“Because I’ve had other matters to attend to. Though now that I’m seeing it…”
“Save the burning for now, Iziah. There is a table inside, and my handmaid is starved. Please, have some food laid out so we can talk.”
He nodded, conceding. “As you wish.” A hand was raised and a man rushed up to him. “See the food brought inside. And bring out the beef for the dragon.”
Talasha raised her eyes. “You brought food for Neyruu?” She was touched by that.
“I was told by Sunrider Santali that she was injured and looked thin. As do you, my lady. Have you not been eating well?”
She smiled. “Is it that obvious?”
“Your flesh had receded since I saw you last.”
“That was four years ago. I was younger then, fuller.”
“And you did not have this cut on your chin either.” He stepped in a little closer. “You sustained it recently,” he observed. “Why has it not been stitched up?”
“I regret that I have not had access to good medical supplies of late.” She smiled and took his arm, walking across the moonlit plains as the food was brought into the pavilion. Cevi was watching with eyes as big as ostrich eggs, all but salivating at the sight. The girl’s youthful cheeks had been stripped of their fat, and her arms were much thinner than they once were. Talasha had barely noticed it until now. Do I look the same? she wondered. Some scrawny thing, all cut up and filthy. No wonder it had taken Sunrider Santali a moment to recognise her.
Some of the men were bringing out the beef, two great slabs of it slung over the backs of their camels. Neyruu rose up at once upon seeing it, nostrils flaring, trails of smoke rising. The knights carried it only so close, before setting it down on the ground and retreating.
“Have you had any dragon attacks here?” Talasha asked, as Neyruu’s chest began to glow and brighten, a deep red-orange. A moment later she opened her maw and flame gushed out, cooking the meat to a crisp as she liked it. Then she feasted, ripping and swallowing. Talasha noticed how the sunwolves and starcats shrank back as they watched, hissing and growling.
“None to the city,” the moonlord said. “But there is a large refugee camp to the north that has been targeted. More so since Agarosh left.”
“The One-Eye? I thought he returned to the mountain long years ago?”
“He had, ever since Justo Nemati’s death. Justo’s grandniece managed to summon Agarosh to her service, however. A remarkable thing, my lady. And a remarkable girl.”
She looked up at him, her interest piqued. “Walk with me,” she said.
They continued to amble away across the moonlit plains, leaving Neyruu and Cevi to feast in peace. The moonlord’s host remained where they were, sensing that the pair wanted to be alone. Talasha supposed a nice walk beneath the stars made for a better council chamber than that pavilion. It stirs an anger in him just to look at it. She would prefer his mood stay mild.
Her thoughts turned over as they went, wondering how best to approach it. She sensed she could trust Iziah Hasham, as she would have done with Lady Safina. Speak freely, she told herself. This is no time to guard your tongue.
When they were suitably far enough away from the others, she said, “I was a prisoner of the Fire Father, Iziah. That’s why I look this way. Cevi, Neyruu and I have been in hiding for weeks.”
He stopped at once and turned to her. There was a look of surprise on his face. “Eldur?”
She nodded. Then she corrected herself and shook her head. “Not truly. Eldur in form, but Agarath in spirit. He wields the Bondstone, Iziah, atop a black wood staff. The Soul of Agarath has corrupted the father and founder. He…he has unleashed the Dread.”
The man’s eyes were a fierce grey. They narrowed. “We have heard rumours,” he said, in a deep, troubled voice. He looked at her again, brow descending. She saw suspicion in his eyes. “You were his prisoner, you say? Why? You are of his own bloodline, Talasha. The closest thing he has to kin.”
She nodded, thinking of her brother Tavash, and her cousin Tethian. Tethian had perished the day the Fire Father awoke at the Nest, slain in his confusion as he rose from his millennia-long sleep. It was an accident, and poor reward for Tethian’s work in bringing him back from the dead. Yet Tavash was different. He sent him to the Eternal Flame. He killed him for his crimes and blasphemies. Bloodlines mean nothing to him now.
Her answer was more simple than all that. “Because I betrayed him,” she said. “Because I lost my faith in his cause, Iziah. He gave me a chance to prove myself. A task. That’s why I’m here.”
Doubt swirled in his eyes, sudden as a squall. That had come out all wrong, a poor choice of words on Talasha’s part. “What task were you given?” the man asked her, guarded.
“He asked me to find the heir of Varin,” she said.
His eyes flared, just a little, but enough. In that moment she knew for certain. He knows. He knows of the heir.
She went right on. “I was imprisoned with King Hadrin,” she said quickly, to explain, lest he get the wrong idea. “He was taken captive by Eldur during the siege of Thalan and brought back to Eldurath. The Father fastened him to a plinth in chains, a plinth that bore the sea god’s Eye. Hadrin was made to search for the heir. I was made to watch him, and report on what I learned. I escaped instead.” She fixed him with her gaze, honest and open. “I do not serve the Fire Father, my lord. I broke from those shackles long ago.”
The moonlord was silent, searching, peering into her eyes. He fears me to be a spy, she knew, and why wouldn’t he after all that? Who better to fly down here in search of information than a princess well-liked and trusted, bearing a false tale?
She thought on her next words, choosing them more carefully. “I had a dream, Iziah,” she told him. “A dream of a memory, half-forgotten. When I was locked away with Hadrin, he would ramble on about his visions, mumbling as he stared into the Eye, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming, and rarely was he lucid. I heard him mutter a hundred prophesies, but they were all broken, fractured, a word here and a word there. Out of context, I could not piece them together, and even after he spoke them, he would soon forget…”
She thought back on those long lonely days, those nights when she would be woken by his shrieking, the rattle of chains in the dark, the shadows twisting on the walls, cast by the light of the braziers. A shudder went through her.
“One night, he spoke of a girl,” she went on. “And the colours…silver and blue. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I had been sleeping when he awoke me. And when he was done…I returned to my bed. By morning it was nought but a shadow in my mind, one of many, crowding and formless. But later…only days ago, it came back to me in a dream. I could not say why, at first. Why that memory? Why that vision? But when I mulled on it, I realised it must be important. Silver. Blue. These are the colours of Varin, my lord, of Vandar. I wondered…could this girl he spoke of be the heir?”
His eyes gave nothing away. He was reading her as a scholar does a scroll, searching for any sign of deception. “Go on,” he said.
“There were other words that Hadrin muttered,” she said. “He mentioned a city of eagles, and a pyramid, and a dragon descending from the skies. I think that dragon was Neyruu, Iziah, bearing me. I think I am part of this vision, and that is why it came to me in the dream. It was a nudge, if you will, of fate. I was always meant to come here. I was always meant to help.”
He nodded slowly. There was a change in his eyes, those dark silver eyes reflecting the light of the moon. The barren earth about them was mottled in moonlight too, clouds spotting the skies. A wind was picking up, warm from the coast, sifting through Hasham’s feathered cloak and the long jet hair that hung at Talasha’s back. He believes me, she thought.
Eventually, the moonlord spoke. “How much does the Father of Fire know, my lady? Does he set his eye upon us? Does he know…of Varin’s heir?”
“He is aware of their heir’s existence, from the prophecies. There was a belief that it was not literal. A spiritual heir, rather than one of true blood. I was there, in the company of his lords and captains, when it was declared that Amron Daecar was this likely man. Eldur gave Ulrik Marak an explicit command to kill him.”
Hasham gave a grunt of interest. “A battle I should like to see. Was Lord Marak successful?”
She shook her head. “I could not say. I have been weeks in the wild, Iziah. Hiding. Running. What has happened in the north, I do not know. Amron Daecar may yet live. Yet with Drulgar returned…” She had no way of knowing what sort of damage the dragon had wrought. The whole of the north might be aflame by now, Amron Daecar dead and Elyon, her liberator, too…and Lythian her sweet captain as well. The thought was a cold knife in her gut. “I was freed during Eldur’s absence from the city, but have little doubt he will be hunting me. This heir and I have that in common, Iziah. Whether I like it or not, I am tethered to her fate.” She paused, searching his eyes. “She is this girl you spoke of, isn’t she? The grandniece of Justo Nemati? Lady Safina’s granddaughter?”
She saw the answer in his gaze, though he said nothing. King Lorin’s granddaughter as well, Talasha thought. The last of the Varin kings must have had a secret son, who in turn came here and sired a child by Princess Leila. There had always been rumours about the death of Safina’s daughter, and one of the whispers spoke of her death upon the birthing table. To die in childbirth was common among Bladeborn, it was said. An omen, she thought. The mother is a sacrifice for a great new life to come into this world.
