“Callyn?”
My sister’s voice is quiet and low, right beside me. She’s looking at me carefully, and she reaches out to take one of my hands. When she looks down at my fingers, I inhale sharply, ready to tell her to bequiet, but I don’t need to.
Her own voice drops, and she doesn’t mention the blood. “Are you all right?”
My throat almost closes up. I nod, then shake my head and say, “I don’t know.”
Nora squeezes my hand. “Go change out of thesemuddyclothes,” she says. “I’ll call for tea.”
“And we can still go outside?” says little Sinna.
Nora looks at me, her eyes questioning.
I take a long breath. I can’t interrupt the king and queen. But I do know I care about my sister, and my primary charge was to look after little Sinna.
Rememberingthatis what puts some steel back in my spine.
I look at the blue sky and the hundreds of soldiers on the training fields, then down at the sprawling, sunlit gardens.
The attack from the scraver feels so far away that I could have imagined it.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I say to Princess Sinna. “Let me change, and we’ll go play in the gardens.”
Nora doesn’t let go of my hand. She hasn’t looked away from my face.
Is it safe?she mouths.
She really has grown so much over the last year.
But I have no idea how to answer her question. I press a hand to that pendant hanging over my heart. Regardless of what Alek thinks, magic did save him, and it kept me safe. It kept my sister safe. It kept the princess safe.
And that magic is insideme.
So I look into my sister’s eyes, and I nod.
CHAPTER 43
TYCHO
“You know,” Malin is saying, “that was blood on her hands.”
“I know.” We’re saddling horses for a midday ride into the mountains, but I keep thinking about the stains on Callyn’s hands, the flecks of it on her skirts.
I need to get to the queen.
Where was she? What happened?
“Should we report it?” says Malin.
I consider that. He’s really asking if we should report it to theking. Because even though Callyn was heading for the queen, it’s grown clear that she and Grey aren’t speaking to each other atall. I’ve made myself scarce around the palace, but it’s obvious. Grey is always on the fields, or meeting with officers, or locked away in his rooms. As I said to Callyn, even though we don’t interact, I’ve known him long enough, and I can feel his sorrow, as if his emotion, locked away, leaks into the air the way my magic would. There’s a part of me that longs to seek him out, to undo the harm of our last conversation. The more time that passes, the more it weighs on me.
As soon as I have the thought, I scowl. He hasn’t come anywhere nearmeeither. And it’s not like I’m hiding.
But that same tension has begun to cling to everyone and everythingelse, and it’s almost like the distance between the king and queen has spread. I see it in the stables, on the fields, in the way Emberish soldiers no longer spar with those from Syhl Shallow. Even when Nolla Verin fought with Malin, there was an angry cast to it. It seems that battle lines have been drawn, and no one wants to risk crossing them.
If something has happened to Callyn, it’s doubtful Grey would even hear about it.
Does that matter? I don’t know. I’ve never battled with my own sense of duty and honor like this before, and I hate it.
