Page 38 of The Crown’s Temptation

They sat with that.

"Two more came through last night," Eskarin said. "The eastern line."

"What kind?"

"Old." He looked at the city. "The Avanki handled it but they did not know what they were handling." He paused.

She looked at him. "Sarenal."

"Yes."

She had known it was coming. The wards encircled everything, that was what nobody in Alarna's court fully understood. They were not a wall facing one direction. They were a perimeter. And when a perimeter weakened it weakened on every side simultaneously.

"She was supposed to seal them," Nyara said.

He said nothing.

"That was the plan." She looked at her hands. "Not my plan exactly. I did not know the details. I only knew that Eravic was getting the Arrolyn to her and that once she had it and was strong enough to wield it she could seal the wards properly. Permanently." She paused. "And before she did I was going to go through."

"Home," Eskarin said.

"Home," she said. "Yes."

He was quiet. He understood what she meant without her explaining it further because he had come to Alarna for the same reason and had been waiting for the same window and was now sitting beside her on the same steps watching the same window close.

"She did not know about Teorin," Nyara continued. "I did not know about Teorin. None of us knew that the protectorate would ever actually find her or that it was Teorin at all."

"Was it Teorin that killed her?" Eskarin's voice was quiet.

"I do not know," Nyara said. She exhaled. "And now the wards are failing on every side and creatures are coming through that nobody here can identify and the one person who could have fixed all of it is dead."

"Or not," Eskarin said carefully.

She looked at him.

He looked at the city. "I am not saying she is alive. I am saying that a woman who survived everything she survived does not simply die at a dinner table and I have learned not to accept the first version of a story I am given."

She looked at the water.

"Junis will take it hard," she said. "He liked her. More than he let on." A pause. "He likes most people more than he lets on. It is his weakness."

"Is Junis aligned?" Eskarin said.

She looked at him. "No."

"But he must remain unharmed."

"Yes." She said it without hesitation. "He must remain unharmed."

"He is loyal to Vaelor regardless of what comes."

She sighed. "No matter what. Yes."

He looked at her. "You sound as though you are not loyal to Vaelor."

"I am loyal to Sarenal," she said. "But that is not the same thing."

He nodded once.