“Come again soon, Brynja,” he says. “I want to know if they work.”
I promise that I will, and he ducks his head and goes back to folding.
I shimmy up the wall to the heating vent and make the mistake of looking over at my old cage. Rute watches me, wrath in her eyes. “You’re no better thanhim,” she spits out, “using a child to do a trick for you and then locking him away again.”
Her voice echoes overloud in the arched room. I have no answer for her. I crawl away, cursing at myself to stop crying, but by the time I’m down in the depths of the mountain again, my cheeks are stiff with salt.
I have spied down here often enough now to know there is the briefest period of time between shifts when the digging site is unattended—when one pair of workers leaves with a cart of broken tools, and another pair comes with a cart of fresh ones. A few minutes, no more.
It’s the only chance I have to use Finnur’s magic.
I time it badly today, arriving in the tunnel mere moments after a shift begins, and am forced to wait in a narrow crevasse in the rock for hours. When the workers finally leave with their cart, my muscles are screaming from immobility, but I squeeze out of my hiding spot and pace toward the vein.
My heart pounds as I bring Finnur’s stones up to the pulsing magic, fear of discovery making spots dance before my eyes. I press the first stone into the vein and jerk back as my finger touches the glowing blue,choking back a scream. The magic has burned me, a glaring red welt on my skin, and pain skitters, sharp and raging.
I’m more careful with the other stones, holding them in a strip of cloth and keeping my fingers well clear of the vein. The fourth one has just been absorbed when I hear the workers coming, boots and cart wheels loud on the stone.
There isn’t time to flee down the tunnel before I’m seen, so I squeeze back into my hiding place for another long wait.
I get to see the fruits of Finnur’s labor, at least: The pickaxes and drill bits break faster; the hole in the vein has closed up. The workers curse as a fourth axe breaks in as many minutes, and shout down the shaft for assistance. Another worker comes running up, and she’s sent to find Basileious to inform him that there’s been an unexpected delay.
Ballast is in the council chamber when Vil and I arrive, his ribbon and eye patch both a deep forest green. He sits on Kallias’s right, face drawn and tired. There are blisters on his palms because Kallias made him dig in the heart of the mountain again last night, after receiving Basileious’s report of the delay. But not even Ballast could make much of a dent in Finnur’s magic. It wrecks me that his blisters and exhaustion are my fault, that I’m here to undo the hurt Kallias has caused, and all I’ve done so far is add to it.
For his part, Kallias is yawning and drinkingquitea lot of wine for it being only the fourth hour of the day, his chair tilted back and his feet up on the table.
Lord Seleukos and Lady Eudocia are present, but none of the other governors are. Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus are grouped together, with no sign of Lysandra. Aelia and her steward, Talan, sit across from Vil and me, and Aelia greets us with a smile.
Ballast glances over at me and I tense, fixed by his one blue eye. My pulse hammers in my throat, and for half a moment, it feels like we are the only two people in the room.
And then Vil takes my hand in his, and I’m startled back into reality. Ballast looks away.
“Should we begin, Your Majesty?” says Aelia coolly when, after some minutes, Kallias has shown no sign of calling the session to order.
“Ballast,” says Kallias with another yawn. He takes a long swig of wine and turns aside to General Eirenaios and starts telling him about “the girls from last night” in such explicit detail it makes my cheeks heat.
Vil stiffens beside me, and Aelia grows absolutely frigid.
“My father has asked me to lead the meeting this morning,” says Ballast, turning to address the room.
Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus look at Ballast with murder in their eyes, but none of them dare object.
“He wishes us to discuss changes to the borders between Skaanda and Daeros.” Ballast unfolds a map on the table, heroically and doggedly ignoring his father’s ongoing topic of conversation. “We must come to an agreement about the river towns here and here”—he points to each—“as well as the guard posts on the plains, here and here.”
“Skaanda isn’t relinquishinganyof those,” snaps Vil. “There’s not a chance in hell.”
“Every one of them was takenfromDaeros,” Ballast retorts. “Negotiation is give and take. On both sides.”
“Don’t school me in etymology, you one-eyed bastard!”
I grab his arm. “Vil.”
He shuts his mouth.
Ballast’s eye flicks over to me, and I feel sharp and hot with horror. I let go of Vil; his sleeve is rumpled where I gripped him.
For a moment I’m caught in the maelstrom of tension that hangs between the two of them, sucking all the air out of the room and tyingmy stomach in knots. I want to cry and scream and knock their fool heads together.
“I will remind you,” says Ballast coolly, looking at Vil again, “that you are here on my father’s goodwill. It is in your own best interest to be civil.”