Only the gulls wheeling high above the dome of the throne room dared make any noise.
The khagan shut lid after lid on the trunks.
“I think you have come to convince me to join your war. Adarlan is cleaved, Terrasen is destitute, and will no doubt have some issue convincing her surviving lords to fight for an untried queen who spent ten years indulging herself in Rifthold, purchasing these jewels with blood money. Your list of allies is short and brittle. Duke Perrington’s forces are anything but. The other kingdoms on your continent are shattered and separated from your northern territories by Perrington’s armies. So you have arrived here, fast as the eight winds can carry you, to beg me to send my armies to your shores. To convince me to spill our blood on a lost cause.”
“Some might consider it a noble cause,” Chaol countered.
“I am not done yet,” the khagan said, lifting a hand.
Chaol bristled but did not speak out of turn again. Nesryn’s heart thundered.
“Many would argue,” the khagan said, waving that upraised hand toward a few viziers, toward Arghun and Hasar, “that we remain out of it. Or better yet, ally with the force sure to win, whose trade has been profitable for us these ten years.”
A wave of that hand toward some other men and women in the gold robes of viziers. Toward Sartaq and Kashin and Duva. “Some would say that we risk allying with Perrington only to potentially face his armies in our harbors one day. That the shattered kingdoms of Eyllwe and Fenharrow might again become wealthy under new rule, and fill our coffers with good trade. I have no doubt you will promise me that it shall be so. You will offer me exclusive trading deals, likely to your own disadvantage. But you are desperate, and there is nothing you possess that I do not already own. That I cannot take if I wish.”
Chaol kept his mouth shut, thankfully. Even as his brown eyes simmered at the quiet threat.
The khagan peered into the fourth and final trunk. Jeweled combs and brushes, ornate perfume bottles made by Adarlan’s finest glassblowers. The same who had built the castle Aelin had shattered. “So, you have come to convince me to join your cause. And I shall consider it while you stay here. Since you have undoubtedly come for another purpose, too.”
A flick of that scarred, jeweled hand toward the chair. Color stained Chaol’s tan cheeks, but he did not flinch, did not cower. Nesryn forced herself to do the same.
“Arghun informed me your injuries are new—that they happened when the glass castle exploded. It seems the Queen of Terrasen was not quite so careful about shielding her allies.”
A muscle feathered in Chaol’s jaw as everyone, from prince to servant, looked to his legs.
“Because your relations with Doranelle are now strained, also thanks to Aelin Galathynius, I assume the only path toward healing that remains open to you is here. At the Torre Cesme.”
The khagan shrugged, the only reveal of the irreverent warrior-youth he’d once been. “My beloved wife will be deeply upset if I were to deny an injured man a chance at healing”—the empress was nowhere to be seen in this room, Nesryn realized with a start—“so I, of course, shall grant you permission to enter the Torre. Whether its healers will agree to work upon you shall be up to them. Even I do not control the will of the Torre.”
The Torre—the Tower. It dominated the southern edge of Antica, nestled atop its highest hill to overlook the city that sloped down toward the green sea. Domain of its famed healers, and tribute to Silba, the healer-goddess who blessed them. Of the thirty-six gods this empire had welcomed into the fold over the centuries, from religions near and far, in this city of gods … Silba reigned unchallenged.
Chaol looked like he was swallowing hot coals, but he mercifully managed to bow his head. “I thank you for your generosity, Great Khagan.”
“Rest tonight—I will inform them that you shall be ready tomorrow morning. Since you cannot go to them, one will be sent to you. If they agree.”
Chaol’s fingers shifted in his lap, but he did not clench them. Nesryn still held her breath.
“I am at their disposal,” Chaol said tightly.
The khagan shut the final trunk of jewels. “You may keep your presents, Hand of the King, Ambassador to Aelin Galathynius. I have no use for them—and no interest.”
Chaol’s head snapped up, as if something in the khagan’s tone had snared him. “Why.”
Nesryn barely hid her cringe. More of a demand than anyone ever dared make of the man, judging by the surprised anger in the khagan’s eyes, in the glances exchanged between his children.
But Nesryn caught the flicker of something else within the khagan’s eyes. A weariness.
Something oily slid into her gut as she noted the white banners streaming from the windows, all over the city. As she looked to the six heirs and counted again.
Not six.
Five. Only five were here.
Death-banners at the royal household. All over the city.
They were not a mourning people—not in the way they could be in Adarlan, dressing all in black and moping for months. Even amongst the khagan’s royal family, life picked up and went on, their dead not stuffed in stone catacombs or coffins, but shrouded in white and laid beneath the open skies of their sealed-off, sacred reserve on the distant steppes.
Nesryn glanced down the line of five heirs, counting. The eldest five were present. And just as she realized that Tumelun, the youngest—barely seventeen—was not there, the khagan said to Chaol, “Your spies are indeed useless if you have not heard.”
With that, he strode for his throne, leaving Sartaq to step forward, the second-eldest prince’s depthless eyes veiled with sorrow. Sartaq gave Nesryn a silent nod. Yes. Yes, her suspicions were right—
Sartaq’s solid, pleasant voice filled the chamber. “Our beloved sister, Tumelun, died unexpectedly three weeks ago.”
Oh, gods. So many words and rituals had been passed over; merely coming here to demand their aid in war was uncouth, untoward—
Chaol said into the fraught silence, meeting the stares of each taut-faced prince and princess, then finally the weary-eyed khagan himself, “You have my deepest condolences.”
Nesryn breathed, “May the northern wind carry her to fairer plains.”
Only Sartaq bothered to nod his thanks, while the others now turned cold and stiff.
Nesryn shot Chaol a silent, warning look not to ask about the death. He read the expression on her face and nodded.
The khagan scratched at a fleck on his ivory throne, the silence as heavy as one of the coats the horse-lords still wore against that bitter northern wind on the steppes and their unforgiving wooden saddles.
“We’ve been at sea for three weeks,” Chaol tried to offer, his voice softer now.
The khagan did not bother to appear understanding. “That would also explain why you are so unaware of the other bit of news, and why these cold jewels might be of more use for you.” The khagan’s lips curled in a mirthless smile. “Arghun’s contacts also brought word from a ship this morning. Your royal coffers in Rifthold are no longer accessible. Duke Perrington and his host of flying terrors have sacked Rifthold.”
Silence, pulsing and hollow, swept through Nesryn. She wasn’t sure if Chaol was breathing.
“We do not have word on King Dorian’s location, but he yielded Rifthold to them. Fled into the night, if rumor is to be believed. The city has fallen. Everything to the south of Rifthold belongs to Perrington and his witches now.”
Nesryn saw the faces of her nieces and nephews first.
Then the face of her sister. Then her father. Saw their kitchen, the bakery. The pear tarts cooling on the long, wooden table.
Dorian had left them. Left them all to … to do what? Find help? Survive? Run to Aelin?
Had the royal guard remained to fight? Had anyone fought to save the innocents in the city?
Her hands were shaking. She didn’t care. Didn’t care if these people clad in riches sneered.
Her sister’s chil
dren, the great joy in her life …
Chaol was staring up at her. Nothing on his face. No devastation, no shock.
That crimson-and-gold uniform became stifling. Strangling.
Witches and wyverns. In her city. With those iron teeth and nails. Shredding and bleeding and tormenting. Her family—her family—
“Father.”
Sartaq had stepped forward once more. Those onyx eyes slid between Nesryn and the khagan. “It has been a long journey for our guests. Politics aside,” he said, giving a disapproving glance at Arghun, who seemed amused—amused at this news he’d brought, that had set the green marble floors roiling beneath her boots—“we are still a nation of hospitality. Let them rest for a few hours. And then join us for dinner.”
Hasar came to Sartaq’s side, frowning at Arghun while she did. Perhaps not from reprimand like her brother, but simply for Arghun not telling her of this news first. “Let no guest pass through our home and find its comforts lacking.” Even though the words were welcoming, Hasar’s tone was anything but.
Their father gave them a bemused glance. “Indeed.” Urus waved a hand toward the servants by the far pillars. “Escort them to their rooms. And dispatch a message to the Torre to send their finest—Hafiza, if she’ll come down from that tower.”
Nesryn scarcely heard the rest. If the witches held the city, then the Valg who had infested it earlier this summer … There would be no one to fight them. No one to shield her family.
If they had survived.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
She should not have left. Should not have taken this position.
They could be dead, or suffering. Dead. Dead.
She did not notice the female servant who came to push Chaol’s chair. Barely noticed the hand Chaol reached out to twine through her own.
Nesryn didn’t so much as bow to the khagan as they left.
She could not stop seeing their faces.
The children. Her sister’s smiling, round-bellied children.
She should not have come.
CHAPTER
3
Nesryn had gone into shock.
And Chaol could not go to her, could not scoop her into his arms and hold her close.
Not when she had walked, silent and drifting like a wraith, right into a bedroom of the lavish suite they’d been appointed on the first floor of the palace, and shut the door behind her. As if she had forgotten anyone else in the world existed.
He didn’t blame her.
Chaol let the servant, a fine-boned young woman with chestnut hair that fell in heavy curls to her narrow waist, wheel him into the second bedroom. The suite overlooked a garden of fruit trees and burbling fountains, cascades of pink and purple blossoms hanging from potted plants anchored into the balcony above. They provided living curtains before his towering bedroom windows—doors, he realized.
The servant mumbled something about drawing a bath, her use of his language unwieldy compared to the skill of the khagan and his children. Not that he was in any position to judge: he was barely fluent in any of the other languages within his own continent.
She slipped behind a carved wooden screen that no doubt led into his bathing chamber, and Chaol peered through his still-open bedroom door, across the pale marble foyer, to the shut doors of Nesryn’s bedroom.
They should not have left.
He couldn’t have done anything, but … He knew what the not-knowing would do to Nesryn. What it was already doing to him.
Dorian was not dead, he told himself. He had gotten out. Fled. If he were in Perrington’s grip—Erawan’s grip—they would have known. Prince Arghun would have known.
His city, sacked by the witches. He wondered if Manon Blackbeak had led the attack.
Chaol tried and failed to recount where the debts were stacked between them. Aelin had spared Manon’s life at Temis’s temple, but Manon had given them vital information about Dorian under the Valg thrall. Did it make them even? Or tentative allies?
It was a waste to hope that Manon would turn against Morath. But he sent up a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening to protect Dorian, to guide his king to friendlier harbors.
Dorian would make it. He was too clever, too gifted, not to. There was no other alternative—none—that Chaol would accept. Dorian was alive, and safe. Or on his way to safety. And when Chaol got a moment, he was going to squeeze the information out of the eldest prince. Mourning or no. Everything Arghun knew, he would know. And then he’d ask that servant girl to comb every merchant ship for information about the attack.
No word—there had been no word about Aelin. Where she was now, what she’d been doing. Aelin, who might very well be the thing that cost him this alliance.
He ground his teeth, and was still grinding them as the suite doors opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man strode in as if he owned the place.
Chaol supposed he did. Prince Kashin was alone and unarmed, though he moved with the ease of a person confident in his body’s unfailing strength.
How, Chaol supposed, he himself had once walked about the palace in Rifthold.
Chaol lowered his head in greeting as the prince shut the hall door and surveyed him. It was a warrior’s assessment, frank and thorough. When his brown eyes at last met Chaol’s, the prince said in Adarlan’s tongue, “Injuries like yours are not uncommon here, and I have seen many of them—especially among the horse-tribes. My family’s people.”
Chaol didn’t particularly feel like discussing his injuries with the prince, with anyone, so he only nodded. “I’m sure you have.”
Kashin cocked his head, scanning Chaol again, his dark braid slipping over his muscled shoulder. Reading, perhaps, Chaol’s desire not to start down this particular road. “My father indeed wishes you both to join us at dinner. And more than that, to join us every night afterward while you are here. And sit at the high table.”
It wasn’t a strange request of a visiting dignitary, and it was certainly an honor to sit at the khagan’s own table, but to send his son to do it … Chaol considered his next words carefully, then simply chose the most obvious one. “Why?”
Surely the family wished to keep close to one another after losing their youngest member. Inviting strangers to join them—
The prince’s jaw tightened. Not a man used to veiling his emotions, as his three elder siblings were. “Arghun reports our palace is safe of spies from Duke Perrington’s forces, that his agents have not yet come. I am not of that belief. And Sartaq—” The prince caught himself, as if not wanting to bring in his brother—or potential ally. Kashin grimaced. “There was a reason I chose to live amongst soldiers. The double-talk of this court …”
Chaol was tempted to say he understood. Had felt that way for most of his life. But he asked, “You think Perrington’s forces have infiltrated this court?”
How much did Kashin, or Arghun, know of Perrington’s forces—know the truth of the Valg king who wore Perrington’s skin? Or the armies he commanded, worse than any their imaginations might conjure? But that information … He’d keep that to himself. See if it could somehow be used, if Arghun and the khagan did not know of it.
Kashin rubbed at his neck. “I do not know if it is Perrington, or someone from Terrasen, or Melisande, or Wendlyn. All I know is that my sister is now dead.”
Chaol’s heart stumbled a beat. But he dared ask, “How did it come about?”
Grief flickered in Kashin’s eyes. “Tumelun was always a bit wild, reckless. Prone to moods. One day, happy and laughing; the next, withdrawn and hopeless. They …” His throat bobbed. “They say she leaped from her balcony because of it. Duva and her husband found her later that night.”
Any death in a family was devastating, but a suicide … “I’m sorry,” Chaol offered quietly.
Kashin shook his head, sunlight from the garden dancing on his black hair. “I do not believe it. My Tumelun would not have jumped.”
My Tumelun. The words told enough
about the prince’s closeness to his younger sister.
“You suspect foul play?”
“All I know is that no matter Tumelun’s moods … I knew her. As I know my own heart.” He put a hand over it. “She would not have jumped.”
Chaol considered his words carefully once again. “As sorry as I am for your loss, do you have any reason to suspect why a foreign kingdom might have engineered it?”
Kashin paced a few steps. “No one within our lands would be stupid enough.”
“Well, no one within Terrasen or Adarlan would ever do such a thing—even to manipulate you into this war.”
Kashin studied him for a heartbeat. “Even a queen who was once an assassin herself?”
Chaol didn’t let one flicker of emotion show. “Assassin she might have been, but Aelin had hard lines that she did not cross. Killing or harming children was one of them.”
Kashin paused before the dresser against the garden wall, adjusting a gilded box on its polished dark surface. “I know. I read that in my brother’s reports, too. Details of her kills.” Chaol could have sworn the prince shuddered before he added, “I believe you.”
No doubt why the prince was even having this conversation with him.
Kashin went on, “Which leaves not many other foreign powers who might do it—and Perrington at the top of that short list.”
“But why target your sister?”
“I do not know.” Kashin paced another few steps. “She was young, guileless—she rode with me amongst the Darghan, our mother-clans. Had no sulde of her own yet.”
At Chaol’s narrowed brows, the prince clarified, “It is a spear all Darghan warriors carry. We bind strands of our favored horse’s hair to the shaft, beneath the blade. Our ancestors believed that where those hairs waved in the wind, there our destinies waited. Some of us still believe in such things, but even those who think it mere tradition … we bring them everywhere. There is a courtyard in this palace where my sulde and those of my siblings are planted to feel the wind while we remain at our father’s palace, right beside his own. But in death …” Again, that shadow of grief. “In death, they are the only object that we keep. They bear the soul of a Darghan warrior for eternity, and are left planted atop a steppe in our sacred realm.” The prince closed his eyes. “Now her soul will roam with the wind.”