Page 82 of The Truth-Teller's Bargain

Xytharia was already moving. She took his face in both hands without asking permission, her red eyes searching his with clinical precision, her lips moving in a low, rapid incantation. The air around her fingers shimmered faintly, the way heat rises from stone in summer.

Dawes stood very still beside Alethea. Neither of them spoke.

“It hasn't fully set,” Xytharia said, though her voice carried something beneath the reassurance: a careful control that told Alethea she was more worried than she was letting on. Her hands moved to his throat, his wrist, his chest, each touch accompanied by another murmured word. She worked quickly and without hesitation, the way someone did when they’d done this before. “This should help.”

The shimmer intensified briefly, then faded.

Alethea watched the High Priestess work and felt something uncomfortable settle in her chest. There was an ease between them, a familiarity in the way Xytharia touched him, in the way he let her. She clearly cared for him. It was obvious in every precise, quick movement, in the way her brow furrowed when she pressed two fingers to his pulse point and held them there.

After a few minutes, Xytharia stepped back, studying him with those unsettling red eyes. She reached into the folds of her dress and withdrew a small folded paper packet. Inside, a fine powder the color of pale gold, almost white.

“Take this if you don't feel better within the next few minutes,” she told him, pressing it into his palm and closing his fingers around it. “All of it.”

Nakir nodded, pocketing the parcel.

“Are you all right?” Alethea asked quietly.

He looked at her for a moment before answering. “Yes.” His voice was even, composed, the same voice he used when addressing his soldiers, when making decisions under pressure, when he needed the people around him to believe everything was under control.

He’d let his guard down. She could see it in the set of his jaw, in the way he’d already straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. The people around him needed him steady, and so he would be.

“And we’re leaving,” Dawes declared. “Let’s find the others.Quickly.I’ll get Emi and find Balthasar. The two of you track down Kerrigan.”

“I’ll find the hosts and let them know what has happened,” Xytharia added.

Nakir held tightly to her as the buzzing sensation drained from her body, replaced with cortisol and fear. Someone had tried to poison him.

“I didn’t see it,” Alethea murmured, her voice laced with self-reproach, as he guided her through the festival. “I didn’t see it.”

“It’s all right,” he assured her, attempting to console her as he scanned the Revel, but his words felt empty in comparison to her guilt and shame.

“Why didn’t I see it?” Her voice wavered with regret and frustration, the weight of her failure pressing down on her.

“You’re intoxicated, Alethea,” he said as he continued to search the crowd for their fire mage. “It’s all right.”

“I should haveseenit,” she lamented, her words barely audible. “I could have protected you.” The sense of helplessness gnawed at her.

She was spiraling. Doubt, fear, and frustration clawed at her thoughts, threatening to consume her. Each beat of the drums and all the laughter around her seemed to mock her, emphasizing her failure.

Nakir stopped his search for a moment to bring her close, cradling her face. “No, love. It isn’t your job to protect me. Do not let this consume you right now. We must hurry. Come—let’s go find Kerrigan.”

Bonfires blurred by as he led her across the grounds. She watched him the entire way, studying the line of his shoulders, the steadiness of his stride, the careful mask of composure he wore like armor. Was he actively dying underneath it? She couldn't tell. That was the most frightening part.

They must have searched the entire festival before they found her—or found someone who’d seen Kerrigan disappear into one of the tents. Alethea hated nothing more than the idea of interrupting whatever she’d chosen to do with her evening, but Nakir had no qualms about bursting in through the low entrance. Alethea stood just outside, arms crossed awkwardly.

“Thefuck, Hasan?”

“We’re leaving. Someone’s here. We’ve been made.”

“Fuck.” Rustling sounds came from within the tent. “What happened?”

“Nightshade in a goblet brought to me. The servant said it was from the hosts.”

“Fuck!”

Three figures emerged: Nakir, Kerrigan, and a third figure dressed in fine robes of Azmarin make. Alethea’s mouth fell open at the sight of the beautiful young woman. Olympia Delaney. Reingard’s younger sister. Reingard’sbetrothedyounger sister.

Olympia was just as surprised to see her. “Alethea?” she inquired, her tone tinged with disbelief. She absently brushed aside her tousled yellow locks, securing them behind her ears, and stood there, a vision in her elegant emerald-green dress. She was one of the youngest of the seven Delaney children and easily the most fair and gentle of them all.