I tightened my resolve, jutting my chin. “It doesn’t matter. He’s Lirien, I’m Viori. That’s never going to change.”
We were nearing the House of the Veil on the city’s eastern side when I saw it—a flash of a familiar light blue cloak in the distance, hurrying away. Mother.
I stilled.
Amahle followed my gaze. “Lucia?”
I nodded.
“Where’s she going?”
“I don’t know. But I think we should find out.” I put my hand out to stop Amahle from stepping forward. “At a distance.”
“You want to follow your mother and spy on her?” Amahle’s dark eyes glittered with confusion.
Do I? But something in the urgency of my mother’s movement worried me. She’d stayed with the tribe to heal the wounded—supposedly—so why was she leaving so early?
“Just for a little while. To see where she’s going. We can catch up with her if needed, but she’s acting strangely, don’t you think?”
“Why do I get the feeling this morning is going to be less fun than you promised?”
“Feel free to go back if you want.” I meant it, too. It wasn’t fair to drag her into whatever this was.
Amahle rolled her eyes and started walking. “You know I’d follow you to the worst part of Lirien if you asked.”
Amahle didn’t just say things like that lightly. Her loyalty wasn’t the blind kind—it was fierce, earned, and it made my throat thicken.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I don’t know, I just get this feeling like I should let this play out.”
“Oh yeah?” Amahle’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Well, Ciaran and I know better than to ignore those feelings of yours—and not just because you’re brilliant and got us out of more than one tough scrape with your little spells and quirky bits of knowledge you tuck away for the right moment. Like when you saved Ciaran from the harpies.”
A laughing groan escaped me.
Ciaran. The harpies. Gods.
In one of the encampments where we’d stayed, Ciaran had become obsessed with hunting the harpies—magical creatures with the bodies of eagles and heads of women who were all-knowing. He’d actually found one. And the damned thing had snatched him up in its claws, trying to carry him off.
Amahle had landed an arrow in its wing, forcing it to release him—right into a freefall to his death. Until I cast a spell, weaving the tree branches into a net that caught him.
He’d been bruised and bloody and broken an arm, but he’d lived.
“I didn’t do it alone. We always were a good team,” I said, but the words were bittersweet. I’d always thought the three of us—me, Amahle, and Ciaran—were unshakable. We had faced harpies, storms, and worse, always pulling each other through.
But this wasn’t just about survival anymore. Rykr had changed everything, and no amount of clever spells or quick thinking could undo that. “Now Ciaran’s upset with me because of Rykr.”
We turned a corner, slowing as we searched the street for my mother.
There she was, far ahead, still moving at a brisk pace we could hardly keep up with. “Ciaran’s just angry because you brought a Lirien home,” Amahle said in a low voice.
“He’ll come around,” I said, but the words felt hollow. “Right?”
Amahle shrugged. “He’s always carried a torch for you, Ser. Maybe it’s not Rykr he hates. It’s the idea of anyone who isn’t him.” Amahle frowned suddenly, squinting as she tried to trail my mother. “Where is she going?”
“You see? I’m not imagining things, am I? She’s acting strange.”
“If I can be honest, Ser, your mother has a level of strange that’s also part of who she is. Not that I don’t love her, but the Ibarran priestess in her scares the hell out of me, too.”
I didn’t answer—I was too focused on keeping up. My mother wove into a labyrinth of dark alleys with the ease of someone who knew exactly where she was going. Curpiss. If we didn’t hurry up, we were going to lose her.
