavish sucked in a slow breath. “A lie. That’s how she’ll see it.”
“It wasn’t a lie. I thought that maybe someday I’d be able to take her back there, a long time from now if things change, but for the gods’ sakes, there’s a bounty on her head now, and the Morrighese cabinet is thick with traitors. I’d be insane to let her go back.”