Page 52

"He is in Veynar," he says. "He is alive."

I stare at him. "Then why are you here and not him?"

He is quiet for a while. He still looks, I realize, terrible. Pale, dark circles, his collar loose and his hair uncombed in a way I have never seen. He looks like someone who has not slept properly in days.

"Do you remember what happened?" he says.

I try.

Dinner. The Great Hall. Candles. The clock reading six thirty-one. A harpist playing in the corner. I remember the music.

"I remember dinner," I say. "A harpist."

He nods slowly. He pulls the chair closer to the bed and sits in it and looks at me and I can see him deciding how to say whatever he is about to say.

He tells me.

All of it. The poison. Colsar finding me. The healer. The Fyrekin council. Tamal. The word he keeps not quite saying but circling around until I say it for him.

"I died."

"Technically."

"And now I am in Morrath."

"Yes."

"And I cannot go back."

He is quiet.

"And my husband and children are on the other side of something I cannot cross."

"For now⁠—"

"And you brought me here." My voice is very calm. I am aware of that. I am aware that the calm is not real and will not stay like this for long. "You brought me to this place and now I am trapped here and Colsar does not know if I am alive and my children⁠—"

I stop.

"Then why not just let me die in peace?" The words come out flat. "If this is the alternative. Just kill me. Let me go."

"That," says a voice from the doorway, "will not be necessary. As there may be a solution."

I turn.

A woman stands in the entrance. Dark teal hair, teal eyes, beautiful but dangerous looking.

I look at Teorin for an explanation but he says nothing.

"Who are you?" I finally say.

She looks at me. Then she changes.

The teal bleeds out of her hair. Her eyes shift. Her whole face turns into something softer and more familiar and I stare at her and feel the room bend slightly because I am either dreaming or losing my mind.

"Maridale?"

She smiles. The warm one. The real one. "Hello, my lady."