Chapter 46

46

Quil

Ankanese prisons were, on the whole, not quite as awful as Martial ones. After the pompous soldier placed Quil and the others in a row of cells, the prince had seen only one rat. Tas even had a small window that looked out onto Burku's coast.

The questioning took hours—probably because Quil confessed to everything and the others denied the theft. But packs and weapons were confiscated, orders whispered, paperwork inked, and by late evening, the five of them were locked up behind iron bars. Sufiyan with Quil. Arelia with Sirsha across from him, and Tas beside them, alone. The other six cells were empty.

Just as Quil had requested.

Still, his friends weren't thrilled at the accommodations. After the guards left, Tas turned on Quil.

"I realize this felt like a good plan," Tas said through the cell bars, "but the Ankanese do not take theft lightly—"

"Ugh, there's an enormous spider in here," Sufiyan muttered from behind him.

"He must have a reason," Arelia called. "Why don't you explain, Quil?"

"He can't." Sirsha spoke up, and Quil smiled when he saw she'd discovered what he'd placed in her pocket—a hairpin. Her manacles dropped to the ground with a clank. "If you think about it, you'll figure out why. Though I'd suggest thinking about anything else. Div picked my mother's image from my mind. Who knows what else she can do?" She massaged her wrists and moved to Arelia. "Tas, check your pockets."

As Tas dealt with his own manacles, Quil unlocked Sufiyan's.

"I have a question for you," Sufiyan said, and at Quil's head shake, he spoke quickly. "Not about your plan. It's about after." He glanced up to make sure no one else was listening. "If—if we kill the Tel Ilessi and root out the Kegari, will you go back with me to where Ruh died? Will you tell me the truth about what happened to him?"

Quil went still. The cell roof was suddenly too low, the light too scarce. He'd spent the past year trying to forget that night, as the Bani al-Mauth had ordered him to. Now the images rose in his head. The blood. The violence. The eerie space in the center of the room that looked as if an otherworldly claw would emerge from it and snatch anyone who came near.

Dash that thought from your head, boy. You know better. You know the cost.

"Yes," Quil said. "I'll go there with you."

Somehow, Quil would convince the Bani al-Mauth to tell her only living grandson the truth: While Quil had been the first to arrive in the chamber, he hadn't been alone. The Bani al-Mauth had appeared moments after him and taken Ruh's broken body away.

Tell his family he's down there. The Bani al-Mauth pointed to a crevasse that had opened in the rock, too deep to be plumbed. Tell them you saw his body fall. Don't say a word about me. Understood? The fate of our world depends on how well you tell that lie, boy.

And so Quil had lied. First to Elias, who'd arrived minutes after the Bani al-Mauth left. Then to the rest of the Tribe. Later, when the Bani al-Mauth came to mourn Ruh's loss, Laia begged to speak to her child's ghost in the Waiting Place. He must be there , she'd screamed. He must! You must know who did this to him!

The Bani al-Mauth refused Laia's request with a chilling finality.

The boy is dead. Best accept it.

"Quil!" Sufiyan jostled him, nodding to Sirsha, whose face twisted in revulsion.

"They're approaching," Sirsha said. "Div and the Tel Ilessi. I can feel them."

By boat, the journey from Serra would take weeks. By air, and with Div's unnatural winds at her back, it had taken the Tel Ilessi only a day.

Quil went to the cot and pulled out two heavy sacks placed there at the order of the High Seer. The Ikfa, their packs, and weaponry were within. He tossed Sirsha her pack, Tas his scim, and Arelia her things, as well as the Ikfa manacles and one chain. He kept the other for himself.

His skin went clammy at its touch and his head spun. You're fine. This was no worse than the time Aunt Hel tossed him in the River Rei in the middle of a snowstorm.

"Reli, keep the manacles," he said. "Give Sirsha one of the chains."

"Quil." Sirsha paled. "I can't—"

"Just for a short while," Quil said. "To throw them off so they don't know you're here. Hide. Wait for the last possible moment. Let her think she's won. I'll buy you time. Sufiyan." Quil armed himself and handed Suf his bow and arrows. "You'll know what to do," he said. "When the time comes."

The air was thick with tension, but they did not have to wait long. Distantly, a gate clanged open, followed by one closer. Then the door at the end of their cellblock swung forward and High Seer Remi entered, trailed by the Tel Ilessi and Cero.

The latter looked up and met Quil's eyes. I do hate war…but there's something else I hate more. Witnessing the manipulation of my oldest friend .

Quil held his gaze. Cero tilted his head and twitched a nod, almost identical to the one Quil had given him in the encampment days earlier.

"As promised," Remi said—ostensibly to the Tel Ilessi, though Quil knew better.

"My thanks, High Seer Remi," she said. "I am grateful you see the way of things."

Remi bowed his head and backed through the cellblock door. It clanged behind him.

Quil moved to the bars of his enclosure, glaring out at the Tel Ilessi, letting frustration suffuse him, and keeping a small, careful sphere of calm hidden at his very core. Let her think him defeated. Let her crow over her victory.

The Tel Ilessi stalked closer, exultant.

"You thought you were so clev—" She stopped short and looked beyond Quil, to Sufiyan, whose arrows flew one after the other, so fast that the Tel Ilessi should have been lying in a pool of her own blood.

But she'd called up her wind almost immediately, warned, no doubt, by the monster she'd chained herself to. She knocked Sufiyan hard against the wall and he collapsed to the floor.

Quil slammed his cell door open as, across the hall, Tas did the same. The prince flung the Ikfa chains at the Tel Ilessi, thankful to be rid of them. The strength that surged through his blood at the chains' absence carried him toward the Tel Ilessi in three steps.

She screamed when the Ikfa hit her, her magic dying instantaneously. Quil drew his scim. He thought of her wretched defense for mass murder, of the children whose deaths she'd used to further her need for power. He swung his blade at the back of her neck without an iota of hesitation.

It stopped midair, clanging as if striking metal. The chains fell away from the Tel Ilessi, and Quil stared as a scim materialized. Then a hand. An arm. A body.

A face.

"Greetings, my son."

The man who stepped out of thin air was someone Quil had seen only once in his life, in a vision that still haunted him. Tall with broad shoulders, short hair, and yellow eyes. A face that was too harsh to be handsome, a voice that was too cruel to be a father's voice. And yet, Quil knew this man, would have known him even if he hadn't seen him in a vision.

Marcus Farrar. Quil's father.