CHAPTER ONE
THRONE OF LIES
When we couldn’t afford wood for the hearth, my mother’s lies warmed our home.
She lied constantly, about everything: promised we had enough coin to survive the long, cruel dark seasons at the base of the mountain; swore to the stars we weren’t slowly starving to our deaths; insisted a better life awaited us, just around the corner . . .
My mother was a liar. Fortunately for me, so is everybody else.
In this tiny room, I keep one hand pressed to a wall of tshira. It’s black like pitch, streaked with bands of red and bronze, and so maddeningly cold, it sets my teeth on edge. My free hand curls around the sparrow-shaped tshira talisman dangling from my wrist. It emanates faint warmth into my hand—there’s a lie trapped inside.
At my coaxing, the heat of the lie flows from the trinket and into my palm. Magic hums through me.
I bask in the sensation, like one of those rare moments of sunlight we get in the dark season. The warm, buzzing feeling starts in my fingertips—where my skin touches the talisman—works its way up my arm, and pulses from my other hand, still pressed to the wall.
Magic smooths out a panel in the rough surface. It lightensto a translucent white, frosted over like a screen of ice that peers into the adjoining room, where two people sit on opposite ends of a long table. The window is one-way, so neither of them can see me, and only one of them knows I’m here.
“You haven’t answered my question, Ms. Harcot.” Luc faces the door, arms folded to appear stern. Even while sitting, he’s tall enough to look imposing. He has thick, black coils of hair, skin dark like ochre, and deep-set brown eyes identical to my own. “What is your relationship with Honorate Jasper Nox?”
His chair is high-backed and packed with royal-blue cushions that make it almost comfortable, if not for the spine. It was hand selected (by me, of course) because it’s rigid like a steel rod. Sure, it makes the chair a wreck on the back, but it also makes it impossible to slouch. Lucien Kyler might be Praeceptor of the Republic of Virdei, but he has the posture of a dying blytheweed flower.
“I beg your pardon, sir.” Pelene Harcot sits on a three-?legged stool at the other end of the table. She’s tiny, and her voice is even smaller than she is. Her skin is light like sand, eyes dark like tar, and hair thick and auburn hued like sagegrass. “I’m not sure I understand the question. I used to work for him. That’s all.”
Heat.
Magic, fresh from its source, is hot. When it courses through me, its intensity is like a flare set alight in my belly. The flames of Pelene’s lie flood my veins, hot, sudden, and fervent.
“I see,” says Luc. “So, you claim you’renothaving an affair with him?”
Panic flashes over Pelene’s narrow face. Seconds flit away as she scrambles for a believable answer.
Her silence grates my restless nerves.
I have many skills. Patience isn’t one of them. Especially not now, the day before the most important vote of my life.
Finally, she says, “No.” Her trembling voice gives her away, even before the heat of magic gathers in the pit of my stomach. “There’s no affair.”
Stars in hell, she’s an awful liar.
I shove the magic from Pelene’s poor attempt at deception out, to the torch over her shoulder.
It shudders and, for a flicker, glows brighter.
Luc glances at it, nods, and looks back to Pelene. “Ms. Harcot, do you think it’s wise to lie to your Praeceptor?” His words are firm, just as I taught him. But his tone is feather soft.
I make a mental note to scold him for it later.
Not that it matters. Luc’s tone must be convincing enough for Pelene, because her body wracks with shivers. She strokes the glimmer of gold on the inside of her right wrist in the shape of a crescent moon. A tattoo by name, brand by function. A bright and permanent warning to all that she’s not from here. That she doesn’t belong, and she never will. “I-I’m not lying.”
More heat roars through me. I make the torch leap higher, nearly singeing the ceiling.
Luc’s eyes follow the flame. “Think carefully about your next words,” he says. “If they are untrue, swallow them and try again.”
“I—” Her throat bobs. “Yes. We had an affair. It was brief.”
The flame rises with the heat of more lies.
Luc sighs. “Ms. Harcot . . .”
