On his hands and knees-with the lioness and her bloody jaws just inches away-Rialus peered at the man. He was a stranger. His face was pale, with lean features scarred by frostbite.
“Who is he?” Devoth asked. “Answer me!”
“I do-don’t…” Rialus pulled off a mitten, reached out with trembling fingers and drew the man’s stringy golden hair back behind his ear. There was a tattoo on his cheek, a crescent slashed like a tear escaping the corner of his eye. He had seen it once before. “A Scav. He’s a Scav.”
“You know him then!”
“No, no, no. I knew some of his people before.” Rialus started to explain that he had only met a few prisoners brought to him at Cathgergen for petty crimes and poaching.
Devoth was not listening. A slave ran up with the amulet and thick chain he had been shouting for. Devoth wrenched it from him. Rounding on Rialus, he seized him by the collar of his coat with his free hand. “You didn’t tell me she would do this!”
“How could I?” Rialus asked. “I didn’t know.”
“Your princess is a coward who sneaks in the night. She has just made it worse for your people.” The Auldek flung Rialus away, and then strode toward Bitten. The creature bent to accept the chain and amulet that Devoth slung around his neck and fastened. A moment later, Bitten surged upward, one dead-start jump that took him and Devoth up above the height of the flames, where his wings fanned out and lifted them higher.
Rialus stood there a moment, forgotten even by Sabeer, who had joined the fight against the fire. He knew he should check on his station to make sure his room and all his documents were safe, but he was frozen in place. He had just discovered something. He was sure of it, but he could not quite place what it was. Another station exploded with a concussion of sound and flame, Rialus almost did not notice, so transfixed was he. The Auldek shouted curse-laden orders. Divine children rushed toward the new fires, as if they had anything prepared to fight them.
And then he had it. Rialus knew he had it because the thought began like a centipede at the base of his spine and ran up his back with a hundred legs. And having the revelation, he knew what he had to do with it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Barad was not familiar with this wing of the palace. He followed the slim shoulders of the young woman who showed him the way, feeling awkwardly massive behind her. How was it that he could live in his body for so many years and still feel an impostor within it? Perhaps Corinn had recognized that in him when she set her curse on him. She made his feeling into a real thing. Turned him into a puppet. Even now she controlled his heart. She must. Why else would he be so driven to learn of her welfare? Why else would he be so hard on the heels of this woman, like a dog running to answer his master’s summons?
The servant did not look him in the face when she indicated that he should wait in the alcove outside the library door. She pointed at the two couches, the chairs, and even at the tree that grew from a circlet cut in the stone. She left before he could thank her. Barad stood, arms drooping, unsure what to do. He reached for one of the tree’s long, silver-green leaves. Running his finger down it, he wondered how deep the soil in the circlet was. Did the roots run deep, or were they balled in a tiny knot, as he had seen before in potted plants?
Someone approached from down the hall. Just one person, quick strides of some hard-soled boots. The charlatan Delivegu Lemardine clipped his way into view. Ah, Barad thought, what is with my luck today? One of my least favorite people in the world, and I’m waiting here to speak to my enslaver.
Delivegu took in Barad without a hitch in his step. He did not even seem troubled by Barad’s eyes, as almost everyone was. Nodding, he slid right past him to the door, which he promptly rapped on with his knuckles.
The door opened. Aliver leaned out. His gaze touched on Barad, acknowledging him and then settling finally on Delivegu. The man leaned in and whispered something to him. Aliver’s face went slack as he absorbed whatever he had said. Without a word, he beckoned Delivegu inside. The door closed.
Barad took his seat again.
The door to the room opened again a few minutes later. Delivegu strode through. He strode away. Aliver stepped into view. He watched Delivegu recede, lost in thought. “Everyone, it seems, has messages for me.” Aliver only noticed the seated man long after the charlatan’s footfalls had faded. “I hope some of them prove true. Barad, do have you a message for me as well?”
“No, Your-Your Highness, the queen summoned me.”
He looked surprised. “Did she? And you were brought here?” When Barad nodded, Aliver expelled a surprised breath of air. He stepped back and motioned for him to enter.
The library smelled strongly of its primary inhabitants: old books, ancient papers, stained sandalwood shelves. Tall windows cast elongated rectangles of red-gold sunrise light, but the room’s candles still burned, thick ones that jutted through the tables like tree trunks and burned with flames the size of spearheads. Prince Aaden sat at one of the long tables in the sunken center of the space, a large book opened before him. The prince looked tiny in comparison. What must he be going through? Barad descended the steps toward him. On reaching his level, Barad hovered near, knowing that despite his kind wishes there was little he could do to comfort him, not with his stone gaze and his bulk and his mouth that he was never sure would speak his mind. He tried just to be near, to fill the space around him with compassion, protection.
“Is the queen not here?”
“No, not here. I have not spoken to my sister since the coronation. Not many people know that, but I guess I can tell you. You can’t, after all, say anything the queen would not want you to, can you?”
Barad felt his pulse quicken. Why that should alarm him he could not say. It was not his doing, after all. He tested his lips. They seemed to obey him. “No, I cannot.”
Aliver stood over Aaden. He looked down at the open pages of the book as he said, “I didn’t think so. Aaden here was sure of it. It must have been hard for you these past months. I can only imagine that your heart has not been behind the words your mouth has spoken.”
“Was yours?” Barad asked.
By the way that Aliver twisted his mouth before answering Barad knew he was not yet free to speak his mind. As if to prove this, he said, “My name is Aliver Akaran. My sister is the queen. The greatest queen the nation has ever known.”
Barad blinked, unsure what to say. Could they manage to speak in coded messages? How convoluted that would be. How easy to misunderstand each other. He was glad that the prince’s mind seemed intent on other things.
“We’re trying to understand the Santoth,” Aliver said. “That’s why we’re here, studying these old books. They are not proving helpful, though.”
“I wish that I could help,” Barad said. “I know nothing of these things.”
Rhrenna arrived. She stepped inside the door but did not descend toward them.
“Your Highness,” she said, brittle voiced, “Corinn has sent word. She’s on her way here.”
“You’ve spoken with her?” Aliver asked. “She told you she was coming?” “No, she wrote a note.”
“A note?” Aliver looked like he had never heard of such a thing. “And it said that she is coming?”
“Yes. Right now, I believe.”
Barad watched the mix of emotions move across Aliver’s face in waves: relief and then worry, happiness and then trepidation and then hope. When he turned to his nephew, it was that emotion that he clung to. “Good,” he said, testing the word and then getting more forceful with it. “This is good. Aaden, your mother…”