The Heart of Betrayal

  When we closed the door behind us, she giggled nervously at our adventure together. She asked if I could read the book to her, and I told her no, it was in a tongue I didn’t understand.

  “What about those?” she asked.

  I looked to where she pointed. Lying neatly side by side on my bed were the books I had stolen from the Royal Scholar. I hadn’t placed them there. I whirled, looking around the room for an intruder. There was no one. Who would enter my room and lay them out like that?

  “Aster,” I said sternly, “are you playing games with me? Did you put them there before we left?”

  But with one look at her anxious expression, I knew it wasn’t her. I shook my head so she wouldn’t worry. “Never mind. I forgot that I left them there. Come on,” I said as I gathered the books up and set them on the chest. “Let’s get ready for bed.”

  She had brought nothing but the clothes on her back, so I dug around for another of Kaden’s warm shirts. It fell to her ankles, and she hugged the soft fabric to her skin. When I brushed my hair, I saw her rub her short scruff dreamily as if imagining it long.

  “All that hair must keep your neck and shoulders nice and warm,” she said.

  “I suppose it does, but I have something far prettier that might keep you warm. Would you like to see it?”

  She nodded enthusiastically, and I pulled the blue scarf Reena had given me from my saddlebag. I shook out the folds, and the silver beads jingled. I placed it over her head and wrapped the ends around her neck. “There,” I said, “a beautiful vagabond princess. It’s yours, Aster.”

  “Mine?” She reached up and felt the fabric, touching the beads, her mouth open in wonder, and I felt a stab that such a small gesture meant so much to her. She deserved far more than what I could give her.

  We snuggled on my bed, and I recounted stories found in the Morrighan Holy Text, tales of how the Lesser Kingdoms grew from the chosen one, tales of love and sacrifice, honor and truth, all the stories that made me long for home. The candle burned low, and when I heard Aster’s soft restful snores, I whispered Reena’s prayer. “May the gods grant you a still heart, heavy eyes, and angels guarding your door.”

  And Harik, true and faithful,

  Brought Aldrid to Morrighan,

  A husband worthy in the sight of the gods,

  And the Remnant rejoiced.

  —Morrighan Book of Holy Text, Vol. III

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was already quite late, but while Aster slept with her scarf clutched in her hand, I sat down on the fur rug in the center of the room and looked at the books that had appeared on my bed. Somehow they had been laid in plain sight for me to find, as if I had forgotten them hidden beneath my mattress. In truth, I was so consumed with the business of staying alive, I almost had forgotten them. I had translated all of the Song of Venda on my way across the Cam Lanteux, but I’d had time to translate only one brief passage of Ve Feray Daclara au Gaudrel.

  I pulled the small book from its sleeve and touched the embossed leather, fingering the burned corner. It had survived the centuries, a harrowing trip across the continent, and someone’s attempt to destroy it. Gaudrel. I wondered who she was, besides a storyteller from a group of wanderers.

  The first passage had seemed to be a fanciful tale told to a child to distract her from her hunger, but even as I had translated it, I knew it had to be more. The Royal Scholar had hidden it away and even sent a bounty hunter to get it back.

  I grabbed the vagabond primer from my saddlebag to help me translate, then settled in, puzzling it out word by word, line by line, beginning with the first passage again. Once upon a time, my child, there was a princess no bigger than you. It was a story of a journey, hope, and a girl who commanded the sun, moon, and stars. When I went on to the next passage, it was again a child asking for a story, but this time for one about a great storm. It was strangely reminiscent of the Morrighan Holy Text.

  It was a storm, that’s all I remember,

  A storm that wouldn’t end.

  A great storm, she prompts.

  I sigh, Yes, and pull her to my lap.

  Once upon a time, child,

  Long, long ago,

  Seven stars were flung from the sky.

  One to shake the mountains,

  One to churn the seas,

  One to choke the air,

  And four to test the hearts of men.

  Stars flung from the sky. Was it only a story, or was Gaudrel actually one of the surviving Ancients? A mere child herself when Aster hurtled a star to earth? That would explain why her story had errors. The Holy Text had been transcribed generation after generation by the best scholars in Morrighan, and it was clear that only one star brought on the devastation, not seven. But one or seven, it hardly mattered—for her, it was a storm that wouldn’t end. A storm that made the ways of old meaningless. She spoke of sharp knives and iron wills, but I stopped cold when I got to the part about scavengers. Gaudrel and this child were always running from beasts that were as hungry as they were. Were they the mythical pachegos of Infernaterr that the Vendans feared?

  Each page was a glimpse of another time, and together they were a chronicle of events from long ago. Gaudrel’s history. Some passages seemed to be carefully phrased for a child’s ears, but others were brutally raw.

  Aster stirred in her sleep, and I quickly skipped forward several pages. I would never get it all translated in one night. The next passage was a story about Gaudrel’s father.

  Tell me again, Ama. About the warmth. Before.

  The warmth came, child, from where I don’t know.

  My father commanded, and it was there.

  Was your father a god?

  Was he a god? It seemed so.

  He looked like a man.

  But he was strong beyond reason,

  Knowledgeable beyond possible,

  Fearless beyond mortal,

  Powerful as a—

  Let me tell you the story, child, the story of my father.

  Once upon a time, there was a man as great as the gods.…

  But even the great can tremble with fear.

  Even the great can fall.

  I sat back, staring at the page. It was too eerily close to the Holy Text that said: They thought themselves only a step lower than the gods. Two histories swirled before my eyes, mixing like blood and water. Which history came first? The Morrighan Holy Text or the one I held in my hands? Aster rolled over, stretching, mumbling half-asleep, and wondering if I was coming to bed. “Soon,” I whispered. I rushed forward through the pages again, searching for more answers.

  Where did she go, Ama?

  She is gone, my child.

  Stolen, like so many others.

  But where?

  I lift the child’s chin. Her eyes are sunken with hunger.

  Come, let’s go find food together.

  But the child grows older, her questions not so easily turned away.

  She knew where to find food. We need her.

  And that’s why she’s gone. Why they stole her.

  You have the gift within you too, my child. Listen. Watch.

  We’ll find food, some grass, some grain.

  Will she be back?

  She is beyond the wall. She is dead to us now.

  No, she will not be back.

  My sister Venda is one of them now.

  Sisters?

  I translated the last passage again, certain I had made a mistake, but it was true. Gaudrel and Venda were sisters. Venda was once a vagabond too.

  And then I read more.

  Let it be known,

  They stole her,

  My little one.

  She reached back for me, screaming,

  Ama.

  She is a young woman now,

  And this old woman couldn’t stop them.

  Let it be known to the gods and generations,

  They stole from the Remnant.

  Harik, the thief, he stole my Morrighan,

/>   Then sold her for a sack of grain,

  To Aldrid the scavenger.

  I closed the book, my palms damp. Stared at my lap, trying to understand. Trying to explain it away. Trying not to believe it.

  It wasn’t just any child that Gaudrel told this history to.

  It was Morrighan.

  She was a girl not chosen by the gods, but stolen by a thief and sold to a scavenger. Harik wasn’t her father, as the Holy Text claimed. He was her abductor and seller. Aldrid, the revered founding father of a kingdom, was little more than a scavenger who bought a bride.

  At least according to this history. I wasn’t sure what to believe.

  Only one thing felt certain in my heart. Three women were torn apart. Three women who were once family.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  RAFE

  Calantha and Ulrix dragged me to the stables. I was to have another ride through their miserable city, the only advantage being that I could search for another way out, though it was looking more certain there were none.

  Vendan riders were swift, and the lost days burned in my head. I went through every military strategy Sven had ever drilled into me, but none of those strategies had ever included Lia and the risk to her.

  These thoughts were consuming me, so I didn’t recognize him at first. He dumped dried patties into a bin near the stables. His clothes were dirty and torn. When I followed Calantha and Ulrix into the stable, my eyes had passed over him, focusing instead on my own horse in the first stall. One of the chievdars had claimed him for his own. He was well cared for and groomed, but it goaded me that he would now serve Venda.

  Calantha and Ulrix were taking me out on the Komizar’s orders. I saw him leaving with Lia as we arrived in the stable yard. I feared for her in the Komizar’s company. “She’ll be fine,” Calantha said. I averted my gaze, saying I was only curious about the purpose of these rides throughout the city. “A campaign of sorts,” she told me vaguely. “The Komizar wishes to share our newly arrived nobility with others.”

  “I’m only a lowly emissary. Not a noble.”

  “No,” she said. “You’ll be anything the Komizar wishes you to be. And today you’re the grand Lord Emissary of the Prince of Dalbreck.”

  “For a nation that despises royalty, he seems eager to flaunt it.”

  “There are many ways to feed people.”

  As we led our horses from the stable, the patty clapper carted a load in front of the door, tripping and spilling it to its side. Ulrix cursed him for blocking our way. “Fikatande idaro! Bogeve enar johz vi daka!”

  The patty clapper scrambled on the ground, trying to return the patties as fast as he could to the cart. He stopped and looked up, cowering, spilling out apologies in Vendan. I squinted when I saw him, thinking I had to be mistaken.

  It was Jeb. He was filthy, with matted hair, and he stank. Jeb. A patty clapper.

  It took every bit of my willpower not to reach down and embrace him. They had made it—at least Jeb had. I looked around the stable yard, hoping to see the others. Jeb vigorously shook his head as he apologized for his clumsiness. He briefly aimed his gaze just at me, shaking his head again.

  The others weren’t here. Yet. Or did he mean they wouldn’t be coming at all?

  “Bring some of those up to my room when you’re done. North Sanctum Tower,” I said.

  Calantha exchanged some quick words with Jeb. “Mi ena urat seh lienda?”

  Jeb shook his head and gestured with his fingers. “Nay. Mias e tayn.”

  “The fool doesn’t understand your tongue,” Ulrix growled. “And your room gets heated last, Emissary. When the Council is nice and warm, then maybe you’ll get some.”

  Jeb nodded, throwing the last of the patties into the cart. North tower. The fool understood perfectly, and now he knew where to find me. He wheeled the cart out of the way, and Ulrix pushed past us, his patience spent. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where is there?” I asked Calantha.

  She sighed as if bored. For someone so young, she was jaded beyond her years. As much as I had tried to pry information from her about her position at the Sanctum, she was an icy wall when it came to details about herself. “We’re going to the Stonegate quarter with a quick stop at Corpse Call,” she said. “The Komizar thought you might find it entertaining.”

  * * *

  I had been a soldier in the field for almost four years. I had seen a lot. Men stabbed, maimed, their skulls split wide. I’d even seen men torn apart by wild animals, half eaten. In the Cam Lanteux and on the battlefield, there were no delicate considerations for how a man died. I had learned to expect anything. But the bile rose in my throat when we topped the crest of Corpse Call, and I stifled the catch in my chest as I started to look away.

  Ulrix pushed on my shoulder. “Better get a good look. The Komizar’s going to ask you what you think of it.” I turned back. I looked steady and hard. Three heads on stakes. Flies buzzed on swollen tongues. Maggots roiled in eye sockets. A raven yanked stubbornly on something sinuous from a cheek, like it was a worm. But even through the decay, I could tell they were boys. They were once boys.

  “The Assassin took care of these three. Traitors, they were.” Ulrix shrugged and walked back down the hillock.

  I turned to Calantha. “Kaden did this?”

  “Overseeing executions is his duty as Keep. The dressing up on stakes is done by soldiers. They’ll stay there until the last flesh falls from the bone,” she answered. “That’s on the Komizar’s orders.”

  I looked at her, her single pale eye glistening, a weakness to her shoulders that were usually rigid with cynicism.

  “You don’t approve,” I said.

  She shrugged. “What I think doesn’t matter.”

  I reached out and touched her arm before she could turn away. She flinched as if she thought I was going to strike her, and I stepped back.

  “Who are you, Calantha?” I asked.

  She shook her head, her bored manner returned. “I’ve been no one for a very long time.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  It was a rare cloudless morning of crisp blue sky. Fresh air was warmed with the fragrance of thannis, for though its taste was sour, its scent was sweet. The brightness of the day helped chase away my exhaustion. As if I didn’t have enough to think about, I couldn’t get Gaudrel’s book out of my head. Through the late night hours, I woke again and again, with the same thought: They were family. Morrighan was stolen and sold to a scavenger. Though it might be true that she had the gift and led a people to a new land, those she led were not a noble Remnant chosen by the gods, but scavengers who preyed on others. They had preyed on Morrighan.

  “You slept well?” the Komizar called over his shoulder.

  I clicked my reins to catch up with him. My sham was to continue today in the Canal quarter, at the washing grounds opposite the jehendra.

  “Your pretense warms me,” I said. “You care not one whit how I slept.”

  “Except for the dark circles under your eyes. It makes you less appealing to the people. Pinch your cheeks. Maybe that will help.”

  I laughed. “Just when I think I couldn’t hate you more, you prove me wrong.”

  “Come now, Jezelia, after I’ve shown you every kindness? Most prisoners would be dead by now.”

  While I wouldn’t call it kindness, his remarks to me had grown less biting, and I couldn’t help but note he did something my father had never done in his own kingdom. He walked among those he ruled, both near and far. He didn’t rule from a distance, but intimately and thoroughly. He knew his people.

  To an extent.

  Yesterday he had asked me what the claw and vine design on my shoulder was. I didn’t mention the Song of Venda, and I hoped no one else would either, but I was sure that at least a few of those who had stared at it were digging it up from dusty memories of long-forgotten tales. “A mistake,” I had told him simply. “A wedding kavah not properly applied.”

  “It see
ms to have captured the fancy of many.”

  I’d shrugged it off. “I’m sure it’s as much a curiosity to them as I am, something exotic from a faraway kingdom.”

  “That you are. Wear one of your dresses tomorrow that shows it off properly,” he had ordered. “That dreary shirt is tedious.”

  And also warm. Only that was of little concern to him—not to mention, the dresses weren’t particularly suited for riding, again, inconsequential in light of his greater plans. I had nodded, acknowledging his demand, but I wore my shirt and trousers again today. He hadn’t seemed to notice.

  When he wasn’t scrutinizing my every movement and word, I enjoyed my interactions with the people. They provided me with a different kind of warmth that I probably needed more. That part wasn’t a sham. The welcome of the Meurasi had spread to many clans. The moments of sharing thannis, or stories, or a few sincere words gave me balance, if not a few hours of relief from the Sanctum. My gift rarely came into play. A few times I was gripped with a sense of something large and dark descending. I sucked in a breath and looked upward, truly expecting to see a black clawed thing swooping down upon me, but there was nothing there. Only a feeling that I’d quickly shake off when I saw the Komizar smiling. He never missed an opportunity to turn it into something corrupt and shameful. He made me want to smother the gift instead of listen to it. It seemed impossible to nurture anything in his presence.

  We reached a narrow lane and dismounted, handing off the reins to guards who followed us.

  “Is it this?” he asked, tugging on Walther’s baldrick with his thumb. “Is this what continues to make you so testy?”

  I looked at the strap of leather across his chest that I had managed to block from my vision by some magic of will. Testy? By the gods, they had stolen it off my brother’s dead body after they had massacred his entire company. Testy? I looked from the baldrick into his cool black eyes. A smile swept through them as if he saw every burning thought in my mind.