Skylar’s hands falter as she rifles through letters. “Bet you’re glad it’s not him,” she mutters, picking up a letter and trying to decipher it.
Astrid sets the book back on the shelf, then moves to stand next to Skylar. “I’m glad it’s not him.” Skylar raises her eyebrows, surprised at the honesty. “But that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to killingyou, Little Dragon.”
Skylar acknowledges that by shoving the letter in Astrid’s face, then picking up the next one.
“There’s nothing in this,” Astrid says as she reads. “It’s an execution order for a rebel, I think.”
An execution order. She wonders if that would have been the Exhauster, too. Maybe he even looks forward to the executions—she imagines him sitting in a cell, hidden from the world, waiting to be called forth.
“What areyoulooking for?” Skylar asks.
Astrid’s turn to hesitate. “I need information on the Heart.”
“Why? Soon enough you’ll gain control of it, won’t you?” Unless she gets a dragon.
Astrid doesn’t answer—fair enough. Skylar scans the next letter. “Nothing here, either. Just some vineyard owner complaining about the wasting away of his crops.” Skylar snorts scathingly. “Can’t supply the nobles with the finest wines with no crops, can he?”
Astrid, however, holds out her hand for the letter, then purses her lips as she reads.
“Hoping to take back a case of wine as a souvenir, were you?”
“It sounds like the land is dying,” Astrid says, ignoring her. “It sounds like…”
“Oh, that’s nothing. You want to see what’s happening down south. I was there a year ago, everything’s gone to shit down in Brithan. Nothing’s growing, and no one can afford to pay for Vitalas, so it’s hot as Vaar everywhere you go. It was always more of a desert, but now it’s like a wasteland and… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The Blight,” Astrid says slowly.
“Right. You do know I have no idea what that is, yeah?”
Astrid frowns down at the letter. “My country is experiencing natural disaster after natural disaster, has been for years. It’s why my mother had to return, because of the floods. I thought you were hoarding the Heart’s ambient magic somehow, for Vatra, but if it’s happening here…”
“Don’t lump me in with them,” Skylar mutters darkly. “Last I checked, I’m not hoarding anything.”
Astrid looks at Skylar. “No. You’re not one of them, are you? And I’m sorry.”
The easy way Astrid offers the apology makes Skylar immediately suspicious, and she narrows her eyes, waiting. Astrid only goes back to the letters, rifling through more quickly now, still clutching the one about the crops. Skylar watches her, replaying Asrid’s words in her mind.
“Youcare.”
“Huh?”
“You care that people are suffering. Your people.”
“Of course I care,” Astrid says. “It’s the whole reason I want to win the duel—to stop the suffering in my queendom. It’s the whole reason I’mhere.” She gestures around the room.
“Yeah,” Skylar says, “and to save your own life, I’ll bet.” She bends to open the third and final drawer—though it doesn’t immediately open.
She feels a spike of excitement and glances up at Astrid. “Help a girl out, would you?”
Astrid murmurs a spell, and the drawer clicks open. Their heads are side by side as they both bend to look. Skylar pulls out a folder, flicks it open. A bound book with countless names, listed in alphabetical order.
Celeste Amberfall—Metallurgist—Grade Two—Eastern Camp
Rachel Ashenvale—Nullifier—Grade One—Southern Camp
Valrick Briarhelm—Sensor—Grade Two—Champion
“What is this?” Astrid whispers.
