Page 37 of While the Dark Remains
Kallias’s blue eyes are sharp as steel in the glittering light from the chandeliers. I hate that Ballast looks like him and I hate that I can’t stop thinking about Ballast. Is he still hiding, down there in the dark?
“We will have to find something that will tempt you, Princess,” Kallias is saying. And despite the vegetables and nuts having only just arrived, he snaps his fingers yet again. Those plates are whisked away, replaced with slabs of steaming fish and sour pickled apples.
I try to eat, I do, but I can hardly choke down a bite. Kallias’s eyes rarely leave mine as he sends course after course away, weirdly obsessed with finding something I will actually eat.
His children and wife vie for his attention, but he ignores all of them.
Finally, twelve courses in and two hours gone according to the violet time-glass, Kallias stands from the table, signaling an end to the awful dinner.
“I will call for you tomorrow,” he says to Vil. “We will discuss your treaty, with Princess Aelia to witness negotiations, if that is agreeable.”
“I would like nothing more,” Vil answers.
And then Kallias strides from the room, his general, his wife, and his children trailing him like the ragged tails of a kite.
“Well,” says Aelia. “That’sover.”
“Damn right,” says Vil.
She laughs.
I make it all the way back to my chamber before being sick on the floor.
Two Years Ago
Year4198, Month of the Black God
Daeros—Tenebris
I crouch above the false ceiling of the king’s council room, muscles tense. I rarely sneak around during the day—it’s far too risky—but I’m always a little braver during Gods’ Fall. Plus, an envoy of Aeronans arrived this morning, and I want to know what they’re here for.
I peer down through a knot in the wood. The king sits at the head of the table with his general, Eirenaios, on his right hand, five Aeronan dignitaries seated all in a row, sipping wine from crystal goblets. Princess Aelia isn’t here, to my disappointment. I’ve looked for her every time an envoy arrives from Aerona, twice a year or so, but she’s never returned.
Ballast isn’t here, either. I’m not sure what reason he would have had to flee to Aerona or, if he had, why on the Green Goddess’s earth he would come back, but I still find myself searching for him. I shove away the familiar pulse of loss that his absence has carved out of me.
An Aeronan man who introduces himself as Talan stands to address the king. He’s tall and holds himself well, his eyes dark, his sharp jaw smoothly shaven while his hair curls a bit at the nape of his neck. He can’t be more than twenty, and the medallion he wears on a chain at his breast marks him as someone of high social status.
“We’ve been more than patient with you, Kallias,” Talan says, his tone brisk and cool. “All the food Daeros can eat to fill your soldiers’bellies and allow your ridiculous war to continue, in exchange for the designs for your lamps and the materials to make them—but my emperor grows weary. The lamps are not what you originally promised him, you ask for more and more food, and the war drags on. Make peace with Skaanda, Kallias. Establish trade withthem, and stop draining the empire—or is that your plan?”
The king bristles, knuckles straining white around his wineglass. “Wars take time, Your Grace. I understand that the lamps have beenmorethan useful in Aerona—and you misrepresent that they are all we have given you.”
“Drills,” says Talan shortly, “a box that gives heat without fire, time-glasses that do not need to be wound—they are trinkets. Party tricks. A decade ago, you promised us something else, and I will be plain with you, Kallias: If the Iljaria weapon is not in Aeronan hands by the end of next Winter Dark, the food shipments will stop, and my emperor will send his army to seize Tenebris and look for it himself.”
I go numb, heart slamming in my throat.The Iljaria weapon.I haven’t heard even a whisper of it all the time I’ve been here. It’s an old story, little more than a half-forgotten myth, claiming that before the Iljaria fled from the mountain, they buried something in the heart of it: an ancient weapon with the power to split the world in two. I never thought the king was the sort to put much stock in stories.
The king clenches his jaw and waves one hand at the Daerosian man who hovers near the sideboard: Basileious, the king’s engineer. He’s short and pudgy, neither young nor old, his skin more pink than pale. Limp hair curls above his too-broad forehead, and a pair of spectacles seem to be squeezing the very breath out of his nose.
“Give your report,” the king snaps at him.
Basileious clears his throat. “As I was explaining to His Majesty earlier, we’ve hit a vein.”
“A vein?” Talan’s brows go up, his eyes fixing intently on the engineer.
Basileious nods. “A vein of iron, mixed with silver. We believe it will lead us, at last, to the mountain’s heart.”
“Why this vein in particular?” Talan presses. “You have found them before, and they led nowhere.”
The king smirks and waves at Basileious to go on.
