36: THE WAY NO ONE EXPECTS

(Kihrin’s story)

“Taja!” I woke screaming.

I sat up in bed. Janel still slept. The room looked empty. We were still in prison. On the plus side, there was no sign of Vol Karoth, and I felt exquisitely sober. So just a nightmare.

“Well, this isn’t ideal, is it?” Taja said.

I looked up. This time, the goddess standing by the door wasn’t the little girl I’d last met. Now she was a full-grown vané woman, although with the same silver hair.

“Am I still dreaming?”

She wrinkled her nose. “No, my dear. I snuck away. Just for a few minutes. If I’m lucky, they won’t notice.” Taja looked around the room and tsked, then walked over to the bed and studied Janel. “She looks like her mother, doesn’t she?” Taja glanced up at me. “You took precautions, I hope?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. I had a ring that prevented unplanned pregnancies. My vané lovers back on Ynisthana had thought it adorable, but it had seemed like a sensible precaution considering the human women who’d lived there.

But King Kelanis’s people had taken my jewelry when they’d dumped us into the Blight, never mind the second capture.

I sighed. “Nope.”

Taja winked at me. “Maybe fortune will smile on you. Just this once.”

I hoped that meant she was swinging the odds in my favor. “Thank you.” I pointed at the cell door. “I don’t suppose you can do anything to help with this?”

“Now what kind of friend would I be if I showed up and did nothing to help?”

“Thank you,” I repeated again.

The Goddess of Luck paused. “I realize it’s been a few years, but you do remember what we talked about, when you first arrived on Ynisthana? About black waves and the things people will do to survive?”

“I remember. You told me when that wave finally falls, it will be fast.”

Taja pressed her lips together. “And it has been, hasn’t it?”

I blinked. “I suppose … I suppose it has, yes.”

“You’re going to see that people—normally good people—will justify ugly deeds if they think it means their survival.” She touched my cheek. “That doesn’t mean they’re right. Don’t blindly accept solutions born of fear. You’re smart enough to find better solutions.”

I felt a chill as I remembered Taja chiding an upset Thaena. Was that who Taja meant?

Was that who Taja had meant all along?

“Am I smart enough, though? Because I’ve got to be honest, Taja, I don’t feel that smart right now. I feel … swept up in the tidal wave. Out of control. Tricked. When I lived in the Lower Circle, we used to call people like me gulls, Taja. We’d take them for everything they had.” I looked away. “Innocent people have died because of me.”

“No, people have died because of Gadrith. They’ve died because of Suless. They’ve died because of Xaltorath and Morios and Relos Var. They’ve died because of monsters. You may have provided a few opportunities, but don’t take credit for their sins. They earned those deaths, not you.”

“But—”

“Do you honestly think Relos Var didn’t have his own candidate picked out to wield Urthaenriel? That he wouldn’t have used them to destroy the Stone of Shackles? He likely had Morios sleeping under Lake Jorat for centuries in anticipation of tricking someone into destroying that warding crystal. However—” Taja held up a finger for emphasis. “However, he had no way to know we were going to reincarnate you.”

I frowned. “Yeah, about that … this body wasn’t random, right? You picked it out to match the prophecies. So if I hadn’t volunteered, whose soul would’ve been here instead of mine?”

Taja raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea. Some other volunteer. Maybe Simillion would have ended up reborn as Kihrin D’Mon instead of Thurvishar D’Lorus.¹ But you understand my point, don’t you? If you’d never been born, it only means someone else’s hand would’ve wielded that sword. Don’t for one second think all this wouldn’t have happened. Relos Var had it all planned.”

A hand had tightened around my heart. “How am I supposed to win against someone like that? He’s eight moves ahead of me.”

“So use that. Kihrin, you’re smarter than your brother gives you credit. While he’s an overconfident know-it-all who isn’t as clever as he thinks he is. You know what Ola would do with someone like that.”

I chuckled. “She’d take him for everything he’s got. The ones who think they’re too smart to con are the easiest to con.”

“Exactly,” Taja said. “Remember his screwup got us into this mess. Relos Var isn’t immune to making mistakes.” She squeezed his hand. “I should go, but never worry. Your help is about to arrive.”

“Okay, but what—”

Taja was already gone.

Someone rapped on the cell door. A guard’s voice called out, “Your Highness, we’re coming in. Someone wants to see you.”

I scrambled to dress. “Wait!” I kissed Janel on the cheek before running to the cell door. At the last second, I remembered to fake being drugged. “Yeah? What?”

“Step out,” the soldier said. “Now, please.”

“Kind of early, isn’t it?” I walked outside. The Quarry looked rather beautiful, with lanterns set up to light the path so guards didn’t trip and hurt themselves. The sky was turning violet with the approaching dawn’s light.

Mind you, the cries echoing through the Quarry sounded less peaceful.

I did have a moment of worry considering how loud Janel and I had probably been. We’d been in no condition to understand quiet. I just had to hope people had been too drugged to pay attention.

I really hoped Teraeth had been too drugged to pay attention.

I wore my best impersonation of befuddled while the soldiers led me back to the warden’s house (or whatever they called Rindala’s palace). The soldiers brought me to a room filled with the lovely furnishings a vané of means might use for receiving guests, especially a dreammaker compensated generously by King Kelanis. They stood me in the room’s center, next to a couch.

They hadn’t tied my hands, but then why would they? It’s not like I’d cause trouble.

“Behave and do what you’re told,” they told me before leaving.

I started to wonder what this was about—formulating some unpleasant suspicions—when a second door opened.

Valathea stepped through.

At least, I thought she was Valathea. Pale skin and violet cloudcurl hair, delicate, beautiful features. She wore a slender, elegant gown of beaded purple silks, which rustled as she moved.

“Valathea? That is you, isn’t it?”

She coolly crossed to me, pushed my chest until I fell backward onto the couch, and then straddled me, throwing a leg to either side. Which wasn’t the behavior I’d expected.

As I tried to push her away, her form flowed, changed, and settled in a different, much more disturbing form. I still recognized her, though.

Before I could escape, Talon grabbed my wrists and held them over my head.

“Hey, ducky. Miss me?”