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Chapter Eleven

Daeros—Tenebris

Saga isn’t there when I wake, bleary-eyed, to the smell of sausages and tea. A lantern glows orange on the table, and Pala watches from her post at the door.

Fear grabs me. “Where’s Saga?” I ask.

“Down in the kitchens,” Pala replies mildly, though the crease between her brows tells me she’s not happy about it.

“Vil told her to stay in the room. She’ll be caught.”

Pala shrugs. “Her Highness is not exceptionally pleased with her brother right now, and in any case, she claims it would be more suspicious if she never mingled with the other attendants.”

Saga’s still angry that Vil didn’t tell her about the weapon, then. Not that I blame her. I’m not especially happy with him right now, either. I sigh and sit down to breakfast, trying to shake the remnants of the awful dream from my mind.

Saga comes back in time to help me dress for the treaty meeting, her eyes bright and fierce, but I wave off her choice of gown. “I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“Perfect time to scout, with everyone of any importance shut in the council room for at least an hour.”

Saga makes a face. “Fine. I’ll send word that you’re not feeling well. I guess I didn’t need to be back so soon, then.”

For a moment I study her, noticing fresh, dark earth on the hem of her dress. I wonder why she lied to Pala about going to the kitchens. I wonder where she went instead.

Scouting proves fairly fruitless. I briefly search Kallias’s receiving rooms, and the guest suites of all the visiting nobility, finding nothing of note beyond a detailed record of Basileious’s drilling into the mountain.

There’s over a decade of accounts that I’d like to read through, but I don’t dare take the book with me—it would be too quickly missed.

After a quick perusal, I slip back into the vent.

I don’t mean to take the path to the great hall—or maybe I do, my dream haunting me, Saga’s words stuck deep in my mind. They deserve hope, Brynja. Gods know that’s what I needed, for eight long years.

I spend a while staring out of the vent above the time-glass before gathering enough courage to jump down into the echoing room.

Above me, I hear the ghost of myself shifting in her dangling cage, but I’m not ready, yet, to face her.

I go to Saga’s cage, first, the one bordered with orange trees.

A Daerosian girl of perhaps twelve sleeps on the floor behind the glass bars, but she lifts her head as I approach.

She has dark eyes and pale skin, and her blond hair hangs straight to her waist. She scoots to a sitting position as she blinks out at me, tense and trembling.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, agony tightening my throat. “I wanted to tell you that ... we’re here to save you. My friends and I. Not yet, you must wait still a little longer, but when Gods’ Fall is over, when the sun rises again—then it will be time. So have courage. Have hope.”

Tears brim in the girl’s eyes. I’m not sure she believes me.

“What’s your name?” I ask her quietly.

“Gaiana, my lady.”

“Have courage, Gaiana. I will come to see you again, to help you bear the long winter night. All right?”

She nods, chewing on her lip. She turns her head away so I can’t see her crying.

I go on this way around the room, telling every child I meet that they are not forgotten.

That in a few short months, they will be free.

I meet dark-haired Pór, a Skaandan cellist who has even more freckles than I do.

He’s ten and so, so far from home. I speak with Finnur, who is shut fast in an iron cage, his deep-brown skin a sickly gray.

It’s the iron, dampening his magic, making him ill.

I tell him he’ll be free soon. Free to flourish and to grow and to be , like the tree he made with his Prism magic that yet stands shimmering in the great hall.

I don’t rush around the room, though the treaty meeting must be over now, and there’s a chance someone might come into the great hall and find me here. I can’t bear to leave without speaking to everyone.

My old cage is one of the last that I visit, climbing up the chain and crouching outside the bars, the new acrobat looking out at me, her eyes hard.

“Who are you?” she demands.

Anger seethes out of her. Hatred and bitterness and despair.

The breath freezes in my lungs; words stick in my throat. I force them out anyway. “I’m you. You’re me. I was—” I fight to breathe, furiously blinking back tears. “I was Kallias’s acrobat, before he took you.”

Her jaw hardens. “You’re a fool, then. To come back.”

“I’m here to save you. To save all of you.”

“If that’s true, let me out of this cage.”

“I can’t. Not yet. Not till the end of Gods’ Fall. I just wanted you to know that there is an end in sight. I wanted to give you hope.”

She curses at me. “I don’t want hope or empty promises. Get the hell out of my face.”

I don’t move, staring her down. “What’s your name?”

She folds her arms across her chest. Her chin wobbles. “Rute.”

“I’m Brynja,” I tell her. “And I swear to you, I’m going to get you out of here. In the meantime—”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Don’t fall.”

She curses at me again, more vehemently than before. I shimmy back down the chain, my head wheeling.

I visit the last few children and come to another iron cage at the very back of the room. My heart seizes. Gulla’s inside.

She lifts her head at my approach, and her appearance rattles me. There are scars on her face that weren’t there two years ago; she looks impossibly weary.

Brynja, she says in her finger speech.

“You know me,” I reply quietly.

She smiles. The shape of your body has changed. You are older and healthier. You’ve covered your freckles; you’ve grown out your hair. She traces her fingers along her scalp. But yes. Of course I know you.

I press one palm against the bars of her cage. “What has he done to you?”

Made me again what I once was: part of his Collection. But do not worry, Brynja. I am well.

I grimace, touching my cheek where hers is scarred. “He hurt you.”

She averts her eyes. He was angry when my son did not come back. When I made a fruitless attempt to follow him.

Ballast’s image plays out behind my eyelids, his black-and-white hair painted orange in the light of the torch he holds, his shoulders strong against the dark of the caves.

“I saw him,” I whisper, gripping the bars and leaning closer.

“When I escaped, I saw him, and he was—he was well. He spoke of you. He missed you.”

Her forehead creases. She shakes her head. He has become too much like his father, desiring only power.

My heart jumps into my throat. “What do you mean, Gulla? Have you seen him? Did he come back? Where is he now?” I am wild with sudden hope or sudden horror; I’m not sure which.

But Gulla turns away. She says nothing more, and I am left without any answers to the questions that pound against my skull.

Saga’s gone again when I slip back into our room, as is Pala.

I’m restless on my own, impatient. I wash in the sunken bath, but I can’t scrub away the torment of the children, my desperation to free them now , not in three months.

But with Tenebris still under Kallias’s control, where would they go?

Vil and I would be suspected and treaty negotiations cut off.

The Skaandan army would be stuck marching their slow way through the tunnels, leaving Daeros free to sweep into Skaanda and take it unhindered. No. I have to wait.

Saga returns as I’m stepping out of the bath, and she avoids my eyes when I ask her where she’s been, though she’s glad when I tell her I finally went to visit the great hall.

I’m expected at dinner tonight. Saga hurries me into a violet gown trimmed with fur, then threads strands of tiny working clocks into my curls. The whole ensemble is meant to evoke the Violet God—the god of time.

Vil comes to collect me at the thirteenth hour, and he looks in unhappily at Saga, who refuses to speak to him, still upset about him keeping the existence of the Iljaria weapon from her, and shoves me unceremoniously out into the hall.

I pace with Vil down the corridor, my arm tucked into his. Whatever weirdness has arisen between us on the subject of the Iljaria weapon, we are allies in this place. We have to be. I try not to let Saga’s unhappiness gnaw at me, and I vow to speak with her in earnest after dinner.

Right now I need to speak with Vil. “It doesn’t change anything, does it?” I ask him in an undertone. “What we ... discussed last night?” I’m being purposely vague in case the attendants are listening.

His dark eyes lock on mine. “No. Of course not.”

There is gold powder brushed across his temples, like he’s a gilded thing one ought not to touch. He smells of citrus and cedar.

He takes a breath. “I shouldn’t have kept it from either of you. And I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. I’m sorry.”

His pulse flutters in his wrist beneath my fingertips.

“Can you still trust me?” he says quietly.

“Yes,” I tell him. But this time, I’m not quite sure it’s true.

We walk a few paces more in silence. “How were negotiations this morning?” I ask then.

“An absolute joke. Kallias made his general push for us to relinquish practically all of Skaanda while he laughed at me behind his wineglass. Thank gods the Daerosian governors were there—they spoke earnestly, at least, and seemed grateful for the food coming from Skaanda.”

I nod. As a gesture of Skaanda’s good faith in pursuing true peace with Daeros, Vil preemptively ordered a shipment of food from Staltoria City that was only a few days behind us on the road, and should arrive very soon.

“I’ve set up meetings with each of the governors in the coming week—if I can win even a few of them over, it will help a lot toward our goal.”

A peaceful transition of power, I think. Is it truly possible? Saga doesn’t think so. Unease blooms in my gut.