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CALLYN

My head feels like it’s full of secrets. Is something happening between the king and Tycho? He helped the queen in Briarlock—but now he’s moved to another part of the palace. The queen hasn’t asked to speak with him, and I know she’s still not speaking to the king. Something has changed, however. There seem to be more guards every time I turn a corner. When I return to the Crystal Palace after my outings with Alek, I spy twice as many guards with crossbows along the roof, too. And while I was seeing King Grey when he came to visit little Sinna in the mornings, days have passed, and I’ve only seen him on the training fields.

Lady Delmetia Calo said they weren’t planning a war, but there’s so much tension here that it pricks at me anytime I walk through the halls. I’ve begun to look forward to my traveling with Alek, just for the chance to escape it.

But visiting the Royal Houses takes time, and I begin to miss my training, sometimes in the morning with Lord Jacob, and more often, the evening sessions with Nolla Verin. After I miss two in a row, a servant brings me a message during dinner that Verin will be waiting in the arena when I finish my meal.

My stomach clenches, and my appetite vanishes. As weird as it is to sit and sip tea with Lord Alek and all the influential people in the Crystal City, it’s been rather nice to go to bed without letting someone break my nose or crack a rib first.

When I reach the arena, Verin isn’t alone. She seems to be engaged in a rather tense match with a dark-haired young soldier wearing Emberfall’s colors. The sound of their swords colliding rings through the space, and this battle seems more brutal than normal. I’ve seen her fight before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her sweat before. Tendrils of hair have come loose from her braids, and they stick to her cheeks. Her opponent is relentless, his dark eyes fierce.

I’ve never seen Verin fight with an Emberish soldier, and it occurs to me that the ruthless nature of this battle might mean something more —that perhaps this is a real fight, not an exercise.

A man speaks from the shadows down near the corner, calling something in Emberish that I can’t understand. To my surprise, it’s Lord Tycho, and he’s casually leaning against the arena railing, watching the match. I haven’t seen him since the day Nora and I ran into him in the hallway.

Verin doesn’t spare him a glance, but she snaps back at him in Syssalah. “I don’t need your help, Tycho.”

It might be the first time I’ve heard her sound frustrated in a fight. I shouldn’t enjoy it, but I do.

I walk along the railing to where Tycho is standing, and he glances over. “Callyn,” he says in surprise.

“She’s going to do that to me next,” I say. “I just won’t be able to get up.”

He winces. “That bad?”

I shrug and lean against the railing beside him to watch. “Usually.”

“I’ve seen you on the field with the recruits a few times,” he says. “You move really well. It’s just a matter of time before you can do that.” He nods at the battle in front of us, where the Emberish soldier deflects one of Verin’s blows, then gets inside her left guard to drive a fist into the vulnerable spot at her waist, right below her armor. She falters, recoiling, and she’s fast enough to get out of his way—but barely. They break apart, both breathing hard.

Tycho calls something else in Emberish, and the soldier surges forward, blade raised.

“Stop helping!” Verin snaps, and Tycho laughs under his breath.

“What did you say?” I ask him.

“I told Mal not to let her recover too long. Earlier, I told her to stop dropping her left guard. You saw she didn’t listen.”

His words are so casual, but they’re sparking emotion in my chest, and it takes a moment for me to figure out why. For all the time I’ve spent in the arena or on the fields, no one has ever spoken to me with this kind of . . . ?solidarity before. Like I’m just another soldier. I’ve always been my mother’s daughter, left behind to run the bakery, or Nora’s big sister, left with too much responsibility. Or to hear Verin tell it, little Sinna’s nanny, lacking in determination and grit.

But here’s Tycho, saying things like, You move really well and You saw she didn’t listen , like it’s nothing.

The swords clash hard, and the Emberish soldier swears, then redoubles his attacks. Tycho winces again.

“Does he hate her?” I say.

He snorts. “Malin? No. He’s practically in love with her.” I make a face before I can stop myself, and Tycho bursts out laughing. “ You’re clearly not,” he adds.

“Out of here!” Verin snaps. “No more distractions.”

Tycho sobers, tilting his head toward the open doorway that leads to the training fields. “Come on,” he says to me.

The night air is cool when we step outside, and I inhale deeply. I thought it might be easier to step away from Verin and the fight, but as soon as we’re under the stars, I remember all my secrets—and all the ones Tycho surely carries as well. There’s a reason the queen hasn’t seen him.

As if he realizes the same thing, he says, “I probably shouldn’t be alone with you. People will talk, and I’m still in enough trouble.”

That takes me by surprise. “Why are you in trouble?”

He draws a long breath—then lets it out heavily. “It doesn’t matter.”

More secrets. I frown. “We always heard gossip around the bakery,” I say, “and Jax had a fair bit from travelers through the forge, but I didn’t realize it would be like this when we got here.”

“Court gossip is the worst ,” he agrees. He’s quiet for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is low. “How is Lia Mara?”

I press my lips together, because I’m not sure how much I should say—or how much I’m allowed to say.

When I’m silent, he sighs. “That bad, huh?”

This is so complicated, and I hate it. I turn to face him. “Are you asking for yourself, or are you asking for the king?”

His eyebrows go up. “So it’s really bad.”

It’s my turn to let out a sigh. “She’s just . . . ?she’s so sad.”

“So is he.”

I look at Tycho in surprise, and he shrugs a little, staring out at the night. “Not that Grey is talking to me,” he adds, and there’s a hint of regret to his tone. “But I’ve known him a long time. I can tell.”

Tycho is sad, too. I can hear it in his voice. It’s all so jarring to consider. The queen stood in that window and talked about Tycho being an ally to the king, but I hadn’t considered that he would be seeing the king’s pain, the same way I see the queen’s. Alek and the nobles keep talking about war and threats to the queen, but they don’t see this side of it.

I peer at him. “Why isn’t he talking to you?”

For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer, that we’re both going to be buried under these secrets. But he eventually turns away from the night to look at me. “I don’t really know,” he says, and the words are so earnest that I can tell he believes them. “I know he’s mad at me for some of what happened.” Tycho hesitates. “But the more time that passes, the more I’m beginning to think he’s really just mad at himself . And maybe that’s too painful to consider right now.”

As soon as he says it, I’m struck by a memory of the king once saying something similar about Verin. How she couldn’t protect the queen herself, so she was taking out her anger in other ways.

Is Verin doing the same thing? Tormenting me because she can’t control anything else? Am I considering the queen’s sister a potential traitor when she’s really in just as much pain as they are?

Is that why the queen is entertaining the Truthbringers? Controlling something she can , because she regrets so much of what she can’t?

“I’ll tell her,” I say softly, wondering if that’s the right choice. “I’ll tell her that he’s sad.”

Tycho glances at me, and I can read the concern in his eyes. “I’ll tell him, too.”

“Do you think it’ll make a difference?”

He’s quiet for a little while, considering that. “There was a time when I would’ve said yes. But right now . . . ?I don’t know.”

I swallow. “I don’t know either.”

Then we both fall silent, because we’ve veered too close to secrets. Somehow, I’ve grown to be an ally to the queen, and it’s obvious that his loyalty is to the king—despite the tension I sense between them. But this silence isn’t strained. It’s odd to stand here with him, but comforting, too. Comforting to know I’m not the only one struggling with all the tension in the palace. And to know I’m not the only one who feels like an outsider while still being so tied to everyone who’s in power.

“They’re going to be at it for a while,” Tycho says, interrupting my reverie. He nods at the doors leading to the arena, where his soldier and Verin are still trying to kill each other. “If you came to train, I’ll spar with you.”

“Oh!” I say in surprise. “No. I . . . ?I’m not very good.”

“Sure you are. I’ve seen you.”

That’s said with such candor that I flush. “No, you don’t—”

“Callyn.” He draws his sword. “Please don’t make me go back to staring at the four walls of my quarters.”

I take a deep breath and hope this won’t be as humiliating as when I spar with Verin.

To my surprise, it’s not. It’s hard—harder than I expected, even—but my time running the drills has paid off, and I’m able to deflect and parry and block a lot of his moves. When he comes at me from an angle, I see an opening, draw my dagger, and block with both weapons, trapping his blade.

His eyes light with approval. “You’re better than you think you are.”

The words spark a little glow in my chest. “Thank you. Maybe I just need a training partner who doesn’t hate me.”

His expression twists, and I see a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. “I remember what it was like when I first came here. You don’t have to train with Verin, Callyn.” He hesitates, pulling his sword free. “You can always come find me.”

That’s unexpected—and generous. Before I can say so, a cool wind blows across the fields to make me shiver. For an instant, I think nothing of it, but something in the breeze tugs at my awareness.

Magic.

Beside me, Tycho has gone still as well, and his attention has shifted to look out at the night. His eyes seem faraway, as if he’s listening for something.

I don’t know what he hears, but he nods toward the arena. “We shouldn’t be out on the fields right now. Come on.” He sheaths his sword and starts walking.

I fall into step beside him. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

We’re back to secrets again. “You sound like you do know.”

He doesn’t answer until we’re under cover. “There are too many rumors already, Callyn. I won’t start another one.” He pauses, then looks at me. “But when the air turns cold, get off the fields. It’s the first sign of scravers.”

That sends a chill right down my spine, but just as he says it, the cold breeze swirls away into nothing, almost as if I imagined it. The sword fight in the arena is still going on, but Verin and the Emberish soldier are flushed and panting. To my surprise, the soldier looks a bit victorious, and he says something taunting that makes her face twist in anger.

Then he hooks her blade with a vicious twist of his own, and yanks the sword right out of her hand. Suddenly, Verin is disarmed, and the point of his dagger lands right at the hollow of her throat.

I don’t know him, but I like him already.

Verin looks ready to take his head off. She smacks his arm away and turns to fetch her fallen sword. When she straightens, her eyes find me by the railing.

“Your turn,” she snaps. That chill shoots right back up my spine.

But I consider what Tycho just said about my training—and what he just offered. I consider the fact that Lia Mara said she would intervene if her sister was too rough. She expressed concern at my exhaustion.

She’s never once tried to convince me to keep going.

With a start, I realize that I’ve been thinking the queen expected me to train with her sister—because I believed that my mother would have expected the same thing. But maybe all those expectations are only in my head.

“I’m already done,” I say to her evenly, though my heart is pounding. “I sparred with Lord Tycho because you were busy.”

“You were to train with me .” Her eyes flick to Tycho. “And aren’t you supposed to be locked in your quarters?”

Her voice is so cold it makes me flinch, but Tycho leans against the railing. “Don’t pick a fight with me just because you lost to Mal.”

She scowls, but her eyes return to me. “You aren’t done. You have been skipping our sessions. Perhaps I should tell my sister that you’re lacking in commitment and determination.”

Maybe she thinks that will make me flinch, but mentioning the queen actually gives me strength—because it tells me that I’ve been talking to Queen Lia Mara more than Verin has.

“Go ahead. I didn’t ask you to train me.” My heart is still pounding, but the words come easily. “The queen didn’t even ask you to train me.”

Verin smirks. “Then maybe you should go back to your bakery, where you can return to making sweetcakes all day.”

She says this with such disdain, and maybe among the nobility, these words would have an impact, but I’ve spent my whole life in a tiny town on the edge of nowhere. “Being a baker doesn’t mean I’m weak,” I say. “Maybe you feel like you’re accomplishing something when you make me bleed in the dirt, but you’re fooling yourself. You aren’t solving any problems at all.”

“You being powerless doesn’t solve any problems at all either.”

“I’m not powerless ,” I snap.

The instant I say it, sparks and stars flicker in my blood, almost taking my breath away. The torches around the arena suddenly gutter in a breeze, and Tycho looks around in surprise. His soldier friend has joined him by the railing, and he looks around, too.

“Scravers?” the soldier says, his voice low.

Tycho shakes his head.

But it wasn’t scravers. Not that time. It was me .

I swallow. Verin is staring at me.

I snapped at the queen’s sister. My magic nearly revealed itself.

Maybe it was sparring with Tycho, or maybe I’ve just had enough. But for once, I can’t make myself care. I meant every word. If they send me back to the bakery in Briarlock, I think I really would be happier.

But I don’t think the queen would send me back. I think she’d agree with everything I said to her sister.

“I’ll train with someone else from now on,” I say.

Verin steps right up to me, and for a moment, I think she’s going to leave me in a pile of broken bones for someone to find in the morning. I hold my breath, bracing myself.

But then she smacks a hand on the front of my armor.

“Then go,” she says. “I have no time for your insolence tonight.”

I think of the way I just watched the soldier defeat her. I remember the way Tycho said, It’s just a matter of time before you can do that.

I glance at him. “Thank you for the match,” I say.

“Anytime, Callyn.”

Verin’s scowl deepens. But I give her a nod, then turn and go.