“But if you are a human from the other side of the wall, how do you have magic?”
“I don’t know. Humans used to have access to magic, but the wall cut us off. So I thought maybe that had something to do with it. But we only have songs and stories about what life was like before the wall. I would assume you would know about that better than me—don’t you remember what it was like before the wall?”
“The wall was built a thousand years ago.”
“And?”
He gaped at me, a look of pure astonishment on his face. “You think I’m a thousand years old?”
I blinked. “Aren’t all peris immortal?”
His eyebrows were up to his hairline and he looked like he was about to laugh. “We live much longer lifespans than humans, yes. But we do age, and we do die.” He looked me up and down, tilting his head. “How old are you, human?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Stop mocking me.”
He raised his hands. “I promise I’m not. Just... I would assume you are around your twentieth year, is that correct?”
“I’m nineteen.”
“Iam in my twentieth year. Only a year older than you. We may age differently, but we all have to start somewhere.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my arms, suddenly feeling better that I wasn’t speaking to some ageless immortal fae. “Are you going to tell him?” I whispered in the din of the tent.
He finally shifted his gaze to mine, his dark eyes searing me. “Should I?”
“What purpose would it serve?”
“You tell me. Do you think I keep secrets from him?”
I thought back to the halmasti, to Kiyan being shirtless and alone in the forest as he fought the beast. To the fact that he didn’t even tell the Viceroy we had already met. There was a reason he was hiding things from the Viceroy, something bigger he was trying to keep from him. “When it suits you, yes.”
He looked at me with an assessing gaze, as if surprised I’d called him out on it. “Why did you come here? Why cross the River?”
“To find my mother,” I repeated, the same story I’d told Ramishah. That desire was never truly gone from my heart, even if I knew it to be futile. If my mother was still alive, she would have found a way to get back to me. But Kiyan didn’t need to know anything more than that.
He didn’t need to know that I was here to finish what she started.
“And the crown? Why were you searching for it?”
“I told you I had an interest in it.”
“And you just so happened to take an interest in it at the same time you are looking for your mother?”
I glared at him and lifted my chin. “Yes.”
He moved an inch forward. “You just expect me to believe what you are telling me?”
“I don’t expect anything. I am being honest.”
“And if Queen Azari’s crown is found, do you know what Reza will do with it?”
“Don’t you want him to find it?”
He sneered. “That’s none of your concern. I work for the Court of Salt. I kill and hunt and torture and destroy for them. But I still have some power.Me. I have control. If Reza finds the crown, then there won’t be anything in his way. He will raze this entire Court.”
“That sounds treasonous,” I shot back. “Aren’t you supposed to be loyal to him?”
He leaned in closer, with a catlike smile once more. A thrill ran through me, the same kind of feeling as when I called on my magic and felt its heat igniting my veins with power.
