‘But there must be some mistake,’ Ezer said. ‘Surely something can be done. You’re theprince.’
‘Death doesn’t see status,’ Kinlear said. ‘It doesn’t care whether you’ve a crown on your head or hardly a coin to your name. It chose me. It chases after me. And soon—’ He sighed and ran a hand through his dark curls, pushing them away from his eyes. ‘It is why this mission is pivotal. Not just to the kingdom, to the women and children and men that call Lordach home. But tome.I want to see him die. I want to see the war end before I go.’
Before I go.
Three words that seemed too resolute. Like he’d decided upon his fate.
It was utterly horrifying to imagine.
‘How much …’ She couldn’t believe she was asking this to someone so young, someone who didn’t even wield. To someone that, beyond his strange disappearances and the cough and the limp … seemed vibrant. Full oflife. And someone, she realized now, that she had come to care for in their short span of time together. Even if he annoyed the hell of out her, she’d come to appreciate their banter. She’d come to enjoy the mystery that was Kinlear Laroux. ‘How much time do you have left?’
It felt cold to ask. It felt callous. But she had to know. She had lost so many people already, and now she was about to lose another. The one that had given her Six.
‘I don’t know,’ Kinlear said, and placed his heavy cloak back over his shoulders, fastening it beneath his throat. It hid his shrinking frame well. ‘It goes through phases. Days when a healer must attend to me and help reignite my strength. Days when I think the end is near, but then the worst of it passes, and I’m back to my old self again. There are ways to combat the exhaustion, the cough, the weakness my muscles experience. Thank the gods for runes, but in the end … it continues to eat away at me. Like a poison. And nothing can stop it.’
She had no words.
She sat beside him, suddenly seeing him differently.
The wind rattled against the windowpane, and she trembled.
‘Do others know?’
‘The ones that matter do,’ Kinlear said. ‘The others speculate. They whisper.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sure you understand what that is like.’
She nodded and stared down at her hands.
‘I have to make it to the other side. I have to see it through to the end, Ezer. So that I will know, when death comes calling … that I did something of worth. That I wasn’t just the bonus prince, the shadow to Arawn. I don’t want to be just another portrait hung in the castle in Touvre, for my mother to mourn as she walks past. My father will die soon, and when he does, they’ll remember him forever for all he’s done to protect Lordach. I want the same thing for me. I want vibrant stories told, and songs written. I want them to marvel about Kinlear the Brave. Kinlear the Bold, the prince who saved us all.’
And suddenly she understood.
Her blood felt cold.
‘We’re doing thistogether,Ezer,’ Kinlear said, his voice almost worshipful. ‘You’re the Rider. I’m the Assassin. All I need, all you have to do, is get me there. Take me to the other side, so we can ride Six through the shadows. So that I can use this …’ he lifted his cloak to show the pale dagger on his hip, the one that had driven into her own chest, time and again in her dreams, ‘… and kill him. I can end this, once and for all.’
She had no words left.
She could see the truth in his eyes. He’d been dreaming of this, preparing for this, for quite some time.
And he hadn’t told her the truth.
‘Take the rest of today off,’ Kinlear said and winced as he stood up, leaning on his cane more heavily than before. ‘Go to the bathhouse.’
She glanced up. ‘What?’
A strange thing to say after such news.
‘Take some time there. Sit in the silence with your future. Your calling from the gods. Wrestle with it, war with it, for it is not without consequences. But in the end … the best outcome is for you to cede to it, Ezer. Let it win. Do it afraid.’
She was so taken aback by the words, she almost gasped. ‘What … did you say?’
He shrugged. ‘An ancient phrase, taught to us when we are just younglings. Everyone born in the Citadel knows it. It means to accept that you cannot defeat fear. So you take it with you and do the thing you fear anyway.’
‘I … know what it means,’ Ezer said.
She’d never heard anyone but Ervos speak that phrase.
And for some reason, it made her gut twist. Because … where hadhelearned it?
