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"You redirected an army away from a woman you were sworn to protect," Uralish said. "Explain that to me in a way that does not end with you in a cell."

Trophi looked at him. Then he smiled, cold and untroubled.

"Seems a bit irrelevant now, doesn't it?” he said. "Given she's dead."

Enovar and Syle were on him before Uralish could move.

The chair went over backward, Trophi with it, and Enovar was on him before he landed, dragging him up by the front of his coat.

"I trusted you," Enovar shouted. His voice cracked on it. “I left her with you. You were supposed to protect her.”

Syle's fist caught Trophi in the jaw a second later, silent the whole time, his face giving away nothing while his knuckles did the talking.

Trophi did not fight either of them. He spat blood onto the floor and said nothing.

Uralish made a short motion with his hand. Two Avanki stepped in from the corridor.

"Put him in the same accommodations we've given the Dowager," Uralish said.

"Colsar said watch and wait," Enovar said, still breathing hard, still holding Trophi's coat in one fist.

"My niece was poisoned." Uralish did not raise his voice. "I respect the man. But I will do no such thing."

The Avanki took Trophi by both arms. He did not resist. He looked back once, at Uralish, still wearing that same unbothered face, and said nothing further.

They led him out.

Enovar stood in the middle of the room, hands shaking, Trophi's blood drying on his knuckles. Syle flexed his own hand once and said nothing.

"Was that wise?” Enovar finally asked, quiet.

"No," Uralish said. He reached for his flask. "But it was satisfying."

He drank.

CHAPTER 14

The Memory Stone

Axar did not ask if I wanted to follow him. He simply walked and expected the rest to arrange itself accordingly. I followed because the alternative was standing in a dining hall that smelled of blood and burnt things, and I had already had enough of that for one evening.

The guest chamber he led me to was quieter than the rest of the palace. The walls here were plain, dark, and uninterested in fracturing my reflection into pieces. There was a bed, a table, a single candle that burned without flickering. It felt, for the first time since I had woken up in this place, like somewhere a person could exist without bracing.

He gestured toward the bed.

"Lie down."

"I don't know you."

"I am aware." He moved to the far side of the room and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He clearly had the patience of someone who had been waiting a very long time and had stopped being bothered by it somewhere along the way. The burgundy of his eyes caught the candlelight and held it. Up close he was more unsettling than he had been in the dining hall, mostly because everything about him suggested depth I could not measure. His face should have been young. It was not young. It was simply ageless. He was a feeder and looked human, yet most of the creatures here seemed to fear him no matter how terrifying they looked.

And he was a Rathmor. My Uncle-in-law, to be specific. Nothing of him reminded me of Colsar, but every time he turned his face toward me there was something uncannily like Sevrin.

"I am not a man of many words," he said. "And I hate explaining things." He reached into his coat and withdrew a tattered sack that appeared to be filled with stones. He opened it and pulled out something small and dark and smooth, and set it on the table beside the bed. "I went to the Witchward searching for the truth of what happened to you, to learn if you were alive or dead. While I was there, they gave me memory stones, some of which your mother left specifically for you.” He looked at me directly. "I have seen what I needed to see. But it is time for you to understand the past so you can understand what is at stake. And why you are in danger." A pause. "Lie down."

The door opened without a knock.

Fiersa stepped in, crossed the room in four even strides, and dropped to her knees in front of Axar with her head bowed. The motion was practiced. She had done this many times before.