Rescarin smiled, saluting her with his wine glass as if to say,Your move.
She didn’t deign to answer, just strode from the hall without another word.
Exhaustion was making Eda’s ears buzz by the time she shimmied down the roof of the guest wing and arrived at Ileem’s window. She’d bathed, changed, and eaten in her chambers, then stopped to briefly check on Niren before clambering up on the roof. She rubbed at the grit in her eyes—if she didn’t sleep at least a little tonight, she would be absolutely useless tomorrow. Eda rapped on the window frame and crouched on her heels to wait, cursing the limitations of mortality.
Ileem appeared after a moment, a silver dressing gown tied about his slim frame. He raised his eyebrows at her sudden appearance, but gave no other indication of his surprise. “Come in, Your Majesty.” He sounded amused.
Eda stepped lightly through the window, ignoring Ileem’s proffered arm. She settled herself on a blue velvet couch with carved ivory legs that sat facing an empty fireplace, running her fingers through the waxy leaves of a potted orange tree that stood to her left. Ileem took the matching armchair adjoining the couch, then crossed his legs and folded his hands over his knees. He regarded her with mild interest, clearly waiting for her to speak first.
“I have one condition,” said Eda, without preamble.
“Just one?”
“My Barons have halted construction on the new temple. I need you to help me finish it by the Festival of Uerc.”
“That’s mere weeks from now. Why must it be completed so soon?”
Eda plucked an orange—it was small to suit the size of the potted tree, and fit easily in the palm of her wounded hand, which she had properly bandaged after her bath. She took the dagger from her waist and began to peel the orange, slowly. “Enduena forsook the gods during my late father’s reign—I mean to reinstate them. The temple—” She paused, deliberating how much to tell him. “The temple is part of a vowImade at my coronation.”
“A vow to the people?”
The orange peel fell from the fruit and coiled into her lap like a tiny bright snake. “A vow to the gods. To Tuer—to your Rudion.”
Ileem stiffened and leaned forward in his chair. “Then we have both treated with him.”
She brushed the peel onto the floor and tore the orange in half. She handed one half to Ileem and kept the other for herself. “Tell me about your vow. What did you offer him? What did he promise you in return?”
He fiddled with his orange while she tore off slices and ate them until they were gone.
“I was twelve when I made my first vow, as I told you yesterday. My mother had always hoped her youngest son would serve the gods, not be consumed with vengeance and war like my father and my brothers. But her vow alone could not bind me. I chose it for myself.
“I went to our temple, and I shaved my head, and I knelt on the stone floor for nine nights and nine days, neither eating nor drinking. The gods’ wills alone sustained me. Every morning I sliced open my palm, spilling my blood into the dust, begging Rudion to come, to take me for his own, to mark me. And at last, he did.”
She could hardly breathe. “What did he look like?”
“A tall, shadowy figure with bright eyes that pierced me down to my core. He accepted me as his servant. He touched my ear with fiery fingers, burning the gods’ own mark into me.” Ileem eased the silver cuff off his ear so Eda could see the scorched, mangled flesh concealed underneath. “I collapsed after he touched me, and when I revived, I commissioned the metalsmith to craft cuffs for my ear, so I might always remember my vow.” Ileem fitted the cuff back on. “Each one is engraved with Rudion’s name in the old language and prophesizes my death by the blade if I ever deny him what he asks. I am his servant indeed—his arm, his mouth, his oracle to the mortal world. I am bound to do his will as long as there is breath in my body.”
Juice from the orange clung to Eda’s chin and fingers and stained the stark white of her bandage. “You’ve told me he wills peace with Enduena. Will you help me?”
He tossed his own half orange up into the air and let it dance over the back of his knuckles, all the while his eyes never leaving hers. “What did you bargain?” he asked quietly.
She forced herself not to look away. His words burned through her. “My life in service.” It was the truth, or part of it.
“For?”
“For a peaceful reign.” A lie, but flavored with enough truth that she could tell it convincingly. She didn’t know why she was compelled to hide the whole truth after his revelation. Perhaps she was intimidated by the strength of his connection to her god. Perhaps she was envious. Perhaps both.
Ileem frowned, and dropped the orange. “It is dangerous to treat with the gods for something so trivial.”
Eda lifted her chin. “It wasn’t trivial, and I do not fear the gods.” Another lie.
He shook his head and toed the fallen fruit with one bare foot. A silver tattoo curled up his ankle and disappeared under the cuff of his pants.
She watched him decide something, a hardness coming into his face. He stood from the chair and came to kneel before her, crushing the orange underneath one knee; its scent burst tangy in the air, enveloping both of them. “My god compels me to help you. It’s why he sent me here in the first place. But I am wary of your vow, wary that it will be at odds with my own.”
“It is my vow, not yours. I will not hold you to it, and neither will our god.”
Ileem nodded.
