Kai’s voice broke through then, making Lina flinch; her eyes flew to him, partially concealed behind a pillar he leaned against.“Let them be angry,” he said, stepping into the light.He regarded Ione coolly, the warden Lina had feared him to be, dark and humourless.“Let them rage against the ward they can’t penetrate and burn everything else in their path.And at your command, Lady, I will make Etan and Nalu seem like children with toy swords.”
Ione did not even glance at him.
“Forty dead,” Kai said, to Saros now.“High priests or not, that is pathetic.Let me and I will sweep Soliz into the sea.”
“Keep speaking,” Ione replied frostily, “and Menon will rip you limb from limb.”
He jutted his chin.“At Her leisure.”
Ione pressed her eyelids shut, breathing deep.“There will be collateral damage,” she said, ignoring Kai.“More deaths, more suffering.You should have waited, Saros.”
Saros opened his palms.“Such is the reality of war, dear.An unfortunate means to an end, but at least I have an end in sight.”There was a smile in his voice as he added, “What did you plan, Ione?To pray very hard, to ask very nicely?”
“You forget who you are speaking to,” she whispered.
“Youforget how many of us have already lived and died by these centuries of bloodshed,” Saros retorted, loud and sudden enough that Ione recoiled.“Iam paving the way for Menon’s manifestation, and your infantile idealism has only ever held us all back.”
As one Saros, Penina and Ronan pivoted, leaving Ione there to seethe.But Lina couldn’t let them go, not yet, not until she had the chance to ask one thing.She stumbled out from the shadows, her stomach flipping at the way the Archpriest halted, bemused; at the way Penina scowled and Ronan frowned.Kai alone regarded her neutrally, one eyebrow lifting as though he was interested in seeing what she’d do.
“I’m sorry, I…” Lina wrung her hands, her gaze flitting past them all to Ione, whose face softened at the sight of her.Lina swallowed and forged on, “I just needed to know, Your Beatitude.”She curtseyed hastily, remembering herself.“I had heard that the men who attacked my old shrine were killed.”
She shrank under their stares, the weight of their attention.Tell me, every nerve in her body commanded them.Tell me he’s dead.Tell me he won’t come here.
It was Kai who took pity on her and answered, both a surprise and not.“Castor Almenara survived,” he said airily, although there was a slight nod to her, a hint of sympathy Lina didn’t know what to do with.“But Nalu wounded him, and theLeviathosileft enough bodies in their wake to give Almenara pause before he scrounges up a counterattack.”
You don’t know him,Lina thought, dismal, as Saros and Ione’s parents took their leave.You don’t know him at all.
When Kai did not move, Ione’s grey eyes slid to him.“Goodbye, Warden.”
Kai bowed.“Very good, Lady.I’ll call on you again once it’s all sunk in.”He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned, muttering darkly over his shoulder, “You know I’d only be too happy to handle this all for you.”
Lina grabbed his arm before he slipped past her.“What the hell were you thinking?”she whispered through gritted teeth.“Castor and Rigel will guess who that information came from, and it won’t take them long to figure outwhereit came from.”
“And you’ll survive it.You’re welcome, by the way.”He smiled, sharklike, none of his usual levity behind it.“Of course making Etan and Nalu today’s heroes certainly wasn’t my fucking intention, but the cogs are turning now and I’ll see to it they stop somewhere I like.”
He whipped his arm back before she could respond and hurried after the Archpriest into the altarhouse.
Ione crumbled, just a little, once she and Lina were alone in the midmorning light; her hands shook with each long breath, but she held herself steady, face lifted, eyes squeezed shut.Quivering, not with the fear Lina felt, but with fury.The directionless, helpless fury of a bird trapped in a cage.
Lina closed the distance between them and threw her arms around her, both for Ione’s sake and her own.Ione needed to be brought back down to earth, and Lina needed something, anything, to hold onto.
Castor was alive.
Oh, gods, he was alive.
“He will regret this,” Ione whispered into Lina’s shoulder.“All of it.Every decision, every word he’s spoken against me.”
Lina didn’t know what to say, so she held her tighter, smoothed her hair, wished she could at all help her.
“I have worked,” Ione went on.“I have begged.I have pleaded.And I have failed, and my people continue to pay the price for it.”
A hot tear dripped onto Lina’s shoulder.She pulled away, wiping another tear from Ione’s cheek with the pad of her thumb.Stay strong, stay strong.“Gods above, Ione.”She swept her thumb across Ione’s wet eyelashes, white-gold triangles.“What on earth were you expected to do?”
“My duty.”Ione smiled sadly and cupped her hands over Lina’s.“My purpose.Protect you, my family, my people, my home.”
A fresh tear slid down Ione’s cheek and she whispered the words that made Lina’s heart break.Failure.I am a failure.
“I’m sorry.”Ione kissed Lina’s palm, held it against her cheek.“My mother was right.I am a child.”
