CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
KAZI
I perched in the window nook of Synové’s room, holding a bag of ice to my neck as the healer had ordered, my knees drawn to my chest. From here I had a clear view of the gardens below and the massive houses that sat behind them like heavy kings on thrones, their spired crowns piercing a tangerine sky.
Thin, gauzy clouds tinged with the same color flowed in lazy stripes above them, making the great fortress seem less like a fierce stone warrior and more like a warm refuge. I was tired. I ached. A refuge was all I wanted it to be.
The beauty suddenly turned magical when a dark beating cloud streamed across the sky. Bats. Thousands, maybe millions, a thick swirling, undulating line all set on the same course. Twilight glanced off their wings like sparks in a wind storm. Jase had told me the Moro mountains were riddled with caves, some so large they could hold all of Tor’s Watch. Now I knew they held bats too.
Come watch, I was going to say, but Wren sat snugly in a chair with her eyes closed, her fingers strumming the soft robe she wore. Synové still lingered in her bath, marveling at the hot water available with just the turn of a handle.
“How do you think they do it?” she asked.
I told her what Oleez had told me. There were heated cisterns on the roof. The mountains that loomed behind the fortress provided ample water and pressure. Synové leaned forward, adding more hot water, cooing with its luxury, then lay back again.
I studied her, wondering at her silence. Her arms were folded beh
ind her head, and her toe played with a drip from the faucet. It was curious that she hadn’t mentioned Eben yet. Not once. His last words as we left the kitchen should have spawned hours of speculation from her. Just a few weeks ago, she was mooning over him. Now she seemed more entranced with her hot bath than the surprising news—Eben and Natiya were not posing as husband and wife. They were married.
As I mused about Synové, it was Wren who surprised me with her thoughts instead. “I understand why Natiya despises the captain so much. I think he might be more contemptible than the Komizar.”
“How’s that?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine anyone more despicable than him.
“The Komizar had been poor like us and knew what having nothing was like, but the captain—he had everything—a prestigious position in Morrighan, a seat on the cabinet, wealth, power, but it wasn’t enough for him. And with all he had, he was cruel too. When the queen was shot—”
“No,” Synové said.
Wren and I both startled. We turned to look at her, uncertain what she meant. She was still immersed in the tub, her eyes distant, staring up at the ceiling. I wasn’t even sure she had been listening to us.
“It was the governors and guards who turned on us that day at Blackstone Square,” she continued. “They were the most contemptible ones.” Her gaze seemed fixed on a distant memory, and then she blinked, as if surprised she had said the words aloud. We all had our own horrors, but we didn’t talk about them. We circled the edges, mended one another’s outer cracks, and helped each other jump the breaches, but we didn’t step into the middle of them.
She blinked again and smiled as if that could sweep away the last few seconds from our memories, then sat up in the tub. “So neither of you are going to say a word about Eben and Natiya?”
Wren stumbled over her words. “We—I didn’t know—”
“It came as a surprise,” I added.
Synové blew out a puff of air. “Oh, I saw it coming. How could you not? But I guess we know the answer to the it question now, don’t we?”
I guessed we did.
Wren sighed. “So we don’t need to bring it up again.”
Synové stood and stepped from the tub, wrapping herself in a towel. She walked to the wardrobe, surveying the fresh clothes Vairlyn had sent her, commenting on each piece, wondering if we would all be eating in the dining room together, if Mason would be there, what we would have for dinner, how strange the large Ballenger family was, did anyone mind if she ate the last goat cheese ball, Synové being Synové again.
“Vairlyn thanked me, you know? For helping her son. I set her straight. I didn’t just help Mason. I saved his ass. But it—”
“Balm,” I said, pointing to the jar the healer had sent up for Synové’s head.
Wren stood and grabbed the jar from the table. “I’ll do it.”
I leaned back against the nook wall again, mesmerized by the glowing gardens, listening to Wren chastise Synové, ordering her to hold still, her admonishments making me smile, thankful that we were all alive. Thankful that Jase was alive. All I could think as I galloped forward on Mije today was that seconds mattered. Seconds could change everything. Seconds could erase one path and send you reeling down another.
“What’s that?” Synové asked, her hand feeling the back of her head.
“Nothing,” Wren answered, swatting her hand away. Nothing but a bald spot. Neither of us had told Synové that a small chunk of her lovely copper locks had been a casualty of the knife slicing over her scalp. Careful combing would camouflage it until it grew back, and Wren already seemed to have that part managed.
My eyelids were heavy as I watched the bubbling fountain in the center of the garden—but then something disturbed my dreamy calm—a sharp movement in the corner of my eye. I turned and glimpsed a figure hurry up the steps of Darkcottage and disappear inside. I sat up, not sure of what I had just seen, it happened so fast.