Allaster lifted his staff in a fighting stance. “That’s the problem. I’ll never know.” He lashed at her, and she caught his strike, turning him aside with the force of his own blow.
“Ask me whatever you want, Librarian,” she said. “I’ll answer honestly.”
The next attack came from the side, and she blocked that too. His eyes tracked her movements, narrowing on her now-right-handed grip. She offered him a joyless smile and grasped his staff, holding him in place. He leaned his full weight against her, forcing her to flood her body with magic to hold him up.
“You said you loved beasts as a child, and it set you apart,” he said. “Truth or lie?”
She nearly laughed at the question. This was a game she could play.
“Truth.” She shoved him back and snapped her staff toward his head. He ducked, then struck her in the gut. The air fled from her lungs, and she fended him off with a weak counter he scoffed at.
“You were never nervous around the beasts; it was all a ploy to convince me you were Eirlana,” he said through heavy breaths. “Truth or lie?”
“Lie,” she exhaled, then drew another deep breath. “The priests at the orphanage destroyed what little curiosity I had for them, and the Malikinar did the rest.”
Allaster drew up from his stance. “The orphanage?”
“What, you thought I became a thief to escape my loving home?” She laughed mirthlessly, showing him her scarred hand. “It was a priest who burned my hand for bringing the injured Talowell home. Right before he made me drown it.”
There was so much more to that story. Loraya coming to her in the middle of the night with a plan to get revenge, and the truth of what her friend did. Their bid for freedom and return to the streets before Thane found them. These weren’t pieces of herself she wanted to give. They were meant to remain safely tucked beneath the armor of her personas, but this was unlike any job she had done before. She had no alter ego, no crafted backstory.
There was only her.
Allaster brought the low end of his staff up in a swift arc, catching her off guard. She braced for the impact, but it never came—he’d pulled up short, the staff’s tip resting beneath her chin. “Where did you get that scar on your face?”
She gazed down at the staff, remembering that night in Belvar, and thought for a moment that she would just let him strike her instead. There were some things that belonged to her. That darkness was one of them.
“On a beast hunt,” she lied.
Allaster lowered his staff with a look of disgust. “How many have you killed?”
“It’s better if I don’t tell you.”
They looked at each other then, the Librarian and the beast slayer, and in that silence, she read a thousand things behind Allaster’s pale gaze. But there was one that rose above the rest, one she should have been relieved to see, but only made her heart sink: It was how desperately he wanted to believe her.
It was the look of a man who was drowning. She had only to hold out her hand.
Then his face scrunched in confusion. “Elyae?”
She turned as the girl stumbled hastily into the arena, her uniform stained crimson with blood. “Spenshire is under attack.”
CHAPTER 31
KASIRA
ALLASTER REDONNED HIS SHIRT AND TELEPORTED HIMSELF ANDKasira to the infirmary, where Warrin was tending to an injured Ambric with a look of desperate focus.
“What happened?” Allaster demanded.
“Kalthos,” his brother wheezed, before breaking into a coughing fit.
Allaster held a cup of water to Ambric’s lips, helping him drink as Warrin tore the cloth away from the High Mage’s injured leg, revealing a deep cut. “This will need stitches,” he warned, his directness surprising her. She’d barely heard a word out of him since arriving, but he looked entirely in his element here. Ambric reached for Kasira’s hand. “The Ryveren.”
She went cold at the name. As a child, she had heard as many stories of the Ryveren as she had the Library. Falder Zardoc had established the band of outcasts and fugitives after deserting the royal army, the bloody atrocities they had committed as an organized militia now legend. They recruited from the streets, taking kids with nowhere else to go. Her Malik unit had passed through a town hit by them not six months back.
There had been nothing left but corpses.
“The Kalish government would never employ them,” she told Allaster. “There’s a bounty on Zardoc’s head fit for a king.”
