Chapter 23

23

Quil

When Quil was ten, Aunt Helene took him to the Black Guard barracks in Antium, the capital. He struggled to hide his excitement, for he'd been born in the barracks.

Aunt Helene had never mentioned that fact to him, of course. It was Laia who told him the story of his birth. Or some of it, anyway.

The Black Guard were mostly elite Masks, and their job was to root out dissidents. While Aunt Hel and the soldiers conferred, Quil slipped away, hoping to find the room where he was born.

He remembered exactly why he wanted to find it. He thought he would remember his mother. He'd seen paintings of her. Sculptures. It wasn't enough. He wanted to recall her smell, her hands, her love.

The very center of the barracks , Laia had told him. Up a set of stairs. There was a linen closet two doors down…

The instructions should have been simple, but there were three sets of stairs. Quil got lost immediately. Eventually, he found himself in a nondescript passageway identical to a dozen others. Only this one had the seal of Gens Farrar emblazoned upon the wall. Two crossed hammers painted in black and edged in gold, about a foot and a half off the ground, and off-center.

Quil knelt by the symbol, perplexed. It would have looked better if it was bigger. Higher up. But then, maybe it was supposed to be overlooked. There were secret passages all over the royal palace in Antium. Could this be a passage too? Quil pressed his palm to the symbol, certain he'd hear the telltale grinding of rock that signified new adventures to be had.

Instead, he heard voices behind him, and turned to see his aunt heading toward him.

Quil opened his mouth to explain himself, which was when he noticed that Aunt Helene looked strange. Her face was silver—she wore a mask. Her braid, usually so neat, was askew. There was blood all over her.

It was pooled over the floor. The air smelled of smoke and death. Screams echoed. Where had all these dead soldiers come from?

"Shrike," a voice called out softly.

Aunt Helene ignored Quil entirely and made for the wall where the symbol was. Only there was no symbol there now. Instead, there was an armored man, bleeding from a dozen wounds and pinioned to the wall with a scim through his belly. Quil scrambled back, terrified.

But his aunt was calm. She knelt beside the man, speaking rapidly. At first, Quil was too afraid to get closer. But after a few minutes, he quieted his quaking heart and crept forward.

"Do it, Shrike," the man whispered, so softly that Quil barely heard him. "He waits for me."

Aunt Helene's hands shook—she was bleeding too. Quil opened his mouth to tell her but found he couldn't speak.

"Please, Shrike," the man whispered, and now Quil could see him. He was big and broad-shouldered, with dark hair, and brown skin that was lighter than Laia's. He had a square jaw, thin lips, and a sharp nose.

And his eyes—his eyes were the pale yellow of fall leaves. Like Quil's.

But that was impossible. Aunt Helene, Elias, even Laia had all told him his father had died in the battle of Antium, ten years ago. He died fighting, they said.

Not like this.

"The Emperor is dead," Aunt Helene whispered, and when she spoke again, her voice was strong. Cold. "Long live the Emperor."

Quil watched his aunt stab his father's throat. Watched the blood drain from his father's body. He closed his eyes to make the image go away, to forget, and when he opened them again, the world had shifted. The man was gone. The blood. The bodies. And Aunt Helene—maskless and immaculate—knelt beside him.

"Are you all right, Zacharias?" He flinched at the name. It had never felt right. "What are you doing up here?"

"What is that?" Quil backed away from the symbol, frightened that if he touched it again, he'd go back to that nightmare place.

Aunt Helene pulled him up, her lips pursed—which meant that she was searching for the right answer to his question instead of telling the truth.

"It's a mark to remember the past, Zacharias," she said.

"Aunt Hel," Quil said. "How did my father die?"

Something passed across his aunt's face, like a fell bird blocking out the sun, leaving an impression of darkness.

"In battle, Quil," she said, and he knew she was lying because she only ever called him Quil when she felt guilty. "Don't think on it anymore, little one. The past will distract you from the now. And it's the now that matters."

On the outskirts of a Devanese town thousands of miles from Antium, Quil tried to remember his aunt's advice. It's the now that matters.

More than a week had passed since Quil told Sirsha of Ilar's death. Speaking of it had churned up so many memories that he wished he'd kept his damn mouth shut. Putting a blade to Ilar's side when she'd first walked into the Saif encampment. Hearing her voice, low and musical. The way her skin glowed in the firelight. Her half smile, rare and swift as a falling star.

It's the now that matters.

Quil hadn't told Sirsha everything. She'd asked about Sufiyan having magic—not Quil—and he hadn't volunteered the information.

After the vision of his father's death, Quil didn't comprehend the extent of his skill. It took the accidental leeching of other people's memories and thoughts—a language tutor, a palace gardener—to understand his magic. It spoke to him—urging him to use it. So one day, he did—on his aunt.

She'd fallen into one of her darker moods. Nothing Quil said pulled her from it.

Take her thoughts , the magic had whispered. Then you will understand her. One moment, he was wishing he knew how to help. The next, he was neck-deep in her sorrow and regret, which threaded through his aunt's mind like mold through a crop, spawned by the loss and heartache she'd experienced when he was a baby.

Quil couldn't extract himself from her thoughts or memories. That day, she dwelt on one especially: one in which she stood with a slender, dark-haired man in a cave, breaking stone after stone with a club, before falling to the ground, moaning. I am unmade , she'd said. I am broken.

The prince had never seen his aunt lose control. Her pain was raw and visceral, and he knew in his marrow that she would hate that he'd witnessed the innermost sanctum of her heart. He couldn't help her with what he'd learned. He couldn't do anything but wish she didn't carry such a weight.

After that, he vowed he'd never use his magic to read someone's thoughts again. But memories were different. So many seemed to have a will of their own. They wanted to be witnessed. Especially when filled with violence or pain. The older Quil got, the harder it was to resist their pull.

"Thank the bleeding skies," Sufiyan muttered when the town came into view, his voice wrenching Quil from his brooding. "I need a hot meal. And a bath."

"We shouldn't stop," Quil said. "It's not safe."

Arelia pulled her mount even with Quil's. She'd persuaded Sufiyan to buy her coveralls from a Devanese village they'd passed, along with a few basic tools, and her mood had been annoyingly buoyant. "Cousin, it's late. We're tired. We all need to bathe in something that's not freezing river water. We haven't seen a Sail in days."

Quil looked up. Devan's interior was a breadbasket for the Southern Continent, and thus ideal for invasion—if food and livestock were the goal. If the Kegari wanted this land, they could have taken it. But Arelia was right. They hadn't seen a sky-rat since Jibaut.

"I know an inn." Sirsha jerked her head toward a cobbled street on their right. "It's busy enough that no one will notice us."

She'd been quiet the last week too. Jumpy, forever looking behind them. Quil had scouted heavily, taking the most watches and ranging both behind and ahead. But with every day that passed, Sirsha seemed more ill at ease.

As she pulled ahead, Arelia watched her. "She's not herself."

"She's used to working alone," Quil said. "She doesn't trust people easily. Nor does she like to be indebted to people. But now she has to fake a holy Jaduna bond with me so her sister doesn't kill her. She's depending on protection from someone she doesn't much like. That would irritate anyone."

"You've made quite the study of her." Arelia lifted her eyebrows in interest. "But you're wrong. Not about the frustration bit. That makes sense. About not liking you. She stares at you all the time."

Quil's skin tingled. He couldn't tell whether it was a good feeling, or a bad one. "Because she's thinking of ways to kill me?"

"Or she likes what she sees," Arelia said. "The simplest answer is usually the right one, cousin." She rode off, leaving Quil flummoxed and a little pleased.

The inn they stayed at that night was a sprawling stone structure with three separate wings and a common room with four fireplaces. Almost every table and room were taken, as it was the only lodging for fifty miles. Left alone, Quil would have simply found a barn to sleep in.

Sirsha nixed that plan, and after a brief conversation between her and the bluff-faced innkeeper, they were seated beside the fire with two room keys, three roast chickens, and a pile of butter-soaked root vegetables in front of them.

"Your father was generous with his coin," Sirsha said to Sufiyan's admiring glance. "Probably because he felt uneasy about sending me to my death."

Sufiyan shifted uncomfortably, exchanging a look with Quil, but Sirsha rolled her eyes and slapped Suf on the shoulder. "No hard feelings. We aren't our parents, thank the skies. You'd know why that was a good thing if you ever met my mother." She flashed a smile that made Quil's chest lurch even as he glowered at Sufiyan for being the recipient of it.

Arelia frowned at Sirsha, equally irritated. Which was a surprise to Quil, since his cousin had sworn off men and women a few months ago, after a castle maid had broken her heart.

Sufiyan didn't appear to notice. He raised his glass to the table. "To good friends on bad days."

They dug in then, and after tearing through their meal, the four travelers huddled over a map that Arelia had stolen from Kade.

"It'll take us three weeks to get to the border with Ankana," Quil said. "Another to get to the capital—"

"Five weeks to the border," Sirsha said. "Two more weeks to the capital. We can cut our journey in half if we take the highways."

"Too dangerous," Sufiyan said. "The Kegari will be scouting the roads. The map—"

"—doesn't account for how bleeding long it takes to cut through the Thafwan jungle, which is crawling with bandits," Sirsha said. "If you want to avoid the roads, it's a seven-week journey. If we take the roads, three and a half, give or take a day."

She sat back, chewing on a sprig of rosemary, her nonchalance too obvious to be trustworthy.

Quil eyed her narrowly. She wanted to travel on the main roads. She wasn't sharing the true reason why.

Sufiyan's gaze drifted over Sirsha's shoulder. "Look who walked in."

Quil happened to be watching her face when she caught sight of a gimlet-eyed R'zwana entering the common room, trailed by J'yan. Sirsha's expression was unguarded for a moment, her haughty insouciance replaced by panic.

"Sirsha." He touched her wrist, and her wild eyes flew to his. "We're with you. You're not alone."

"I—" She looked confused for a moment. Then she turned away from him. He could see her putting on her mental armor as she shook back her braid and rolled her shoulders. As she wiggled her fingers mockingly at her sister. R'zwana stared back, inscrutable as stone.

Over the years, Quil sometimes wondered what kind of blood brother he'd have been if his parents had lived. His mother had been thoughtful and kind and wise. He'd have liked to have been like her. Someone his younger siblings could rely on. Someone they could trust.

Not like his father—who had stabbed his own twin in a bid for power. Or like R'zwana.

Quil's group wasn't the only one who'd noticed the Jaduna arrive. A table near them emptied out so quickly that the food was still steaming on the platters when they sat down, and a nervous hush fell over the common room before R'zwana turned to whisper something to J'yan, and conversation started up again.

"I thought we'd lost her," Arelia said. "I even used a spyglass—my own creation—"

"She's too clever to be spotted with a spyglass," Sirsha said. "She waits until someone feels safe and then she pops up like a bleeding ghul."

"You two will have to share a room," Arelia said to Quil with characteristic bluntness. "You're each other's soul halves, after all."

Beside her, Sufiyan elbowed Quil, smirking.

"Grow up. There are two beds," Quil muttered, further embarrassed at the heat rising in his cheeks. "And don't look so smug. You'll have to room with Reli and she takes forever in the bath. You'll be dust before she gets out."

Sufiyan's grin faded and he grabbed for the room key. Arelia was faster.

"I'm assuming she's not imprudent enough to try anything in a common room." Arelia glanced at R'zwana. "In any case, if she did, the most I could do is throw furniture at her. I'm still working on my self-loading slingshot. I'll excuse myself for the night."

"Wait a minute." Sufiyan jumped up to follow. "You can't assume you get the bath first. We'll flip for it—"

"Poor Suf." Sirsha watched them disappear. "Is she really that bad?"

"Worse." Quil chuckled. "But if he steals her reading material, she'll get out quick enough." He followed Sirsha's gaze to her sister, who scrutinized them with a hateful fixation that even Quil, used to the venom at court, found unsettling.

Sirsha shuddered, her fingers going to her face. Her bruise was gone—Quil had applied the poultice every night. But sometimes he saw her poking at where it used to be, grimacing. She pushed her food away, glancing up at R'zwana.

"Can't eat with her staring at me. I can practically hear her shouting that she wants to break my bones."

See what happens if she tries. The fierceness of the thought took Quil by surprise. He cleared his throat.

"Has she always been so…"

"Murderous?" Sirsha offered him a wry smile. "We laughed as kids too. I tagged along after her, got into trouble for her. I'd have done anything she said, but that wasn't enough. She got meaner. I was too naive to see it until it was too late."

Quil felt a flash of indignation, and then, looking back at R'zwana, inspiration.

"How do the Jaduna feel about public affection? They're more prudish than Martials, yes?"

"The only type of union is the Adah oath," Sirsha said. "A joined couple isn't supposed to even kiss until the ceremony is over. And behind closed doors, at that."

"Excellent." Quil spoke quickly, because if he didn't, he knew he'd analyze the idea until he talked himself out of it.

"We're going to persuade your sister to stop staring at us—and to think twice about doing it again." He took a tendril of Sirsha's soft, blue-black hair and pushed it behind her ear, before letting his fingers caress her cheek. Her breath hitched at his touch, and satisfaction flooded him.

"You'll have to trust me," Quil said. "Stand up."

"Bossy," Sirsha murmured, but she stood, and he took her fingers in his, slowly pulling her closer, inch by inch. His heart thudded strangely—something he tried not to think about—and he didn't look away from her. She smiled slowly, understanding his intent.

"Why, Quil," she purred, "is this an excuse to kiss me?" A few loose locks of her hair fell in his face as she leaned over him, and then her scent, pine and sky. He breathed it in slowly and looked up into her brown eyes.

"Too obvious," he said, and pulled her into his lap, wrapping an arm around her waist. The shape of her alone was enough to heat his skin, make him ache for more. Sirsha, not to be outdone, traced his jaw with a soft hand before tangling her fingers in his hair.

He was not prepared for how it felt to have her hands on him. For the way the curve of her waist—which he'd tried and failed not to think about after seeing it bare weeks ago—felt beneath his hands, just a thin layer of leather between his skin and hers.

This is an act , he reminded himself sternly. Sell it. Don't believe it yourself.

"We should establish a baseline level of affection." He cleared his throat. "This will do for now, I think—"

But Sirsha had ideas of her own. She took his hand, and his pulse stuttered as she stroked the skin of his palm, hardened from holding a blade but sensitive to her touch. Then she leaned forward, her breath tickling his ear and sending a spike of desire straight into the pit of his stomach. "Prince," she whispered. "You're assuming I've never seduced a man."

He wanted to assure her that, in fact, he made no such assumptions, hadn't even considered such a thing, because it was of little to no interest to him, except in regard to making her sister uncomfortable. But his attention snagged on her lips, full and berry-red and curved into the most enticing smile that was making it very difficult for him to focus on what he was supposed to do next— kiss her …yes…

No! He was to disentangle himself and make his way upstairs.

She pulled back and tipped his chin up. Her gaze roved over his face, like it was terrain she wished to know better, and her fingers traced spirals on his chest, his stomach, lower.

He caught her wrist. "Behave," he whispered.

"I never have," she said, her lips a breath away from his. "Why would I start now?"

She held herself there for a maddeningly long moment, nails scraping against his nape, before shifting away, dark eyes glinting. The necklace at Quil's throat grew pleasantly warm.

"Well then." She glanced over her shoulder. The Jaduna were gone. "That did the trick."

Quil shifted, suddenly very aware of how awkward he felt, of how close she was to him. After a week on the road, he couldn't possibly smell as good as she did, and why was he even noticing her smell and why hadn't any of this occurred to him before he'd put his hands all over her? "We should—ah—"

"Yes." She stood up so quickly that she nearly upset the table. "Of course."

They were quiet on the way to their room, and Quil was relieved, at least, that Sirsha appeared as tongue-tied as him.

Their lodgings were small but clean, with a separate bathing chamber and two beds. Drat it , Quil found himself thinking, before he squashed the thought into a ball and threw it out the window of his brain. It was good there were two beds. Excellent , in fact. Quil dropped his pack onto the bed closest to the door, and Sirsha wordlessly took the other.

"You can have the bath—"

"Why don't—"

They both spoke and Quil felt too big in his own skin.

"Why don't you go first," he said. "I'll make sure Suf and Reli haven't murdered each other."

Quil stepped outside the room to get a bleeding grip on himself. Yes, Sirsha was smart and funny and beautiful. He couldn't stop thinking about the warmth of her skin or the heat in her gaze. He wanted more. He wanted to undress her slowly and kiss her lips impatiently. He hadn't kissed anyone since Ilar—

With that thought, the tingling in his skin went cold, as if he'd been dunked in a snowbank. He'd known Ilar. She'd had her secrets, but she was inherently good. Honest. Sirsha, on the other hand, lied and manipulated to serve herself.

By the time Quil had checked on Sufiyan and Arelia—both alive, miraculously—and changed after his own bath, he felt calmer. A sensation that vanished the second a wight flew through the window.

The creature dropped a scroll on his head, and Quil stopped it before it disappeared.

"Wait." He handed the wight a message he'd written a week before, detailing what Kade had told him about the Kegari force in Jibaut. A flutter of wings and the wight was gone.

Quil opened the missive with shaking hands, crumpling it up only seconds later.

Silas destroyed. Antium evacuated. Serra stands. We need what he has. Hurry. —AH

Silas destroyed . His father's ancestral home was there. Silas was where Quil met his grandparents. Where Gens Farrar was based. Where Arelia's parents still lived. And the Kegari had wiped it from the map. He didn't even know if any of them had escaped, or how many in Silas had died.

Quil felt helpless. Useless. Enraged. Which was, he thought later, the only explanation for what happened next.

He walked out of the bathing chamber. Sirsha had left his bedside lamp on, but put out her own and was a lump beneath her covers, breathing rhythmically. He was about to blow out his light when she spoke.

"Quil." Sirsha turned toward him and propped herself up, damp hair loose around her shoulders. "I— There's something I need to tell you."

He waited, apprehensive.

"I wasn't honest with you about why I wanted to take the highway to Ankana," she said in a rush. "It would be safer. But there's also someone I need to see, and she lives two days off the Palm Road, not too far from the border. She can tell me more about the killer's magic. But I—I think she can help you, too."

Sirsha leaned toward Quil, her scent washing over him. "You're trying to learn more about the Kegari. But you know nothing about the magic that powers their Sails."

"Magic—" Quil felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. For if the Kegari had magic, the Empire was in worse shape than he'd imagined. "What magic? Arelia said their Sails are remarkable feats of engineering. They have superior weaponry—"

"They keep the Sails aloft with magic." Sirsha bit her lip, sensing she was treading on uncertain ground. "I—I can feel it. The Martials don't know this?"

Quil gaped, his mind finally catching up to the dread pooling in his gut. "Why didn't you mention this? We've been traveling together for weeks."

She looked taken aback. "The man in Jibaut, the wind he used on you—that was magic. It didn't occur to me that you didn't know."

Of course. Quil had thought the wind was some unholy Kegari innovation. The simplest answer is usually the right one. "Maybe it did occur to you," Quil snapped. "But you couldn't use the information to your benefit until now."

Sirsha pulled her covers up. "No! I mean, yes, I'm telling you now because I want to go and see this person. But we could go together. I could ask her about the killer, and you can—"

"I watched my city burn," he said. "I watched my people die. I know that might not mean anything to you, as someone who doesn't have people. If we'd known the Kegari had magic—"

"How would it have helped?" Sirsha's face grew hard, her voice sneering. "You were running from them. You're still running. All you've done since I met you is run."

"And save your neck," he retorted. "Though I'm regretting it now."

He dropped into his bed and blew out the light, plunging them into darkness. His temper seethed at Sirsha's past subterfuge. At what the Kegari had done to the Empire. At himself for not stopping it. At his deceitful heart for feeling—whatever he'd felt for Sirsha, and forgetting Ilar so quickly.

"This person," Sirsha said after a long moment, her voice careful. "She can help. Think about it. Discuss it with the others."

"They'll be interested to learn you kept this from them too," he said, knowing it would sting. Sirsha liked Suf and Reli, and they her. They'd be as frustrated at her earlier duplicity as he was.

Though he kept a secret from them too. Neither of them knew about his magic. Or about—

Dash that thought from your head, boy. The Bani al-Mauth's order echoed, and Quil forced himself to focus on Sirsha.

"I suppose I should thank you for being honest now." He stared at the ceiling, numb. Magic, bleeding hells. The Empress must not know. "Though I can't imagine what brought it on."

"Something you said," she offered quietly.

He grunted in irritation. "And what was that?"

She didn't respond. But hours later, when he woke, he remembered a dream in which he heard her voice, a whisper.

We're with you. You're not alone.