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Chapter Nine

Daeros—Tenebris

I suffer through dinner, forcing myself to choke down as much of the rich food as I can.

Kallias has rearranged the seating so that Aelia is on his right and Vil on his left, with me beside Vil.

Zopyros, Alcaeus, and Theron are seated farther down, along with Pelagia, Kallias’s other Daerosian wife.

She’s heavily pregnant and looks miserable, barely picking at her food.

Lysandra isn’t here; she must have done something to offend her father, or is trying to punish him by not attending, unaware or refusing to believe that he simply does not care about her at all.

The rest of the Daerosian nobles have arrived, and all are in attendance: the governors of the four largest cities, the overseers of the mines and the greenhouses, and the head arborist, who reportedly regulates the logging of the ancient forest inside Skógur City.

They are all men except for Lady Eudocia, governor of the Bone City, and the arborist, Lady Thais.

As we dine, Kallias looks at me far too much, and I have the uncomfortable realization that he can’t be any older than forty, if even that, far younger than I perceived as a child. Kallias would have been scarcely older than I am now when Ballast was born.

Ballast isn’t here, I tell myself, and once more shove the thought of him away.

Dinner doesn’t take as long as last night, thank gods.

The sun is just rising as we finish, and we all leave the table and follow the beckoning attendants down the corridor toward the great hall.

My skirts whisper across the cold floor in a riot of blue and silver silk; a red velvet half cape lined with thick fur weighs warm on my shoulders.

I’m wearing the headdress again, comforted by the presence of the hidden blade even though I can’t use it tonight.

I step through the double doors of the great hall with Vil beside me. The room seems smaller than it used to, and tears prick unbidden at my eyes. I have to fight to keep from looking up at my iron cage suspended from the ceiling.

Vil looks. “Black God’s bastard ,” he curses.

I gnaw on my cheek, hard enough to taste blood. Vil’s shocked anger on my behalf eases something inside me, like his witnessing the shadow of my trauma legitimizes it in my own estimation.

I try not to look for the other cages, scattered around the edges of the room, but I can’t help it. I see Saga’s orange trees, and the spot on the floor where Hilf once lay in a widening pool of blood. I blink furiously. Don’t cry, Brynja! I shout at myself.

Vil grips my arm, lending me strength, pulling me out of my nightmares and into the present.

Chairs have been set up in a semicircle facing the glass wall.

Light refracts blindingly through the glass, the sun having already reached its zenith.

It gilds the whole room in liquid gold. I’m thrown back to last year, and so many years before, watching this same scene play out from above, stretching to prepare for my performance.

If Vil were not beside me, I would bolt from the room. We don’t go and sit down, not yet, just stand off to the side watching everyone else come in.

Pelagia enters, hands clutching her belly, and takes a seat. Two of Kallias’s other wives, Elpis and Unnur, sit beside her. There is still no sign of Gulla, and I try to push my worry for her away, but it remains, gnawing at me.

Kallias’s children parade in: Zopyros, Theron, Alcaeus, and Lysandra, then thirteen-year-old Rhode and eight-year-old Xenia, Pelagia’s daughters. Rhode holds tight to Xenia’s hand. The elder four sit in the front row, with the younger two by their mother.

Kallias’s general, steward, and engineer enter and take their seats, along with the Daerosian nobles.

Princess Aelia sweeps in with Talan, and Vil turns to greet her.

They exchange pleasantries, but I can’t concentrate on their words, thinking of Aelia as a child, angry and fierce, swearing to free us all when she was grown.

Why is she here, now, of all times? Did she really mean what she said back then?

An attendant offers me a glass of wine and I grab one, taking a too-hasty sip. It’s so strong I nearly choke.

“Princess Astridur,” says a smooth voice at my elbow.

I jump and the glass falls from my hand, shattering on the stone floor as the red liquid leaks out. I stare at it, trapped in the horror of Hilf’s death and Ballast’s bloody footprints.

Kallias watches me, bemused, his white fur cloak heavy with diamonds. “I did not mean to startle you.”

I look at him, and I don’t understand how he is so ... so very human. So very mortal. A monster cannot become a man, but a man can become a monster, and perhaps that’s what makes humanity so frightening: You cannot tell, just by looking, who is monstrous, and who is not.

“Do come and sit with me, Princess,” Kallias insists, taking my hand in his and drawing me forward.

I throw a panicked look at Vil, who is still conversing with Aelia and somehow hasn’t noticed the king’s arrival.

Kallias’s hand is warm, and it unsettles me. He leads me through the half circle of chairs to the front row, and gestures for me to take the seat next to his. I do because I don’t know how to not , and my panic subsides a little when Vil sinks into the chair on my right. He did notice, after all.

Kallias sits and rests his hand on my knee. I want to throw it off. I want to claw his eyes out. I want to hurl him through the glass wall and down into the Sea of Bones. But I just sit here, tense and nauseated, and do nothing.

“I am very glad you were chosen as an ambassador,” says Kallias, content as a lion after a successful hunt. “I look forward to knowing you better over the next three months.”

“I imagine,” I choke out, “we will be much occupied revising the treaty.”

He settles deeper into his seat. His hand does not leave my knee. “I am sure we shall. But that will not take up the whole of every day.” His free hand touches my cheek, and I recoil. He laughs, tugging on one of my short curls. “I will do my best to make you feel at ease here, my dear princess.”

I’m caught in a nightmare, and I don’t know how to wake up.

“Look,” says Vil on the other side of me.

Outside the glass the sun sinks into the glacier valley. Gods’ Fall is almost here.

Kallias momentarily lets go of my knee to clap his hands for the ceremony to begin.

A dozen children approach the waiting crowd: the majority of the king’s Collection.

I recognize most of them, including Finnur, the Iljaria boy with Prism magic, but a few are new since I escaped.

The youngest is five or so, a tiny, pale-skinned Daerosian girl with enormous eyes.

Finnur is probably the oldest at about fifteen.

All the children are barefoot, clothed in thin robes of a shapeless gray.

I can’t bear to look at them. I turn my eyes to the Sea of Bones.

Kallias snaps his fingers, and the children burst into song, their voices echoing all the way up to the domed ceiling. They sing an old, old hymn in haunting counterpoint that makes my blood freeze: a hymn of rebellion against the tyranny of kings, a hymn of supplication to the gods.

I am stunned into looking over at the children again.

They sing with their eyes shut, all holding hands.

There is power in their voices, in the ancient song that is clearly not the one they were commanded to perform.

Magic shimmers around Finnur’s body, colorful sparks glowing in his white hair like embers.

The onlookers shift in their seats, some uncomfortable with the display, others uncertain as to whether this is actually the intended entertainment. Nicanor blanches paler than ice, and Kallias’s little daughter Xenia cries quietly into her sister Rhode’s shoulder.

Kallias, momentarily stunned, jerks up from his chair. “Cease!” he barks.

But the children only sing louder, and the sun chooses that moment to drop below the horizon.

“ I Said Cease !” Kallias cries.

The hymn wavers, stops, and the children peer at Kallias. I feel their fear—but also their triumph. He will punish them for their defiance. He might even kill a few.

I’m consumed by a deep, overwhelming shame.

I never stood up to Kallias like that. I could have driven a knife into his heart while he slept.

I could have spat in his face when he told me to amaze him.

I could have freed the whole Collection, if I’d been brave enough.

But I wasn’t. And I can’t help but think sometimes that these children are still here, still suffering, because of me.

Saga tells me that isn’t true, that I was myself a powerless child, trapped in circumstance as well as a literal cage.

But in moments like these, I don’t believe her.

Nicanor and a half dozen attendants appear out of nowhere and seize the children, jerking them back into the shadows. They won’t be punished yet. Not until after the hall is cleared. My hand reaches up to my headdress, fingers tracing the tiny latch that will release the hidden blade.

“It’s going to be okay,” Vil says, low in my ear. “Trust me.”

I bite my cheek, hard, and bring my hand down to my lap again. No stabbing.

Kallias flops back into his chair, whole body tight with barely concealed rage.

But his tone is level when he leans toward me and says, “The rest of the performances will be more to your liking, Your Highness. The children truly are remarkable, you know, and so grateful to me for taking them in, caring for them out of my own pocket and the goodness of my heart. They were orphans before they came here. They would be living penniless on the streets if not for me.”

I try to smile at his lies as my stomach twists, and I sit here, sit here, damned to a hell of my own making. Not even Vil’s warm and steady presence has the power to comfort me.