“Knowing him, he most certainly does.”
Silence fell as she continued to work with the paste, but it was an easy kind of quiet, the kind that felt like a long nap in the sun. I leaned back against the roof and laced my hands behind my head, watching the pinks and reds of the sky succumb to the midnight blues of night. We sat like that for a good long while until Daella was done with the medicine. The fireflies had come out to play, darting overhead beneath the silver of the moon. Down in the market square, the bard still sang. This time, he was on to a tune about the dwarven city deep inside the Glass Peaks.
Daella settled onto the roof beside me. “Thanks for giving me this.”
“The sunset? Can’t say it’s mine to give, but I’m glad it could ease some of…today’s shit.”
“The sunset, yes. But everything else, too. I was in bad shape.”
“I’m sorry, Daella. If I win, Iwillmake sure he’s gone, if I can’t find a way to get rid of him before then. He doesn’t deserve this place.”
She slid her eyes my way. “What exactly is it you’re going to ask for if you win? I know you said you don’t share that with anyone before the end of the Games, but…well, I’m your assistant, and I think I’ve earned it after today.”
I chuckled. “That you did.”
“So?” She raised her brow, and I couldn’t help but notice how the moon’s glow amplified the shine of her eyes. “What is it, then?”
“I told you. I’m going to make sure Emperor Isveig can never harm anyone who is a part of this place.”
“And you can just ask that? ‘Dear Isles of Fable, please ensure Emperor Isveig never hurts anyone who lives here.’”
“No, others have tried that kind of thing in the past,” I admitted. “You have to be more specific with your wording.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” She sat up and wound her arms around her rolled-up trouser legs, gazing ahead at the twinkling lanterns of Wyndale. From up here, I often thought the sprawl of it across the hills looked like a reflection of the starlight above. A distant marvel, one I could survey but never quite know—always just beyond my reach.
I sat up beside her. “I’m going to ask it to make an unbreakable rule for those who find these islands. No one can come or go who will cause us harm if they do so. That way, Isveig will never step foot in Wyndale nor will he know what’s here.”
Daella stiffened.
I frowned. “And that bothers you? If what you’ve told me is true, you will cause us no harm.”
She hastily stood, the roof tiles wobbling beneath her bare feet. “You know why I’m here. I’m to track down Draugr in the Glass Peaks and take them to Isveig. I wasorderedto do it, which means I have to. You don’t think that’sharm?”
I rose beside her, noting her tortured expression. “Well, then you won’t be able to leave if I win. Is that really so terrible? You’d be free from him if you stayed.”
Tears filled her eyes. She yanked up her tunic to reveal the ice shard embedded in her skin.
“You asked me what this is and what it does,” she whispered furiously. “Well, at the moment, it does nothing, as long as I do what the emperor commands. But if I don’t…” She closed her eyes, and a tear streaked down her reddened cheek. “If I don’t return to him within six weeks—five weeks now, I think—then he will use the power of the shard against me. It only takes one whispered word from him, and it will turn me into a block of ice. He will kill me.”
16
DAELLA
The pity in Rivelin’s eyes hurt more than the welts did. Physical pain I understood, but not this…this rawness around my heart. I’d spent so much of my life trying to pack all the emotion into crates inside my mind, nailed shut forever so that no one like Isveig could use them against me. Could useme.
The people at court in Fafnir Castle had often stared at me with mocking smiles or blatant curiosity. The Draugr I’d tracked down gaped at me in fear. No one had ever looked at me like they felt sorry for me, especially not someone who would happily condemn me to die in this place. This situation had damaged those carefully sealed crates, and the emotions burst through.
I started to shove past Rivelin. I couldn’t let him see me cry. But he gently grabbed my hand before I made it to the ladder.
“Daella, wait,” he murmured as the steam rose between us.
I blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I can’t have this conversation with you.”
“Isveig is the enemy. Not me.”
“Aren’t you?”
He pressed his lips together. “I don’t have to be.”
