Dragonfire, p.31
Dragonfire, page 31
“Are you hurt?” He leaped down to take her shoulder.
Ariadne’s eyes gleamed with anguish. “I was. Cistine…”
A ragged shout from near the courtyard doors silenced her reply. “Help us!”
Thorne stumbled into the peristyle, clutching Cistine to his chest, her limbs splayed and head draped over the crook of his arm; at the sight of them, Maleck’s strength gave way. He stumbled forward a step, gaze fixed on their princess, a soft huff of breath falling from his lips—the beginning of her name, a whispered prayer given up halfway through.
She looked dead. No living person could be so limp and pale.
Ashe cursed, and they all ran, catching up to Thorne where he buckled to his knees, laying Cistine’s body on the ground. His eyes, raw and red-rimmed, darted up to Kristoff, boyish terror in his face. “Do something.”
Kristoff stripped off his gloves and pressed two fingers under Cistine’s jaw. Aden knelt, resting a hand over Thorne’s chest, caked with blood. “What happened?”
“The Aeoprast was waiting for us.”
Sallow-faced, Ariadne sank down beside him. “I warned Cistine not to heal me, that it wouldn’t leave enough power for her, but she didn’t listen. She never does.”
Ashe collapsed, gripping Cistine’s hand in both of hers. “Kristoff, tell me she’s alive.”
“She is.” A tremor moved through his voice. “Barely.”
Thorne swore with relief, resting his hand on Cistine’s thigh.
“Then why in God’s name isn’t she awake?” Ashe demanded.
“I don’t know. This is beyond me.”
Weary footsteps clinked along the stones behind them. The Chancellors approached in various states of disarray; Bravis wore a slice of fabric bound around the side of his head, but judging by the amount of blood pouring down his cheek, he’d lost an eye. Limping Benedikt, Valdemar with his skull crusted in blood, and Adeima’s ripped armor and torn lips suggested none of them had fared much better. But here they all were, drawn by the same sensation he’d felt up on that rooftop when the well tore open. They’d come for the power, to drink of the gift that felt like a curse.
Thorne rose with a grunt, lifting Cistine into his arms. Slowly the others followed him, holding onto various hurts all over their bodies, facing the approaching Chancellors.
“The well?” Bravis asked when they came within earshot.
“Sander led a group of warriors into the courthouse,” Thorne said flatly. “They guard the well from above and below the steps.”
Valdemar sagged. “Good.”
“Then it’s enough for you?” Maleck recognized the brittleness of Thorne’s tone a moment before he started shouting: “Are you stars-damned satisfied now? She kept her word, she gave to the last drop of blood for you! She is twice the ruler any of you will ever be!”
“Thorne,” Kristoff cautioned.
“No. I don’t want to hear it,” Thorne snarled. “Valgard didn’t win this war. Talheim won it for us, with Talheimic blood spilled by its own choice. And if it costs them their sole heir, then stars damn every single one of you Chancellors for letting it go this far.”
Tatiana winced, and Aden braced his hands on his weapons as if to leap to his cousin’s defense, but none of the Chancellors rebuked Thorne. In fact, there was regret in Adeima’s gaze, fixed on Cistine’s body. “I thought there was a contingency.”
“There was. But she destroyed that, too, saving our people.” Thorne turned toward Kanslar’s wing. “Take your flagons and collect the harvest of Cistine’s blood. But remember why the gods gave us that power in the first place, and try not to squander it.”
Without a backward glance, Talheim’s prince-consort carried his bride away.
Maleck was grateful to sink down on the sofa when they found a suitable chamber at last—Cistine’s old room, the box garden wilted and floral arrangements musty. Aden tossed him a damp rag soaked in the stale washbasin, and he held it to his bruised neck, the cool water soothing his wounds.
“The Bloodwights are gone,” Ashe offered the one bit of good news brought by this stars-forsaken night. “Fled the city or driven out. Our ranks outnumber theirs now.”
“So, just like that?” Tatiana asked hoarsely. “Stornhaz is ours again?”
“So it seems.” Kristoff’s tired eyes followed Ashe as she went to join Thorne on the bed, Cistine lying between them. “But at what cost?”
“Too high,” Thorne rasped. “I failed her.”
Tatiana opened her mouth, but Quill laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head.
“At least she can rest now,” Ariadne said. “And perhaps she’ll recover, in time.”
Maleck lacked the heart to tell them time was a commodity. The Aeoprast still lived, and his mirothadt would rally soon. They did not have forever to wait for their princess to wake.
Groaning, he peeled himself up from the sofa. “Quill. Tatiana. I need to speak with you.”
They swapped uneasy glances and followed him out into the hall. Shutting the door gently, he faced the intimidating unified front they made; now, just as most days since Hvallatar, Tatiana would not look at him. But there was only weary trust in Quill’s eyes. “What do you need, Storfir?”
He curled his blood-crusted fists at his sides. “Pippet came to the City.”
A still, unbreathing moment. Then Tatiana’s back struck the wall, hand covering her mouth, and Quill’s fingers wrapped Maleck’s collar, shaking him slightly. “Tell me she’s alive.”
“She is,” he said firmly, though he had no proof yet. “Meriwa’s taken her to the medicos.”
“Medicos?”
“Did she fight a stars-damned Bloodwight?” Tatiana demanded.
Quill whirled on her. “You knew something about this?”
“I knew she was angry, she said she wanted them dead, but I didn’t think…” Tatiana trailed off, shaking her head. “Where is she?”
“At one of the houses of healing, I imagine. It would be the easiest smell to track. Quill,” Maleck added when his friend spun away up the hall, “there’s something else.”
Quill slowed, laying a hand to the sculpted doorframe. His back buckled, the ridges of his knuckles rising sharply against his skin. “Faer…Faer’s gone, isn’t he?”
The silence clapped tight around them, and Maleck’s eyes sagged shut. “I’m truly sorry.”
“I knew it. If she was hurt, it would be because they took him down first.” A pitchy breath of half-amused grief surged under Quill’s voice. “Stars damn it, I’ll miss that bag of feathers.”
Without another word, he staggered from the hall, and Tatiana said quietly, “It’s good it came from you.”
Then she was gone as well, leaving Maleck utterly alone, hands bloodstained and empty but enough grief in his chest to drown a kingdom.
The apartment door opened, and Ashe slipped out behind him, her arms winding around his waist and her face pressed to his shoulders. They came down to their knees in the hall, arms wrapped around each other, and did not move while the smoke thickened outside the gritty windows and the night gave way to a cruel, uncertain dawn.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THEY FOUND PIPPET in the house of healing where Tatiana’s mother and Aden’s had once served together, before bloodcough took them both the year after the war against Talheim.
The medicos lacked enough healing augments to spare for her full wound; what few they had, they’d kept hidden all this time, risking the Bloodwights’ wrath to heal whoever they could.
Quill didn’t dare raise his voice at their haunted faces, the dark circles under their eyes. For months, these medicos had been imprisoned inside the City, forced to heal mirothadt and sacrifice their flagons for Bloodwight experiments. They did what they could.
Pippet would live, the woman reassured them. They had enough augments to stop the hemorrhaging. But it would be days before she woke, weeks before she could even think of lifting a dagger again.
It was almost absurd how alike her wound and Tatiana’s were. Had the Bloodwight stabbed her there in mockery?
She felt like the enemy’s plaything, her heart a target riddled with arrow after arrow. First the baby, then Quill and Maleck, now Pippet and Faer. And Cistine.
Half-numb, she wandered the halls until she found someone offering food to the wounded and their families, and mumbled her gratitude at the cloth-wrapped cheese and bread they gave her. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling hungry again, but they needed their strength. Quill needed to eat.
She found her way back to Pippet’s room by memory alone, though she was no longer the only one in it; they’d brought in a few Wardens, desperately in need of stitching as well. Pippet’s cot was tucked behind a thin cloth curtain now, and Tatiana ducked behind it, feet stalling on the far side.
Quill sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the bed, shirtless. Someone had come along and bandaged his ribs in her absence, both sides bruised plum-purple from the fight in the peristyle. Tatiana had practically carried him the last half-mile to the house of healing.
But he’d been glorious tonight, beautifully savage in the fight. Her valenar, her Nightwing, the warrior she’d sworn herself to in life, death, and beyond. But now his sister was hurt again, and Faer…
Swallowing, she rattled the curtain lightly. Quill didn’t turn, but he sighed in a way that loosened his body and bent his head.
Tatiana dragged her dark curls over one shoulder and sat behind him. She stretched out her legs on either side of his, straddling his hips and dragging her nails lightly down his bare back. “I brought food.”
“I appreciate it,” Quill said. “But save it for someone who really needs it. I’m all right.”
She knew that wasn’t true. She also knew he hurt in ways even a good meal couldn’t help. She settled her hands on his hips and buried her face in the back of his neck. “We always knew this plan couldn’t come without a cost. It was too risky.”
“I know.” Quill’s voice held no emotion. “Faer was one of us. This cabal always accepted the danger. But…Nimmus’ teeth, what am I going to say to her when she wakes up?”
Tatiana swallowed. “What you’d say to any of us. She’s grown enough to take it. We’ll have to tell her about Cistine, too.”
Quill swallowed audibly. “What was she even doing here? She knows better.” His back heaved in a violent shudder. “You don’t think she…?”
“She wasn’t here for augments. No.” Tatiana linked her arms around Quill’s waist and squeezed tightly. “If she was, she would’ve gone straight to the courthouse. She must’ve sensed or seen the Aeoprast and hunted him down.”
“Why? She knows she can’t kill him.”
“I don’t know, Quill. We’ll just have to ask her when she wakes.”
At the weary dip she could no longer keep from her tone, Quill twisted slightly, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and hauling her into the shelter of his side. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a few scrapes.” Tatiana shifted to sit sideways, casting her legs across his lap. He turned his head wearily toward her, his eyes and mouth drawn with deep lines of grief, and Tatiana brushed his hair gently behind his ear. “Whatever you need, Quill, I’m here.”
He nodded, dropping his brow against hers. “Just hold me right now, all right? I feel like I’m falling apart.”
She felt it, too. So she held him, sitting with the reek of herbs and blood on the air, vigilant over their sister while the weight of the day’s battle bore down like a tide, changing everything in its wake.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE BLOODWIGHTS HAD taken advantage of the Chancellors’ study. Mounds of books about the wells, ancient temples, and Gammalkraft covered the broad table where the negotiations between Talheim and Valgard had taken place. Restless warriors still carried empty flagons and debris from the room when Thorne answered the summons from Chancelloress Adeima the day after the siege.
He stood on the balcony for a moment, gazing down at his fellow Chancellors: Bravis fiddling with his newly-acquired eyepatch and scowling, Valdemar’s smile missing teeth, Benedikt wielding a cane; Adeima alone sat tall, utterly in command. Thorne’s chest ached that she stood in the light at this table where she’d always belonged without her valenar at her side.
A pain they shared now.
He dragged his palm along the railing as he descended. The other Chancellors looked up when he leaned his hands on the back of his usual seat. “If you called me here to reprimand me for what I said to you yesterday, you can save your breath. I meant every word.”
“We know,” Adeima said. “How is Cistine?”
“There’s been no change. So I’d like to keep this meeting as brief as possible.”
“Naturally.” Bravis motioned to the seat, and Thorne slowly settled into it. “But there are matters we must discuss. The state of Stornhaz is…not good.”
“We’ve corralled the acolytes your High Tribune rescued in some of the schools,” Valdemar said. “But they cry out for augments day and night.”
“They’re withdrawing,” Thorne said tiredly.
“We know,” Bravis said. “I spoke to your man Quill this morning. He said you were able to save his sister from it, but he didn’t say how.”
“Cistine pulled the augments from Pippet beyond the shock of withdrawal. But now…” he broke off, too choked for words.
“Well,” Benedikt said carefully, “I suppose we’ll have to return to the old regimen from the fronts now that the Key is…indisposed, and the well is open here. Wean them slowly from the augments. Not all will survive, but those that do…”
Thorne shook his head, too weary and grief-stricken to entertain the notion of dead children. “What else?”
“We’ve lost whole districts,” Adeima said bleakly, “and entire storehouses were emptied to feed the slaves and acolytes while the Bloodwights were in command. Between that and the prey that’s been driven out by the Balmond and by battle…”
“Difficult to feed everyone in the city,” Thorne said. “I’ll have Ariadne and my Tribunes begin an allotment. There’s someone in Hellidom who has experience with rationing. Between them, they should be able to help see us through to the planting season.”
“Assuming the Bloodwights don’t show their faces before then,” Bravis muttered. “I doubt this is over.”
Thorne doubted it, too. But with Pippet and Cistine both wounded and unconscious, Faer dead and his cabal grieving, he couldn’t think past tomorrow.
“We’ll begin repairs in both the common and elite districts,” Benedikt said. “There’s no sense leaving one to molder while the other thrives. We’d like to have the High Tribunes oversee that, if you can spare yours, Thorne.”
“Sander is on a personal assignment to Holmlond,” Thorne said. “Once he returns, he’s yours. Is that all?”
“One last thing.” Bravis flicked a glance at Thorne’s left hand. “This business with your choice of valenar…”
“I don’t regret it,” Thorne said. “And I couldn’t nullify a blood oath even if I wanted to. Whether you all approve or not, Cistine is my valenar, and she always will be.”
“Was this done as an act of defiance?” Valdemar asked. “To spit in our faces?”
“Defying you means nothing to me.” Thorne curled his fist on the tabletop. “I did it because I love her.”
“Talheim and Valgard joined by blood,” Adeima said. “What does that mean for you, in the broad scheme of things?”
Thorne traced the marriage band around his finger, a weight he was slowly growing used to. “It means if she doesn’t recover in time, your distrust and dislike of me as a Chancellor will cease to be a concern. And you will be dealing with Sander in my position again…while I fill Cistine’s.”
Leaving them speechless, he departed the room. The second his boots hit the threshold, he was running for his valenar’s side.
He did not leave it again for many days.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
THE SOUNDS OF cleaning and repairs wafted through the open apartment window despite the midnight hour when Ashe slipped inside, carrying a tray of tea. Every day for a week now, she’d hoped the smell of jasmine and citrus would coax Cistine up from her slumber. And every day, she was disappointed.
Cistine was growing thinner. Her skin was nearly translucent now, the blue in her veins waxing gray in the dim ghostlight from the table where Ashe set the tray. She poured the tea even knowing her princess wouldn’t wake to drink it, just to give her own trembling hands something to do.
“Is that cup for me?”
Ashe banged her elbow on the table and whirled. Maleck sat behind the apartment door, half-masked in shadows, passing a piece of fruit from Cistine’s untouched supper plate from hand to hand.
“I’m inclined to say no, since you just scared ten years off my life.” Ashe blew out a rough breath. “What are you doing lurking in that corner?”
“Relieving Thorne of watch. He hasn’t bathed in a week, the blood was still on his clothes. Kristoff finally wrestled him from the room when I swore to stand guard in his absence.”
“After you already spent half the day helping with repairs?” Ashe handed one cup to him and kept the other, sinking down at his side. “When are you going to sleep?”
“When Pippet recovers. When Cistine wakes. When the noose lifts from our throats.”
They glanced at the bed, both hoping their favorite gossip was feigning this deep sleep, quietly listening for a trace of her name on their lips. But even when they spoke it, she didn’t stir.
“I can’t believe there’s nothing we can do,” Ashe muttered. “With all those augments they’re bottling day and night…”
“There is no augment that can heal this, the sleep is too deep. The wound is mended, but the body…” Maleck shook his head. “There’s little telling what she truly endured while she bled. Only time and the gods will decide if she recovers.” Grunting, Ashe leaned her head on his shoulder and let her eyes tumble shut. Maleck pressed a kiss to her hair. “How was your patrol with Bresnyar this evening?”
Ariadne’s eyes gleamed with anguish. “I was. Cistine…”
A ragged shout from near the courtyard doors silenced her reply. “Help us!”
Thorne stumbled into the peristyle, clutching Cistine to his chest, her limbs splayed and head draped over the crook of his arm; at the sight of them, Maleck’s strength gave way. He stumbled forward a step, gaze fixed on their princess, a soft huff of breath falling from his lips—the beginning of her name, a whispered prayer given up halfway through.
She looked dead. No living person could be so limp and pale.
Ashe cursed, and they all ran, catching up to Thorne where he buckled to his knees, laying Cistine’s body on the ground. His eyes, raw and red-rimmed, darted up to Kristoff, boyish terror in his face. “Do something.”
Kristoff stripped off his gloves and pressed two fingers under Cistine’s jaw. Aden knelt, resting a hand over Thorne’s chest, caked with blood. “What happened?”
“The Aeoprast was waiting for us.”
Sallow-faced, Ariadne sank down beside him. “I warned Cistine not to heal me, that it wouldn’t leave enough power for her, but she didn’t listen. She never does.”
Ashe collapsed, gripping Cistine’s hand in both of hers. “Kristoff, tell me she’s alive.”
“She is.” A tremor moved through his voice. “Barely.”
Thorne swore with relief, resting his hand on Cistine’s thigh.
“Then why in God’s name isn’t she awake?” Ashe demanded.
“I don’t know. This is beyond me.”
Weary footsteps clinked along the stones behind them. The Chancellors approached in various states of disarray; Bravis wore a slice of fabric bound around the side of his head, but judging by the amount of blood pouring down his cheek, he’d lost an eye. Limping Benedikt, Valdemar with his skull crusted in blood, and Adeima’s ripped armor and torn lips suggested none of them had fared much better. But here they all were, drawn by the same sensation he’d felt up on that rooftop when the well tore open. They’d come for the power, to drink of the gift that felt like a curse.
Thorne rose with a grunt, lifting Cistine into his arms. Slowly the others followed him, holding onto various hurts all over their bodies, facing the approaching Chancellors.
“The well?” Bravis asked when they came within earshot.
“Sander led a group of warriors into the courthouse,” Thorne said flatly. “They guard the well from above and below the steps.”
Valdemar sagged. “Good.”
“Then it’s enough for you?” Maleck recognized the brittleness of Thorne’s tone a moment before he started shouting: “Are you stars-damned satisfied now? She kept her word, she gave to the last drop of blood for you! She is twice the ruler any of you will ever be!”
“Thorne,” Kristoff cautioned.
“No. I don’t want to hear it,” Thorne snarled. “Valgard didn’t win this war. Talheim won it for us, with Talheimic blood spilled by its own choice. And if it costs them their sole heir, then stars damn every single one of you Chancellors for letting it go this far.”
Tatiana winced, and Aden braced his hands on his weapons as if to leap to his cousin’s defense, but none of the Chancellors rebuked Thorne. In fact, there was regret in Adeima’s gaze, fixed on Cistine’s body. “I thought there was a contingency.”
“There was. But she destroyed that, too, saving our people.” Thorne turned toward Kanslar’s wing. “Take your flagons and collect the harvest of Cistine’s blood. But remember why the gods gave us that power in the first place, and try not to squander it.”
Without a backward glance, Talheim’s prince-consort carried his bride away.
Maleck was grateful to sink down on the sofa when they found a suitable chamber at last—Cistine’s old room, the box garden wilted and floral arrangements musty. Aden tossed him a damp rag soaked in the stale washbasin, and he held it to his bruised neck, the cool water soothing his wounds.
“The Bloodwights are gone,” Ashe offered the one bit of good news brought by this stars-forsaken night. “Fled the city or driven out. Our ranks outnumber theirs now.”
“So, just like that?” Tatiana asked hoarsely. “Stornhaz is ours again?”
“So it seems.” Kristoff’s tired eyes followed Ashe as she went to join Thorne on the bed, Cistine lying between them. “But at what cost?”
“Too high,” Thorne rasped. “I failed her.”
Tatiana opened her mouth, but Quill laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head.
“At least she can rest now,” Ariadne said. “And perhaps she’ll recover, in time.”
Maleck lacked the heart to tell them time was a commodity. The Aeoprast still lived, and his mirothadt would rally soon. They did not have forever to wait for their princess to wake.
Groaning, he peeled himself up from the sofa. “Quill. Tatiana. I need to speak with you.”
They swapped uneasy glances and followed him out into the hall. Shutting the door gently, he faced the intimidating unified front they made; now, just as most days since Hvallatar, Tatiana would not look at him. But there was only weary trust in Quill’s eyes. “What do you need, Storfir?”
He curled his blood-crusted fists at his sides. “Pippet came to the City.”
A still, unbreathing moment. Then Tatiana’s back struck the wall, hand covering her mouth, and Quill’s fingers wrapped Maleck’s collar, shaking him slightly. “Tell me she’s alive.”
“She is,” he said firmly, though he had no proof yet. “Meriwa’s taken her to the medicos.”
“Medicos?”
“Did she fight a stars-damned Bloodwight?” Tatiana demanded.
Quill whirled on her. “You knew something about this?”
“I knew she was angry, she said she wanted them dead, but I didn’t think…” Tatiana trailed off, shaking her head. “Where is she?”
“At one of the houses of healing, I imagine. It would be the easiest smell to track. Quill,” Maleck added when his friend spun away up the hall, “there’s something else.”
Quill slowed, laying a hand to the sculpted doorframe. His back buckled, the ridges of his knuckles rising sharply against his skin. “Faer…Faer’s gone, isn’t he?”
The silence clapped tight around them, and Maleck’s eyes sagged shut. “I’m truly sorry.”
“I knew it. If she was hurt, it would be because they took him down first.” A pitchy breath of half-amused grief surged under Quill’s voice. “Stars damn it, I’ll miss that bag of feathers.”
Without another word, he staggered from the hall, and Tatiana said quietly, “It’s good it came from you.”
Then she was gone as well, leaving Maleck utterly alone, hands bloodstained and empty but enough grief in his chest to drown a kingdom.
The apartment door opened, and Ashe slipped out behind him, her arms winding around his waist and her face pressed to his shoulders. They came down to their knees in the hall, arms wrapped around each other, and did not move while the smoke thickened outside the gritty windows and the night gave way to a cruel, uncertain dawn.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THEY FOUND PIPPET in the house of healing where Tatiana’s mother and Aden’s had once served together, before bloodcough took them both the year after the war against Talheim.
The medicos lacked enough healing augments to spare for her full wound; what few they had, they’d kept hidden all this time, risking the Bloodwights’ wrath to heal whoever they could.
Quill didn’t dare raise his voice at their haunted faces, the dark circles under their eyes. For months, these medicos had been imprisoned inside the City, forced to heal mirothadt and sacrifice their flagons for Bloodwight experiments. They did what they could.
Pippet would live, the woman reassured them. They had enough augments to stop the hemorrhaging. But it would be days before she woke, weeks before she could even think of lifting a dagger again.
It was almost absurd how alike her wound and Tatiana’s were. Had the Bloodwight stabbed her there in mockery?
She felt like the enemy’s plaything, her heart a target riddled with arrow after arrow. First the baby, then Quill and Maleck, now Pippet and Faer. And Cistine.
Half-numb, she wandered the halls until she found someone offering food to the wounded and their families, and mumbled her gratitude at the cloth-wrapped cheese and bread they gave her. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling hungry again, but they needed their strength. Quill needed to eat.
She found her way back to Pippet’s room by memory alone, though she was no longer the only one in it; they’d brought in a few Wardens, desperately in need of stitching as well. Pippet’s cot was tucked behind a thin cloth curtain now, and Tatiana ducked behind it, feet stalling on the far side.
Quill sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the bed, shirtless. Someone had come along and bandaged his ribs in her absence, both sides bruised plum-purple from the fight in the peristyle. Tatiana had practically carried him the last half-mile to the house of healing.
But he’d been glorious tonight, beautifully savage in the fight. Her valenar, her Nightwing, the warrior she’d sworn herself to in life, death, and beyond. But now his sister was hurt again, and Faer…
Swallowing, she rattled the curtain lightly. Quill didn’t turn, but he sighed in a way that loosened his body and bent his head.
Tatiana dragged her dark curls over one shoulder and sat behind him. She stretched out her legs on either side of his, straddling his hips and dragging her nails lightly down his bare back. “I brought food.”
“I appreciate it,” Quill said. “But save it for someone who really needs it. I’m all right.”
She knew that wasn’t true. She also knew he hurt in ways even a good meal couldn’t help. She settled her hands on his hips and buried her face in the back of his neck. “We always knew this plan couldn’t come without a cost. It was too risky.”
“I know.” Quill’s voice held no emotion. “Faer was one of us. This cabal always accepted the danger. But…Nimmus’ teeth, what am I going to say to her when she wakes up?”
Tatiana swallowed. “What you’d say to any of us. She’s grown enough to take it. We’ll have to tell her about Cistine, too.”
Quill swallowed audibly. “What was she even doing here? She knows better.” His back heaved in a violent shudder. “You don’t think she…?”
“She wasn’t here for augments. No.” Tatiana linked her arms around Quill’s waist and squeezed tightly. “If she was, she would’ve gone straight to the courthouse. She must’ve sensed or seen the Aeoprast and hunted him down.”
“Why? She knows she can’t kill him.”
“I don’t know, Quill. We’ll just have to ask her when she wakes.”
At the weary dip she could no longer keep from her tone, Quill twisted slightly, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and hauling her into the shelter of his side. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a few scrapes.” Tatiana shifted to sit sideways, casting her legs across his lap. He turned his head wearily toward her, his eyes and mouth drawn with deep lines of grief, and Tatiana brushed his hair gently behind his ear. “Whatever you need, Quill, I’m here.”
He nodded, dropping his brow against hers. “Just hold me right now, all right? I feel like I’m falling apart.”
She felt it, too. So she held him, sitting with the reek of herbs and blood on the air, vigilant over their sister while the weight of the day’s battle bore down like a tide, changing everything in its wake.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE BLOODWIGHTS HAD taken advantage of the Chancellors’ study. Mounds of books about the wells, ancient temples, and Gammalkraft covered the broad table where the negotiations between Talheim and Valgard had taken place. Restless warriors still carried empty flagons and debris from the room when Thorne answered the summons from Chancelloress Adeima the day after the siege.
He stood on the balcony for a moment, gazing down at his fellow Chancellors: Bravis fiddling with his newly-acquired eyepatch and scowling, Valdemar’s smile missing teeth, Benedikt wielding a cane; Adeima alone sat tall, utterly in command. Thorne’s chest ached that she stood in the light at this table where she’d always belonged without her valenar at her side.
A pain they shared now.
He dragged his palm along the railing as he descended. The other Chancellors looked up when he leaned his hands on the back of his usual seat. “If you called me here to reprimand me for what I said to you yesterday, you can save your breath. I meant every word.”
“We know,” Adeima said. “How is Cistine?”
“There’s been no change. So I’d like to keep this meeting as brief as possible.”
“Naturally.” Bravis motioned to the seat, and Thorne slowly settled into it. “But there are matters we must discuss. The state of Stornhaz is…not good.”
“We’ve corralled the acolytes your High Tribune rescued in some of the schools,” Valdemar said. “But they cry out for augments day and night.”
“They’re withdrawing,” Thorne said tiredly.
“We know,” Bravis said. “I spoke to your man Quill this morning. He said you were able to save his sister from it, but he didn’t say how.”
“Cistine pulled the augments from Pippet beyond the shock of withdrawal. But now…” he broke off, too choked for words.
“Well,” Benedikt said carefully, “I suppose we’ll have to return to the old regimen from the fronts now that the Key is…indisposed, and the well is open here. Wean them slowly from the augments. Not all will survive, but those that do…”
Thorne shook his head, too weary and grief-stricken to entertain the notion of dead children. “What else?”
“We’ve lost whole districts,” Adeima said bleakly, “and entire storehouses were emptied to feed the slaves and acolytes while the Bloodwights were in command. Between that and the prey that’s been driven out by the Balmond and by battle…”
“Difficult to feed everyone in the city,” Thorne said. “I’ll have Ariadne and my Tribunes begin an allotment. There’s someone in Hellidom who has experience with rationing. Between them, they should be able to help see us through to the planting season.”
“Assuming the Bloodwights don’t show their faces before then,” Bravis muttered. “I doubt this is over.”
Thorne doubted it, too. But with Pippet and Cistine both wounded and unconscious, Faer dead and his cabal grieving, he couldn’t think past tomorrow.
“We’ll begin repairs in both the common and elite districts,” Benedikt said. “There’s no sense leaving one to molder while the other thrives. We’d like to have the High Tribunes oversee that, if you can spare yours, Thorne.”
“Sander is on a personal assignment to Holmlond,” Thorne said. “Once he returns, he’s yours. Is that all?”
“One last thing.” Bravis flicked a glance at Thorne’s left hand. “This business with your choice of valenar…”
“I don’t regret it,” Thorne said. “And I couldn’t nullify a blood oath even if I wanted to. Whether you all approve or not, Cistine is my valenar, and she always will be.”
“Was this done as an act of defiance?” Valdemar asked. “To spit in our faces?”
“Defying you means nothing to me.” Thorne curled his fist on the tabletop. “I did it because I love her.”
“Talheim and Valgard joined by blood,” Adeima said. “What does that mean for you, in the broad scheme of things?”
Thorne traced the marriage band around his finger, a weight he was slowly growing used to. “It means if she doesn’t recover in time, your distrust and dislike of me as a Chancellor will cease to be a concern. And you will be dealing with Sander in my position again…while I fill Cistine’s.”
Leaving them speechless, he departed the room. The second his boots hit the threshold, he was running for his valenar’s side.
He did not leave it again for many days.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
THE SOUNDS OF cleaning and repairs wafted through the open apartment window despite the midnight hour when Ashe slipped inside, carrying a tray of tea. Every day for a week now, she’d hoped the smell of jasmine and citrus would coax Cistine up from her slumber. And every day, she was disappointed.
Cistine was growing thinner. Her skin was nearly translucent now, the blue in her veins waxing gray in the dim ghostlight from the table where Ashe set the tray. She poured the tea even knowing her princess wouldn’t wake to drink it, just to give her own trembling hands something to do.
“Is that cup for me?”
Ashe banged her elbow on the table and whirled. Maleck sat behind the apartment door, half-masked in shadows, passing a piece of fruit from Cistine’s untouched supper plate from hand to hand.
“I’m inclined to say no, since you just scared ten years off my life.” Ashe blew out a rough breath. “What are you doing lurking in that corner?”
“Relieving Thorne of watch. He hasn’t bathed in a week, the blood was still on his clothes. Kristoff finally wrestled him from the room when I swore to stand guard in his absence.”
“After you already spent half the day helping with repairs?” Ashe handed one cup to him and kept the other, sinking down at his side. “When are you going to sleep?”
“When Pippet recovers. When Cistine wakes. When the noose lifts from our throats.”
They glanced at the bed, both hoping their favorite gossip was feigning this deep sleep, quietly listening for a trace of her name on their lips. But even when they spoke it, she didn’t stir.
“I can’t believe there’s nothing we can do,” Ashe muttered. “With all those augments they’re bottling day and night…”
“There is no augment that can heal this, the sleep is too deep. The wound is mended, but the body…” Maleck shook his head. “There’s little telling what she truly endured while she bled. Only time and the gods will decide if she recovers.” Grunting, Ashe leaned her head on his shoulder and let her eyes tumble shut. Maleck pressed a kiss to her hair. “How was your patrol with Bresnyar this evening?”
