16

We leave before dawn, while it’s still cool, in an impressive column of twenty-four cargo wagons carrying dates, natron, and gold, eight supply wagons for our own needs, four carriages, and the troop of Garon soldiers under the command of Captain Neartos. Where the road climbs steeply out of the oasis our pace slows to such a crawl that I swing down to walk alongside, then stop to look back the way we came. Moonlight bathes Akheres Lake in a sheen like pearls ground into gauze and cast over its waters. All lies eerily still except for pinpricks of lamps on the town walls.

I can almost hear the land breathe as a brush of wind stirs dust on the road like a mirror of my own restlessness. Am I both Patron and Commoner, or am I neither? I no longer know. Maybe a mule is a creature with no home, only a long road ahead and a doubled burden to haul.

“Jes?” Mis trots toward me out of the shadows. The lantern hanging from the back of the last wagon in the line sways, its light receding up toward the high desert plateau above us. “Are you coming? Ugh, I drank too much.”

She bends over, hands on knees, and coughs up bile. I try not to laugh but I do anyway as I slap her on the butt.

“Don’t you know better by now?”

She moans, spitting one last time, then falls in beside me as we stride after the wagons. “Where did you go last night, anyway? You have the most peculiar habit of running off and then not coming back for the longest time.”

An awkward silence between us grinds as harshly as the wheels on the road. I have an answer prepared but I’m so tired of lying to the people I should trust. Yet I can’t endanger her by telling her the truth, just as I can’t risk that she might accidentally blurt out the truth at the wrong time. “It turns out that the adversary Henta has an uncle who had met my father years ago when he was stationed in the desert. It was a chance for me to hear a few stories.”

I wait, wondering if she’ll bite. Her silence drags on so long I don’t dare glance at her.

“Do you miss him?” she asks, one of the perceptive questions I’ve come to expect from her.

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Jes. Please don’t take offense. But it’s just so odd, knowing a Patron man like him acknowledged you and raised you.”

“He did the best he knew how,” I say, remembering Mother’s words. “And I’m not offended.”

As our feet crunch on the surface of the road and dust spits into our faces, I feel a peculiar sort of peace. For all that I struggle with who I am and where I belong, my parents did their best to make a space for us girls in the world. They wanted me, and my sisters, and maybe it is only now that I can recognize how much that means.

We reach the top of the incline. The corpse wagons, empty and headed back to Akheres Town, are waiting to the side of the road until Gargaron’s cavalcade is all up so they can start down. White-haired Tefu sits on the driver’s bench of the first wagon. Seeing me, he holds out a hand, five fingers spread, and although I don’t exactly know what the gesture means, I can guess what it signifies: victory.

I bask in a thrill of triumph, knowing I’ve bested Gargaron again. It doesn’t matter that he’ll never know. It matters that we’ve won.

All that’s left is to get Bettany free of Lord Agalar. To manage that I’ll need Amaya’s help.

Mis and I run forward, passing the slow-moving wagons. Toward the front of the line, Denya has the shutters of her carriage open. Captain Neartos rides alongside, and Amaya leans out to speak to him as she raps him flirtatiously on the arm with her closed fan.

“I wish Dusty would give up on wanting what he can’t have when what he can have is right in front of him,” murmurs Mis.

“He’s an idiot.”

She sighs. “She is really pretty. And she doesn’t sneer at us like the other servants do.”

Amaya catches sight of me, and I take the opportunity to tap my chest twice with a fist, guessing she’ll know it means the household is safe. She snaps her fan shut and touches it to her right ear with a smile for Neartos as if she’s inviting his conversation, but I know the signal is meant for me. She’ll make a way for us to meet at the tombs. I drop back, and Mis and I swing up into our own carriage.

Soon after dawn we turn aside from the main road to follow a gully. Barren cliffs hem us in like fortress walls. The gully opens into an almost perfectly circular depression, a hidden oasis ringed by cliffs pitted with numerous cave openings. Date palms and sycamores grow everywhere amid mounds of flowers. At the center, a jumble of long-abandoned buildings surrounds a large circular pond. Water lilies bloom like stars around a monumental statue rising at the center of the pool, whose curves and pose reveal this as an image of Lady Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea.

The tombs for the dead are built into the cliff walls, taking advantage of the caves. Lord Menos’s tomb is easy to spot on the far side because a stone ramp leads to a ledge decorated with marble pillars and a gleaming marble wall built across a cave mouth. Behind that wall an oracle lived out her life in darkness, breathing stale air and never again seeing the sun.

Our procession approaches a gleaming temple dedicated to Lord Judge Inkos, whose priests live here year-round as caretakers. Of course we Commoners are not allowed to enter the temple area. For us an awning has been strung up in the ruins of an old building well away from the holy grounds. Mis is still feeling hungover, and Dusty has a cough from all the dust we’ve eaten by traveling at the end of the line, so they stretch out on our cots and promptly go to sleep because we won’t be leaving again until dusk. We’ve been warned to sleep during the day in preparation for moving at night under the waxing moon.

Tana keeps daily notes in a bound book. As she writes I sit next to her, wondering how long it will take Amaya to get away so we can discuss our next move. I sip water and think about how filthy I’ll be by the time we reach Port Selene, since on the harsh desert crossing we can’t carry enough water to wash.

“Why are we stopping at Lord Menos’s tomb?” I ask.

She keeps writing, not looking up. “Lord Gargaron always makes an offering on the way south, for good fortune. For years he would also ask a question of the holy oracle, while she lived, poor creature.” Belatedly she glances at me in alarm. “Meaning no disrespect,” she adds in a placating tone I hate to hear from a woman I respect so much.

No Commoner—no Efean—can be heard to criticize Patron ways. That will earn us a whipping. But does she think I would be the one to report her?

“To become an oracle seems a frightful fate to me too,” I say, to reassure her. “How long ago did Lord Menos die? Why is he buried out here?”

“When Princess Berenise was younger she made the journey to the mines and the tour of the estates. Lord Menos always accompanied her. He died in a mine accident here.”

“Why was he buried with an oracle? I thought only kings and lords who are head of their clan or palace did that.”

“Lord Menos was head of Clan Garon at that time. When he died, the title passed to his and Princess Berenise’s son. That son died in battle, and the title would have passed to his son, Lord Kalliarkos, but Kalliarkos was only two years old at the time. Menos’s younger brother—Lord Gargaron’s father—was dead by then too, so Lord Gargaron took over as head of the household.”

“Does that mean Lord Kalliarkos is the rightful successor to be head of Garon Palace when he comes of age?”

“I never thought about it,” she says, surprised. “Gargaron has always been lord since I’ve been part of Garon Stable.”

She finishes her notes and lies down. As soon as she is asleep I grab a waterskin and leave our shelter. The ruins make it easy for me to sneak up to a spot where I can overlook the servants’ gate into the temple. A din of wheels announces the arrival of three carriages and two supply wagons, all pulled by mules. Lord Agalar has arrived, just as he promised. He steps down from his carriage and strides to the back of the line, where two armed men mounted on sturdy desert ponies are bringing up the rear. One is a dark, bearded man with a dreadful scar that has seamed shut an eye; the other is fair-haired like Agalar and even resembles him a little. The scarred man leans down as Agalar speaks, then gives a gesture of assent, like a salute, and the two men turn and ride back the way we all came in. Agalar enters the temple with his retinue through the servants’ gate, as Gargaron would never do.

Soon after, Denya emerges from the gate, holding a parasol over her head and with Amaya carrying a basket behind her.

“It’s a shame women aren’t allowed to walk in the temple garden, Doma Denya,” says Amaya in the voice actors use to make their words carry without sounding like they are shouting. “Perhaps we can find shade by that lovely pond for our picnic, where I am sure no one will be rude enough to bother us. I forgot a blanket to sit on. Just a moment.”

That’s all I need.

I work my way in toward the center of the ruins through a maze of half-fallen walls and dead ends. Finally I stumble onto a clear path down a string of stone-lined pools of different shapes and sizes. It brings me through a partially collapsed tunnel that doubles back twice through a thick wall before opening onto a circular plaza that forms a rim all the way around the perfect circle of the tiny lake. The statue of the goddess, twice life-size, rises on a plinth at the center of the waters. Footsteps crunch. Denya and Amaya approach, having found their way here by a different route.

“Bettany is here,” I say breathlessly.

“I know. Gargaron told Denya earlier that we would have Lord Agalar’s company on the desert crossing. When I went back inside just now I managed to pass word to Bett to meet us here as soon as she can. Search out a private place for us to talk. Denya can keep watch and warn us if someone comes.”

I seek out the highest remnant of wall and scramble up. Amaya and Denya laugh and chat as they lay out a blanket and little baskets of food in plain sight. They look radiant together, embraced by blossoms and lake and sky. Beyond them lies a tangle of overgrown salt cedar, perfect for hiding.

I shade my eyes and turn a careful circle to make sure no one is sneaking up on us. Even though I can always say I am practicing for the Fives by climbing walls, I can’t be caught with Amaya.

The morning light softens the shapes and edges of the ruins but it’s still instantly obvious this was once a circular complex separated into four distinct building styles. A maze of tiny passageways and tinier rooms might be likened to Pillars, and a cluster of slender towers, many still intact, resembles an orchard of stone trees. The Inkos temple stabs right through two of the sections, all right angles and strong lines.

A plink grabs my attention as a fragment of stone strikes the wall I’m standing on. I drop to a crouch. Bettany stands below me, where the maze of alleys dead-ends into the wall that encircles the lake. She climbs up, and we scoot down to a lower section, out of sight of the temple, and sit together, legs dangling.

A breeze swirls around us, bathing us in the scent of flowers.

She takes my hand just as she used to when we were little girls, before she started hating everything in our lives. Her presence at my side is the most familiar thing in the world, like we are tucked back in the womb together, not that I have any memory of that time. A part of me that I hadn’t known hurt quite this badly finally relaxes into memories of a happier time before this storm broke over us.

“I’ve been so worried about you, Bett,” I say in a low voice.

“How did you manage the rescue?” she asks. “Are you sure you can trust the people who took them away?”

“Yes.” I start to explain, but stop. “I don’t want to say more until you’re free of Lord Agalar.”

“What makes you think I want to be free of Agalar?”

“I am not climbing up there, not in this dress!” Amaya’s voice interrupts my reply. She stands at the lakeside base of the wall, staring up at us. “If you haven’t found a better place, Jes, we can go talk in the cover of the salt cedar without being seen.”

“Bossy as ever,” remarks Bettany.

In the old days, Amaya would have poked back, unable to help herself because she felt we older girls picked on her. Instead she gives a shrug, like she can’t be bothered, and walks toward the feathery shrubs.

“The way you and Amaya used to squabble seems so pointless now,” I say.

Her face looks drawn and worried as she watches Amaya vanish into the foliage. “Jes, I—never mind. I’ll say it to both of you.”

I follow her down the wall. We push through branches to find Amaya in a tiny clearing, seated on an ancient stone bench placed right at the edge of the pool. She leaps up and hugs Bettany.

“Oh, Bett, I was afraid we had lost you.” Releasing her, she wipes tears from her eyes. “But what about the rest of the household? They’re safe, right?”

I break in. “I haven’t had opportunity to tell you yet, Amaya. They’re free.”

Amaya’s shriek is followed by more tears, and she grabs both Bettany and me by the wrist, drawing us close. “If only Maraya were here to see how we got the better of that awful man. How did you manage it?”

“Bettany and Lord Agalar got them to pretend to be dead, killed in the collapse at the mine.”

“Oh, that is brilliant!”

“It was Agalar’s idea,” says Bettany in a tone that makes Amaya pause and look more closely at her.

I go on. “I found Efean men willing to smuggle them out of Akheres. They’ve promised to convey them to Mother.”

“Do you trust these strangers?” Amaya asks.

“I do. They’re associates of the poet.”

Amaya’s mouth quirks. “He likes you, you know. Even if you don’t want to see it.”

I clench my jaw, feeling a blush crawl up my cheeks.

“Where is Mother?” Bett asks sharply.

I’m grateful for her question, because I don’t want to think too closely about why I feel embarrassed at the thought of Ro. “I don’t know precisely where she is, but I know she is with Efeans we can trust because they do not love our Saroese masters.”

Bettany laughs with her usual spark of derision. “So you are Efean now, Jes? No longer Father’s good little Patron daughter?”

Amaya pinches the skin of Bett’s arm hard enough for her to exclaim as she flinches back. “Stop it, Bett! At home you always acted like you were better than the rest of us because you played the rebel who made a show of rejecting everything Father stood for while still benefiting from it. You just enjoyed the attention you got from being angry all the time!”

“Why shouldn’t I have been angry all the time? I wasn’t lying to myself like the rest of you were. Father abandoned us the instant we weren’t convenient for him anymore. Mother knew the day would come and yet loyally served him like the cow she is.”

“That’s not fair!” Amaya and I cry together.

“Maraya drinking down the lies they tell in the Archives, hoping her Patron looks will get her a pass where Jes and I could never hope to walk. Fine for her, isn’t it? And then of course doting over the first Patron man who spoke to her kindly—”

“Polodos is a good man!” objects Amaya.

“Yes, and dull as wash water.” She waves dismissively in the direction of the picnic. “I suppose you think the attention of a pretty Patron friend makes you not a mule while meanwhile all the other Garon servants are whispering that you’re on the catch for that captain.”

“You don’t understand me at all.” The way the sunlight cuts through the salt cedar, pouring across her, gives Amaya’s shadow the look of a cat’s, arching and hissing like she is about to scratch.

“You always wanted to be a captain’s wife,” retorts Bettany.

“Of course, before Father abandoned us, a marriage with an army captain was my best hope of getting a household of my own and a husband who was gone for months or years at a time to the wars. But now I don’t have to.” Through a gap in the foliage we can see Denya in the distance, bent intently over a bright red silk ribbon she embroiders with expert stitches. “Denya is saving up all the gifts and money Lord Gargaron confers on her. I have my gold from Prince Temnos. When Lord Gargaron settles his attention on a new concubine, as men always do—”

“Father didn’t!” I object.

“Oh, leave off defending Father.” Bettany laughs humorlessly. “For once I’m honestly interested in what Amaya has to say.”

As Amaya relaxes her position shifts and the feathery leaves fragment her shadow into an ordinary patch of shade. “Efean women live in households headed by women. Why can’t we? Denya and I are thinking of selling masks and ribbons in the market. We plan to earn enough money to support our own household as well as our destitute mothers. Her mother also suffered when Clan Tonor fell.”

Bettany’s lips twist like she is about to say something mocking, yet after a pause she relents and gives Amaya a sisterly peck on the cheek. “That will certainly be shocking, to see the daughter of General Esladas selling masks and ribbons in the market.”

“It’s odd,” muses Amaya. “When Father left us to die in a tomb it freed me from thinking I had to do things the way he thought proper.”

“He had no choice! And he didn’t know about the tomb!”

“You always make excuses for him,” Bettany sneers.

But Amaya squeezes my hand, and she replies in a calm but determined voice. “You weren’t the one bricked up, Jes. But when the lives we had before were torn apart, I finally saw that I had other paths I could take. Like the way you can see multiple paths through spinning Rings.”

“Like the way Jes used to arrange her food on her platter to simulate a Fives court until Father caught her doing it?”

We all laugh, and my heart feels light as air, floating on the shared memory.

The water lies as still as a mirror. Bending over, we see our faces side by side. Bett looks the most Efean of us four girls, as dark and beautiful as Mother, just as Amaya looks more like Father with straighter hair and the golden skin of the Saroese. I’m the one who looks most like both our parents, Efean and Saroese parts shared out equally to make up my whole. Anyone looking at me knows exactly what I am, whereas Bett and Amaya can slide into one half of what they are. Studying my reflection, I think again of Ro’s words, about how I can use this to my advantage. I’m not one or the other; I’m both and neither, just as the land of Efea itself can never be as Saroese as old Saro and yet is no longer the Efea it was before the Saroese came.

Towering above the water, the goddess watches her daughters with benevolent concern. Her arms are filled with bounty and her curly hair is fashioned as ropy strings. I suddenly realize that she does not resemble in any way Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea, who has prim lips, Saroese eyes, and straight hair flowing down her back all the way to her feet.

Amaya’s gaze has also drifted up to the statue. “She looks a little like Mother, doesn’t she?”

My thoughts run back to Ro-emnu sitting in the Heart Tavern. To the words the waiter said to me. “She reminds me of a painting I once saw. What if…” The thought is so staggering, going against everything I’ve been taught, that it’s hard to force through my lips. “What if this statue was carved and erected before the Saroese came? What if Hayiyin was copied after the Mother of All? What if the Patrons stole Her from us?”

Bettany waves an airy hand in a disparaging way that really irritates me. “No, it is Hayiyin. Agalar explained to me that all representations of the Efean Mother of All are copies of Hayiyin. They look similar because they are made by a conquered people who wish to identify their old beliefs as being as strong as those of the people who conquered them.”

“How would he know? He doesn’t even live in Efea.”

“He knows more than any person I’ve ever met, besides being a brilliant doctor.”

“Yes, and he seems quite satisfied to tell everyone how brilliant he is too. After all your complaints about Mother giving up everything to stay with Father all those years, I never thought I’d find you like a bridled mare following docilely along behind that arrogant doctor—”

“Don’t call him arrogant! He has the right to be treated as the scholar he is.”

“It’s so sweet to see you crawling on behalf of a lord who calls you Beauty instead of your name. One who orders you around like a dog!”

“You’re more of a dog than I am. Running as an adversary in a lord’s stable! Garon owns all five of your souls. Agalar paid my indenture fee and hired me as his assistant. He says I am as promising an apprentice as any young man. In the Shipwright territories, there’s nothing unusual about a woman being a scholar or a doctor. He says I have a healing gift.”

“Is that what he says?”

“If you’d seen him pull people back from the brink of death, if you’d watched him sew up a man’s crushed leg, you’d not mock. He can teach me things no one else can. You’re just jealous it was his idea that made it so easy to rescue our household. You think he stole the glory you wanted!”

Her ingratitude hits like a punch to the face. “Amaya and I searched all over Efea for you. And it was me who found allies in Akheres to help us after you didn’t know what to do next!”

“I think you’re just afraid Agalar is smarter than you. It must be hard not having Father around to make you feel like the best of us all the time.”

“I never said I was the best of anything!”

“You never had to say it. Once you became obsessed with the Fives all you wanted us for was to cover your tracks.”

Amaya steps between us. “Would you two stop fighting? We’re supposed to be celebrating, not arguing! Bett, I know you resent how the Fives took Jes’s attention, but there’s no point holding a grudge now that our old life is gone—”

“You resented the Fives?” I slump down on the bench and stare at her. “All your silences? All your screaming? That was about the Fives?”

“Oh, Jes! Please! It’s not always about you. Yes, I was jealous you had so little time for me, but that’s only part of it. Don’t you see? While Maraya was studying for the Archives and you sneaked out in secret to your Fives and Amaya wrote poetry and plotted an advantageous marriage, I watched you all lie to yourselves about who we really are.”

Amaya crosses her arms and taps a foot impatiently. “We don’t have much time, and I’m not interested in listening to you lecture us, Bett.”

I stand, because I can’t think sitting down, and grab Bettany’s hand. “Amaya’s right. We don’t have much time, so let’s not argue about our old life. Bett, listen to us. I know this doctor dazzled you and that you feel obligated to him because he saved you. But you don’t really know anything about him. You’ll be completely at his mercy if you leave with him.”

She opens her mouth but I speak before she can.

“Hear me out! Amaya can smuggle you a waterskin and some food and you can walk back to Akheres to the people I met there, join the household servants, and return with them to Mother.”

“What makes you think I want to return to Mother?”

I blink, too stunned to reply.

“You and Amaya are the ones who should escape with me,” she adds with an intensity that startles me.

“I’m not leaving Denya!”

“I can’t go,” I object. “I’m an adversary now. How can you not want to return to Mother?”

“I could ask the same of you that you ask of me! Both of you should run away from what is nothing more than servitude to a Patron master. I can’t even imagine how dangerous it must be for you, Amaya. A concubine’s servant has no protection. What if this Captain Neartos decides he wants you for himself?”

“Believe me, I know every trick to keep out of the way of the men in this household. As long as Denya pleases Lord Gargaron, I’m safe.”

“You said yourself the favor he shows her won’t last forever.” Now it’s Bett’s turn to grab Amaya’s hands, an affectionate gesture she rarely made at home. “You have to get out. Both of you!”

“Why?” says Amaya. “We’ll be back in Saryenia soon enough. Once we’re there we’ll send a message to the poet, and he’ll tell us where Mother is.”

“It’s a dangerous eight- or ten-day journey through empty desert with wagons full of gold. Aren’t you afraid of bandits?”

I snort. “Lord Gargaron has done this run many times, always with soldiers as escort. I think he understands the danger. Anyway, Father used to be in charge of the northern desert frontier. He scoured the land clean of bandits years ago with his spider scout patrols.”

Her caustic laugh rakes like nails scratching on my skin. “Do you ever listen to how you worship Father when he never did anything to deserve it, Jes?”

Amaya steps on my foot to remind me not to start the argument again so I take in a breath and let it out, shifting course.

“Bettany, Mother is so worried about you. Do you think she can rest if she doesn’t know what’s happened to you? What is Agalar to you that you care more about him than Mother’s peace of mind?”

“I’ll tell you what he is. He’s not Saroese and he’s not Efean. I despise the Saroese as the greedy conquerors they are. Meanwhile your Efean allies think by rescuing a few hapless prisoners they prove they haven’t rolled over for the Patrons, but all Efeans have ever done is roll over. I want no part of any of this. I’ve made a choice. My choice. I’m going to sail the Three Seas. I’m going to see the world. That’s something that never occurred to either of you, is it? You’re too trapped by your stupid dreams. The day I wash the dirt of Efea from my feet is the day I’ll finally be happy.”

It’s fortunate we are too far away from the temple and caravan for anyone to hear her words, which evaporate on the wind like the cawing of crows. Tears trail down Amaya’s cheeks but she doesn’t utter a single word. The dry air has sapped all moisture from me.

“Why won’t you escape now when I am giving you the chance?” Bettany cries.

“Because this is my choice,” says Amaya quietly with a glance toward Denya, who has paused in her embroidering to look in our direction with an expression of concern on her face.

I’m too angry to be reasonable. “Why do you suddenly care so much? It isn’t as if you cared before.”

Bett wipes what I am sure is a tear from her eye. “No, never mind. There’s nothing I can do. I tried my best but you’re both trapped. I love you, but it doesn’t matter, does it?”

It almost seems she is talking to herself. She gives us each a perfunctory hug, then shakes herself and pushes away through the foliage. She’s leaving us.

As I take a step after her Amaya grabs my hand.

“Let her stew, Jes. You know how her rages come in a fury of battering wind and rain before vanishing utterly. We’ll find another way to talk to her on the desert crossing.”

“Yes, that’s right. I can coax her into a place of calm and then she’ll listen and give up this infatuation with Lord Agalar. In Port Selene we’ll find a way to get her out of his hands and back to Saryenia. Don’t you find it odd the way he calls her Beauty? The way she acts around him?”

Amaya squeezes my fingers, but it is her weary gaze that startles me. “Yes, there’s something frightening about it all that I don’t understand. Now let Denya and me go before Captain Neartos comes to fetch us. I’m not in the mood to fend him off graciously today. And don’t follow until you’re sure no one will catch us together. We can’t risk this kind of meeting again.”

Yet I’m too agitated to return to our shelter. The sight of Bett’s back turned to me slaps at my thoughts like regrets. Why did I never take seriously how much she hated our life? She said so all the time! I just never believed her.

Amaya and I will find a way to change her mind. I have to, because something about her situation stinks to my nose. She’s not right about everything, not like she thinks she is. If only she could have met Kal, who is nothing like Agalar. He isn’t arrogant, and he never ordered me around like a servant. I didn’t hang on his every word.

Did I?

Do I really know Kalliarkos, or am I just seeing what I want to see in him?

The question troubles me. Like a dog with a bone, I can’t stop gnawing on it. I ramble aimlessly through the ruins, following a path dictated by moving away from the temple, away from the Patron life that once ruled my every action.

Ro-emnu was right. I’ll never be a Patron even though Father pretended we were. Father was lying to himself as much as to us. Maybe Bettany is right that he deserves nothing but scorn, but I can’t hate him as she does. I can’t hate Mother for the choices she made.

I don’t want to hate. Now that my family and household are safe I can earn my place as an Illustrious without feeling I have sacrificed them to win.

At length my wandering feet lead me past the corralled mules and the cargo wagons pulled under awnings and into sight of the ramp leading up to the sealed mouth of Lord Menos’s tomb. A murmur of voices alerts me to movement at the base of the ramp, where a small opening that’s little more than a crack cuts into the cliff beneath Menos’s tomb. A pile of bricks sits heaped to one side, a sealed opening recently broken. A splash of color brightens the pile: a bouquet of fresh flowers set on top.

Captain Neartos stands guard over a file of twelve shackled Efean men, each bearing a criminal’s scar on his cheek. They carry the small but heavy chests marked with the royal seal of gold bullion. The harsh sun washes across the slumped backs of the clearly exhausted men as they shuffle into the crack and thus out of my sight. Neartos draws his sword and follows them inside.

For a long while the world seems to stand still. Then, so faintly it might just be my fervid thoughts pretending to sounds that aren’t there, I hear a surprised grunt, a scream and a shout, a scrape and a pleading cry. I can’t stop myself from imagining the captain coming up behind each shackled man, slitting each throat as they are helpless to resist. My whole body feels on fire, then goes cold as Lord Gargaron appears at the tunnel’s mouth, as neatly turned out as if he has just come from a palace supper. He stands in the shade with hands clasped behind his back, utterly relaxed and at peace, eyes half closed.

I ease down to my knees—no sudden movements, nothing that would draw his attention—and roll under the nearest wagon. A bird flutters past. A gust of wind swirls dust along the ground, and I cover my mouth and nose to stop from sneezing.

Captain Neartos appears with a lantern in one hand and a bloody sword in the other.

“They are all dead?” Gargaron asks.

“Yes, my lord.”

I breathe my shock into the dust of the earth, my throat thick with rage and my heart sickened. Gargaron picks up the flowers and climbs the ramp to leave this propitious offering at the walled-up entrance to his dead uncle’s tomb. After he departs, Neartos carries over a bucket of mortar to the pile of bricks and picks up a trowel.

I’m too afraid to move so I lie there as he seals up the crack until it looks like just another closed-off minor tomb.

“Please, O holy one, grant peace to my troubled heart,” I pray in silent words to the goddess Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea, but in my mind’s eye her features transform to become the face of the Mother of All seated on a mountain surrounded by the hotly flowing blood of Efea. The blood of my mother’s people, soaking into the earth.

I lie there with the heat baking my bones until he finishes, until he leaves, until a hawk swoops down from the sky to poke amid the disturbed earth.

Lord Menos’s oracle is long dead. I don’t need to ask her any questions to know what I’ve seen.

Gargaron is stealing the royal bullion that legally belongs to the king and queen. He’s keeping it secret by killing those involved, all except Captain Neartos. It’s brilliant, really. If he hides the gold, then the king and queen can’t pay their troops, and they can’t pacify Saryenia’s restless population with bread. If I were plotting to take over the throne, it’s what I would do. Besides weakening the current king and queen, he is also amassing gold that will help pay for the soldiers and allies necessary to support Kalliarkos and Menoë’s bid for the throne.

I never saw it so clearly as now.

I don’t want to watch these Rings open.

I don’t want to be part of his plot. But I’m already in it neck-deep by pretending to be friends with Prince Temnos as part of the plan to lull Queen Serenissima into trusting Menoë, by parading my victories in front of the crowd so they will learn to love and support Garon Palace.

If Gargaron is caught, if the king and queen figure out what is going on while they still have the power to act, they’ll kill him. And they’ll kill Kalliarkos and Father too.

I can’t let them die. Which means Lord Gargaron has to win, and I have to help him.

Bettany is right. Whatever she is now, I’m trapped in a way she isn’t.