Wilek woke the next morning to news that—save Cook Hara—all of the prisoners had escaped. Livid, he summoned Lady Pia, who swore Hinckdan had understood his instructions perfectly. Wilek had no reason to doubt her. He hadn’t told her where the others were being kept, nor could Hinckdan have known. Someone else must have helped them escape. Wilek had a guess who and hoped he might catch Kamran in some nefarious behavior very soon.
“Is that all, Your Highness?” Lady Pia asked.
“What happens to you now that Janek is gone?”
She curtsied. “My life is yours to command. Consider my training and your needs. How can I best serve you?”
She best served as a spy. Who did Wilek need to spy on now that Janek and all the traitors were gone?
Kamran DanSâr.
It felt wrong to ask such a thing of a woman not yet a full week free of Janek, but he took up a fresh sheet of parchment, in case any shadir were lurking about, and wrote:
I believe Kamran DanSâr is one of the traitors. I would like to catch him in his treachery. Could you become his concubine?
She nodded. “I know him well. He preferred Mattenelle, but with her gone, he will not refuse me.” She left in a swirl of robes, and Wilek felt glad to have her on his side.
But as the day wore on, Wilek had doubts about his choice. What would Zeroah have said if she knew what he’d done? There was likely another way to capture Kamran, though Wilek could not think of one.
Reluctantly, he ordered Cook Hara’s execution. He hated to do it, knowing she had been defending her daughter’s memory, but Wilek could not pardon a conspiracy to kill the king. Once that was done, he sent Rayim and a squadron of King’s Guards to bring the king back to the Seffynaw, then ordered the signalmen to relay messages to the rest of the fleet about the prisoners’ escape. Three squadrons of guards searched the Seffynaw for clues. None were found.
Waiting for morning to execute the traitors had been a risk. Wilek couldn’t believe he’d cleared the deck for Hinckdan and made it easy for the others. Hinckdan’s life was worth the lost prisoners, though, and they could not be so valuable to Rogedoth with Janek gone. He consoled himself that there should be no more shadir aboard the Seffynaw, save whatever creature Oli had secured. Though now that Oli’s root juice had finally been disposed of, even that creature should move on eventually.
Wilek’s father returned, nearly catatonic. By the time Wilek saw him resituated in the king’s cabin, he caught himself wishing the man would die. Thoughts of mercy killings flitted through his head, but that would be too charitable for a man who had killed so many innocents. Wilek supposed the king should suffer as long as Arman willed it.
He left the king and found Dendrick waiting for him with Master Granlee, the navigator, who informed Wilek that they had finally lost sight of Nivanreh’s Eye last night. While this seemed to upset the navigator, the news filled Wilek with hope. They could no longer be steered by the superstitions of the past. The future lay before them now, unhindered.
At lunch Zeroah mentioned that it might be time for Wilek to tell Trevn about the missing ship.
With the storm and the traitors, Wilek had ordered Rayim to keep Trevn sedated for his own safety. Twice now his brother had woken and stumbled from his bed, desperate to fetch Miss Mielle from the Rafayah. He must have sensed her absence. As Zeroah said, now was the time.
Wilek set out for his private cabin. He had insisted Trevn be kept there since the room had a framed bed, which was easier to get in and out of than Trevn’s hanging cot. He found Sir Cadoc standing outside the door, eyes drooping. Wilek set his hand on Cadoc’s shoulder, and the shield jumped to attention and grabbed the hilt of his sword.
“My pardon, Your Highness,” Cadoc said, yawning. “Might you send a trusted guard or two to relieve me for a few hours?”
“After my visit,” Wilek said. “How is he?”
“Awake but half dazed from so much soporific. He woke last night, tried to dress himself, ordered Captain Veralla to prepare the boat fall so he could look for Mielle. The captain got him sedated again, and I put him back to bed. He awoke again just a few minutes ago and tried to leave, so I’ve locked him in. He is not happy about it.”
“He wanted to go to the boat fall again?”
“This time to the mainmast. Said if he could get to the crow’s nest, he’d find the ship that everyone was too blind to see.”
“He’s heard the news, then?”
“Ottee told him a day or two ago when he was conscious,” Cadoc said. “That boy has a bigger mouth on him than the Bay of Jeruka.”
Immense relief filled Wilek at one nasty job he didn’t have to do. “How did he take it?”
Cadoc snorted. “First he railed at Ottee for jokes of bad taste and dismissed him from his service as onesent. The boy ran off in tears and hasn’t returned. Then the sâr kept trying to leave and see for himself. He demanded to speak with you a few times. I told him you’d be here when you could, and he didn’t like that. Captain Veralla and I have done a fair job of keeping him sedated. The captain says his hand is healing well.”
“Thank you, Sir Cadoc.”
Wilek went inside. The sunlight coming in the curtained window cast a golden haze over the room. Trevn was sitting up in bed, propped against a half-dozen pillows, a tray of food balanced on his lap. His body was leaning drastically to the right, his head drooping so low it looked uncomfortable. Sleeping.
Wilek examined his brother’s hand, which lay on top of the blanket at his side. The swelling had gone almost completely down. Captain Veralla had said that only two fingers had been broken, but all four fingers were splinted and had turned a deep purple shade that was quite ghastly.
“I must find the Rafayah.”
Wilek lifted his gaze to Trevn’s face. His brother’s eyes were puffy and lidded. “You must stay in bed until you are well.”
“Would you?”
Wilek glanced at the shell marking on Trevn’s palm, remembering the pull Charlon had on him when they’d been soul-bound. “Can you feel her? Hear her thoughts?” Wilek asked. “There were times when I could do that with Charlon.”
With one purpled finger Trevn traced along the shell lines on his embossed hand. “We are too far apart to hear thoughts,” he said. “When I came to the Seffynaw just before the storm, I noticed that distance changes the magic.”
“Yes, I remember that,” Wilek said. It had been both a blessing and a curse.
“My chest aches constantly, like it did when Father Tomek died. I cannot hear her, though I sense she is worried. No. She thinks I am worried.”
“That’s good, then,” Wilek said. “I don’t think you would feel like that if she were—” He stopped himself. “We’re keeping a close watch on the seas. It’s likely that the missing ships were merely blown off course. Perhaps they will soon find their way back to us.”
A quiet knock and Rayim entered, tiny black box in hand.
Trevn’s gaze fixed on the box and his face crumpled. “No,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to sleep anymore. Please don’t make me.”
But Rayim set about pricking Trevn in the neck. “Another day. Maybe two. It’s for the best,” he said.
Trevn moaned, shook his head as if trying to scare off a fly. “Mielle . . .”
Plagued by feelings of guilt, Wilek sat with Trevn until he fell asleep. He could not bring himself to mention any of the happenings of the past week with Janek’s shipping and the traitors. And Hinckdan . . . Wilek would have to tell Trevn about that at some point.
“Under no circumstances should Sâr Trevn be left alone, Sir Cadoc,” Wilek said. “Make sure that any guards who relieve you know that.” His brother was probably a greater danger to himself at present than Kamran was to their father. “I’ll ask my mother if she and the sârahs might take turns sitting with him until we convince Ottee he wasn’t dismissed permanently.”
“It will be done, Your Highness,” Cadoc said.
Wilek departed for his mother’s cabin. He left Novan with the honor maidens and the pack of tiny dogs and retreated with his mother into her bedchamber for a private talk.
“I am sorry that the prisoners got away,” she said. “It is a frustrating defeat. But you must give yourself some grace. Both you and Sâr Trevn are grieving. You have lost people dear to you. Such an experience is not so easily overcome.”
“Who have I lost? Surely you don’t mean Janek?”
She frowned. “I mean Sir Kalenek.”
The name tightened Wilek’s chest. Kal had been slowly weaned away from Wilek—first by his resignation—but now he was gone completely, and thinking of the man made it difficult to breathe. Perhaps his mother was right.
“I don’t know how to grieve.” When Lebetta had died, he’d kept busy, and with the Woes, before he’d realized it, months had passed and the pain no longer stabbed. “I wish he hadn’t confessed. If I didn’t know what he’d intended, it would have been easier.”
“We all make choices,” Mother said, “but they do not define us. Besides, he is not dead, so you don’t have to let go completely. Think of him as being on a special mission for you, like when you sent him into Magonia. Ask Arman to watch over him. To help him in that dark place.”
“That is a good idea.” And not so far from the truth.
“You should also talk about him. Tell Zeroah stories about some of your exploits together. These things will help, little by little. Just remember, you never stop grieving death. You learn to live with it. Grief is not an illness; it’s a transition.”
Wilek thought of Chadek, his brother who had been sacrificed to Barthos at age ten. Though the memory of his brother on that platform still haunted him, the pain hadn’t flared for years. Still, that experience had shaped everything about the rest of Wilek’s life.
“I’m worried about Trevn. If we never recover Miss Mielle, with the soul-binding spell he might never learn to live with his grief. I’ve dealt with that magic. I know how it feels.”
“Arman’s ways are beyond understanding,” Mother said, chilling Wilek with the same words Zeroah liked to say. “We might not understand now why these things happened, we might never understand, but we will survive.”
Wilek hoped so. For all their sakes.