The world turned. I stared at Kiva, not really seeing her, a single word resounding in my head like a funeral drumbeat.
Dead dead dead dead dead dead.
My jaw worked, but I didn’t have the breath to form words.
Distantly, I heard Ericen ask, “What happened?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Kiva snarled. She lurched forward.
The motion snapped me from my daze. I slipped reflexively between them, barely aware of my body moving. Kiva’s heat, her fury, pressed against me, suffocating. I felt dizzy.
“He’s been with me the entire night,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in the attack,” Kiva said. “Couldn’t you tell during the fight, Thia? They were targeting her. He probably fed them information! How else did they know who she was, that she was here? He’s the reason she’s barely holding on!”
“Right. And then I stuck around to take the blame in hopes of being executed.”
Ericen’s flippant tone sparked something inside me. I shoved him back a step, surprise flitting across his face. “This isn’t a joke! I don’t know how to convince them you weren’t involved.”
“Are you so sure I wasn’t?” he sneered. “It is, after all, in my blood. To lie and trick and betray.”
“You were trapped in a prison cell and then with me the entire night. I know you weren’t involved. I—” I stopped, facing Kiva. “Did you say barely holding on? Is Elko still alive?”
“For now,” she replied grimly.
* * *
The mercenary had missed Elkona’s heart, but only just.
We’d joined Auma in the apothecary’s quarters, where she sat beside her sister’s bed, grim-faced and with all the coalesced tension of a storm ready to break. Her shirt was stained red with the mercenary’s blood. Apparently, she’d cut him down a second too late.
Elko was pale, her face wrought with pain even in her sleep.
Kiva rubbed Auma’s back, the motions gentle. Whatever distance had grown between them when she’d learned of Auma’s deception, it was gone now.
Ericen had stayed under guard, though I’d convinced them to put him in a spare bedroom rather than back in the cells. Or rather, I’d ordered them to, and, surprisingly, they’d listened.
“Can you heal her?” Auma asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Res’s sun crow powers aren’t as strong as his others. He should be able to help, but he won’t be able to restore her entirely.”
A soft golden light rose from Res’s feathers. It flickered as he struggled to maintain the power. He bowed his head over Elko’s wound, letting the light wash over her.
When he stepped back, Auma adjusted the bandages carefully on Elko’s shoulder, revealing a wound that looked days old. A more experienced sun crow would be able to restore Elko’s lost blood and knit muscle and blood vessels back together, but with Res’s help, she’d live.
I shook my head, standing so quickly, I knocked my chair back. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“What are you talking about?” Kiva stood too, her expression clouding.
“Onis betrayed us,” I told her. “He told Razel about the alliance, and now the rebels in Ira are dead.”
Auma’s head snapped up.
I kept talking, knowing if I stopped, I’d never say the words. “He must have told her the Jin princess was in Eselin too. And the mercenaries, they came through the road.”
“Slow down, Thia.” Kiva placed a hand on my shoulder. “What in the Saints’ name are you talking about? What road?”
Taking a deep breath, I told them everything.
* * *
By the time I’d finished explaining, Auma’s expression had grown so grim, Kiva suggested I give her some space. I immediately sent a message to Queen Luhara and King Galren asking for an audience. Everyone needed to know what had happened.
Then I found my way back to my bed and climbed under the covers, shutting the world out. Res lay down beside the bed, one wing draped over me in comfort and protection, and in the darkness of my cocoon, I wept.
Samra’s crew was gone. The Jin rebels were dead or captured. The murderous Sellas were free, and they were working with Razel to destroy my family, to destroy Res.
After all the work I’d done, after all the alliances I’d forged, none of it mattered.
We were hopelessly outmatched.
We could not win this war.
A dark cloud enveloped me, that familiar weight hanging a chain across my shoulders and about my neck, drawing tighter with each breath.
When my bedroom door opened, I didn’t know how much time had passed since it’d closed. I recognized Kiva’s steady stride and the clap of Sinvarra against her hip, but I didn’t want to face her.
Res trilled softly, and then the covers were jerked off, flooding my eyes with light. I peered up at Kiva, her face a hard, pained mask.
“You’re mad,” I croaked.
“You’re short,” she replied. I blinked, and her brow rose. “Sorry, I thought we were stating the obvious.”
I winced but clung to the opening she gave me. “I’m not short. You’re just tall. And mad.”
“And hungry. But there’s a short, girl-shaped problem between me and the kitchen.”
“I play this game with Res. Be better than the crow, Kiva.” Res nipped at my fingers, and I snatched my hand away, sitting up.
Kiva half smiled, but it quickly died. “At least the pigeon doesn’t lie.”
“Omit occasional information,” I corrected halfheartedly.
“Lie.”
“Forget vital facts?” I tried, my guilt sinking deeper and deeper inside me.
Kiva raised an eyebrow, looking about as impressed as Estrel the first time I’d fired a bow.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Kiva. I should have told you when I found the note. I knew what’d you say and—” I hesitated.
“And you didn’t want to hear it,” Kiva finished. “Because you knew I’d be right.”
“I didn’t know that,” I snapped. “Ericen isn’t a danger to me. He’s—” I stopped, on the brink of saying something I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to put into words.
Her expression darkened with each word until she looked ready to knock me upside the head. “He’s dangerous, Thia!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “You trust too easily.”
“And you don’t trust at all! You didn’t trust Caylus either. And Ericen, he… Ugh, that’s not what this is about! I’m trying to apologize.”
Kiva drew a sharp, deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why do you think I’m here, Thia?” she asked through gritted teeth.
I deflated, the answer coming immediately. “For me.”
“For you,” she agreed. “So let me be here for you. You don’t have to do this all alone.”
“I know,” I said softly, burying my face in my hands. “I ruined everything, Kiva. So many people are dead because of me, and now more will die.”
She dropped onto the side of the bed, wrapping me in her arms. I leaned into her. “It isn’t your fault,” she said. “What Onis did is his responsibility, not yours. You can’t let your guilt destroy you. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are, and I need you too much.”
I held my breath, the familiar words I’d once spoken to her slowly working away at the coiled tension in my chest.
“You’re my family, Thia, and I’ll always be here for you,” she said, and I held her tight. Res hopped to our side, his massive wings enfolding us in warmth and silk, and for a moment, I let myself believe that everything would be okay.
“You’re my family too,” I told her, lifting my head. “Which is why I need you to trust me. I know you don’t like Ericen, but you also don’t really know him. I do. Trust me, Kiva, even if you can’t trust him.”
She let out a heavy breath. “Fine. But if he so much as looks at you funny, I’m skewering him.”
I grinned.
* * *
A message arrived from Queen Luhara that she’d convened a council meeting in an hour, and I tried to prepare myself to face my friends and all the people who’d placed their faith in me and tell them that it was all for nothing.
Kiva had gone back to sit with Elko and Auma, only after I’d promised her I wouldn’t go back to sleep. Res, however, had made no such promises and promptly sprawled across the entire bed in a heap of slumbering feathers.
Feeling aimless and dreading the coming meeting, I followed the corridor around to Ericen’s guarded room. He called me in when I knocked, ignoring the looks the guards gave me as I entered.
The prince stood by a row of arched windows on the far wall, looking out over the expanse of vineyards that blanketed the rolling hills at the back of the compound before they jutted sharply into the Calase Mountains.
“I never thanked you.” He turned at the sound of my footsteps, his expression solemn. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Of course. I don’t leave my friends behind.”
He stepped toward me, and suddenly, it wasn’t the looming meeting and threat of war that made my stomach flutter and my heart beat erratically. A gentle breeze tugged at my hair through an open window, soothing my hot skin. I tried to focus on its cool touch, but all I could think of was the disappearing distance between us.
When the prince slowed less than a hand’s width away, I found my throat too dry to speak. A depthless intensity shone in his gaze, strong enough to hold me aloft if the floor dropped out beneath me.
The thought struck me still. I’d come after Ericen because he was my friend, because I’d abandoned him once before and I refused to do it again. But I’d known all along that wasn’t the whole truth.
You cannot be afraid to see what you see.
There was a question in Ericen’s blue eyes. Blue as the ocean bathed in sunlight, blue as the sky on a clear Rhodairen summer day—a sky I wanted so badly to fall into.
So I did.
My lips found his, soft and questioning at first. But when he tilted his head down to meet me, and I felt the urgency behind his touch, I let go and fell.
My hands were in his hair and at his neck, and I pressed up onto my toes to reach him. The rough calluses, earned from years of blood and steel, brushed across my face and along my neck with a quiet tenderness. I felt his fingers tangling in my curls, felt them tracing lines of fire across my skin. I lost all sense of time and place, of the loss and fear and pain, and of the future that likely held more of them all.
Then a gentle tug, like someone shaking me awake. Res pulled again along the cord, questioning where I was, what I was doing. A slight flush filled Ericen’s pale skin as I pulled back, his fingers brushing mine.
I sent a reassuring wave back to Res, my cheeks burning.
Ericen smiled. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
“Pretty sure I did it and you just followed along,” I replied. His smile quirked into that one-sided smirk. I brushed the edge of his hand. “We’re convening to discuss our next moves an hour from now. I want you to come with me.”
That little furrow appeared in his brow. “Why?”
“Because if you can give the alliance helpful information, they might believe you’re on our side.” And maybe, just maybe, he could help salvage our situation. Whatever insider information he could provide on Illucian battle tactics and plans for their attack on Rhodaire might help us.
Ericen was silent. He returned to his spot at the window, eyes set on the landscape beyond. He’d broken from his mother’s hold, and he’d turned his back on Illucia to help me, but he hadn’t gone so far as to give up secrets and information that would work against them.
I stepped up beside him, waiting.
“I’ve spent so long trying to be who she wanted. Someone who would make her proud.” He closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. When he opened them again, he looked resolved. “It’s time I did what’s best for myself and for my people.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’ll be right here.”
He clasped it back. “I know. Do you have a plan?”
I leaned forward against the window, focusing on the cool touch of the glass. “I think I’ve done enough damage,” I replied. “Someone else will have a plan.”
“I thought you didn’t concede?” he asked, and the words pulled at the weight inside me. I’d said them to him the first time we’d sparred in Sordell; it’d been the first night I’d really begun to trust him.
“Stealing my lines is a cheap move,” I murmured against the glass.
“You’re not worth more effort in this state.”
A smile tugged at my lips, the familiar banter filling me like the heat of a fire. I pulled back from the glass to look at him, and he stared back with an easy smile, the one that never failed to make me really, truly see him.
He was right. I couldn’t walk away from this. I’d begun this fight, and now I needed to end it.
“You and Kiva have more in common than either of you know,” I said.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m still better with a sword.”
I laughed. Part of me would love to see if that was true; the other didn’t want Kiva stabbing the boy I liked.
The boy I liked.
My cheeks flushed at the thought, and Ericen’s sharp eyes didn’t miss it, but he was mercifully quiet. I ordered tea, and we spent the rest of the time before the meeting just talking in a way we’d never done before. He told me about missing Callo, the stallion he’d left behind in Sordell, and how the horse had loved to go galloping in the rain. I talked about Caliza and what I’d give just to argue with her over something trivial if it meant being there with her.
When at last the meeting time arrived, I felt thawed, like my layers of guilt and grief had been sheared away by Kiva’s tender strength, Ericen’s stories, and Res’s quiet contentment slipping down the line in soft waves.
After Ronoch, I’d been afraid to talk to people about the coiling snake and its unbearable weight. But in time, I’d shared with Kiva, and then Caliza and Caylus, and I’d walked myself out of the darkness that had engulfed me.
It was those relationships, those people, who made me strong, and they would do the same for this alliance. Razel might have magic on her side now, but we had four kingdoms united against her, inside information from Ericen, and a crow whose magic transcended any seen before.
I prayed it would be enough.