Maybe I need to see a doctor again, he thought.
“There you are.” Samson’s voice broke through the courtyard quiet. “I was looking for you.”
“What for?” Yassen asked as he approached. Samson had changed from his slingsword armor, wearing a black kurta and pants that made him blend into the night.
“You escorted the princess back to the palace,” Samson said. “How is she?”
“Quiet,” Yassen said.Unusually so.“She had an argument with the king and then went to bed for the evening.”
“Did you know about the reports? Of Jangir?”
He shook his head. “Only an hour before.”
Samson sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. He sat down beside Yassen, their knees brushing.
“She was brave for what she did,” Samson said slowly. “But Jangir knew your face, didn’t he? Did he recognize you?”
Yassen shook his head.
“He didn’t. And now he’ll answer for what he did in the park.”
“What are you smiling for?” Samson said, nudging him.
“It’s like what we Ravani say, ‘The desert always knows how to repay its visitors.’ Brush up, Sam. You’re marrying a Ravani girl soon.”
Samson laughed. “She has more taste for swords than old adages. Maybe you can recite the old poems at the wedding.”
Yassen nodded, but the thought of the wedding, of watching Elena tie her dupatta with Samson’s scarf and take seven rings around the fire made his smile falter. His stomach twisted, and he did not know why.
“You will stay for the wedding, won’t you?” Samson said.
“I—I can’t,” Yassen said. “I’ll be gone after coronation day, Sam. Like we planned. You’ll be king, I’ll be free.”
“But we’ll still see each other, yes?” Samson gripped his hand, his eyes searching Yassen’s face. “After all this time, you can’t just leave and never come back. I’ll miss you. Hell, I think even Elena would.”
Would she?He had grown used to her presence, the smell of her hair, like fresh sandalwood and jasmine. The way her eyes would find him across the room. Their silent game of observation. Yassen looked across the courtyard, half expecting to see her emerging from the shadows with a quip, but the courtyard was empty.
“No, Sam, I will leave. For my sake.”
“In that case,” Samson said and withdrew an object from his coat.
Yassen recognized it immediately—the map of the tunnels within the Sona Range. The color drained from his face. He looked at Samson carefully as his friend unrolled the map and traced a tunnel branching out from the middle of the range.
“You know it, don’t you?” Samson said and smiled. “I figured. Didn’t your father have a cabin there when he worked in the mines?”
Blood thundered in Yassen’s ears. “Y-yes.”
He stared at the map, at the upper mountain range where his father’s cabin was tucked away.
He remembered the drone of the machines and the rumble of the rocks.
“Jantar always knows how to disturb a man’s peace,” his father had said.
Erwin Knight worked in the mines and only came to visit Yassen and his mother in Rani during his short rest periods. Once, when Yassen and his mother had managed to obtain a Jantari visa to stay with him, he had told them about something he had seen in the mountain.
“A metal so fine it could cut through steel,” Erwin had whispered. He promised to bring Yassen a piece of this special ore, but when he returned from the mine, he had made no mention of it. Instead, he had hurried Yassen and his mother back to Ravence and told them to stay there until he sent word for them to return.
That was nearly eighteen suns ago. Yassen had not seen him since.
