It’s not like it happened often. These are just a few moments across an entire lifetime.
That you could recall at a moment’s notice?
Say something to defend yourself!I silently beg my sister.
But she’s glaringly quiet. Probably too incensed to answer.
Perhaps because she isn’t there at all…and never has been, my deepest fears whisper.
What if I invented her voice to fill the Rowenna-shaped hole in my life? Because I didn’t trust myself and my own judgment?
I double over, feeling like I’m going to be sick.
Delphine places a gentle hand on my back. “I’m in shock too. When King Soren said Besnik’s death was a tragic training accident, we had no reason to question him. Soren adored Besnik. Though Ido remember some rumbling from Besnik’s valet after the accident. The boy insisted Besnik was too responsible and meticulous to have requested power early or to have pushed that fledgling power too far. But we all attributed his claims to shock and grief.”
Delphine fiddles with the end of her braid before continuing. “If that’s really what happened, and not some alternate reality Alaric invented, I can’t fathom how Alaric has maintained such a close relationship with his father all this time. The anger and resentment would be crushing. Alaric wouldneverbe able to show a hint of remembrance or a sliver of resentment—not with his father and the inquisitors watching.”
“Butwouldthey be watching?” I ask. “Soren was supposed to purge the memory of Besnik’s death too.”
“Do you really think King Soren would put himself in such a vulnerable position? Leave his fate in the hands of the son he just tried to kill?” Delphine shakes her head. “I think it’s much more likely he also retained the memory, and the excessive praise he heaps on Alaric now is a way to ease his guilty conscience—and test his son.”
I try to swallow, but my throat has gone drier than the Tomb Flats. I can’t fathom living like that. Forced to love a monster, knowing every word out of Soren’s lips was a lie.
Alaric’s cryptic refrain makes so much more sense now.
You’d drink this much, too, if you were me.
I rest my forehead on my tented knees, wishing I could purge the memory of Besnik’s death. But that just makes my stomach churn with guilt and disgust, because it’s precisely what the Vanzadorians do with unpleasant and inconvenient memories. Not to mention, it’s the crack I’ve been searching for since I arrived on the mountain. The fracture that could set the kingdom of Vanzador to crumbling.
Like the fractured gemstone that set all of this in motion.
Those scattered, spinning pieces are an important piece of the puzzle too. Soren called the broken jewel theFleshof Callahan and said it was part of a triad. A group of three.
Like the three words written in Callahan’s journal.
And the three words carved into the walls of Delphine’s chamber.
Blood, flesh, bone.
If the Flesh is a gemstone, might they all be? Could the key to Soren’s power be hidden in jewels that could be potentially stolen? If young Alaric was able to get his hands on the stone of Flesh, who’s to say others haven’t tried?
ThatRowennadidn’t try.
Cold certainty drips down my back like freezing rain.
This is how she planned to save Tashir. I know it as well as I know the twisting halls of the hillock palace. She planned to steal the gemstone triad and command the earth herself. If Ro possessed Soren’s ability to move the earth, we wouldn’t need him or his seeds-forsaken treaty. She could protect us herself and return home to take her rightful place as queen of Tashir.
But she must have gotten caught. Soren said he’d be keeping the gemstones somewhere safer than the royal coffers going forward, and Rowenna must have figured out where. Then Soren made her death look like an accident because he knew he’d never be able to bring me back to Vanzador in Rowenna’s place if they were responsible for her death.
It’s all so painfully, laughably clear.
And it makes my next steps so perfectly, brutally clear. I need to finish what Rowenna started. I need to steal the gemstone triad and return to Tashir with Soren’s power. But I have to be extremely careful. If he suspects I’m searching, he’ll send me to join Rowenna in the Great Fields Beyond. I must come at this from a completely different angle.
One they’d never suspect.
I scramble back across the scree and stare at Alaric, still quietly rocking back and forth. It’s difficult to watch—difficult not to feel compassion for him, when I know exactly how he feels. That’s part of the reason I don’t stride over there, spewing threats and making demands.The rest is more strategic. If Alaric hasn’t already cracked under the weight of his secrets and Soren’s scrutiny, I’m not likely to break him. If I approach him with empathy and understanding, though—if I offer the kind of support he’s never had—I might be able to earn his trust and trick him into leading me to the gemstone triad.
The smallest pang of guilt pricks my conscience at the prospect of capitalizing on his grief, but Vanzador has never hesitated to use our weaknesses against us.
