“I know.” At least she didn’t deny it. “I don’t know what the play is. But I know he didn’t find us by accident. And he won’t tell me.”
“It still doesn’t answer my question of why you’re unrestrained. If he knew Braen, he has even less of a reason to trust you.” Here would come the real reason why Nadi didn’t want to tell him. Because there was clearly a history there.
“Kalo and I grew up together.”
There it was. “And?”
Nadi let out a long, heavy sigh. “The Lohti and Iltani clans often met to trade. We would often travel together as a pack. Kalo is a few years older than me.”
“And?”He was too tired for games. Well. Too woozy. “Don’t bother. You’ve confirmed enough by omission. Was the marriage ever officially arranged, or just speculative?”
“There wasn’t ever—” She sighed heavily again. “He was a bully. He picked on me endlessly, and my mother used to tease me that was how boys showed interest at that age. We were children. It means nothing.”
“It means enough that there aren’t shackles on your wrists, Nadi.”
“It doesn’t mean they don’t all have guns at the ready the moment I move.” There was something tight and strained in her voice. When he opened his eyes to look at her, she was gazingout the door of the wagon at the figures moving outside by the firelight. “It has more to do with…”
If Raziel wasn’t mistaken, it looked like she might be about to cry. “What is it, Nadi?”
“I am the only Iltani fae left, Raziel. I—I killed the only other one, when I—when—” She broke off, grimacing.
Luciento.
Luciento had been one of the last fae in the Iltani clan. And now it was just her.
“How can we use this?” It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He did. No small part of his heart lurched in sympathy for her. But they had bigger problems to deal with. And if it meant that it allowed her to move freely, it meant that it provided her leverage.
Her expression went dead. Whatever pain she was feeling, she shut it away in a box in her heart. They could cry later. If they had the chance to.
But some part of him knew a piece of her died, putting that pain away in the box. He knew, because how many times had he had to do the same thing?
I am still killing her, inch by inch, little by little.
But these are the choices we’ve made.
“He’s taking us to Grandmother Ebiti. One of the few remaining elders of our people. She is nearer to the surface. And she…knows where the rest of my people are, my clan. What remains of them anyway. Kalo says they’ve taken residence up at the old dockyards that Luciento used to run.”
Raziel dug through his memories. “Mael ran him out of there a long time ago.”
“You always did love to liken my kind to vermin.” She smirked. It wasn’t a kind expression. She got up to her feet. “Come on. Kalo will want to see you now that you’re awake.”
Raziel stood carefully, pleased when the world didn’t immediately spin. Whatever they’d given him to cure the poisonhad worked. He was weak, depleted, but functional. The chains made things awkward, but he managed to follow Nadi out of the wagon with some dignity intact.
She didn’t help him.
Either for appearances or because she was annoyed. Couldn’t say he blamed her, regardless.
The camp was even stranger up close. He paused to stare at the scenery before him. There werebuildingsburied beneath the twisting and glowing ubiquitous vines. Buildings that looked…odd.He didn’t recognize the architecture.
They looked neglected, abandoned—ancient. Not like the ramparts that held out the Wild or any of the other structures he was used to seeing “topside.”
Where was this place? What had it once been?
The midday sun filtered through the cavern in spots where the ceiling had collapsed, creating shafts of light that mixed with the purple glow. They were much, much closer to the surface by the looks of things.
No. That wasn’t quite right, was it? The ceiling hadn’t collapsed, had it? The ceiling had beenformed.Or perhaps the whole cavern had been created when the ground fell in. Some of the buildings themselves looked crumpled.
The contrast was disorienting. Natural sunlight and the Wild’s alien luminescence occupying the same space—human-made buildings that had been subsumed by the Wild.
