Her feet twitched beneath the table, begging her to race home to her cottage. To hide from Imperials and kings. From the Elder Council. From everyone.
Silence reigned as a pair of servants brought platters of breads and cheeses amidst colorful fruits, pitchers and tankards beside. They disappeared behind a false wall as quietly as they’d come, unaware that everything they’d just left was too vibrant, too appealing. That the joy of food didn’t belong here right now.
Caius swiped up a cup. “I wasn’t entirely truthful before.”
Talk about an opening salvo.
“The Sisters must be laughing at us,” he muttered. “I came here knowing full well that Baldrir was innocent, but you know how it is. Have to keep up all the appearances, and I hadn’t yet been willing to reveal how, exactly, I knew.”
His gaze was a red-hot iron, searing into her, and she fought the urge to squirm beneath it.
“The second Lyriat said your name, I realized fate had wrapped us up together,” he rasped.
No one said a word, and they were all looking in her direction.
Oh, they cannot be expecting you to carry this conversation.
The nervous breath of laughter that flew across her lips was an absolute abomination. No one should ever be allowed to sound so idiotic.
Brand cleared his throat, his mouth opening and closing a few times. In the end, all he offered was a hopeless look, as if to sayI’m sorry, I have no idea either.
“I think you might need to be more specific,” Lyriat said, his voice cutting through the awkward silence like a knife.
She could have wept with gratitude. It helped her make sense of the maelstrom of jumbled thoughts, getting right to the heart of the matter. “Yes, I— Yes. I’m so sorry, Caius, but why am I here? What could any of this possibly have to do with me outside of Baldrir’s healing?”
“Look me in the eye, lass, and hear me without making me say it.”
She did as he asked, even though it made her skin feel too tight.
“There were similarities, aye? Not to the same extent, and it’s not what killed her, but”—He leaned back and plucked at the collar of his robe, at a particularly large, black stain—“it was on her.”
All thoughts drained out of Lunara’s head but one.
No, no, no.
“I’m assuming by the look on your face that the same was not true of Baldrir?”
Lunara shook her head. “N-nothing. I swear. I would’ve noticed.”
“Aye, you’d look less sick about it. Can’t decide whether that’s a good or bad thing, honestly. Both of them at least would have made sense.” His cheeks puffed out, the sigh so weary. “Someone’s fucking with us.”
Lyriat leaned in closer, scanning the soiled linen. “What is it, exactly, and how did it get onyou?”
How, indeed. Rash, too, since she and Caius had never confirmed one way or another whether the substance had caused Meliora’s illness, or merely been a byproduct.
Sometimes, though she’d avoided touching it directly, Lunara would swear she could still feel it sticking to her skin like a film. An invisible layer of putrescence that never fully went away, no matter how raw her body was with scrubbing.
“It was Fausta’s resting period, and no one realized anything was wrong until she didn’t show up in the kitchens for her duties. I was called back from the Dread Chasm after they finally found her in the middle of the night.”
“That answers nothing.” Lyriat’s voice was hard, getting impatient.
“It got onmebecause it’s my job to handle these sorts of things when they happen. I didn’t see it when I first lifted the lass from the pool of her own blood and carried her body out to her weeping mother,” Caius growled. “It wasn’t until I handed her over, under the blazing light of Solyrian, that it stood out. Does that answer your question?”
“Partially.”
Caius pounded a fist on the tabletop. “If I knew what it fucking was, then maybe Thad’s mother would still be alive!”
Thaddeus shifted in his seat beside Magnus further down, eyes fixed on the distance.
