Page 102 of While the Dark Remains
The tears in his eyes freeze me where I stand.
“I hate all this,” he says, his voice breaking. “I wish it was over. I wish we could strike today. I wish—” He takes my hand and smooths his thumb over my skin, and I let him, wrecked by his tears. “I am ready to rule Tenebris, Brynja. And I want you to stay. I want you to rule it with me. I want you to be my queen.”
“Vil—”
“You don’t have to answer me right now. But please.Please.I want it to be you. It has to be you.”
I blink at him in the cold stone corridor, uneasy at the eerie echo of Kallias’s offer. What am I, to Kallias, to Vil? Do they truly want me? Or do they want only to possess me? Kallias with his twisted games, Vil with his desire for power. And what about Ballast?It’s a risk I’m willing to take.
“I’m tired, Vil.” My voice shakes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turn to go.
But he catches my wrist. Pulls me back. Raises my hand to his lips. “I’m in love with you, Brynja.”
All of me is numb, sick. And I look past Vil to see Ballast in the corridor.
“Brynja?” says Vil.
“You can’t call me that outside our rooms,” I remind him shortly. “Someone might hear.”
Hurt tightens his face.
I leave him standing alone in the hall.
Brandr sits near the head of the table in the council room, magic curling off him like smoke. This morning he wears a robe made of thin white silk, embroidered with a brilliant sapphire thread that glistens in the lamplight, and his sleeves are rolled up past his elbows. Tattoos swirl all along the length of his forearms, in all the colors of the gods. He catches me staring at them and I jerk my gaze quickly away.
I slept badly last night, and my head is already starting to pound. Vil hasn’t looked at me once all morning, not even on the long walk from our rooms. I can’t blame him. But I also can’t give him the answer he wants. I don’t know if I’m sick over that, or the fact that Ballast overheard Vil’s confession.
Kallias sits in his ivory chair with his head leaned back and his eyes shut. Aelia is next to Brandr, looking particularly fierce dressed in gold. Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus are all here, stealing terrified glances at the Prism Master. The Daerosian governors sit across from them, next to General Eirenaios. Kallias’s steward and engineer are not here, the former frantically arranging things for the feast and ball this evening, the latter checking on the digging progress.
Ballast is the last to arrive, his face in worse shape than last night, which makes my gut twist. His eye patch and ribbon are gray. He takes the seat on Kallias’s left.
Brandr wastes no time taking charge of the proceedings. He stands and snaps his fingers; the room is suddenly, wholly silent, when I hadn’t realized it was overloud before.
“Show me the proposed terms,” Brandr says.
Kallias doesn’t open his eyes, so it’s Ballast who hands over the Daerosian documents, while Vil offers the Skaandan ones.
Brandr glances briefly over the pages, then drops them on the table. “You quibble over such insignificant things. The border towns will go to Daeros.”
“They willnot!” says Vil.
Brandr ignores him. “The river city to Skaanda.”
“Absolutely not,” puts in Ballast.
But Brandr isn’t finished. “Hostilities will cease, and both armies will be cut in half. Trade will be established, resources exchanged at no cost to either country. Both Skaanda and Daeros will pay tribute to Iljaria.”
“On what grounds?” demands Ballast at the same time Vil jerks up from his seat and starts swearing up and down the pantheon with vehemence.
“Our grounds,” says Brandr. “This entire peninsula belongs to the Iljaria; it is only on our goodwill that you are allowed to remain upon it.”
“What are you going to do if we refuse?” Vil mocks him. “Rally Iljaria to war?”
Brandr looks at him with absolute impassivity. “There are other ways than war to bring down a mountain. You forget how old we are. How patient we are. But even the patience of the Iljaria must come, at last, to an end.”
“Youforget Aerona,” says Aelia coolly. “There is another who would lay claim to the peninsula. My father—”
“Your father does not concern me.”
