“The truth.” Allaster nocked a warning arrow. “Were you hired by the Kalish government to execute this attack?”
The captain evaluated them with shrewd eyes. It was a look Kasira knew well. “Let me guess. You were promised that if you were captured, you would be freed and taken care of?”
Zardoc spread his hands as if to say,What can you do?
“Captain Zardoc,” Allaster began in a voice that prickled the back of her neck. “You attacked my home and nearly killed my brother. I don’t care what the Kalish offered you, because unless you start talking, you won’t make it to a Miravi jail cell. You’ll return to theLibrary with me, where I will show you exactly which creatures spurred every nightmarish legend your people have until you beg for a death I will refuse to grant.”
The mention of the Library made the Captain’s already pale skin turn chalk white. He looked to Kasira, as if expecting her to rescue him, but he had not been a part of her plan. None of this had, and if she had the opportunity, she would make Thane pay for it.
“I would do what he says.” She stepped back to give Allaster space to loose his arrow. “You’ll get no help from me.”
Zardoc let his head tip back against the wall. “They offered us reinstatement. A full pardon. These people”—he gestured at the still corpses and wounded Ryveren—“they just wanted a second chance.” Revna’s face flashed in her mind, but Kasira pushed it away.
“Who made the offer?” Allaster demanded.
“Ambassador Vera Helsen.”
CHAPTER 32
KASIRA
THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR GUILT IN A CON.
Kasira had taken from people with lifetimes more than her, people like Morvir, who would happily cut her down and leave her to the worms. People like Thane and Dessen. She had done what she’d had to in order to survive, and she had never apologized for it.
Watching Allaster standing at the top of the stairs overlooking the battered courtyard drew more than an apology to her lips. It drew questions like,Why do you look as if you’re drowning in regret?andWhy does this hurt me as much as it hurts you?Questions that had no place in this job, in her future. But as she watched medics tend to the wounded they had helped relocate, and townspeople emerge from their homes to share food and company, the guilt only grew.
This had never been her intention, but Vera had taken Kasira’s threat and turned it into a full-blown massacre. Thane might have warped her plan, but Kasira was the one who had given Vera the idea, the one who had told the Ambassador that no matter what Allaster said about impartiality, he desperately missed his home.
Kasira was responsible for the look of abject pain in Allaster’s eyes, and if she could do it over again, if she could take her plan back, she would.
Truth, she thought and braced herself against it. Because there was no room for thoughts like that if she was to survive.
They stayed long enough to ensure the town had the medical supplies and resources it needed before returning through the door in the manor. Kasira didn’t ask, but she had deduced the building was Allaster’s childhood home, the study with the portal door his old bedroom—there had been a glass figurine of a leopard in the window.
She wondered what life had been like for him in those precious few years before his parents had whisked him away to the Arcadamium. It must have been strange returning each summer from studying to find his brother another year older and his friends another year closer. If he’d even had any friends. She could not imagine him as anything but the prickly Librarian he was now, even as a child.
They found Ambric fast asleep in the infirmary, where Kasira was surprised to find May presiding over him, Warrin having apparently needed a moment to himself. She reported that Ambric’s injuries were serious, but not fatal, and that he would be fine to return home in the morning. Apparently former mages healed well, a side effect of the magic that once ran through their veins.
“He’s remarkably resilient,” May pointed out when Allaster only stared wordlessly at his brother’s wan face.
“He’s a tough old bastard. Always has been.” A faint smile tugged at Allaster’s lips. “When we were kids, he pulled me out of a riptide. Dislocated his shoulder doing it. But I was so scared, he carried me all the way home. He couldn’t use his arm for months.”
May hesitated a moment before saying, “Did you see the Kalish door was alight when you returned? It’s the castle.”
“How do you know?” Kasira hadn’t noticed the door, but she’d never detected any difference in the lights besides the color that indicated beast class.
“The Library knows,” May replied. “You need only touch the symbol to learn which soulice is hailing us.”
Kasira glanced at Allaster. This time, she couldn’t blame a trick of the light on the strange color of his eyes. Impossible as it seemed, the blue had leached from them entirely, leaving behind a ghostly steel reminiscent of Iylis. Combined with his grim expression and the blood flecking his olive skin, he looked downright terrifying.
She followed him into the adjacent room, bracing for what was to come.
Vera entered the portal room like a queen gracing her court, her sharp eyes taking in their disheveled states. She reminded Kasira of a vulture, both with her long neck and the way she circled them, scavenging for morsels she could tear into.
“Oh dear,” she observed mockingly. “Did your last mission go awry?”
“Do not play games with me, Ambassador,” Allaster snarled, and his anger echoed in Kasira. Vera had twisted her plan into a slaughter, made her culpable in the deaths of innocents. “You hired the Ryveren to attack my home.”
