She paused, sighing deeply before she turned to face him. She just wanted to go to sleep, to bury herself beneath her blankets. She’d had more than her fair share of speaking topeopletoday.
‘Your Highness.’ She forced a smile. ‘Shouldn’t you be Minding an eagle, or flying in battle, or …’
Or locking people in cages with bloodthirsty raphons,she thought.
‘If you must know, I was banned from battle years ago, thanks to my injury,’ Kinlear said. His hand tensed over his cane, and she realized, in horror, that she might have just offended him. If he was injured … he wouldn’t be able to fly in the war, like all the princes before him. And after him.
Penance.
The memory of Zey’s hand flashed before her eyes.
She should be more careful when speaking to the son of King Draybor Laroux. Somehow, Kinlear felt different from Arawn in that way. Like a wayward wind instead of a steady gale.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said carefully. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘Offending me, Raphonminder, is not an easy thing to do.’ He waved a hand. ‘And partaking in the battle is not a thing to desire, despite how glamorous many of the Knights may make it seem.Endingit, however … that is my dream. My heart’s desire. And we’ve only until Realmbreak to do it.’
She nodded. ‘Because of the Long Day?’
‘There’s more to it than that.’ He limped closer to her, looking stiffer tonight than he had in the daytime. Some wounds worked that way. ‘Can you keep a secret, Raphonminder?’
She backed a step away. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anyone here I would tell one to.’
Izill,perhaps.
But she’d always found that, like Ravenminders, servants seemed to know more than they let on. They were the eyes and the ears, the hidden soul of a place. It was just as likely Izill already knew the Citadel’s secrets.
‘My father will ask the gods for a blessing, as happens only once every century.’
Ezer nodded. Arawn had confirmed that earlier.
‘And what will that blessing be?’ Ezer dared ask.
‘Think of it as … a hypothetical shield, instead of a sword,’ Kinlear said. ‘Something to bring about peace, instead of heighten the brutality of war.’
Itwasn’t a true answer, but it was more than Arawn or Alaris had given. Bigger wards, perhaps? Extended sunlight hours, to keep the darksouls hidden away?
‘Walk with me,’ Kinlear said.
She didn’t think she had any choice but to follow. One did not saynoto a prince. But she certainly kept her distance as he led her towards the stairwell and began the ascent.
It was slow going as they moved up, floor after floor, until they were both breathless.
They were higher than she’d dared go before, so close to the top floors she swore she felt the warmth of the wardlight as it shone down over them from the other side of the domed ceiling.
‘I’ve spent my life inside this Citadel,’ Kinlear said, as he paused halfway up another flight. He pointed at the windows covered in frost, where she could just barely hear the howling winter wind trying to batter its way through. ‘This was always one of my favorite spots to pray to the Five. Do you see why?’
She dared risk a glance out the windows, the harrowing drop on the other side of the glass, and?—
She gasped.
‘The Sacred Circle.’
It was small from here, enough that she could have covered it up with her hand.
But she knew up close, the Sacred Circle was enormous.
It stood all the way past thenomagebarracks, up a cliff and beyond another set of black obelisk gates that protruded from the forest – another exit from the golden wards.
