She turned, but Kai caught her and braced his hands on either side of her face, holding her like this one last time.“Let me deal with him.”He brushed his thumbs against her cheeks.“Please.”
A muscle in her jaw ticked.“It’s… as much your right as mine, I suppose, but – ”
“We’ll go halfsies.”
She cracked, lowering her face with a muffled laugh.“Stop,” she managed, still sniggering.“It isn’t funny.”
“All the same.Just… whatever you’ve planned, wait.Until this is over.”
After a moment, she nodded.Kai pressed his lips to her forehead and released her, his gut twisting, feeling like this was goodbye.
But it wasn’t.Not yet, not until Saros was dead, and Menon was gone, and the parley over, and the Moths – he wasn’t sure, but he’d sort that, too.Somehow, on the far side of things in his mind, everything would be fine, although right now he felt like a juggler rapidly losing control of everything he’d launched into the air.
Caelos’s west wing was dark at this hour, the sun not yet having risen high enough to throw light into the airy halls.He passed the closed door to Saros’s quarters before the last hall leading to his meeting room, the wards locking it zipping against his skin like thorns.Not much longer, Kai promised himself, rubbing his arms.
The latch clicked, panic spearing through him – and then Saros appeared, his face grey and eyes shadowed.
“There you are, lad.”He wiped his forehead, his free hand gripping the door handle like it was the only thing supporting him.“Good timing.I need you.”
Don’t you dare,Etan’s voice nagged at him.
Lay low,his mother had warned him.
But just the sight of the old man made his blood boil.You, he wanted to scream.He felt his limbs shake with rage, every muscle in his body tightening.You did this to us.
Saros summoned a wan smile, although the haunted look in his pale eyes showed that something was still very wrong.“I see,” he said.“Finally figured it out, have you?”
That smile, the smug edge in his tone.He’d smiled the same way after Oseidos burned, when he talked about how Menon had left Ione.The secret, vindictive pleasure of it, even after so many people had died.
“The wardstone,” Kai breathed, hauled back to that night.“You shattered it.”
Saros tapped his chest.“I was running out of time, and I had it on good authority that the Moths planned on trying something on your wedding night.”He huffed out a frail laugh, a cough.“A hydromantic prodigy – but still so arrogant that you wouldn’t even dream of an old man besting you.Are you very angry with me?”
Kai’s hands twitched.He could almost feel Saros’s neck between them, hear the cracking of bone, the final wheezing breath.
“Ah-ah,” Saros interrupted before he could even open his mouth.“Down, boy.”
“I will kill you,” Kai whispered, trembling.“I will fucking kill you, Saros.”
“Oh, I daresay you’ll be more efficient than this disease.”Unafraid, Saros moved aside and beckoned.“But first, have a cup of tea with me.I’ve one last gambit to see through before I can meet my wife and son again.”
Although every cell in his body screamed at him to run, Kai moved, one foot after the other, over the threshold.Past Saros, past his library, his ugly potted plants, his upright piano, and towards a steaming pot of tea sitting at a table before the ceiling-high windows overlooking Lodestone.
Behind him, the door creaked shut, shrouding them both in autumnal dark.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lina
Somewhere within this vast web of chambers and halls and passageways, Menon stirred.
Lina choked down a gulp of tea, praying it would settle her stomach.She was often all too aware of Kai’s location within the shrine, a sensation sitting confusingly between pain and comfort, like digging a thumb into a bruise.He was on one of the higher levels now, she surmised, gazing up at the recently-painted ceiling, at the old cracks peeking through like ripples on a pond.
She closed her eyes.Heard nothing but the wind clattering against the windowpanes, felt nothing but her own heartbeat.
And beneath it, the faint drum of Sowelan’s.
Cool fingertips grazed her hand, the space where her missing fingers used to be.“Are you all right?”
