“I won’t find my family here,” I reply.
“Why then?”
I stare at her, at a loss for words, as her maids sweep her cloud of black hair back into a headdress and dab cerulean powder on her eyelids. She’s so much braver than I am, voluntarily revisiting the place of her greatest torment without so much as flinching. If I told Saga that, though, she’d point out that she was only in Kallias’s Collection for a year, while I was there for eight—nearly half my life—but that doesn’tmean the horror was any less for her. I don’t know how she can even bear the thought of it.
“We will be perfectly safe, Bryn. Vil will be there with us the whole time, and we won’t be there for too long anyway before the army arrives, and then—”
“I know,” I say wearily. “Daeros will be annexed into Skaanda. The war will end once and for all. We’ll have trade with Aerona, free access to the Altari Forest, and all the Daerosian gems and metals and inventions we could ever want.”
Saga nods. “Kallias won’t hurt anyone ever again. He’ll be tried for his crimes, and executed. His spirit will be doomed to labor outside the gates of paradise for all eternity.”
I gnaw on my lip.
Her face is tight, grim. “If we don’t face our demons, they’ll haunt us forever.Please, Bryn. Say you’ll come. We need you.”
I’m the only one who can move around Kallias’s mountain palace undetected, eight years of experience giving me intimate knowledge of the paths through the false ceilings. I have access to any room, including the king’s private chambers. I wouldn’t have to wait for the army to come. I could kill him in his sleep our first night there, if I wanted.
“Please,” says Saga softly.
I rub at my eyes to make my headache go away. I have endured many things in my twenty years in this world. But I don’t know if being in the same room as Kallias again can ever be one of them.
“I’ll see you in the training arena,” I tell her, and leave my best friend to finish her breakfast.
Knife throwing helps. It’s satisfying to dig my heels into the sand, to hurl blade after blade at the painted targets across the arena and watch them thud into the wood, handles quivering. It helps keep my mind steady, to keep the blinding panic from overwhelming me like a flood.
Saga’s brother, Vilhjalmur, watches from the fence bordering one end of the arena, sword at his hip, the neck of his shirt gaping open. He’s already had his practice bouts this morning, judging by the sweat glistening on his dark skin. My face warms. Every inch of him is muscle, finely tuned, like the hunting lions in the royal menagerie.
Vil is two years older than Saga, but he wasn’t the one the oracle chose as Skaanda’s next ruler. He doesn’t seem to resent her for that, though, or for her sudden reappearance a year and a half ago, when the entire country thought she was dead. He immediately relinquished the title of heir he’d been given in her absence and resumed the endeavor he’s most passionate about: improving the working conditions on the hundreds of farms, spread all across Skaanda, that are so crucial to feeding the population.
Vil’s the one who concocted the plot to annex Daeros, and he’ll be the one to govern it if the plan is successful. It would more than suit him, I think.
“You’ve improved,” he calls over to me, catching my eye.
I flush anew at the praise but give Vil an impassive nod and throw the last of my knives, then trudge through the sand to collect them. Saga is conspicuously absent, and I would bet a hefty sum it’s intentional.
He joins me at the target, quiet as I pull the knives out. I am overly aware of his proximity, of his heat and his scent: sweat and dust and the citrus-perfumed cream he rubs into his jaw when he shaves.
Vil doesn’t prevaricate, and after weeks of increasingly pointed requests, I don’t expect him to. I like that he doesn’t play games. I respect him for it. “We leave at dawn, Bryn. We can’t do it without you.”
He touches my arm, and I try to ignore the way my skin pricks beneath his fingers. “Of course you can. I drew you maps of the palace layout.”
“Brynja.”
I look up to meet his dark gaze, and it burns through me. He stands head and shoulders taller than me, but he has never once made me feelsmall. The jewels in his ears glitter in the sun. “I’m not coming,” I say. My words are petulant, unyielding. I trace a circle in the dirt with one foot.
Vil lightly shoves my shoulder. “What do you intend to do all alone in Staltoria City? Rattle about the palace having tea with my parents?”
“I have no intention of presuming upon your family further, Vil. I won’t stay.”
“You’re not presuming. You never have.”
I don’t reply, hunching my shoulders, fighting not to be caught once more in the grip of my nightmare: an iron cage, a cruel king, the fear of falling, so sharp I can taste it.
“Hey.” He tips my chin up with one finger so I’m looking at him again. He sees the tightness of my jaw, the way I’m so fiercely trying not to cry. He’s kind enough not to comment on it. “We’re indebted to you, Bryn. You brought Saga back to us. Without you”—he smooths my cheek with his calloused thumb—“without you, the world would be so much smaller. Don’t shrink it back down to nothing.”
My heart beats too hard, too quick, his nearness overwhelming me. Vil is safety, strength, peace, and I know that’s what he would give me if I let him. But it scares me too much.
I take a step back, putting distance between us. “Being here, with you and Saga—” My throat catches. “It has meant everything to me, Vil. Truly. But it’s past time for me to go now.”
