It’s noisy inside, raucous laughter and steady conversation fighting for dominance over the trio of musicians in the corner playing fiddle, drums, and piercing pitched bells. Incense from the obligatory altar to the Green Goddess coils up from its place in the center of the room, a green basin on a simple plinth, with vines growing up from the base of it and leaves trailing over the basin’s rim.
Both Saga and Vil pull scarves over their heads and train their eyes low to keep from being recognized—their official portraits have been published widely enough for that to be a concern—while Indridi and Leifur go up to the counter to order food from the proprietor.
Then we all squeeze ourselves into a corner booth with a little circle window that looks out over the water. At nearly ten miles wide, the Saadone River might seem like the ocean, I think, to someone who had never seen the real thing. It’s brown and green, a slow-moving mammoth that runs chillingly deep.
Somehow, in the rush to fit into the booth, I find myself scooted all the way against the wall with Vil next to me, his hip touching mine. The heat of him sears me. I carefully don’t acknowledge him, but look up to find Saga grinning at me across the table. She waggles her eyebrows suggestively.
Indridi is sitting next to Saga, watching Vil with a hopelessness that simultaneously angers me and makes my heart twist. Leifur is on the other side of Vil, nervously jiggling his knee. He’s not used to eating with Vil and Saga, and his hand keeps going up to his left ear to touch the gold bar that marks him as a royal guard. He watches Indridi watch Vil, and I want to shake the lot of them.
Thankfully, the food arrives and we inhale it, red rice and spicy lamb stew, candied figs and little square orange cakes glazed with honey. There’s mead, too, clear and sweet, and marvelously strong coffee.
I try not to be aware of Vil beside me, but it’s impossible not to be, his hand grazing mine as we both reach for more candied figs, the way his lips look stained with mead, or the way he stirs just the right amount of cream and sugar into my coffee because he knows exactly how I prefer it. He doesn’t move his leg the whole time we’re sitting there, like the two of us have been fused together.
By the time-glass on the wall, we still have half an hour before we’re due to meet Pala, so we stay awhile longer in our booth, sipping drinks and imagining we have room for more of the orange cakes that tantalize us from the table. Vil and Saga take this opportunity to quiz me on my fake persona for when we arrive at Tenebris, and I’m grateful for anything to distract me from Vil’s heady proximity.
I’m to pose as Vil’s cousin, the stepdaughter of Vil and Saga’s mother’s sister, which explains my lighter coloring. Memorization has always come easily to me, which is good because Saga and Vil insist I know the Skaandan royal lineage all the way back to the beginning, some four hundred years ago, when the threat of genocide drove them out of Iljaria.
Along with Indridi, Saga will act as my handmaiden, too certain that Kallias would recognize her to pose as an ambassador with Vil and me. Everyone in Daeros still thinks that the crown princess of Skaanda is dead, and unlike mine, Saga’s appearance hasn’t changed much since her captivity.
So she will stay out of sight, while I hope my mop of dark curls that have begun to brush my shoulders and my altered figure and the cosmetics Indridi practices applying every few evenings will trick Kallias into thinking I am exactly what I claim to be.
“We never did decide on how to round out your history,” says Vil thoughtfully when I finish my recitation of Skaandan royalty. “Some talent or particular interest, in case Kallias pokes holes in your story.”
My mouth tastes suddenly sour.
Vil’s face softens at the horror in my expression. “There must have been something,” he says gently. “Before Kallias. Before—”
I blink and see my parents, my brother, my sister. A house on a hill. An untainted sky. The gleam of sunlight on the water. “My talent is acrobatics,” I say roughly. “I was ten when Kallias took me. I was a child, Vil. Reckless and impatient and filled with boundless energy. I could never be still enough to learn painting or memorize poetry or whatever it isyoudid when you were ten. I don’t have any particular interests.”
He lets my anger roll off him, then shrugs a little and says, “By the time I was ten, I was skilled enough in my weapons training I could kill a man in fifty different ways if I wanted.”
Indridi makes a choked noise while Saga glares at her brother. “You’re not helping, Vil.”
“Ididn’twant to,” Vil clarifies, glaring back. “I only mean to say I had no special interests at that age, either. I just did what I was told. Please forgive my thoughtless question.”
My throat hurts. Vil takes my hand under the table and squeezes it, his fingers warm and rough. My pulse quickens in his palm. I wonder if I ought to reconsider my resolution to keep him at a distance.
It would be so easy to allow him nearer, to sink into his steadfastness and security. I would want for nothing, on the arm of Skaanda’s prince. I’ve had a taste of it already, these last eighteen months: belonging, purpose. Maybe even love. I’m not assured of any of those things, even if our mission in Daeros is successful. I wonder sometimes if I ever had them, even before Kallias stole my life away.
“You have a mind for stories,” Vil says, breaking me from my thoughts. “We can always tell Kallias you’ve studied as a historian.”
I glance at Indridi, who fiddles with her coffee cup, lips pressed tight together.
“We’d better go,” I say abruptly, pulling my hand from Vil’s. “If we’re not to the ferry in time, Pala will kill us.”
The ferry is essentially a giant barge, with a pen on one end of it for horses and other livestock that need to cross the river. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Saga by the knee-high rail, a coveted position away from the central knot of passengers, who are packed in so tight together it’s hard to breathe. The stink from the river itself doesn’t help any. I stare into the murky water and will us to reach the opposite bank faster than the promised quarter hour. We lost Vil and the others in the initial press to get onto the ferry, but will find them again as soon as we reach the other shore.
Saga and I both tilt our faces west, where the sun sinks over Skaanda, already half vanished behind the horizon.
“Is this all a mistake?” Saga says, low in my ear.
I think of all the decisions that have led us to this point, of all the ones still left to make. “Maybe,” I tell her. “But it’s necessary.”
She nods, holding tight to my arm. It feels right that we’re here together, that we mean to end as we began. Vil might be leading our company, but the mission is mine, and Saga’s. She is the only soul in the world who understands me. Apart from—
But I shove that thought away. “We’re going to end him,” I tell Saga. “We’re going to make him pay for what he did to us.”
“Yes,” Saga whispers. “Hell yes.”
