But everything else was in code.Mama fed the goats, …Papa …Why notsilver, too?
My heart is pounding again. Have they been gathering Iishellasan steel? Has Alek found weapons that would block Grey from using his magic? The thought is chilling.
Alek lays down his cards. One mare and three mules. “With all due respect, Your Highness,” he says, his voice even, “I don’t need your warnings.” He reaches to gather the coins on the table.
“My win,” I say, and he looks up in surprise.
I lay down three queens, which beats his hand.
He scowls and shoves the coins in my direction.
I stack the silver slowly, tallying my win. “With all due respect,” I say, mocking his arrogant tone, “I’m beginning to think you should take all the warnings you get.”
CHAPTER 43
JAX
Fine metalworking generally isn’t among my top skills. Farmers don’t ask for detailed designs along the blade of a sickle. Even the weapons we create are crafted to be practical, not beautiful. No one needs elegant etchings on a dagger for it to draw blood.
As before, re-creating this seal perfectly is something that requires a lot of practice.
There’s a part of me that just wants to rip the message open. Surely that’s what the recipient would do. They wouldn’t examine the seal too closely.
But if they’re plotting against the king … then maybe they would.
And the wax! Callyn walked into town to the stationers for a few cubes of colored wax, and she’s been trying to re-create the perfect swirls of green and black and silver. But no matter what she combines, the colors mix into sludge that doesn’t look similar atall.
All the while, time ticks away. Without my father here to handle some of the business, I work late into the night trying to keep up with everyone who needs something from the forge. I listen to travelers’chatter whenever I can. The king will be traveling to Emberfall in a matter of days. The queen is ill and will remain behind with the young princess. The Royal Houses are openly distrustful of magic. The king and queen are at odds. There are whispers of a scandal involving the King’s Courier.
I swallow hard when I hear these words, but I keep my head down and work.
A scandal.
I wish he’d told me what was going on.
I’m sure you’d cross my mind at least once.
Only every waking moment. I think of that bag of silver he left. I imagine myself hiring a carriage to Ironrose Castle. Arriving with soot on my knuckles and a nail pinning my hair in a knot, bearing a potential letter of treason.
And what would happen to Callyn and little Nora? Could I take them with me? Is this enough silver to bring them along?
If weallleft, would the Truthbringers come after us? Callyn said that Alek had people watching her. Surely they were watching me too.Are they still? Was it a threat—or was it true? Are they people in Briarlock, or people from the Crystal City?
There are too many questions.
Callyn comes down the lane every morning now, bringing me eggs and meat pies and a good dose of contrition that we both seem to feel. The air between us is still raw, but it helps to have a common goal.
I want to ask how she could trust a man like Alek—but she must not. Not fully. Not if she brought me this letter. Not if we’re doing this.
She probably wants to know how I could trust a man like Tycho, someone whose entire life requires secrecy, someone whose only opportunities to see me are when he happens to be crossing the mountain border on someone else’s command.
By the end of the fifth day, I have a workable replication of the seal itself. I use Callyn’s sludge-wax to practice, and the pattern of stars is identical, at least to my eye. When she arrives on the sixth morning, I show her my results.
She says nothing, just chews on the edge of her lip.
“I don’t think I can get any closer,” I say. “I had to build new tools to create the narrow lines and stars in the upper half. It’s so tiny that it kept getting too hot. I don’t have a small firebox like the fine forges have.”
She still says nothing.
