The Night Terror took another bite and turned her attention to her hand, scrubbing blood off her palm. Brela wasn’t the assassin to respond to his comment.
Farrah flashed her teeth in a snarl. “We’ll tell you where we’re going and what you need to know when it’s necessary. Consider this payback for what you did to Brela on the trip to Aelstow.”
“Do you really want to handicap half of our best chance at survival?” Serill snapped back, pointing to his Captain.
One look at Brela—the other half of that survival chance who remained completely silent—was all Serill needed to understand what was really happening. It wasn’t about convincing the Night Terror that she could trust him. It was about convincing her friends.
Serill sighed and calmed himself. “I’m trying to make this right. I can’t make up for what was done to Valisea, but I can make up for what we did to Brela.”
Elias rolled his eyes. “You’re only interested in protecting your people.”
“Of course I want to protect my people, but I also want to protect what is left of Valisea. Whether the Veil wall stays up or comes down, whether celvusa or monsters or shadow-kind spill out of the cracks, I am the only person with power who will stand up for the people of Valisea,” he replied.
“Prince,” Cason warned.
The prince waved him off and added softly, “I am not my father. I want Severina to be part of a better world. When I step in to rule, I would hope that I can give the Veil Scholar more than just a library of history books and extinct magic.”
Elias’s head snapped to Brela in surprise, but Farrah’s glances between the prince and Brela were more wary. Still leaned back casually in her seat, Brela set the apple down and exchanged a few hand signals to her friends who paled more and more the longer they watched their friend sign to them. When she was finished, Elias gestured something to the Night Terror who only nodded in response. He and Farrah traded stares, though no hand signals were made.
Finally, Farrah sighed and reached into her pocket. Cason tensed next to Serill but relaxed as the woman only produced a tightly folded paper and flung it across the table toward the prince.
The captain leaned over Serill’s shoulder as he unfolded the map of the continent, but where his map was blank in Valisea, this one was covered in black text. Villages, rebel uprisings, destroyed cities, raid camps, and more, all listed and marked in incredible detail.
Serill raised his eyebrow at Brela. “You already had this drawn.”
Brela rolled the core of her apple between her fingers and shrugged, finally breaking her silence. “I drew it the other night for Farrah and Elias. I told them it was their decision whether they would share it with you.”
Cason leaned closer, studying the map. “You’ve already marked our route through the mountains and Crystal Desert. Why are we avoiding Rooke?”
“Because that would take us through Averlyn and Dredon,” Elias said. He darted a glance at Brela before continuing. “We don’t need any unnecessary attention on the way through the earth kingdom.”
“We’re avoiding Gerrart and Ovir, which is safer for everyone here, but it’s also a better route to remain… unseen,” Brela replied quietly as she went back to studying her hand, this time unsheathing her knife to pick at some of the dried blood. The subtle swallow indicated there was more to that story that she didn’t plan on sharing with Serill or Cason. “When we’re done, the king can deliver our payment to Averlyn and you can both return to Aelstow with the information you need.”
The captain tensed slightly next to him, and Serill wasn’t sure if it was the realization that Brela wouldn’t be around any longer or if it was about the route they’d be taking to Valisea.
The prince swallowed and glanced up. “Traveling north along the Veil wall means—“
“Yes,” Brela sighed, her voice catching. “We have to travel through Calcheth.”
27
Personal Hell
Elias kept his focus locked on every movement Brela made—each flinch of muscle, twitch of her eye, bob of her throat, shake of her bones, and the trembling knife in her fingers. One small tap against his leg from Farrah let him know she was watching it too, and the chill of ice along her finger confirmed she was not going to last long in this conversation.
He had come prepared for this moment; prepared to shield Farrah and pull Brela out if needed. Prepared to hold her back in case Cason or Serill said the wrong thing. At least they had the good sense to look wary after seeing how Brela had reacted when the king mentioned the city.
He could still remember the horror on Brela’s face the night Ovir told her she’d be returning to Valisea on his orders. Sometimes Elias’s own nightmares were plagued by the screams of terror she’d unleashed that night in her sleep, as if every torture she’d suffered in Valisea had surfaced all at once.
Not fighting harder against Brela and insisting on going with her was one of his greatest regrets in life, even if she had threatened to chain him to Ovir’s roof just to keep him from interfering. But he’d relented. Brela had begged him—sobbed, even—and made him swear that he’d stay with Farrah to protect her.
Elias knew it wasn’t because she didn’t trust them, but because she was shielding them from the horrors of her home.
And because she needed someone to protect her when she returned.
Brela had warned him about what she was capable of becoming—how the Night Terror took over and she lost her sense of self—and he’d even seen her slip into that dark fortress of shadow and song and death before. She’d told him those moments were nowhere close to what Dernian and Ovir had unleashed when she was sixteen, but he thought they’d be prepared to help her like they’d done in the past.
What waited in Calcheth was so much worse than what Brela had prepared for. TheBrelathat came back from Calcheth was so much worse.
