“Remember who killed your mother,” he told her in a rumbling whisper. “These questions disgrace her memory, and Rook’s too. You’ve come so far, Ash. Don’t back down now.”
Tor spun away—but not before Ash saw his bloodshot eyes, the pain on his face.
She had broken his heart with her uncertainty. She had broken her own too.
This was why she had shoved down thoughts like this for as long as she had. They would destroy her.
Ash trembled. Tor entered the room at a servant’s beckoning, and the absence of him made her feel cold under the high, exposed ceilings of the hall. She wanted to tell him how sick her own questions made her, how much she hated the doubt twining around her heart.
She wanted to be angry again. She wanted to fume with vengeance.
But she could only step forward, her shoulders bent, and enter Ignitus’s room.
The wide, well-lit chamber appeared to have many uses. A ruffled bed on a short dais filled one corner. On a table in the center ofthe room, food waited, steaming plates of roasted chicken and spiced orange slices and charred peppers arrayed before three chairs. To the left, shelves of scrolls and books peered down at a desk strewn with papers and quills.
Ignitus sat at that desk, forehead in his hands, body hunched over a stack of papers. He didn’t seem to know Tor and Ash were here. A servant poured wine into three waiting goblets on the table, and when the guards shut the door with a thud, Ignitus still didn’t react.
Tor curled his fingers into fists. He didn’t eye Ash in question as he usually would have—their conversation had cracked something between them. Nausea gripped Ash when she realized that what had broken was trust.
Ignitus launched himself from the chair and swept the papers off the desk. “Damn it!”
As the papers flurried through the room like leaves off a tree, Ignitus covered his face and took a slow breath, clearly gathering himself. This was the most disheveled Ash had ever seen him. Scarlet wrappings tangled around his hips, brushing the tops of his feet, his chest bare. His hair, unornamented, erupted around his face. The gray strands were prominent now, looped into a single coil that fell down his shoulder.
That wasn’t a chunk of silver thread woven into his hair. Why did he have it?
“Wine,” he barked, and the servant dashed to bring him one of the goblets from the table.
“Great Ignitus,” Tor started, “we can leave, if you wish.”
Ignitus snatched the goblet from the servant and downed thewhole thing before chucking it across the floor. He blinked at Tor, frowned, and looked at Ash.
“Nikau.” There was tangible relief in Ignitus’s voice. “That champion of my brother’s—Madoc. His latest win was... troubling.” He glanced at the stone floor and walls with a grimace. Geoxus could easily spy here—it was his palace, crafted of his stones. “You were with him the night of the ball. Tell me—what have you noticed about him?”
Now you want my help? Why?she wanted to ask. She wanted to beg him for an answer.
Ash’s throat was raw from holding back tears. She felt Tor watching her, waiting.
Judgment and wariness from Tor; eagerness and hope from Ignitus.
The emotions made no sense, and churned the already confusing thoughts in her head.
What would Ignitus do if she told him the truth: that Madoc might be descended from a goddess Ignitus supposedly helped kill long ago? How would he react if she dropped to her knees and told him how much Kula was suffering, about the poverty and disease? Had anyone ever brought their concerns to him before? Or had they stayed silent out of fear rather than working with him to better their country?
Ash’s eyes fell to the ground. Her heart beat so hard it ached.
Remember who killed your mother.
Stavos had killed her. But Ash remembered the way Char hadn’t even noticed Ash in the hall before her fight. Her stilted conversation, the loss of focus as she bore unimaginable burdens.
Ignitus did that.
Ignitus did that.
Rook had sobbed on the arena sands, his pockets heavy with marbles he would never get to give to his son. Ignitus had chosen to tell Rook about Lynx just before that fight.
Ignitus did that.
Heat sparked in Ash’s chest. It sent feeling into her numb limbs.
