Zera flopped onto a couch in her workroom, adjacent to her bedchamber. Beside her, Guine strummed on his harp. “You seem unhappy,” he said.
“No shit.”
“Tell me.” He played an arpeggio that should have calmed her nerves but instead made her feel like chewing on a pillow with all her excess frustration. “Perhaps talking it out will help.”
“Definitely not. How about you strip off your clothes and then mine and make me think about anything but how much I’d like to knock sense into Kreya’s thick head?”
He smiled but didn’t move. “You don’t want a distraction.”
“Oh? You’re the expert on what I want?”
“Yes,” he said calmly.
Okay, I’ll bite.She rolled onto her side to study him. She didn’t think he loved her, not truly, but maybe heknewher.And maybe that’s better.“What do I want?”
“Answers,” he said.
Huh. She hadn’t expected him to be quite so on-the-nose, instantly right. But that was exactly what she needed. “You’re right. Thank you, Guine.” She’d never been the type to mope, and now wasn’t the time to start. “Gather everyone. Not myold team—they’re too busy being idiots. Summon our friends.” Getting to her feet, she proceeded to pace impatiently while Guine stuffed all of her current followers into the suddenly-not-as-spacious room.
It only took a few minutes until the room was full to bursting. She stood up on one of her stools to be heard, holding on to Guine’s hand to stay steady. It wouldn’t do to fall off the stool.
All of her followers looked up at her adoringly. She was pleased she recognized the majority of them. She gave them her most charming smile.
“You all delight in gossip, don’t you?”
A few tittered. A few looked concerned.
“Of course you do,” Zera said. “We all do. It’s human nature to be curious. Well, we have the opportunity to delve into the juiciest bit of gossip going on right now. I assume you’ve all heard the rumors of the ‘miracle of the pyre’? Eklor has offered to extend that miracle to others. I want to know who he’s offering it to and if he’s delivering. Lurk around the grand master’s palace. Let me know who comes and goes. Pull whatever strings you can to learn who is benefiting and who isn’t from Eklor’s presence.” She thought of one specific request. “And get me a list of the recently dead. We can start there, with the hospital, with the mortuary. Especially keep an eye out for any recent dead with politically powerful relatives, but let’s be thorough. I want to know who that asshole plans to revive next and what he might gain from it.”
She dismissed them, all but Guine.
He stroked her multicolored hair. “You still seem tense.”
She gave him a flat look.
He quit petting her. “Understandably tense.”
“I don’t trust Eklor. And now I’m not sure I trust Kreya, atleast when it comes to this. He’s up to more than ‘redemption,’ and I don’t know what it is or how he plans to do whatever it is. But whatever he plans, I don’t want it happening in my city to people I care about.”
Guine smiled. “Like me, I hope?”
She didn’t want to smile, but he looked so charmingly sweet that she couldn’t help it. “Yes, like you. Now scoot. Get me that list of the dead.”
He headed for the door. “Most lovers request chocolate or flowers...”
“Scoot!”
Marso couldn’t consider any future while Eklor was sinking his teeth into the throat of the city. He tried—he desperately tried—to imagine a life without fear of him, but his brain stuttered to a halt.
When everyone dispersed, he wandered the lush halls of Zera’s palace. He’d always seen himself as a bone reader. Before he’d even heard Eklor’s name, he’d known this was his destiny: to read the shifting shadows of possibilities and reveal the truth.
Surely, that wasn’t over.
He wasn’t done.
But he felt shredded, as if he were wisps of himself.Maybe Kreya is right,Marso thought.Maybe I need to find a new way to be.
But not until Eklor was gone.
