“Where did you get this?” he asks.
“No. You first.”
“Aten. This is no time to play games. Tell me.” His voice hardens, reminding me of the first time in the hall when we met.
“Who the fuck are they, and why are they here?”
Still, Orion holds his tongue.
Ten takes a steadying breath. “Two of them were inside the cells. They attacked Ever.”
For a split second, I see concern when he looks at his son, but he masks it well, and it’s gone in an instant when he sweeps his attention to me. “Inside The Court. The Tower?” he clarifies.
“Two. One of them got away.”
“You let one escape?” The accusation explodes from him.
“How did they get inside her fucking cell in the first place?” Ten shouts right back, and the ferocity in his voice sends chills down my spine. He’s angry because they came to hurtme.
They stand off against each other, neither wanting to give an inch or any kind of answer.
And then Orion slumps, almost dropping into the winged-back chair next to the table. “This isn’t Sunatora. Nor Nehandun. Or at least, it isn’t them officially, not from our information.”
“Then who? Who would carry the mark of Novandia and attack?”
“Novandia?”I ask Ten.
“A sun etched onto the silver disk, which I took off his shirt. Any symbol of the sun links back to the God.”
I nod and then turn to look at the rest of the office as Orion debates what or how much information to divulge to us, and I see a different side to the Kirrasia that’s been presented to me so far.
Maps with positions, flags, arrows, and pinned papers cover the wall near the door, and Orion’s desk is scattered with further information. All of it paints a very different picture to what the lessons have taught me about peace. I asked Kyra about the army, and I see it now. The Court and the people here might be peaceful, but what else is happening outside the borders? I’m learning all of this for the first time—learning a whole entire history of a world I didn’t know existed—and I can’t make the information line up. Are we being granted only the information provided at the discretion of the Orders to keep the peace? Or am I reading far too much into everything, and this is just what the head of the Warrior Order’s office should look like?
“You emptied The Court and sent the Warriors to reinforce the western defence because that’s where the alarm came from. I saw the movements. But what if that was a distraction?” Ten asks his father.
“A distraction?”
“Two men were in Ever’s cell. They took her pendant, so clearly meant to do her harm or, at the very least, incapacitate her. One is now dead. The other fled.” Ten’s voice is icy calm.
“He’ll be captured.” Orion’s voice is confident, but I have to stifle my scoff.
“You need to reinforce The Chamber quarters and Tower,” Ten tells his father.
“You don’t give me orders?—”
“They had a key.” I stop what is sure to be another argument. “I didn’t know who they were when they came to the door. I don’t recognise anyone outside of training, really. Kyra came to tell me that there was an attack but seemed so at ease about it that I didn’t worry. She called it a skirmish.”
“She had confidence in us at least and thought you’d be safe locked away,” Ten reassures me. “You can’t say he’ll be captured, given he made it all the way to Ever without being stopped and that he had a fucking key. He had help.” Ten turns his attention back to his father.
“This is Warrior business, Aten. Go and check on your mother until it’s safe to go back to the training residence.”
“Don’t dismiss this. Stop keeping secrets. Why would they want Ever? What did they want with her?”
“Not everything is a conspiracy, Aten. We are an enviable force which many covet. Surely you understand that.”
“Of course I do. But you just said it wasn’t Sunatora or Nehandun. What else happened in the attack?” His father’s face reddens at the stream of questions.
“Enough!”
