Page 107 of While the Dark Remains
“Then what right do you have to ask me what loyaltyIhave to my own damn country?” He’s breathing hard, magic sparking off his skin, cerulean and pink.
Anger twists through me. “What are youdoingthen, Ballast? What are you waiting for? For your father to hurt your mother more or to lock more children in cages? For him to get his hands on a godsdamned Iljaria weapon and burn all the world to ashes?”
“Then youdoknow what the weapon is!” he cries.
We stare at each other, my heart wild and my face hot. “It’s power,” I say. “Unimaginable, uncontainable power. That’s all I know, I swear.”
He scoffs at me. “Isthat all you know, Brynja? Is it?”
I fight to breathe, and I wish to the gods I hadn’t come here tonight. This was a mistake. “It’s all I know,” I say quietly.
He clenches his jaw. “You don’t need to worry about me. You just need to worry about staying out of my way. And you can tell that to your precious Skaandan prince, too.”
“He’s not my prince.”
Ballast laughs. “I don’t care.”
I leave him without another word, leaping up into the vents and crawling back to my room, where I slip into bed beside a soundly sleeping Saga. I lie there a long while, staring up into the dark and reviling myself to the depth of my bones.
I’m still awake when Vil bursts in, his clothes obviously pulled on in haste, rumpled and askew. I jerk up and shake Saga awake in the same moment.
“The weapon?” I ask.
Vil nods. “It’s time. We’ve all been summoned. Get dressed as quick as you can.”
He turns his back to us as we scramble into our clothes and wrap ourselves with furs against the mountain’s chill.
I make sure to wear my headdress.
The one with the hidden knife.
Chapter Twenty
Year4200, Month of the Ghost God
Daeros—Tenebris
We walk side by side, me and Saga and Vil, with Leifur and Pala at our heels. My heart beats triple time to our quick footsteps, and I pull my fur-lined cloak tight around my shoulders.
“Together,” says Vil quietly, looking straight ahead. “We’re in this together, right?”
“Together,” says Saga. “For the glory of Skaanda.”
I take a breath of icy air. “Together.”
A male attendant and Nicanor, Kallias’s steward, are waiting for us as we leave the guest wing. Nicanor inclines his head to me and Vil, not even glancing at Saga, who ducks her head in sudden terror. “You’re to surrender all weapons, Your Highnesses,” he says. “And then follow me.”
Vil grunts but unbuckles his sword belt and pulls three knives from his boots and hands them to the attendant. I know he has at least one more knife strapped against his chest. Saga relinquishes her dagger with shaking hands, and Leifur and Pala relieve themselves of spear, sword, and more knives than seem possible for any two people to carry at once. I hand over my dagger, praying that Nicanor won’t suspect my headdress. But he nods in satisfaction.
“This way,” he says. “The king is waiting.”
He grabs a torch from the wall, leading us down several corridors to a heavily barred door. Eirenaios, Kallias’s general, unlocks it for us, but not before demanding Vil’s hidden knife and relieving Pala and Leifur of several more. I’m allowed to keep my headdress.
Nicanor and Eirenaios lead us through the door and down a winding stone stairway. We follow in single file, our footsteps echoing on the cold stone, the torch casting eerie shadows on the rough-hewn walls. My heart beats too hard and fear claws up my throat and it’s time, it’s time. This will all be over soon.
We go down and down, and the cold grows deeper. Saga’s teeth begin to chatter. Vil shrugs out of his cloak and gives it to her.
We reach a landing of chiseled stone, illuminated with globes of pulsing Iljaria magic.
