“And now you are faithful to the Viceroy. To Salt.” I smiled blandly at him, letting my words sit in the air.
“Of course, sir,” he rushed to say.
His hands shook, as if he were trying to call on the magic that should have been at his fingertips.
But it never was. Not to its full capacity. The single thorn that protruded from the desk mocked me, reminding me of how little power I truly had. I smiled at the young soldier without humor.
“It’s difficult, isn’t it, to say no when they have all the power?” I leaned back in my chair, my disinterested smile never changing. “But loyalty isn’t in words, is it?” My hand pressed to my chest. “It’s in the heart. Remember that, when you think about who it is you are faithful to.”
He swallowed, his eyes darting around my office, uncertain how to respond.
But it wasn’t a question for him, so much as a reminder to me.
They had all the power. They had all the magic. They had taken it from us.
And every day it killed me.
But every single day I reminded myself of who I was loyal to.
Of how I was going to free the peris of River from this nightmare.
I didn’t need an answer from him. Instead, I waved him away and freed him from my presence before he soiled himself from fear. The soldier left, slipping out of the room so fast I had barely taken a sip of my coffee before he was gone. I made a mental note to approach him as a recruit for Red Jasmine later—anyone who had a father who fought like Hadi shouldn’t be fighting for Salt, no matter how frightened he was.
I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my hands.
If Reza was returning soon, I needed to figure out where Queen Azari’s crown was a lot faster if I didn’t want more members of my Court to die.
As long as Reza already had the King crown, we had no ability to fight against him.
And the only thing that would combat King Rusul’s crown was the power of Queen Azari.
With the general here and soldiers tracking my every move, I didn’t have the opportunity to search as freely as I would like, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to go to the River to verify if an ancient ring given by an old churail would be something more than just jewelry.
What I needed was a distraction.
I tapped at the ring on my smallest finger with the pad of my thumb, measuring the right of what I needed to do. Remembering two frightened boys and the weight of their bodies against my shoulder after I’d killed them.
Usually, I could smuggle out any members of the Court of River if they’d been caught or arrested. And if I couldn’t do that, I could assign them to work camps to escape torture at the hands of the Viceroy and get them out later.
But with General Faisal watching me, I had to be careful of any missteps. I couldn’t lose my position here, or everything would fall apart. If I was found out, what little hope our Court had would be gone—hope of bringing down the curse around the Mountain and releasing my family, and hope of ending the enslavement of the Court of River.
I glanced in the direction of the River, beyond the thick forest that clung to the edge of the water. The magic caged inside me rose up, like vines crawling up my throat, eager to burst free. I could feel the pressure of it inside me, raging like a storm that was never unleashed. But with Reza still in charge I could never access all of it, nor could I directly attack him. Not when he still had the power of King Rusul’s crown.
So instead, I pushed past that spark of life my power accessed, the glowing ember of vitality and growth that my body wanted to command.
This time, I sunk deeper into whatever life magic the peris from the Court of River had been granted all those centuries ago. I slipped so deep that my magic became a perversion of itself, conjuring a different part of the life cycle, something both ancient and new.
It was a way I could finally get around the Viceroy’s limits on our power, a way we could finally begin to fight back.
I had been leashed for far too long—perhaps it was time to show the general what the Court of River could do.
Chapter 5
Take care my child, for the peris will come.
Take care and watch the River.
Take care my child, they’ll steal you away.
