“You’ll take us with you,” Noceo growled behind Drenevan. Compulsion coated each word. “Youwilltake us back south with you.”
Othus’s eyes dulled.
“In six months, after we spy for you and give you every detail you want, you will take us south with you,” Noceo spat, the full weight of his power behind his voice. “As sons and heirs.”
Drenevan blinked. They didn’t need to be heirs.
Sweat slid down Noceo’s cheeks as he kept going. “These thoughts are your own. You will forget that we are Clan sons. You know us as street rats. You see greatness in us, and you can’t bear to see such potential wasted. And if the Clanlord comes for us, youwillprotect us.”
“Of course,” Othus murmured. “The soon-to-be Magus Supreme Aelius is an old friend. You don’t have to worry on that score.”
“You will meet us tomorrow at the docks. Now, leave and remember nothing of being Coerced,” Noceo panted. “Your thoughts are your own.”
Othus took a few steps back and shuffled out of the alley, eyes glazed. Noceo slumped to the ground, gasping with strain. But his eyes were wild when he looked up.
“You utter fucking madman.” He pulled Drenevan down and into a bear hug. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You did most of it,” Drenevan said dryly. Part of him was stunned that it had worked. “Tetrarchs aren’t as powerful as I believed.”
“It’s not the sort of magic they expect from an Urd.” Noceo laughed. “By the Elsar and Naaduir, we’re going to befree.”
“We’ll have to leave the Poxt—Parvine,” Drenevan added hastily.
Noceo’s eyes dimmed before he waved a hand. “She’ll wait. I’ll tell her I’m coming back for her and to hold on for me.”
“Seems inadvisable.” But his brother’s excitement was contagious. Drenevan sat with him in the odoriferous alleyway and stared at myriadconstellations looming over Komis. Soon, they would see what they looked like in the south.
“Everything’s going to change, Drenevan.” It sounded like a prophecy coming from Noceo’s mouth.
Drenevan believed it. “Everything.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they grinned.
She woke to the realization that she had seen someone else’s dream again.
She finally knew whose it was.
Night had fallen outside Méherre’s domus. The cozy space lay on the very edge of Aelius’s Quarter, surprisingly close to the Grains Guild horreum that had begun the past month of terror. Here, in this strange quiet gifted by snow and seclusion, she could almost pretend that none of it had happened.
Upon arrival, Harion, Cassandane, and Anek had discarded their robes for cloaks and a determination to drink themselves insensate at the closest tavern. She had lain on one of the couches, meaning to join them.Looks like I fell asleep first. A thick blanket curled under her shoulders, and she knew who that would have been too. He stood outside, staring at the gloaming, the eyes long since having disappeared from the sky.
No one had wanted to speak of it. She finally understood what might have made Kadra keep the fact that he was Godstouched from her. And the rest of it.
Still covered in soot, she washed her face and pilfered Méherre’s well-stocked cupboards to prepare a simple vegetable stew. Despite her dislike of the south, the Bridger seemed to have been planning to move here, given the extensive array of herbs and spices arranged neatly on the shelves.
The front door parted. Kadra’s near-soundless steps came through the atrium and halted upon sighting her ladling stew into two bowls.
“I’m a little out of practice,” she admitted. “But Arsamea never complained about my cooking.”
His throat worked for a moment before he sat across her. The spoon dipped past the stern line of his lips and paused. His brows rose.
“I can see why.” His arresting eyes traced her with soft indulgence. “Do you enjoy cooking?”
“More so now when I don’t have to do it,” she mused. “I wonder if that’ll be the same with this job.” Unspoken was the question of whether she had one anymore. If the land even had a government now.
“It will be.” His gaze grew tender. “And you’d still want to do it.”
Heat built behind her eyes. Worry. Fear. Gratitude that they were here together. “When did you first fall in love with me?”
