Every muscle in me went cold. “Excuse me?”
“The rest of you may go.” His trident struck the floor, the sound like a deep bell tolling. “But the Aine’s debt remains unpaid.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “She helped save your people tonight.”
“The debt between us is not to my people,” he said. “It is to me. I spared her sister once. Now she will serve me as her king until the scales are even.”
My eyes widened. I stepped toward him before I could think better of it. “You can’t keep her here. She’s injured. She needs healing after what she faced in the south.” My voice sharpened. “Or don’t you believe in Brindalorns anymore either?”
Patamoi’s expression faltered for the first time, the weight of the name catching him off guard. “They were thought to be extinct.”
“Apparently not,” Amanti said softly.
He regarded her for a long moment, and for the first time, his anger seemed to ebb. “The Calidium Empire once held a great many wonders,” he murmured.
Amanti nodded at him. “Selene willing, it will hold a great many again someday.”
He blinked at that. Then he straightened, returning to his full height. “You will be safe Beneath, Aine. But your debt demands service. You will tend my court until I release you. A true Aine serving a kingdom of Menryth once again.”
I took a step forward, fury rising again. “You can’t?—”
Amanti touched my wrist, her grip gentle. “It’s allright.”
“No, it isn’t,” I hissed. “You don’t owe him this.”
She smiled faintly. “I owe him my sister’s life. I would do this and more for my family. And for you.”
Her words left no room for argument.
Patamoi tapped his trident against the dais. “Then it is settled.”
Rydian’s hand brushed mine, a subtle warning, quiet understanding. We couldn’t afford to start another fight.
I swallowed the protest on my tongue and met Amanti’s gaze one last time. “We will see each other again.”
“I know,” she said simply. “But for now, this is how it must be.”
Patamoi turned back to his throne, the conversation apparently over. “You will leave Osphanis by dawn. I will grant safe passage upstream. The old currents will carry you far from here, unseen by the Frost Queen’s spies.”
Patamoi’s gaze lingered on Rydian one last time, and something like understanding passed between them. His mouth curved in a faint, humorless smile. “Prince,” he said softly—too quiet for the guards, but I heard it all the same. “May your companion never regret the shadow Fate chose for her.”
We left before the city woke, Cerynth waiting outside our rooms to escort us back to the platform where we’d first arrived. The halls of the palace were hushed, light still low through the corridors. Our weapons had been returned—cleaned, polished, laid out on coral slabs like offerings. Nali waited beside them, pale in the torchlight, her expression softer than it had been last night.
“Your blades,” she said. She nodded at the packs, one for each of us. “And rations for a week.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
“Thank my sister,” she said, flashing a grin at the silent princess. “I wanted to fill your packs with those beautiful clothes. She pointed out that having food to eat might be more important… to anyone else but me.”
“Thank you,” I told Cerynth.
The pale princess merely dipped her head.
“I don’t know,” Slade announced slyly. “I would almost go hungry for the sight of Keres in a dress one more time.”
“Mention it again and see how fast I cut the grin off your face,” she said, voice deceptively casual as she went to work strapping weapons to nearly every inch of her body.
Thorne elbowed Daegel lightly. “Ten gold coins say she does it before we reach the surface.”
