I looked back at the monument that had supposedly reached to the sky, now almost totally unrecognizable as anything manmade. Weeds choked every surface. A monument to a leader? Who had the Ancients wanted to immortalize? Whoever it was, the angel Aster, by order of the gods, had wiped it from memory. I thought about the ancient texts I had stolen from the Royal Scholar, still in my saddlebag, which was probably for sale in the jehendra by now. I’d probably never see the precious texts again, and I’d had time to translate only a single passage of the Last Testaments of Gaudrel. Were the rest of her words lost to me now? Maybe it didn’t matter anymore. But as I gazed at the monument, the few words I had translated rang as clear as if Gaudrel whispered them to me now: The things that last. The things that remain. This great monument wasn’t one of those things.
“There’s another down this way and then we’ll go back,” Kaden said.
I looked to where he pointed. Great slabs of white shone in the distance. When we reached them, he said tunnels beneath the city had revealed that the ruin was mostly buried. Only the upper portion was exposed. These ruins were not from a tower, but a temple of a different sort. At its center was the enormous sculpted head and partial shoulders of a man. The face was not the perfect face of a god, nor that of an idealized soldier. It was oddly proportioned; forehead too wide, nose too large, protruding cheekbones that made him look starved. Maybe that was why I couldn’t turn away—he was like a tribute to a people he would never know, someone from another time chiseled with the same hunger and want as those who lived here now. I reached up and ran my fingers over his cracked cheekbone, wondering who he was and why the Ancients wanted him remembered.
Broken slabs of the surrounding temple lay on the ground near him. One large piece was engraved, but most of the words had been melted away by time. The faint indentations of a few letters survived. I couldn’t read it, but my finger traced the grooves, committing the forgotten lines to memory.
F REV R
I was struck with sadness looking at the forlorn figure and lost words. For the first time, I felt a sliver of gratitude for my hours spent studying the Morrighan Holy Text so that truth and history wouldn’t be lost again.
“We should go,” Kaden said. “We’ll take another path, a faster way back.”
I stepped away from the monument and looked around, waiting for his lead. We had taken so many turns, I wasn’t sure which direction we even needed to go—and then it hit me, like open hands slapped against my shoulders, waking me up.
I stared at Kaden, realizing what he was doing.
He wasn’t just kindly obliging me and showing me more of Venda. This had been part of his plan all along. He was deliberately confusing me—and it was working. I had no idea where the Sanctum was from here. He didn’t want me becoming familiar with the tangle of streets, so he was taking yet another route back. The twists and turns and alleyways we followed weren’t shortcuts—they were obstacles to finding my own way around this maze of a city.
I turned around, looking in different directions, trying to get my bearings. It was impossible. “You still don’t trust me,” I said.
His jaw was set, his eyes, dark stone. “My problem is, Lia, I know you too well. Like the day you used the bison stampede to separate us. You’re always looking for opportunity. You barely made it that day. If you tried something like that here, you wouldn’t make it at all. Trust me.”
“Swim across the river? I’m not that stupid. What else would I try?”
He looked at me as if he was genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know.”
There are no rules when it comes to survival, I reminded myself as I moved toward him. Each step was sharp-edged steel cutting through me, but I took his hand in mine and squeezed it tenderly. Felt his warmth and strength. His uncanny knowing. “Have you considered that maybe I’m trying to view the opportunities right before me,” I said softly, “and I’m not looking for anything else?”
He stared at me for what seemed a lifetime and then his hand tightened on my fingers and he pulled me close. His other hand pressed low on my back, holding me snugly against him, only our breath, time, and secrets between us.
“I hope so,” he finally whispered, and then, with his face only inches from mine, he released me and said it was time to go back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAFE
The water in the basin ran red. I squeezed the rag out and lifted it to my mouth again.
It seemed to be Ulrix who hated me the most. I winced as I dabbed my lip where he had split it, then pressed hard trying to stop the bleeding. Pain radiated across my face.
After the Komizar bid his farewell to me this morning, he sent his oversized brute in with some food, but Ulrix and his henchmen gave me an additional side dish. If every meal came with a bonus like that, I was in trouble. At least they hadn’t aimed for my ribs again. I was sure at least one was cracked. I couldn’t afford more.
It was ironic that all I had wanted was the chance to prove myself as a soldier, and now I was forced to play an untrained and inept emissary when I was matched against brutish clods. Hand combat wasn’t my strongest suit, but I could have taken them down in just a few moves with no one the wiser. Sparing my lip wasn’t worth risking the plan, though. Two years ago, when Tavish and I had disobeyed orders and rescued his brother from an enemy camp, we had played drunken, weaponless bumblers. That deception had to work for only a few minutes before we revealed our true purpose. This one would have to last much longer. This time there were no horses waiting. There was no quick escape. My story had given us time, and I had to continue to make them believe it.
The Komizar had bought into it for now. My proposal had played to his ego. He wanted to believe that a powerful kingdom was at last recognizing him as a worthy ally—that the prince was actually coming to him to negotiate an alliance. He believed he was finally getting the trembling respect he deserved, and who better to get it from than the future king of Dalbreck? He may have feigned suspicion, but I saw the hunger in his eyes when I laid it out. There was only one thing that someone with great power wanted. More of it.
I knew firsthand.
The marriage alliance with Morrighan hadn’t been about protection and strength alone. That may very well have been the least of it. My father and his generals had little respect for the Morrighese army. They considered them weak and favored only by some strategic positions and resources. The alliance had also been a bid for dominance.
My father and his cabinet believed that once we had the beloved First Daughter of Morrighan within our borders, boundaries could be pushed. After acquiring Princess Arabella, the southern port of Piadro in Morrighan was next in their sights, though the cabinet preferred to use the word dowry. Only a small port and a few hills. But for Dalbreck, having a deepwater western port would increase their power tenfold.
It was also a matter of pride. In another time, the port and surrounding lands had belonged to Breck, the exiled prince of Morrighan, banished from the kingdom for challenging his ruling brother. Though countless centuries had passed since then, Dalbreck still wanted it back—some wounds never healed. They saw Lia as a diplomatic inroad to getting what they believed was rightfully theirs without mounting an outright invasion.
When I mentioned the desire for the port to the Komizar, it rang true for him, not just because he knew the port’s value, but because the quest for more power was a hunger he understood. Last night he had fished for details of the court of Dalbreck as if he was already planning for his meeting with the prince. I didn’t take him for a fool, though. He wouldn’t be misled forever. I knew enough of the reputations of Vendan riders, their swift flight, and the way they slipped through borders with ease. It wouldn’t be long before they returned with news of my father’s good health. Lia and I had to be gone before then. The brute of a fellow who had identified me was a concern, though. Griz, the Komizar had called him. Had he lied for me, or was he truly confused? Maybe he had seen me up on the dais at a ceremony and mistaken me for one of many dignitaries there. He was a loose end that I didn’t feel good about—and he was one mountain of a loose end.