Hiding a smile, the priestess knelt again, wiping the tray clean with a towel, then lifting the lid on the second bowl. A dried persimmon.
“You may have guessed I have some talent for poisons. Take Megari’s favorite food, for example. Don’t look at me like that, Lina—it was just a bit of gloom water, nothing as grievous as Four Breaths. Besides, she was askingsomany questions—I had no choice. I always gave her the antidote in time. It earned me Lady Bushian’s trust. Yours, too.”
Anger dazzled me, hot and white and blinding. If not for the iron bars separating us, I might have strangled Zairena right there and then.
“Oh, you’ll really wish you could kill me by the time I’m finished.” Zairena chuckled as she nibbled on the persimmon. “Poisoned persimmons, I’ll have to keep that in my book. If only it had worked with Four Breaths.” A sigh. “Thatisthe tiresome thing about Four Breaths, the smell. Even Oriyu noticed the incense when he came into my room. I seem to have had the best luck hiding the odor in dyes. After all, one rarely sniffs a sash before wearing it, now does one, Princess?”
She opened the third bowl. A gold cord, like one used for tying a sash.
I shook my head. I didn’t understand.
“This was on the sash you wore when you fell into that lake at Gindara,” Zairena explained. “Lucky for you—it had enough Four Breaths to put you in a slumber for days. But none of us foresaw that the Nameless Queen would recognize it in time. She nearly killed me.”
The world tilted, and I could hardly hear what Zairena was saying.
All this time, Raikama had been trying to protect me! My head was swimming, and yet I’d never seen so clearly before. The answer had always been there.
Raikama had blocked my magic to try and protect me, to hide me from everyone I knew, so the Wolf couldn’t find me!
“After you disappeared,” Zairena prattled on, “the Wolf sent me to Iro as punishment, to wait idly in case Takkan found you. Who would have guessed that he would? Clever, wearing that bowl on your head and pretending you could not speak. All this time, you were right under my nose.”
I was hardly listening to her anymore. My hatred had reached a boiling point, and I threw myself at her.
It was a pitiful move. I couldn’t get far with my muscles numbed, and I fell against the bars. Clinging to them, I swung at her, and water from my sleeves, soaked from the puddles in my cell, splashed into her face.
Zairena recoiled. Water dripped from her forehead, causing the powder to run down in white streams that clumped around her chin. Golden specks glittered on her skin—traces of Four Breaths.
As she wiped it with her sleeve, Zairena’s face began to glimmer—the same way my satchel had.
First her mole disappeared. Then the rest of her features began to change. Her mouth stretched wider, her eyelids grew deep and hooded, and her face aged decades.
I let out a silent gasp, recognizing my maid from the palace. Guiya.
“Remember me, Your Highness?” she said, hunching her shoulders and pretending to tremble. She laughed. “The real Tesuwa Zairena perished with her parents. Am I a sorceress, you’re wondering? No, no. My magic is insignificant, compared to the power you and your stepmother wield.”
Water,I realized. It was why she always carried an umbrella, always shielded herself from the rain and snow. It washed away the illusion, revealing who she truly was!
With heightened drama, Guiya opened the last bowl on the tray. Inside were ashes.
I didn’t understand.
“The remains of the bloodsake before you,” sheannounced.“His ashes were consecrated on the Holy Mountains—the last of the dark magic left in Kiata. We priestesses hoarded them for decades—until we learned ofyou.”
My stomach curdled as Guiya dusted ashes over her face, and her features shifted once more into Zairena’s.
She covered the bowls and started to rise. “You really did have the luck of the dragons, Princess. But that luck has finally run its course. Tomorrow the Holy Mountains will be at peace once more, and we priestesses will sing for you. Tomorrow we will add your name to those who came before you. We will remember you for centuries to come, as we remember all those who have dishonored the gods.
“Tomorrow you will die.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It was still night when they came for me. Stripes of dawn shone faintly through the iron bars, the moon a hopeless sliver.
Pao wouldn’t meet my eyes as two other sentinels lifted me onto the wagon. I could tell Hasege’s order to have me burned did not sit well with him. Maybe that was why he let me bring Megari’s basket.
As the wagon lumbered down the hill past Iro, I tried to free my hands. The sentinels sitting beside me lurched, kept their daggers drawn threateningly until I gave up.
It was no use anyway. The ropes were bound tight.
