Page 53 of While the Dark Remains
“It seems that the Iljaria are best left alone,” says Aelia carefully, “unless one has at their disposal a power sure of beating them.”
Vil’s ordered fruit and cakes to his receiving room, with steaming mugs of tea ready on the end table. He and Saga and Pala are waiting for me when I hop down from the vent, with Leifur keeping watch in the hall.
Pala hands me a rag to wipe the grime off my face and hands. I perch on a footstool and grab a mug of tea but I don’t drink it, just watch the steam curl up.
“You heard something,” says Saga, reading me easily. “Out with it, Bryn.” She’s carving a new knife handle, shavings falling off onto the floor.
Vil offers me a plate of food, but I shake my head and he sinks back into his chair.
I give my report while Saga’s carving takes shape: It’s another sun design, every ray hung with a smaller star. We are all of us longing for the light again, I think, though we are a single day into Gods’ Fall. The winter will be long.
I tell them about my conversation with Aelia first, which makes Vil go tense and grim—he hadn’t reckoned on having to ward off an imperial invasion quite so soon. Saga just frowns and carves faster.
Then I take a bracing breath and tell them about Kallias’s discussion with his engineer.
Vil’s whole demeanor changes. He goes tense and jumpy, jiggling his knee and glancing at his sister nervously. I think about his staunch dismissal of the subject when it was brought up on the journey here and realize he hasn’t been wholly forthcoming about his plans in Tenebris.
Saga puts down her carving knife, brows bent together. “The Iljaria weapon from the stories—it really exists? Kallias truly believes he can find it?”
Vil grimaces and Saga watches him warily.
“It sounds like he’s been digging for years,” I say. “And two years ago, they hit a glowing vein.”
“A glowingvein?” Saga’s mouth drops open.
“Why didn’t youtellme howclosehe was?” Vil demands of me.
I stare at Vil, hurt pulsing sharp in my chest. His sudden intensity makes me wary, or maybe it’s my nascent perception that perhaps he’s not quite as steady or as safe as I thought.
“That was the night I escaped,” I tell him, “the night I dragged your sister and her broken foot out of Kallias’s clutches, through a blizzard, and into the tunnels. AndthenI was struggling to keep the both of us alive while battlingcave demons—so forgive me if mythical weapons and glowing veins went right out of my head.”
Vil swears at me. “This changeseverything, Brynja. How can you not understand that?”
I jerk up from my seat, temper flaring, and swear right back at him. “It would have been nice if you’d bothered totell us your entire planbefore dragging us on this godsdamned mission!”
“Whatchanges everything?” Saga demands. “What didn’t you tell us, Vil? Whatisthis weapon?”
I flick my eyes to her. “The stories don’t say what it is. But if the Iljaria feared it enough to bury, it must be capable of horrific destruction.”
Vil shakes his head, a feverish light in his eyes. “The Iljaria hid the weapon away because they rejected its power, not because they feared it. They couldn’t bear the thought of us Skaandans—the people who were once their kinsmen!—becoming as strong as them.”
Saga wheels on him. “You seem to have quite determined opinions about something that’s supposed to be astory.”
He flicks her a guilty look. “The weapon must have the power to change the fate of the entire peninsula—why else would the Iljaria bury it?—and I mean to be the one to wield it. Not Kallias. Not Aerona. Me.”
Unease ties me in knots. “Vil—” I start.
Saga stabs her carving knife deep into the table, making both Vil and me jump. “What. The.Hell, Vil!” she cries. “Were you even going totellme about the weapon before you had it in your hands?”
“I can explain.”
She squares her jaw. “Then explain.”
My stomach churns. I don’t like this side of Vil. It makes me think of how he was out on the plain, ordering Indridi’s execution, and it scares me.
“I’m sorry, Saga. I wasn’t keeping you in the dark on purpose—or at least not maliciously. I needed to find evidence that the weapon really and truly existed before hanging all our hopes on it. Now we have it.”
Saga scowls at her brother. “I am the crown princess of Skaanda, Vilhjalmur Stjörnu. You don’t get to decide what I do and don’t need to know.”
