I turn to look at her. “Callyn.”
She pauses with her hand on the latch, and she hesitates before looking at me.
“Did you know?” I say. “Did you know they were coming?”
She swallows—but says nothing.
“Is that why you were looking for the queen?” I press.
“I didn’t know,” she says quietly. “I didn’t . . . ?I didn’t know they’d follow me here.”
“But you knewsomething.”
She almost falters, but then she glances after the king and queen and squares her shoulders. “My loyalty is to the queen. Yours is to the king. If she wants to share the information with you, she will.”
Then she pushes through the door and back into the palace.
I draw a heavy breath, then run a hand across my face, only to realize that I’m dragging dirt and blood and sweat into my eyes.
“Did you kill your scraver?” Malin says. “Is that how you got free?”
Nakiis.I frown. The world has grown so complicated. “No,” I say. I look up at the sky, trying to cast my magic into the air, but I’m tired and weak, and it trembles like an overused muscle. “I thought he might help me.”
If the scraver is anywhere near, he’ll hear me—and I expect him to respond.
He doesn’t.
I can’t decide what that means. Did hetry, and was he hurt? Was hekilled? Or did he simply hide, the way he tried to keep me out of the fray?
If that’s the case, it’s disappointing. Though maybe I should have expected it. Since the moment I left Ironrose, nothing has gone the way I hoped. I glance out at Grey and Lia Mara, wondering if they might be on a path toward resolution.
Though I’m not sure what they’re going to do about Syhl Shallow. When those scravers attacked Grey, no one stayed to fight at his side. They all fled.
I remember one of the soldiers saying that a general ordered it. I wonder which one.
Fears of magic have grown so deep, and there might be no undoing it.
“Come on,” I say to Malin. “Let’s find the horses.”
He falls into step beside me. “What do you think is going to happen?”
Malin is asking about the state of things in Syhl Shallow. Or maybehe’s asking about the army, and what his next orders might be. Hell, maybe he’s talking about the scravers and Xovaar’s vow to return.
But I’m thinking about Callyn, and what she said about her loyalty—and mine. I’m thinking about the way I made it back to Ironrose, just to be sent away.
I’m thinking about the way Nakiis trapped me with a vow—a vow I made to save someone else’s life.
I’m thinking about the way my life has always been tied to someone else’s problems, someone else’s needs, someone else’s desires.
Grey and Lia Mara walked out across the field. Together. Alone.
We’ll stand against them, the queen said.
And the king didn’t reply.
I swallow hard, and glance out across the field toward Grey. Maybe they’re not on a path toward resolution at all.
But if he wouldn’t let me leave before, he’s definitely not going to let me leave now.
