CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Scorpion surrendered to her grief
Shunning all praise, she faltered in acclaim
She knew the beating of the drum now meant
An existence forever to be changed
The life she had fought so hard to protect
Looked dull and dim with no light to reflect
—THE BOOK OF UNVEILING
Darvyn’s Song beat at his consciousness, pushing him toward wakefulness. The afterglow of healing felt like butterflies humming just under his skin, knitting him back together from the inside out. He stretched kinked and tired limbs, relieved to no longer be in agony.
The ceiling was cracked, forming broken lines like someone had taken a hammer to it. He struggled to a sitting position, taking in the dim room, lit only from the gaps around the woven mat covering the doorway. He sat on a low cot, the air heavy with bitter incense.
Low End. The safe house. Kyara. It all rushed back to him.
He made a mental inventory of his body. Not only was he healed and clean of the muck of the dungeons, his Song was at full strength. Gone were the rags he’d worn while imprisoned. Someone had dressed him in a loose-fitting tunic and trousers.
Not more than a few hours had gone by, judging by the tenderness of his thigh where Ydaris had carved him. The skin there felt new and fresh.
He sensed two people approaching and rose when the mat was pushed back. Aggar entered with Meldi on his heels.
“So you’re awake then.” Aggar reeked of barely contained rage. Meldi frowned up at Darvyn, concern spiking through her.
“Did you have a pleasant nap?” the bearded man asked, a jagged edge to his voice.
“Where’s Kyara?”
Meldi’s eyes widened; Aggar snorted. “How could you bring the Poison Flame here? How could you dare?”
Darvyn stepped toward Aggar, menace suffusing him. “Where. Is. She?”
“Where she belongs.” Aggar turned and stomped out of the room.
“How could you betray all of us?”
He turned to find Meldi’s eyes round and wet.
“I didn’t.” He reached for her hands, gripping them. She was unusually cold, her bones so delicate. “Kyara isn’t what you think. She saved my life—twice now. I owe her everything.”
Meldi pulled out of his grasp, her face crumpling. “She’s being kept under guard.” She rushed for the door, her limp more pronounced than usual.
Darvyn followed her out of the tiny room and down a dimly lit hall. This safe house was nestled in the heart of Low End, one of the poorest areas of the city. Here, the structures were built narrow and tall. Upper floors were impossibly hot and the buildings teetered, often dangerously, higher than the wall dividing the neighborhood from the river.
Meldi negotiated her way down two claustrophobic sets of uneven staircases. Darvyn held his breath behind her, afraid she would fall at any moment. Daylight pierced the cracks in the walls.
They emerged in a main room that took up the entire level. A dozen Keepers sat on low padded benches or cushions. Tension clouded the air along with the incense. All conversation stopped when Darvyn appeared. Hanko, Lizana, Navar, Zango, and Farron were all present. They’d all come to Sayya. For him? Aggar stood in the corner, arms folded, scowl firmly in place. They had all been on the nabber mission and were the only ones who knew that Darvyn would be at Checkpoint Five that day. One of them had given him up to the True Father.
Zango had been his friend since Darvyn broke him out of a mine prison. The man had been by his side on nearly every mission from that day on. Darvyn remembered when Farron was born. His parents had risked their lives hiding a Keeper they didn’t know from a group of soldiers. Lizana and Navar had worked by his side for years, and he’d always thought of Hanko as a mentor. And though Aggar and Darvyn had a painful history, the Keeper had always been devoted to the cause.
When Darvyn had first been taken from his mother, Aggar’s home had been a favorite among the many he was shuffled between. His parents had treated him like family.
How could any of them betray the Keepers in such a spectacular way? A scan of their emotions revealed no one with a heart of treachery, merely confusion, dismay, and fear. He would have to ask them each to see if they lied to him.
He did a double take at the figure he finally saw sitting in the corner, arms and legs tied with rope. Kyara.
His chest constricted. Kyara met his eyes, and where he expected fury, he found only resignation. Her fiery spirit was dimmed—that made him want to lash out. Blood heated in his veins like water in a kettle.
Every eye in the room tracked his movements. Two elders were present, Hanko and a woman named Talida with whom Darvyn had barely had contact as his missions rarely brought him to Sayya. Both scrutinized him with heavy suspicion. He straightened his shoulders and stood tall.
A storm was about to hit. He would brave it to gain the answers he sought. And to find a way to spare Kyara the wrath of the Keepers.
Hanko sighed gravely. “I’m glad to see you are well. But Darvyn…” He pursed his lips and shot an annoyed look at Talida sitting next to him. “You have transgressed.”
A transgression was the worst offense a Keeper could commit. Each member pledged an oath when they joined, not only to keep the Promise to the Queen Who Sleeps, but to protect each other. All they had was their word and their honor, and each Keeper risked his or her life for this cause. So when one broke his oath, justice was swift and severe.
Darvyn scanned the room again, taking its temperature. “There are only two elders present to judge me. Are not three required?”
Aggar stepped forward, a smug expression contorting his face. He sank into the open seat next to Talida.
“Aggar has been promoted to the rank of elder,” Hanko announced. Darvyn ground his teeth. Aggar was only five years older than him.
Hanko continued. “Our numbers are low due to the efforts in the west. We are all needed there, yet we traveled here to find a way to save the Shadowfox. Little did we know that he had thrown in his lot with an agent of the enemy.” The elder’s gaze was accusatory. “Darvyn ul-Tahlyro. The charges against you are dereliction of duty and perfidy. How do you answer them?”
“I’ve done no wrong.” Darvyn’s voice was resolute. The room hummed with the murmurs of the others.
Aggar’s eyes narrowed. “You disobeyed a direct order and left your mission. You brought an operative of the True Father to a classified location and put dozens of young ones at risk. And then you brought her here. Gave her a valid pass code so that she was in our midst before we knew what had happened.” His voice rose with each charge. Talida put a hand on his arm to try to calm him.
In the corner, Kyara appeared to wilt.
Darvyn could rail at them, hurl accusations about all of the Keepers’ lies to him over the years, but forced himself to keep his head.
“Aggar, did you betray me?” He drew energy into his Song and focused on the man’s emotions. Aggar’s fury was pure. It did not have the sense of betrayal around the edges.
“Betray you?” Spittle flew from the man’s mouth. His eyebrows rose. “It is you who have betrayed us!”
For all his flaws, the man was straightforward and honest. If he wanted Darvyn dead, he would have tried to kill him himself, not rely on the True Father.
“All of my actions have been justified,” Darvyn said. “I can defend everything I’ve done. I wonder if everyone present can say the same.”
Scornful mumbles rippled through the Keepers. Hanko’s brow furrowed, while Aggar scoffed. Darvyn turned his attention to the elder whose voice instantly quieted the room.
“You feel you were justified in bringing the Poison Flame, the lead assassin in the king’s deadly arsenal, here?” Hanko’s eyes bugged almost comically.
“I trust her. She saved my life.” He glanced at Kyara, who stared at the floor, her face a mask. “And she didn’t choose her path—the True Father forced her.”
The elder sighed deeply.
“Hanko, did you betray me?” Darvyn asked, his chest tight.
Hanko sputtered. “What is this nonsense? It is not I who am being questioned, it’s you.” Nothing but disappointment and duty colored the man’s emotions. Though he didn’t answer, no guilt pushed through, either.
Meldi stepped forward. “How could you be more loyal to her than to us? We’re the ones fighting against this tyranny. Whatever grip the king has on her is strong enough to make her kill. In cold blood. How could you risk us all?”
Darvyn dropped his head into his hands. He couldn’t be angry at Meldi; she was simply saying what the others thought. “My entire life has been about loyalty. How dare any of you question it? I’ve given everything. Every day I give my all. No one has exhausted their Song more than I have for this cause. For freedom. If I tell you she can be trusted, why do I not get the benefit of the doubt?”
Meldi shook her head. “You are not infallible, Shadowfox.” She limped to the side of the room and took a seat, appearing exhausted.
“Meldi, I’m sorry I couldn’t save your parents. That you were hurt when the soldiers came searching for me and burned the house. That I wasn’t there to heal you. Aggar lost his family, too, defending me. Many of you have lost people to this cause.” He turned in a circle, meeting the eyes of everyone in the room.
“You’re right, I’m not infallible. I can’t save everyone, much as I want to, but I am loyal. Every loss has gutted me. Stolen something precious from deep inside. I have given this group far more loyalty than it has ever given me.”
Hanko stared at Darvyn with rheumy eyes. “All who transgress the code of the Keepers must be questioned. Even the Shadowfox. As for the Poison Flame, she will be interrogated for any intelligence she can provide. And then she will be executed for crimes against the people.”
Darvyn’s chest cracked open. “I won’t let you do that.” His voice was low. A promise, a warning, a threat.
“Darvyn.” Kyara’s plea was soft but desperate. He caught her gaze, and a million emotions swam in her eyes. Regret. Sorrow. Something more, or was that just wishful thinking?
Inside him, everything clicked into place. The confusion of the past days. The longing. Mixed in with the desperation and fear of being in the True Father’s clutches had been a shining truth. Darvyn didn’t regret any of the events that had brought Kyara to him. He loved her, deadly Song and all. And he would keep her safe.
His Song swelled, pulling in enough Earthsong to fill him. Aggar rushed to his feet and the two locked eyes.
“Navar, now,” Aggar commanded, and Darvyn felt movement behind him. He turned, pulling the focus of his Song back just in time to feel Navar’s intention. But too late to stop the man from clamping the bloodred collar around his neck.
A scream tore from Kyara’s chest when the padlock snicked into place. Three men held Darvyn—two pinned his arms to his sides, one held his legs while he writhed and kicked and shouted like a rabid animal.
“Darvyn, stop!” she yelled. Amazingly, the room quieted. Darvyn quit struggling and stared at her. She’d never seen him so fierce and feral. It filled her heart with gratitude and pain. He would fight his own people to free her. He would destroy the only life he knew, the only family he had left.
All for her. And she couldn’t let him.
“You don’t know the whole story,” she said, unable to tear her gaze away from him. “I’m not worth this.”
“Kyara, I won’t let them kill you. I—”
“The only reason I’m here is because I choose to be.” Her voice echoed across the walls. Fear shone in the eyes of those who looked at her.
She swallowed, determined to come clean at last. “It’s true the blood spell controls me. But I chose to become the Poison Flame. I gave up my freedom and chose this life.”
Darvyn frowned. “What do you mean?”
She closed her eyes to press back the pain so she could speak. No one moved or made a sound. The shock of the Shadowfox in a collar allowed her to tell her tale.
She raised her bound hands to pull at her tunic, revealing the top of her bandaged chest. “When I was eleven years old, the Cantor gave me this wound, this blood spell, and forbade me from harming anyone in the glass castle. When I refused to become the True Father’s assassin, she let me go.”
“And you wandered through the Midcountry. You met”—Darvyn’s voice wavered—“Nerys.”
Kyara’s lips curved. “Yes. And after she died, I was on my own again. I traveled and met people who wanted to hurt me. Those people would die. But not just them, everyone around them. Their horses, their neighbors, the vegetation around them. Others started to notice.”
Though the room was full of people, she spoke only to him. “One day, I was in a town, a small one between checkpoints. A man on horseback had passed me on the road the day before. When he saw me at the market, buying bread with stolen money, he called for the constable. Told of how he’d seen the damage I created up and down the Great Highway. He said after I left a town, days later plague would take dozens of lives.”
Darvyn tilted his head. “Days later? That wasn’t you.”
“No. But it didn’t matter. The townsfolk latched onto his story and the crowd grew agitated. The plague must have been because the physician—Raal—was taking the same route I was, but of course I couldn’t prove it. The constable made a big show of questioning me, right there on the street. People nearby called to their friends. The crowd grew so quickly. Someone threw a rock and my Song…” Her gaze held his and clung to the understanding shining back at her.
“I had to get away from there. There were so many people surrounding me. Women and children. They kept throwing rocks and I knew I had to leave before … before they all died.”
Sounds of confusion and shock filtered throughout the room, but Darvyn’s was the only face she saw.
“I ran. I pushed through them, dodging the hands that grabbed for me. I tried to escape, and they chased me. They wanted blood. They didn’t understand the danger they were in.”
Kyara dropped her head, remembering the fear and the urgency. The tight grip she’d held on her Song, but she knew it wasn’t tight enough.
“I hid—crawled through an alley to the next street. I thought maybe I’d lost them, but there she was.”
“Who?” Darvyn asked.
“Ydaris. She was waiting for me.”
The horseless carriage had gleamed in the sun. Sparkling chrome and red metal. A rich man’s contraption in a poor man’s town. And the sound of the approaching mob thundered, coming down the street. Determined.
The castle welcomes you back any time, Kyara, the Cantor had said. Her voice had been so kind, so soothing.
“She told me she could teach me to control my Song.” Or would you rather kill everyone in this town?
“I could hear the mob coming; they were just out of sight. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get away from them fast enough on foot, and my Song was clawing and tearing at me. It was nearly beyond my ability to hold it back anymore. Then they came into view, a group of little boys out in front and I—” A spasm shook her voice as she remembered how they’d looked. Scared children who didn’t know how terrified they should really be.
“Ydaris started her engine and began driving away. The mob just got closer and closer.” Kyara closed her eyes.
“So you went with her.” Darvyn’s voice was resigned.
Kyara nodded, feeling spent. She couldn’t look at him again, couldn’t stand to see the disappointment and disgust on his face.
“Kyara—”
The old man who appeared to be in charge finally spoke up. “Zango, take her downstairs,” he barked.
She opened her eyes to find the enormous miner she’d met earlier looming above her. His hand grasped her upper arm, surprisingly gentle. She didn’t fight him when he urged her to stand. Keeping her eyes on the ground to avoid the sight of Darvyn, she headed for the stairs.
Whispers followed her down.
“She must be deranged.”
“How can a Song kill?”
“Madness!”
The bottom floor of the safe house was several degrees cooler. A short, wiry fellow stood smoking a cigar, guarding the same door she’d dragged an unconscious Darvyn through several hours before. Zango nodded at the him. “I’ve got this. Head upstairs if you want.”
With a dirty look in her direction, the guard pushed off the wall. He blew smoke in her face as he passed, before disappearing up the stairs.
Zango waited a few moments before turning her around to face him. She took a step back, finding him wielding a slim knife. Her knife, the one he’d taken from her boot after he’d patted her down earlier at Aggar’s insistence. He twirled the knife on his thumb and then neatly cut through the ropes binding her hands.
With another flip of the knife, he presented it to her handle first. She grabbed it, then backed away to slice the rope around her ankles. Rubbing her chafed wrists, she peered at him.
“Why are you helping me?”
“He gave you his code.” Zango’s voice rumbled low and thunderous. Kyara glowered, not understanding. “Each Keeper has two identification codes. If you’d forced or coerced him, he would have given the other one. Darvyn trusts you. That’s enough for me.”
She wanted to smile, but the thought of Darvyn collared sobered her. “What will they do to him?”
Zango crossed his arms and leaned back against the opposite wall. “We need the Shadowfox now more than ever. They’re just trying to scare him. Get him back where he was before.”
“Under their thumb?”
He blinked, surprised, before nodding.
“It won’t work,” Kyara said. “Not now.” Darvyn’s eyes had been opened to the truth about the Keepers. He wouldn’t be blinded again.
She looked the big man up and down. “Do you trust them?”
His eyebrows raised. “Most. Why?”
“At least one of them told the True Father exactly where I could find the Shadowfox. That he would be in Checkpoint Five following the nabbers.”
The slight flaring of Zango’s nostrils was his only reaction.
“That’s why he’s asking all of you if you betrayed him.” She watched him carefully for any sign of guilt. Zango stood up taller and stuck out his chest.
“He’ll hear the truth in my voice. I have nothing to hide. You have a Song, you can tell. I would never betray him.”
Kyara narrowed her eyes. No point in telling him her Song didn’t work like that. Darvyn would be able to find the informer; maybe he already had. Besides, she believed Zango. She’d looked enough snakes in the eyes over the years to recognize a good man.
“He needs his Song back.”
Zango nodded. “I’m on it.” He took a step toward the staircase before pausing. “He’ll want to know where you went.”
Kyara stopped at the door, already spreading her senses to determine if anyone was out there lying in wait. “It’s better if he doesn’t.”
She opened the door and slipped out into the dusk.
Darvyn seethed, his breathing heavy in the quiet room. Kyara’s story had left the other Keepers bewildered. More than one gazed at the collar around his neck with visible horror. The same fecking collar the Golden Flames had used to capture and torture him. Placed by his own people.
Navar had wisely stepped out of reach after clicking the lock into place. Darvyn almost felt sorry for the man, broken as he had been by his time in the Wailers. Was he so far gone that he’d betrayed Darvyn to the True Father? Darvyn should have tested him before losing access to his Song.
“Is that really necessary?” Lizana asked.
“You know his power,” Aggar snapped. “You heard him threaten us.”
“I heard no such thing.”
Hanko raised a hand. “We all need to be calm. Darvyn is not the threat here.”
Darvyn rolled his head, hating the way the collar chafed him. “I’ll be the worst nightmare of anyone who hurts Kyara.” Somehow she’d thought telling him of her awful choice would make him turn away from her. But it only made his heart all the more hers.
Aggar raised his arms as if to say this is what I mean. Darvyn wanted to throw something at him.
Heavy footfalls sounded on the steps from below. Zango had taken Kyara away and nothing made sense. Darvyn hated not knowing who he could trust. He would have staked his life on being able to rely on Zango at least—could he be so wrong about everyone?
“Who’s guarding the prisoner?” Talida asked, alarm making her voice shrill.
Darvyn felt Zango come up behind him and whipped around to face him. But that left Navar at his back, which he didn’t want, either. Navar’s Song wasn’t terribly powerful—he definitely couldn’t put Darvyn to sleep, but now the threat was everywhere and he couldn’t be faulted for being paranoid.
Zango remained silent, but grabbed Darvyn by his neck and held him in place with incredible strength. A growl sounded in Darvyn’s throat as he was manhandled. For pip’s sake, this was his closest friend, or so he’d thought. Several Keepers stood, to help or not, he wasn’t sure.
Then the snick of a lock unbolting rattled his ear, and his Song was within his control once more. Darvyn sucked in Earthsong until he was almost light-headed, so glad to have his connection back.
Aggar rushed to his feet, neither as tall or as wide as Zango, for all his menace. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m doing what all of you should have done the moment this monstrosity went on his neck.” Zango dropped the collar and stomped on it, cracking the hard covering to reveal a bit of wire inside the red casing. “And no, I did not betray you.”
The tightness in Darvyn’s shoulders eased. Zango spoke the truth. There was no treachery in his heart. He wanted to grab him in a hug, but settled for a smile. Zango answered with a nod.
The energy in the room thickened. Relief warred with apprehension among the Keepers.
“Where’s Kyara?” Darvyn whispered to Zango.
“Gone.”
Relief won out, and Darvyn faced off against the elders. He rubbed his neck as Zango stood beside him, cracking his knuckles. Aggar’s expression would have sheared the shell off a beetle. Hanko and Talida were grim.
Pain struck Darvyn’s heart. “Again and again, the people I relied on—those who called themselves my family have betrayed me.” He turned to Navar. “Before today, did you betray me?”
Shame and regret oozed from him. “No,” he answered quietly. The man was pliable, certainly, and lived to follow orders, even those he hated. He was telling the truth.
A heavy weight descended on Darvyn’s heart. He turned in a circle. “I’ve given my entire life, every day, for you, all of you. And in return you gave me lies.”
Talida frowned. “What are you talking about? What lies?”
“You said my mother abandoned me. That she never came to look for me. I know she did.”
Hanko’s eyebrows climbed in surprise.
“Why?” Darvyn’s voice was a whisper.
For a moment, Hanko’s mouth opened and closed. “We needed you focused on the mission,” Hanko finally said. “Free from distractions.”
Darvyn’s fists tightened. “My mother was not a distraction. You could have at least taken care of her. She lived in poverty, all alone at the end of the spiral where the dogs and the storms and the bandits could have killed her. You could have done something for her! But you just left her to rot!”
Even Aggar had the decency to looked ashamed. Darvyn tore his gaze from the elder to scan the room.
“Lizana?”
The tall Keeper’s eyes were filled with tears. She shook her head. “I did not betray you.”
Darvyn nodded. She was not the informer.
Hanko’s voice was brittle when he spoke. “We are not perfect, Darvyn, but we did our best. You were a difficult child to control. Your power made you more dangerous than you realize. And you clung to her memory so earnestly. When she first came looking, it was too soon. We had just begun to make progress.” He shook his head. “There was so much at stake.”
Darvyn shook with restrained anger. He thought his knuckles might burst from his skin. “And what was it all for? So you could lead a group who would one day betray me?”
“None of us betrayed you!” Aggar bellowed. “No matter the mistakes that were made, you brought the Poison Flame to our midst.”
“And one of you sold me out to the True Father!” His roar matched Aggar’s.
Shock, thick and viscous, permeated the room.
“None of us would ever.” Hanko’s face took on a gray pallor.
“One of you did. That is how the Poison Flame found me outside Checkpoint Five. She knew exactly where I was going to be. What my mission was.”
The elder shook his head. “But the only ones who knew about the mission were those of you who took part.”
Darvyn looked around the room again. Where was Farron? He’d been here a moment ago, but was now missing.
Hanko looked as sick as Darvyn felt, like he’d aged a decade in the past minute. The elder’s gaze flicked to his granddaughter and back as if scared to look at her.
Heart sinking slowly to his feet, Darvyn turned to Meldi sitting in the corner.
He hadn’t asked her. She shouldn’t have known about the mission at all. But Hanko always had a soft spot for her, stuck in safe houses, unable to go on assignments. Stomach churning, Darvyn arrowed the power of his Song in her direction. She flinched as if she could feel the intrusion.
Her emotions were quiet. There was neither the guilt he expected to find in a traitor nor the shame. Instead he felt her satisfaction. She stood, jutting her chin into the air.
“I didn’t betray the Keepers, Grandfather. Everything I did, I did for us all.”
Hanko rose, horror pulling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “What did you do?”
“I used the Flames’ radio frequency to send the messages. To tell them where the Shadowfox would be, how they could find him. You have to understand, you relied on him too much and he makes mistakes. So many mistakes.”
She turned to Aggar whose jaw was slack. Tears welled in the man’s eyes.
She moved closer to him. “You told me yourself how irresponsible he was. Always wanting to go off on his own, not taking orders. Look what happened when he rushed off to the school.”
“The children…” Aggar whispered, incredulous.
Meldi nodded, thinking he was agreeing with her. “Those poor children you saved were recaptured because he ran off.”
Aggar shook his head.
“Meldi, that doesn’t make any sense,” Darvyn said. “The children were recaptured because the Golden Flames followed our team. Because you told them about the mission in the first place.”
She frowned, looking down as if confused, then pointed to him. “Everything can’t depend on you. People who depend on you die, or worse.” She hitched up the leg of her trousers to reveal her mangled leg. Burn scars had misshapen the muscle and twisted her flesh.
Her voice shook. “You were my friend. You were supposed to save me. Save my parents. They would have done anything for you. But they depended on you and they’re gone now.”
She looked around wildly. “We have to free ourselves from him. It can’t all be about one man. The Keepers are bigger than one man.”
Darvyn’s eyes stung. A dense silence hung over the room. He backed away, heart feeling like lead in his chest. Meldi’s breathing was shallow, her skin flushed. “I did it for the Keepers,” she said. “I did it to help us all.”
Hanko moved to her side and wrapped her in an embrace. He pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “Meldi ul-Darnikor. My darling girl. You have transgressed.”
Darvyn closed his Song against the despondency in the room. He thought of the smiling girl he’d known since he was five years old. A part of him was shattered. He needed air. He needed space. He needed to get out of there.
Slipping away from the chaos was easy. Those who observed his exit said nothing. He bound down the steps and into the twilight. The desert heat was stifling, but not as bad as inside the safe house had been.
A familiar whistle caught his ear from the alley. Farron. Darvyn hustled into the shadows to meet him.
“What happened?” Farron asked, taking in Darvyn’s expression.
Darvyn gripped the back of his neck, exhaling hard enough to empty his lungs. He shook his head, unable to form the words.
Farron frowned, looking over at the safe house. Before long, he would learn what Darvyn couldn’t say.
“I need to find Kyara,” Darvyn murmured, looking down the dusky street.
Farron’s eyes brightened. “I thought you might say that.”