Page 92 of Fate of the Sun King

“Someone survived,” I say, focusing on the most important thing first. “A woman. She had silver hair.”

“Cloris Payne,” Cedar says. “She was the priestess they were working with.”

“I think she might have tricked them. Or things didn’t go the way anyone planned.”

I don’t have the courage to voice what I saw in my grandmother’s eyes. Her malice and greed and the way she took her mother’s crown.

“She got up and walked away.” I swallow. “But that’s not all. She’s the same woman I killed when I was a child. She’s who knew. She’s how your father and Atlas must have known.”

“Who?” Cedar asks, because I hadn’t shared this with him the other night. After I fill him in, everyone comes to the same conclusion.

“But if we’re assuming Atlas ended the first Trials because he found out about you two years ago, then someone else told him, because you killed her fourteen years ago,” Nadir says.

I shake my head. “I didn’t. She isn’t really dead.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

“I saw her in Aphelion. Or at least I thought I did.”

I describe the day I saw her in the city and how I followed before believing it wasn’t really her. But it was. Did she know it was me?

“I think she used some kind of glamour to fool me. I’m sure it was her. Her name was on the fucking building.”

“We need to see her immediately,” Nadir says. “If she knows who you are and is working with Atlas, then she might have told him she saw you.”

“No. She had days to do that, and Atlas didn’t come for me. It’s likely she had no idea it was me. I was a child the last time she saw me.”

“So we need to know what she knows.”

“I think so.”

I take in the shell-shocked expressions of my companions, knowing how much more surprised they’d be if I revealed the rest.

Nadir holds out a hand for Cedar. “Thank you for everything. But it seems we really need to go. Can we continue to count on your discretion?”

“Of course,” Cedar says. “Let me know if you need anything at all.” He says the words to me and to Tristan, and we both nod.

“Please come back and see us when you can. And we’d love to see your sister, too,” Elswyth adds.

“Of course,” I say. If any of us ever get that chance.

We finally prepare to leave. We’re riding back to Aphelion together on horses provided by Cedar.

Just as we’re about to depart, I remember something else the Staff said. It had remarked that I’d brought the Primary with me and that the Staff had felt him across the miles. At first, I assumed it had been talking about Nadir as the Primary, but now I realize it couldn’t have been. The Woodlands Staff has no connection to The Aurora.

“Can I ask?” I say to Cedar. “Who is the Woodlands Primary?”

He presses his mouth together. “Unfortunately, the Staff hasn’t seen fit to share that with me.”

“You mean you don’t always know?”

He shakes his head, and I sense Nadir react, ever on the alert.

“Not always. Sometimes the current rulers know from the moment the Primary is born. Sometimes it’s revealed later, but almost always before the king or queen descends.” Cedar tips his head. “Why do you ask?”

I shake mine in response. “Just curious. Until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of one, and now that I am one…” I trail off. None of it is a lie, but it isn’t the complete truth.

“Of course,” Cedar says. “That’s only natural.”