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Chapter Twelve

Daeros—Tenebris

The food shipment from Skaanda arrives before breakfast, three mounded wagons brimming with rice and corn and flour, barrels of beans and stalks of sugarcane, jars of honey and chests of tea.

A group of us comes out to watch the wagons trundling through the great front gates, and I goggle at how much there is—Vil is truly serious about selling this treaty to Kallias and his nobles, and I admire him for it.

For his part, Kallias eyes the shipment with his arms crossed and a hard line between his brows.

His governors seem to be rather more impressed.

Lord Seleukos, who governs Garran City, steps up to Vil and requests a private meeting, as do Lady Eudocia, governor of the Bone City, and Lord Phaedrus, who oversees Kallias’s fields and greenhouses and is in charge of food distribution throughout Daeros.

Vil agrees cordially to each meeting, and I see the tension in his shoulders slowly ease away.

This is what he wanted—everything is going according to plan.

Not to be outdone by this Skaandan show of wealth, Kallias announces that in lieu of negotiations today, Vil and I are to be shown what Daeros has to offer Skaanda, in the event the treaty is eventually signed.

We are to tour the mines, the barracks, and the greenhouse, and then attend the Lantern Festival in Garran City.

We return to our rooms for breakfast, and then Saga gets me ready for the day, though she won’t quite look me in the eye. Ballast’s presence in Tenebris is a thorn between us, and I don’t know how to work it free.

I wear a red gown lined with rabbit fur and a long wool coat that buttons up to my chin and brushes against the tops of my boots.

The coat has a hood in case it snows, but that doesn’t keep Saga from threading silk flowers into my curls.

Foolish, I think, flowers in winter. But I’m not about to deny Saga anything.

Vil meets me in the hall, wearing a similarly long coat, with a bearskin hat embedded with jewels.

I am distantly aware of how handsome he looks, but the thought won’t stick in my brain because I’m too busy wondering if Ballast will join our party today.

Ballast. My head spins, and I fight to calm my jangling nerves.

He’s a problem, says Vil in my mind, tangling with Saga’s voice: What happened in the caves, what you thought he was to you there—it was nothing. It meant nothing.

Gulla’s words are there, too, the memory of her fingers spelling them out in the great hall: He has become too much like his father, desiring only power.

But I think of colorful cards laid out on his bed and his childhood gifts of food and quiet company.

I think of his back to mine, battling monsters in the dark, of his fingers tangled in my newly grown hair and his magic sparking inside me, hot enough to burn.

I think of his conviction and his longing and his grief.

And I can’t believe that he is like his father. I refuse to believe it.

We meet the others at the stables, which are built adjoining the mountain.

Like Vil and I, everyone is dressed warmly against the bitter wind: Kallias, Aelia, Zopyros, Theron, Alcaeus.

Lysandra has managed to garner herself an invitation to this outing, too, her pale face nearly blue with cold under her hood.

Also in attendance are Lords Seleukos, Phaedrus, and Damianus, who oversees the mines, as well as Lady Eudocia.

Leifur is here to accompany me and Vil, and there is also an Aeronan guard and a handful of Daerosian soldiers.

But Ballast isn’t here and I feel his absence keenly, like a blade to the heart.

“Astridur?” says Vil, far too many ears around for him to use my real name. “You all right?”

With an effort, I yank my gaze away from the door that leads into Tenebris and fix Vil with the brightest smile I can manage. “I’m fine, Vil. Just a little cold.”

He grimaces but doesn’t press me further.

I sneak another glance at the door. It remains firmly shut.

Attendants make short work of saddling the horses, and I swing up onto mine, trying not to notice Kallias watching me with glittering eyes.

The soldiers at the head of our company hold torches to light our way through the winter darkness, and they’ve just started moving out when an attendant leads one last horse out of the stable.

My breath catches as the door to the mountain creaks open and Ballast appears, wearing a green and silver coat he hasn’t buttoned. His head is bare, his white-and-black hair dappled in the torchlight. The patch over his eye is tied with a green ribbon.

I’m staring again and I duck my head, struggling to think past my racing heart. Beside me, Vil swears under his breath.

“Bastard can’t be bothered to come on time,” says Zopyros in an overloud voice.

But then Ballast is mounting his horse and we’re all riding two abreast on the road toward the mines, the first stop on our tour.

I struggle to stay present, to keep myself from peering over my shoulder at Ballast, somewhere behind.

Vil rides next to me, his bad mood coiling off him like so much smoke. “Why do you care about him so much?” he asks me shortly.

“I don’t,” I say, but that’s a lie and we both know it. I gnaw on my lip and try to give him a real answer. “We were friends, when we were children. And he saved me. He saved both of us, down in the tunnels. We would be dead a hundred times over, if not for him.”

Vil mutters another curse, and it rankles me.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see him again,” I say quietly.

“Is that supposed to make it better?” Vil demands.

I glance over at him in confusion. “Supposed to make what better?”

He clenches his jaw. “You didn’t think you’d ever see him again. So you settled for me. But now that he’s here, you have no more use for me, do you?”

“ Use for you?” I nearly shout.

Lysandra looks back from her place ahead of us and frowns at my raised voice.

I take long, slow breaths, trying to calm the confused rage pounding behind my temples.

“That isn’t it at all, Vil,” I say then. I can’t quite look at him, so I study his hands, knuckles tight about his reins. “I swear.”

He huffs in disbelief. “Then what is it?”

My heart pulses overloud in my ears, and I fight the urge to glance behind me and find Ballast among the erratic torchlight, desperately wanting to assure myself he’s really there.

“I was shocked to see him. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”

“Then you don’t have feelings for him?”

I’m startled into looking at Vil, the torchlight gleaming on his dark skin.

“Do you have feelings for him?”

Anger stirs behind my breastbone at Vil’s arrogant assumption he has the right to ask me such a question. “We have a mission to complete,” I tell him tightly. “I don’t have time for feelings.”

I’ve hurt him, now, but no part of me wishes to rescind my words, to soothe his ego and assure him that any feelings I do have are for him. Because that isn’t true. I thought I had found family in Vil, safety and security. It was a nice dream. But that’s all it was. A dream.

We don’t speak for the remainder of the half hour it takes to reach the mines, which lie north and a little west of Tenebris.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the vastness of them staggers me, acres upon acres of digging sites, with tunnels spaced out at regular intervals.

Men and women swarm like ants, coming in and out of the mine shafts, hauling carts heaped with ore.

Hundreds of torches illuminate the dark; the smoke stings my eyes and makes me cough into my sleeve.

Lord Damianus, the overseer, leads us down into one of the shafts, where a massive main chamber branches out into a dozen winding tunnels. Metal cart tracks lead into each tunnel, and the mine is lit with more of those lamps that seem to have no fuel source.

A worker comes out of one of the tunnels, pushing a cart along the tracks, and he comes to a startled halt at the sight of us. He looks young, no older than me, but his eyes are haunted.

“Carry on,” snaps Lord Damianus, and the young man bows and trundles his cart past us.

The overseer then launches into a detailed explanation of the types of ore mined in these fields and the amounts garnered each year.

Despite the careful distance Vil has put between us since we arrived, I can tell he’s impressed, and that Daeros is even richer than he thought.

I wonder if he’s already calculating exactly what to do with it all, once he sits crowned in Tenebris.

He is more than capable of making Daeros flourish, but for the first time I wonder if Saga’s accusation is true, if what he really wants is the power he was denied upon her return, and the plot to annex Daeros is his way of getting it.

Our group, for the most part, keeps silent. I can’t help but look for Ballast; he stands a little apart from the rest of us, tense and wary, like he’s ready to bolt for the exit if he needs to. I try to catch his eye, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“You should set Ballast to work here, Father,” says Theron when Lord Damianus pauses for breath. “He could compel the rats and worms to dig, and you’d have no need for other men.”

Alcaeus and Zopyros laugh at this, while Lysandra stands fidgeting with her sleeve, like she fears the joke might soon be turned on her. I want to tear all their stupid heads off.

Ballast grows very still, but he makes no answer.

Kallias gives him a feline smile. “Would you set bird and beast to work for me, boy?”

“If you asked me, Father.”

My stomach twists. I want to scream at him for standing there, for bending his neck to his father’s blade when he’s so much stronger than that, so much better than that.

Kallias turns to his other sons. “If you are so eager to change the way things are done here, Theron, I can find you a mine cart.”

Theron stammers an apology, his face going even paler than usual.