In minutes, Fia and I and two guards are walking down a long, wide corridor to her apartments. We step inside, the guards too, and I find myself worrying she doesn’t trust me.
Her rooms are a gilded affair, with ornate woodwork covering the fine furniture, walls, and golden doors. Across the rooms, however, are a large floor to ceiling opening with billowing sheers that leads out onto a covered portico overlooking a large packed-sand courtyard. It’s the first in a series of terraced courtyards, each one stepping down to a final, vast level that’s more of an amphitheater, big enough to hold such celebrations as the one Colden and I attended so long ago. Beyond that lies Asha’s old temple.
Fia grabs a pitcher and two glasses and leads me outside, gesturing to a pillow on the stone porch near a small table, both made for kneeling or sitting and visiting.
I take a seat, cross-legged, facing the queen, and she joins me. I look over the courtyards. Even now, people are working to set up for some grand event, covering the space with tables and chairs and flower arrangements and lanterns.
“A wedding,” she says. “Tomorrow night. Two of the scholars from the Hall of Holies.”
“I’m certain it will be a beautiful celebration.”
“I would love for you and your friends to attend.”
I give her the most sheepish look I can muster. “Last time you invited me to a party, things didn’t go so well.”
She laughs. “I think that was Colden’s fault more than yours. How dare he bring his beautiful self to the Summerlands,” she says in jest, though I’m glad to hear her mention him. “Something quite terrible had to have happened for you to be here right now,” she continues, filling our glasses with fresh water. “I can’t imagine the journey you’ve made.”
“A difficult one.” I accept the offered glass and drinking the water down, my throat parched.
Fia takes a deep breath and exhales, folding her hands in her lap. “It clearly involves me somehow. I’d like to know.”
I nod and set my glass on the table. She refills it, giving me a moment to collect my thoughts.
“The Prince of the East has embedded traitors in Malgros,” I finally say. “He stole his army through the ports with traitorous aid and rode north into the valley where he wiped out four villages with the aid of a Summerlander siphon. There were very few survivors. Two are in our band. In fact, we have recently learned their mother was from Elam. She was a student at the Hall of Holies years back before she married and moved north to raise her family. Ophelia Moren-Sar.”
Fia’s eyes glitter with recollection, and she leans in, her head tilted. “Ophelia’s children are here?”
“Raina and Nephele, yes. The woman who was with me, and the woman who requested her own room.”
Fia chuckles a little at that. “I knew I liked her spark. She gets that from her mother.”
I raise my brows. “You knew Ophelia well then?”
“Very well. She was a promising mage. But it seems love changed her path.”
I sit there realizing how glad I am it did. Had Ophelia never followed her heart, I wouldn’t have Raina.
“I am so sorry to hear of the north’s loss, Alexus,” Fia says, her face kind and sincere.
“There’s more,” I tell her, rubbing my fingertips up and down the smooth sides of my glass. “The Eastlanders entered Winterhold as well. Many died, and the prince took Colden back to Min-Thuret.”
After a long moment of her blank stare, Fia inhales again, deeply, and lets the breath out, as though needing to collect herself. “He means to use Colden against me, then.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Perhaps. I’m certain that’s part of it. But there’s so much more. Thamaos is communicating with the prince from the Shadow World, I have no doubt. And worse, the prince found Fleurie. I don’t know where she was all these many years, but she’s now alive and restored. We’ve been watching them as closely as possible for many weeks. The prince plans to resurrect Thamaos, and to use Fleurie and her portaling ability to do it.”
She blinks rapidly at the wall of information I just threw at her. “Wait, let me think about this. Resurrection? That’s impossible. The prince would need a remnant or a sacrifice, not to mention skill with ritual.” She pauses. “Do you think he means to sacrifice Colden?”
My blood chills. I haven’t thought about that second scenario because it wasn’t needed. The prince has what he needs without surrendering anybody’s life.
“I hope not,” I reply. “Raina’s father was the Keeper of the God Knife, Fia. I don’t know how or why, but he was. When he died, the knife’s curse passed to Raina, but the prince still managed to steal it.”
I don’t tell her the story about me being Un Drallag. That will have to come at another time. I was a spy, in her homeland. I brought no harm, but I am still a man made from the enemies of her past.
“A Keeper? That’s a Summerland distinction.”
“I know. There was Summerlander magick all over the blade. I couldn’t tell who it belonged to, though.”
“Perhaps Ophelia figured out a way to give her husband dominion over the blade. If I had the weapon, I might be able to answer that question. Otherwise we might never know.” She lowers her head for a moment and scrubs her hands over her face before looking at me again. “Next question. You mentioned Fleurie. As in Thamaos’s daughter who was murdered?”
