Page 54

All of me is numb, sick. And I look past Vil to see Ballast in the corridor.

“Brynja?” says Vil.

“You can’t call me that outside our rooms,” I remind him shortly. “Someone might hear.”

Hurt tightens his face.

I leave him standing alone in the hall.

Brandr sits near the head of the table in the council room, magic curling off him like smoke.

This morning he wears a robe made of thin white silk, embroidered with a brilliant sapphire thread that glistens in the lamplight, and his sleeves are rolled up past his elbows.

Tattoos swirl all along the length of his forearms, in all the colors of the gods.

He catches me staring at them and I jerk my gaze quickly away.

I slept badly last night, and my head is already starting to pound.

Vil hasn’t looked at me once all morning, not even on the long walk from our rooms. I can’t blame him.

But I also can’t give him the answer he wants.

I don’t know if I’m sick over that, or the fact that Ballast overheard Vil’s confession.

Kallias sits in his ivory chair with his head leaned back and his eyes shut.

Aelia is next to Brandr, looking particularly fierce dressed in gold.

Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus are all here, stealing terrified glances at the Prism Master.

The Daerosian governors sit across from them, next to General Eirenaios.

Kallias’s steward and engineer are not here, the former frantically arranging things for the feast and ball this evening, the latter checking on the digging progress.

Ballast is the last to arrive, his face in worse shape than last night, which makes my gut twist. His eye patch and ribbon are gray. He takes the seat on Kallias’s left.

Brandr wastes no time taking charge of the proceedings. He stands and snaps his fingers; the room is suddenly, wholly silent, when I hadn’t realized it was overloud before.

“Show me the proposed terms,” Brandr says.

Kallias doesn’t open his eyes, so it’s Ballast who hands over the Daerosian documents, while Vil offers the Skaandan ones.

Brandr glances briefly over the pages, then drops them on the table. “You quibble over such insignificant things. The border towns will go to Daeros.”

“They will not !” says Vil.

Brandr ignores him. “The river city to Skaanda.”

“Absolutely not,” puts in Ballast.

But Brandr isn’t finished. “Hostilities will cease, and both armies will be cut in half. Trade will be established, resources exchanged at no cost to either country. Both Skaanda and Daeros will pay tribute to Iljaria.”

“On what grounds?” demands Ballast at the same time Vil jerks up from his seat and starts swearing up and down the pantheon with vehemence.

“Our grounds,” says Brandr. “This entire peninsula belongs to the Iljaria; it is only on our goodwill that you are allowed to remain upon it.”

“What are you going to do if we refuse?” Vil mocks him. “Rally Iljaria to war?”

Brandr looks at him with absolute impassivity. “There are other ways than war to bring down a mountain. You forget how old we are. How patient we are. But even the patience of the Iljaria must come, at last, to an end.”

“ You forget Aerona,” says Aelia coolly. “There is another who would lay claim to the peninsula. My father—”

“Your father does not concern me.”

Her lips thin. “His armies ought to. They will be here by summer.”

“That was not in Daeros’s accord with Aerona!” cries Ballast. “There is no justification for the imperial army to land here.”

Aelia’s gaze flicks to Ballast. “My father has long been unhappy with the governing of Daeros, and the wastefulness of the war with Skaanda. Aerona comes to set it right.”

“Invade, you mean. Expand the empire. Don’t mince words with me, Your Imperial Highness.”

“Aerona is inconsequential,” says Brandr. “We are getting off course.”

“Imperial occupation is not inconsequential!” Vil objects.

“This whole time,” whines Kallias, finally opening his eyes, “no one has said anything about the marriage clause.”

We all turn to look at him, bile acrid in my throat.

“What marriage clause?” says Aelia, wearily.

Kallias smiles, tipping his chair back on two legs and playing with his wineglass, pleased to have everyone’s attention. “Princess Astridur is to be my queen, sealing the treaty between our nations and putting a permanent end to the war.”

Brandr laughs. Aelia frowns. Ballast’s eye bores into my face, and Vil squeezes my wrist so hard it hurts.

“You forget, Your Majesty,” I say through gritted teeth, “that I have not accepted your proposal.”

Kallias yawns and sets his chair back down on the floor with a thump . “And you forget, Your Highness, exactly what is at stake.”

Brandr waves a dismissive hand. “None of that matters,” he says impatiently. He turns to fix Kallias with the full weight of his stare. “There is something, however, that you have conveniently left off the proposed terms.”

Kallias’s lips thin. “And what is that, High Master?”

“The Iljaria weapon in the heart of the mountain that you are close to reaching.”

Everyone in the room goes suddenly, painfully, still. Vil’s squeezing my wrist again and Aelia looks grim and Ballast’s face is tight and my vision is going white at the edges.

“If your people didn’t want it,” says Kallias, his voice low and deadly, “you shouldn’t have left it here.”

Brandr smiles, the pitying, demeaning smile one gives to a foolish child. “When you breach the weapon, all of us will be there—Daeros, Skaanda, Iljaria ...” He flicks his eyes to Aelia and adds with disgust, “Aerona. We will decide all together what is to be done with it.”

“And if I refuse to agree to this?”

Magic licks all up and down Brandr’s arms, and I shudder. “Then you will see, little king, Iljaria’s other way to bring down a mountain. This council is over.”

Without another word, the Prism Master stalks from the room, leaving absolute chaos to erupt in his wake.