Page 97 of While the Dark Remains
I stare at him, my heart slamming against my breastbone. “The Iljaria? What are they doing here?”
He shakes his head, grim. “That’s not even the worst part. It isn’t just any ambassador.”
Breathe,I tell myself firmly.Breathe.
“It’s the Prism Master.”
“It still bothers you, doesn’t it,” says Vil quietly as we pace together down the corridor, a change in the air.
My heart beats, beats. The Iljaria are here. The Prism Master ishere. Kallias is to formally receive him in the great hall, with all of us present. We barely had time to change, and I’m pretty sure I’m still dusty from the vents.
I have to fight for enough presence of mind to reply to Vil. “What does?”
“Indridi’s death. The fact that I was going to take her life, before she took it herself.”
Her face blurs in my memory, stained with fire and dust. For a moment it shakes everything else free. I answer him honestly. “It will always bother me, Vil. She was my friend.”
He nods unhappily. “I know it’s been ... a lot. What happened on the road. The awfulness of being here again. I haven’t been fair to you lately, and I’m sorry. But I haven’t forgotten what was forged between us in Skaanda, and I want you to know—Ineedyou to know—thatIneed you. I want you by my side, through everything.”
I stare at Vil and I feel nothing; I am utterly blank. What I saw in him as protection was his need for control, to have everything in its right and proper place, including me. But that is not what I want, not what I long for, even though I thought it was for a while. Gods above and below, I can’t do this. “Not now, Vil. Please.”
He takes a breath. “You’re right. Forgive me. But we’ll talk later?”
I try to smile, but it feels like all of me is fracturing apart.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Vil goes on, anxious to reassure me. “The Prism Master being here doesn’t change our plans.”
“How can it not?” I bunch the fabric of my bronze dress in one hand, hating that I’m wearing the colors of the mutilated god. It’s better, though, than going to meet the Prism Master wearing the multicolored dress, which was Saga’s first idea. She thought it would honor him, but it would be the worst kind of arrogance.
“The Prism Master is here for a reason,” I say quietly. “And I think we can both guess what that reason is.”
“The weapon,” he sighs.
“The weapon.”
Vil massages his forehead. “But why now, after all this time? What can he even be planning to do? Unless it’s about us. Unless Indridi got word to them somehow before she—” He cuts himself off. “Red God damn me.”
Pity and grief twist sharp. “And why wouldn’t she have?” I say tightly. “She was the enemy. Isn’t that whatyousaid?”
“And we’re about to meet the man who sent her to spy on us. But why now? It’s been hundreds of years since the Iljaria lived in this mountain.”
“The Prism Master is hundreds of years old himself, isn’t he? The Iljaria can afford to be patient.”
“I always forget how long they live. I always forget that they’re essentially different creatures than us.”
Something vicious and feral rears up inside me. “Was Indridi a differentcreature, Vil?”
He hangs his head and doesn’t answer.
I don’t want to talk about Indridi anymore, or the Prism Master, either.Be calm,I tell myself.Be still.I grasp for something else to say. “What doyouplan to do with the weapon, Vil? When you rule Daeros.”
He clenches and unclenches his jaw. “Rule justly. I would never seize Skaanda from Saga—I hope you know that. Daeros would truly be an extension of Skaanda. I would still be under Saga’s rule.”
“Does that bother you?”
“A little,” he admits. “But I would be content, I think, with Daeros.”
“The weapon, Vil.”
