I find my mother in one of her favorite spots on our estate: the antique tearoom. She actually grows tea, dries it for drinking. Since it’s winter, her plants are perched cautiously near the windows to enjoy the rays of the Sun, but not close enough that they’ll frost. She might have abandoned the garden out back, but these plants are basically my siblings. She coddles them, coos over each one, when it gets too cold she even warms them with a special fire in the hearth.
Currently, she’s pruning the live plants while several lengths of leaves hang upside-down above the mantel to dry like the salted meat at the market. She doesn’t notice me at first, but the moment she glances up and sees me her eyes light up.
“My son!” she calls, getting up off her chair and wrapping her arms around me, not even bothering to remove her soiled gardening gloves. “I knew he’d get you here, but I didn’t expect you so soon.” Like she recalls the reason she summoned me here, my mother takes my hands, inspects me up and down. Her brow lines with worry. “Oh, Nico, the battle … Is everything all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine … Everything’s fine…” But my stupid voice hitches on the tiniest claw of emotion.
She eyes me in that way that shows she knows I’m full of shit. That I’m lying through my teeth. I hate that she’s able to see through me so easily. There’s only one other who has this ability: Veda. Not only can she see through my lies, there are times she sees too much.
“Nico—” I snap back into the present. My mother is staring, waiting for me to confide in her.
“Well, I didn’t want to jump right into it. I enjoy our visits … But yes, I do have something to share with you. Is Father here today?”
Her first response is, “He’s upstairs.” Her second, “Are you in trouble?”
“I don’t think so…”
To this, she grabs my hand, pulls me around the worktable and down so we’re crouched on the carpet before the fire. “You don’t think so?” She hisses, then throws off her gloves and pushes her hair off her shoulders and behind her ears. “How can you not know?”
“Mother, please listen.” She nods, finally stays quiet, her eyes wide and set on me. “When I was last here, you tried to tell me something, but Father walked in, do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“What were you going to tell me?”
She glances around the table, then back again. Gives a piercingly strong, deep stare. “You have to stop this war. As heir, you must find a way. I fear if it doesn’t end soon this island will burn.” Tears well in her eyes but don’t fall. “It’s all wrong. Nothing good can come of it.”
I nod. I’d come to get more possible insight about the medallions, but now, seeing my mother’s passion to end this war, I think I can do better. I reach into my pocket, pull out the Offering coins. “I might have a way to do just that.”
“What’s this?” she whispers, her eyebrows exaggeratedly pointed downward, the lines on her forehead deepening.
“Before I tell you, you must promise me something.”
“Okay…”
“I need you to only share this information with other Dogio you’re certain you can trust, those who will believe you and not think you’re turning your back on the High Regent.”
She’s nodding but also worrying about me, her only son, her own flesh and blood, how the Sun I might pull off such a thing as taking down the High Regent. What might happen to me, our family, should I fail.
“I know, Mother … It’s extremely risky. Now’s your chance to back out. I’ll leave and never speak of it again.”
“Yes … Of course I’ll help … Only share the news with my most trusted confidantes. Nothing matters more than your safety … More than saving Bellona…” This is how I knew I could trust her. My father? He’d have the opposite reaction. Turn and leave and not look back. Pretend the conversation never happened. Or, worse, turn me into Raevald himself.
“Those medallions … The names printed on them … They’re the missing Basso.”
“The ones taken by the Night?”
“Yes, but also no.”
“Nico—speak plainly, please!”
“Fine, I’m sorry, but I’m worried it’s going to come as a shock.”
Her stare is unwavering, mouth set in a serious line. “Believe it or not, my son, I can handle it.”
“The Imperi army, on Raevald’s order, have been posing as the Night. All of those missing Basso? They weren’t taken by the Night. They were taken and, I believe, executed by the Imperi in order to make us fear the Night and support this war. Raevald himself admitted to me he ordered private Offerings.”
She doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even react. All my mother does is study the medallions … the craftsmanship, the names, the intricate Sun printed on the other side.
“But why print the image of the Sun on the medallions?” she finally says, glancing up at me.
“What?”
“If they were just going to kill them, why print the Sun like they were set for Offering?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. As justification? A sort of backup plan? Maybe, if they were to be found, the Imperi would say it was seen as an Offering? That their sacrifices weren’t in vain.”
“And you found these…?”
“In a cellar in the palace, locked inside a hidden room.”
“My Sun, Nico. You understand that if for some reason this isn’t what it seems, it could mean your life?”
“I know.” I rest my hand on her shoulder. “But if I let this lie and do nothing, I might as well be dead.” I shake my head, my disgust coming through in my tone. “He cannot get away with this. It’s not right, Mother.”
“Yes, I agree.” Once again, she looks down at the medallions sitting heavily in her hand. “Can I keep these for now?”
I nod, relief showing itself as a slight smile pulls at the sides of my mouth. “Thank you.” I grasp her hands, the medallions cupped within them. “Thank you.”
“I can think of a few friends who will have significant interest in this.”
“Good.” I don’t ask; the less I know, the better.
“And, Nico?” The Sun shines through the window and over her worktable at the perfect angle so it hits the top of her head, wreathing a sunbeam halo over her dark hair.
“Yes?”
“We’ll keep this between the two of us, yes?”
“Definitely.”
I SPEND A good hour with my mother. We speak of ways to get the word out about Raevald, create suspicion from deep within the most influential of Dogio families. Our planning is cut short when my father makes an appearance and typical small talk takes over. He offers me a brandy, which I politely pass on.
Salazar meets me at the front door right on time to escort me to my first “join the Imperi army” rallying speech.
He shakes my father’s hand, lays a small kiss on each of my mother’s cheeks.
Upon leaving, we head straight to my first scheduled stop; a piazza near the market. Salazar has arranged for an almost duplicate setup. My only hope is that this one doesn’t culminate with an explosion.
I give a similar speech. The crowd—men, women, children, Basso and Dogio both—erupt in applause at the end. Several more join the line for recruitment. And as I walk away, follow Salazar to our next engagement, I can’t help the heavy weight that in playing heir I’m simultaneously undoing the work I’m trying to achieve behind the scenes. It’s a means to an end, a sacrifice for the greater good, I know, but where does one start and the other end?
My next appearance is in the Basso south village—Veda’s old village. They aren’t quite as receptive as the others, understandably, but many do sign up to join. I finish earlier than planned and as I’m passing through the gate, I spot something in the forest …
The red pocket square in a perfectly crisp suit, ginger hair.
I walk closer and cannot believe the sight before me.
Salazar with that same Basso man from before, but this time they’re tangled in a deep embrace.
And the Basso man is wearing all black—a Night uniform.
Frozen but also wanting to get out of there as fast as possible, I turn back, duck behind a tree. But when I do the snow crunches beneath my boots.
There’s a low murmuring.
Footsteps through the snow.
Then …
“Heir Denali?” Salazar.
When I step out from behind the tree, the Night member is gone. Disappeared.
“I finished early,” is all I can say, stunned.
“Ah.” Salazar nods. Then he grabs my wrist tightly, pulls me deeper and deeper into the forest until there is absolutely no way anyone could ever hear a whisper of what he’s about to say.
“I hadn’t seen Xavier since the battle yesterday. I needed to know he was all right.”
“So … I … I don’t understand.” I’m afraid to say the words I’m thinking because I cannot imagine any circumstance where what I just saw could make sense unless it’s some elaborate play to further test my loyalty to the High Regent.
Surely, he wouldn’t go that far …
Or would he?
Salazar leans in. Speaks quiet as the breeze. “Yes, I am the High Regent’s personal assistant. I’m also a spy for the Night.”
I pull away, my eyes wide, heart rapping against my chest. Sure, seeing him the other day with the Basso man had been odd, but never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted this.
“But … how?”
He gives a breathy laugh, shakes his head. “I fell in love.”
My head is spinning. This means the whole time Salazar’s been on the Night’s side? “You know why I’m here? What I’m doing?”
“Of course. I even know Bronwyn’s been passing you letters.”
My jaw goes slightly slack. “The blueberry muffin you asked to take to Raevald!”
“That was an accident. I truly thought it was extra. I felt horrible she had to find another way to get the note to you! But I couldn’t let on I was in on it. Not yet … I just wasn’t ready, and I didn’t feel you were either.”
“My Sun…”
“Exactly.” He leans forward. “Listen, as much as I want to run down all of this with you eventually, it wasn’t my plan to tell you this way. We have to keep to Raevald’s schedule.”
“Right. Of course.”
“Shall we?” He brushes some snow off my shoulder. “Look alive, Denali. You have troops to inspire.”
And he’s suddenly back to the Salazar I know.
But also not.
WE RETURN BACK to the palace at vesper bells. In all, I gave five different speeches and spoke and shook hands with more of Bellona than I knew existed. I was paraded and put on a pedestal (literally at one stop).
A record number of Basso and Dogio enlisted in the High Regent’s army.
My stomach turned when Salazar told me the figure. All I could picture were the faces, the eyes, my war-weary people who I’m asking to give, give, and give some more.
“The High Regent will be pleased when he returns from his military retreat tomorrow,” Salazar says, a wide grin across his face. He’s standing at my dressing closet hanging my clothes. I’m still not a hundred percent convinced of this new version of Salazar. The Salazar who’s in love with a Night soldier and is also helping the Night from within Imperi Palace.
This new Salazar who—
“Looks like you’ve been left a treat,” he says, pulling me out of my thoughts and pointing at a single blueberry muffin left on my bedside table. “Another note from the Lunalette?”
I glance over at him, decide to open myself up a bit to the guy. I did witness him in the arms of a member of the Night. I could have him ruined. Killed. And yet he didn’t lie. He trusts me.
“I hope so.”
He nods. “I’ll leave you to it then.” Then makes his way to the door.
“Thank you, Salazar.”
“My pleasure, my lord.” And he leaves.
I walk directly to the table. Break the muffin in two.
Somehow each time is new. Each note I get is more exciting than the last, urging my stomach to flip and my chest to thump, thump a little faster.
I open the paper.
Read it.
Read it again.
Veda’s coming here. Tonight.