Page 28

Is that a snake in your trousers, my mother had scribbled just above the chapter heading, her handwriting small and perfectly regular,or are you just happy to see me?

I allowed myself a few moments of hysterical giggling before I scraped myself together enough to browse on.

There was an odd comfort to it, reading her words in her own writing – as close as I had ever come to hearing her voice. She showed up on nearly every page, highlighting arguments, rebuking Agenor’s half-hearted attempts to defend the Mother’s policies. At times it almost seemed I could hear her behind those ink scribbles, dryly amused and yet so fiercely protective of her ideals and opinions.

Where are you?I’d whispered at the parchment more than once in the silence of my room, when not even Creon could hear me.Why aren’t you coming back?Because it had been months since the battle at the Golden Court, months since the news of Agenor’s turn against the empire had spread like wildfire over the archipelago, and still my mother had not given a sign of life.

Why?

At times, Phyron wrote,the wishes of the individual must be secondary to the interests of the collective to which they belong.

Allie had underlined the last words of that sentence and commented,Note: since humanity does NOT belong to the collective whose interests are prioritised, this is a lousy argument to discredit our wish not to starve to death.

I let out an accidental snort of approval.

A knock on the door interrupted my reading. With a sting of regret, I shoved theTreatisesback onto the book pile; as comforting as it would have been to read my mother’s notes late at night in unfamiliar lands, the small volume was too valuable to risk losing or damaging.

Creon waited for me in the corridor, hair bound back, bag over his shoulder. If he still felt any apprehension towards our travel plans, he hid it well.

Ready?

‘Always,’ I said, quietly enough not to be heard from the living room. Around the corner, Naxi was chattering about her first glimpse of Lyckfort, her high timbre alternating with a deep voice that sounded suspiciously like Agenor’s. ‘Did you hear about Edored?’

Creon shrugged.I’m counting on you to take care of his nose if he gets too annoying.

I laughed, came up on my toes to press the quickest kiss to his cheek, then swiftly jumped back and followed him to the living room. Edored was nowhere to be seen yet, thank the gods. Neither was Beyla, but she must have returned at some point, since it was indeed Agenor who stood discussing travel routes with Lyn and Naxi.

On the other side of the room, Nenya sat quiet and rigid in one of the armchairs, a long velvet travel coat over her shoulders and a full bag in her lap. Next to her, Tared stood frowning at some note – more Council trouble, perhaps? I decided not to ask. He looked displeased enough already.

‘Oh, I would definitely aim for Zera’s temple,’ I heard Agenor say as I walked in behind Creon, in that pleasant yet confident tone that somehow removed all room for objection from the discussion. ‘I did consider whether Inika might be helpful, too, but you should keep in mind …’

Biting back a grin, I turned to Creon. He’d morphed into the Silent Death the moment we stepped into the room – the laughter wrinkles around his eyes gone, the truth of his thoughts hidden behind a smile like frostbite. His shoulders hadn'ttensed, exactly, but his languid stance against the doorpost was no longer the unhurried confidence of a male perfectly at home in his surroundings. Rather, it had become that of a male who knew he could kill every single person in the room with as little as a flick of his fingers.

I lost track of what I’d been about to say for a heartbeat as every thought in my mind abruptly swirled back to the memory of those same fingers between my legs.

His smile grew too meaningful.

Thank the gods for Edored’s sudden appearance the next moment, because at least his arrival was enough to protect me from whatever stupidity I might have committed in full view of the family. He barged into the room with a loud, ‘Morning, Nosebreaker— Oh, Nen!’

When I whipped around, cursing the easy bait of my far too pleasant memories, the alf had already bounced towards Nenya, like a loyal dog brightening at his master’s return. His earlier fury seemed forgotten. ‘Didn’t know you’d be coming too!’

‘She’s not—’ Tared started without looking up from his note.

‘I’ll be off to Gar Temen in a moment,’ Nenya stiffly interrupted, her face even paler than usual. ‘Just waiting for Valdora to fade me to Rhudak.’

In the resulting silence, I heard Lyn say something about the poorly accessible terrain of Zera’s woods, and wouldn’t it be more practical to go looking for a goddess living near the coast?

‘You’re going toGar Temen?’ Edored repeated, and if Nenya had just called him a dishonourable coward, he couldn’t have looked any more bewildered.

Tared finally folded his note into his pocket, sent Creon a glare that told me Agenor’s revelations had indeed done little to placate him, and turned towards his cousin. ‘Bakaru is causing trouble among the vampire kings. Someone needs to have a word with him.’

‘What in hell?’ By Edored’s wide-eyed shock, I could have believed the reveal of Nenya’s travel plans was some deadly betrayal. ‘Why did no one tell me about this?’

‘You were sleeping off the mead when we discussed it, arsehole,’ Nenya said, but the sting in her voice was a dull one, and the stiffening of her shoulders was a weak imitation of her usual straight-backed posture. ‘Didn’t think you’d be terribly interested.’

‘Orin’s fucking eye, Nen,’ Edored sputtered, kicking his bag aside as he crashed onto the nearest bench. ‘I could have made you a couple of nice wooden stakes if I’d known …’

‘Woodenstakes?’ Her voice shot up.