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CYRELE COULDN’T SIMPLY demand an audience with a princess, of course. If she wanted to speak with Senna, she had to make use of her own princess to do it. Wrangling Kamene into submission was a daunting task, but fortunately, it seemed she wasn’t alone in it.
“I merely think you may want to consider other alliances,” Enosis gently said, as she brushed her mistress’ hair. “If Princess Senna is right, you will need them.”
“I don’t want any of this,” Kamene said, shoulders slumped.
The princess’ inaction was beginning to grate on Cyrele’s nerves. On the barge, she’d advised Enosis not to fight against Kamene’s changing personality, but perhaps that had been hasty. She hadn’t realized then how much Kamene’s actions could limit her own.
“Then you must move to protect yourself,” Enosis prompted.
“I suppose I have no choice,” Kamene said with a sigh, before straightening her posture. “Senna already offered, but I mislike that she holds all the leverage in our relationship. Ideas?”
Cyrele fought off the memory of the last time Kamene had asked them for ideas—a less traumatized, pettier version of the princess had been a trial for her and Enosis both—and claimed the opportunity she’d been presented with. “You need something to offer her,” she said. “The other royals were interested in my glyphwriting abilities, so perhaps Princess Senna might be as well.”
Kamene considered the thought for a moment. “There was glyphwork all over that place I’d been trapped in...so there must be more to what the royals want from you than a passing interest.”
“Likely so,” Cyrele agreed, even as her heartbeat began to quicken—Kamene had been inside the third temple’s vault, able to hear much of the discussion around the temple’s power, but how much had she understood? She was in great distress at the time. And no one had paused to explain the context that she was missing.
Back then, Kamene’s presence had been nothing but an afterthought against the risk of being discovered by the Karits. But now, Cyrele found herself facing the reality that Kamene could hurt her with what she knew—or with what she could piece together from the fragments of information she had. Because Kamene was not supposed to know much of the temples at all, and if she ever so much as suggested that she did, the obvious suspect for who might’ve shared such knowledge would be Cyrele.
“But Princess Senna will know more about what the royals want than I would,” Cyrele said, attempting to deflect that line of thought. “If you make the offer, she’ll tell us what we need to know.”
“Very well,” Kamene finally said. “Enosis, send Senna an invitation. Tell her to come as soon as she can manage—though ideally now. And take care to be discreet.”
“Yes, your highness.” Enosis said, with a trace of relief in her voice, before slipping out of the room.
“Cyrele,” Kamene said, voice firm. “You and I know there is great power inside those temples. We’ve seen it. But I dislike that you know more about it than I do. So you’re going to fix that problem. Now.”
This was not a welcome turn in the conversation. It would be so much safer if Senna were the one to share whatever information she wished. Then at least then Cyrele could honestly claim that the information hadn’t come from her.
“Your highness, there’s too much liability associated with admitting that you—”
“Stop,” Kamene commanded. “Did I ask for your opinion? What I want from you is information, not commentary.”
The princess’ old haughtiness had decided to make a resurgence, apparently. Cyrele hadn’t missed it.
What was the least of what she could share? “There are multiple temples with power, as you said. They must be accessed in a particular order to gain that power. That’s about the extent of what I understand of the situation.”
“But you were instrumental in opening the door to the place of power inside the temple,” Kamene said, eyes boring into her. “What did they call it? A vault.”
There was no point in denying it. Kamene had been in the position to hear that much of the story herself.
“Yes,” Cyrele said.
“Good. Then I know what to do.”
That...wasn’t the most reassuring thing the princess could have said. What was she planning? Surely she wouldn’t risk making their situation worse?
But Kamene kept her own counsel until Enosis returned...with Senna and four guards whose positioning around Senna suggested that they were her personal guards. The lot of them filed into Kamene’s receiving chamber, with the two princesses settling on a pair of lush couches. Enosis and the guardsmen stayed near the princesses, but Cyrele gravitated to the back of the room, in close reach of the door leading to the rest of the chamber.
Kamene attempted to carry out the formalities of greeting a Kavan princess, but Senna waved her off. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you quite this soon. I imagine that means you have something worth saying. So go on, then. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Very well,” Kamene began. “I asked you here because I want us to have an equal partnership going forward. You offer me protection from Avenah. And I provide you with something of equal value.”
“To your life?” Senna asked, sounding doubtful—but there was also hint of curiosity in her expression. “You, a foreign princess who’s barely been here for a day, have something to give me that’s worth your life?”
Kamene frowned, before quickly smoothing out her expression. “To you, yes. I have a glyphwriter. And I’ve heard the rumors about you—the Karit stripped of the powers that her family is entitled to. This puts us in a position to trade. So you will assist me against Avenah...and in return, I’ll let my glyphwriter hand you that power back.”
The look behind Senna’s eyes turned cold and unforgiving. And suddenly Cyrele knew, by instinct, that Kamene had guessed too much and pushed too far.
“You have a glyphwriter?” Senna demanded. “A glyphwriter who you presume holds the key to the power of the Karits? And then, as if your arrogance was not already great enough, you suggest that you would allow me to commit treason against my own family?”
The silence was deafening. Cyrele hardly dared to breathe, while Kamane sat stunned—this wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. This wasn’t the reaction Cyrele had expected.
But there was true rage in Senna’s expression as her eyes bore into a frozen Kamene. “Let me show you the kind of mercy my family extends towards traitors,” she snapped. Then she raised a hand and beckoned to her guards, three of whom stepped forward—
—and the moment struck Cyrele as intrinsically wrong, because this was the same woman who had advocated for Kamene to be a thorn in Avenah’s side, and how could Cyrele have misunderstood the situation so badly—
One guard lunged for Kamene, prompting a shriek from the princess as she fell off of her couch into an undignified (and defenseless) heap. Another promptly subdued Enosis with a knife at her throat. And the last turned his eyes onto Cyrele, pausing for just one second to flash her a vicious smile, before launching in a dead sprint across the room—right at her.
#
CYRELE HAD SECONDS before the guard reached her in which she could make her escape, seconds during which her mind filled with useless thoughts like, Are we all about to die? and This wasn’t the plan! and How had it all gone so wrong?
There was no strategy in her head when threw herself through the door out of desperation. No thought for where she could possibly run or what exit she could use to reach safety. A part of her silently screamed for Akaterin even knowing the Karit couldn’t hear her inside the old queen’s chambers.
Footsteps pounded after her as she realized that she was headed for the library. There was no reason to run for the library, no reason to imagine it was anything other than a dead end. But the secrets she had already found still made her hope against hope that some glyphwriting artifact would activate and stop all of this from happening.
The doorway to the library was looming in front of her, within arm’s reach, when something snagged in her hair, pulling her momentum to a stop with a sharp pain. She reached for the doorway, but it only grew further away as she was hauled off by her hair, caught by the guard who’d given chase.
There was nothing else she could do. No one to call for help, no time to use her glyphwriting in a way that might help. All she could do was struggle against the unbreakable grip dragging her back to Senna, claw to no avail at the hand whose hold sent pain searing across her scalp.
Then she was thrown at Senna’s feet. She moved to scramble away—but froze as the tip of something sharp dug into her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the guard who’d brought her here, sword out. One wrong move and she was dead.
Hardly daring to swallow, Cyrele kept her entire body still as she moved her eyes—and only her eyes—to take stock of the scene. Enosis’ position hadn’t changed, but Kamene had been dragged away from the couch, one of her hands forced onto table as a guard’s knife hovered over her fingers.
Dread curled through Cyrele’s stomach. Was this truly happening?
Senna didn’t so much as glance at Cyrele from where she remained seated calmly on the couch. She regarded Kamene with a harsh look in her eyes. “What else have you planned behind my cousin’s back?” she demanded.
“Nothing!” Kamene cried out in high-pitched panic. “You told me to come to you!”
“Will you become more forthcoming once you start losing fingers?” Senna said—and the guard gently placed his knife against the skin of Kamene’s pinky.
“Please,” Kamene choked out in a half-sob. “I haven’t done a thing! Stop!”
Then suddenly, there was a burst of heat in the air—and the table that Kamene’s hand was pinned against burst into flames.
The guard holding Kamene leapt back, yanking the princess along with him. Even the guard with a knife to Cyrele’s throat flinched, the point digging in for just a moment with a pinch of pain. Cyrele could feel a drop of blood trail down from where it broke her skin...
But Senna merely stared at the flames with a look of revelation in her eyes. Then she stood, slowly approaching the table...and a gust of wind blew through the room, snuffing out the fire and spreading a whiff of smoke about the chamber.
What had just happened? Had Senna just created wind to stop the fire? Was she so willing to show proof of what Akaterin had suspected of her? And the fire...it could only have come from someone inside this room, but that someone hadn’t been Senna. Yet the only people here who’d ever stepped foot inside the third temple’s vault were Senna, Cyrele...and Kamene.
But if it was Kamene—had she set her own bedchamber on fire in her sleep? Did that mean there had never been any assassination attempt at all? Osena had said Kamene shouldn’t have absorbed the power of the third temple, though Osena was hardly all-knowing...
“Alright,” Senna said. “Perhaps Avenah didn’t orchestrate your invitation to trap me after all.”
An incredulous silence reigned, until Kamene broke it. “You thought we were acting on Avenah’s orders?” she asked, residual panic raising the pitch of her voice. “You almost cut off my finger over a misunderstanding?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Senna sniffed, though her tone had become defensive. “I only frightened you enough that you’d confess, that’s all. If you were acting under Avenah’s authority, you would have told me everything in order to protect yourselves. That’s common sense.”
Cyrele could only gape at her in stunned disbelief. All that...and it had merely been a way for Senna to scare the truth out of them? Cyrele had genuinely believed they were about to die!
“I can admit that I miscalculated,” Senna said, sounding almost embarrassed at the admission. “But you should have been more careful. What were you thinking, hinting at so much forbidden knowledge? What else was I supposed to believe?”
This was the person that Cyrele had chosen to cooperate with in order to reach the first temple. She hadn’t a plethora of options, admittedly, and all of them had come with risks. Yet she still found herself shocked by how volatile of an ally Senna was turning out to be.
“Why don’t we agree to forget about this unfortunate start?” Senna said with a discomfited shrug. “Kamene, you were offering me the services of your glyphwriter. Let’s return to that. Not only do we have a glyphwriter here to open the temples for us, but now you’ve proven that you have exactly what we need to get past the storm.”
Kamene blinked in confusion, but Senna merely nodded at the scorch marks on the table...the scorch marks Kamene must have been responsible for.
“You’re suggesting I did that?” Kamene scoffed.
But when no one answered her, she looked around at the expressions of everyone in the room—the mocking rise in Senna’s eyebrows, the uncertainty behind Enosis’s eyes, the carefully neutral faces of the guards. Perhaps even the way Cyrele ducked her head to avoid the princess’ gaze.
“All of you?” Kamene asked incredulously. “You all believe that I’m responsible for the fire?”
“I know you’re responsible,” Senna retorted. “Just as I know you’d be dead if Avenah had any idea of what you could do. Which is why you no longer have a choice but to work with me.”
Whether that was a warning, a promise, or a threat, Cyrele didn’t know. And from the way Kamene hesitated, she assumed the princess wasn’t eager to push Senna far enough to find out.
“Do we have an understanding?” Senna prompted. “I tell you how to manage the storm, your glyphwriter lets me into the Temple of Shattered Dreams. And in return for all that, you have my protection, just as you asked for. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
The slightest hint of displeasure crossed Kamene’s face as she considered Senna’s proposition. But all she said was, “Alright. As you say, we have an understanding.”
“Good. Then you continue acting as you always have while I make sure Avenah and Matiser’s attentions are elsewhere. Then, when I send for you, be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We’ll need to move quickly, if we want to reach all four temples before my brother and cousin wise up.”
And so it began, a race to the temples with a far from trustworthy guide, and—wait. Had Senna said there were four temples?