Page 36
“The duchess is a stormbender too?” asked Sephone.
“A wind weaver, primarily. As Dentarius was.”
A beat of silence passed between them.
“I can appreciate the wind well enough,” said Sephone after a moment, “though it’s not my favorite.” Sparks crackled along her skin, running up the length of her arms.
“I can see that.”
“It does have its uses though. Good for privacy—muffles noises.” She waved her hand, and Kit’s hair fluttered off her forehead as Sephone cast an air barrier around them. “Can make it easier for sound to travel sometimes too.”
“Ah. Your ‘talents’ as an eavesdropper, then?”
“Exactly. You might be surprised by how many secrets I’ve managed to pick up throughout the years.”
Kit huffed a low laugh. “There’s actually nothing that surprises me about that.”
Sephone crossed the room, plunking herself down on a crushed-velvet settee the color of grapes. “So,” she said.
“So,” Kit echoed, pointedly refusing to follow suit. She simply took a few steps forward instead, arms crossed over her chest. “You were saying something before? About all the things ‘we’ have learned over the years?”
“Right. Yes.” Sephone tucked a swath of her long black hair behind her pointed ear, where a small golden hoop sat, a single ruby-red bead hanging from it. “Well, you know who I work for.”
Kit scoffed. “Indeed, I do.”
“And you know exactly who he is. Who the Revenant is to him.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that if your family will not aid us in locating and retrieving Elyria, then it might be time to turn to hers.”
“Your master”—Kit all but spat the word—“is not her family. I am.”
Sephone lifted her hands, palms facing Kit in supplication. “Be that as it may, the king is not seeing things clearly. Your uncle is blinded by fear and hardened by grief. His inaction would see the cult left unchecked, and Malakar’s power will only continue to grow.”
“That’s essentially what I told him. I outright begged him to divert even the smallest amount of resources to finding Elyria, because doing so means finding the cult. And once we’ve found them, we can stop them. We can stop him . . . before the War of Two Realms is ignited all over again.”
“And he said no.”
Kit flinched. “He said he would take it under consideration.”
“But we all know what that means.”
“Yes,” Kit said sadly. “To him, the accords might as well have been buried right alongside Dentarius. Like the humans are the ones at fault, when it was, in fact, one man.”
“One who is now something far more—and far worse—than a man,” Sephone said. “And, look, it isn’t as though the king is necessarily wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“Elyria is just one person, when there are many lives at risk here. Should Malakar’s war fully ignite, should his followers march on Nyrundelle, who knows how many innocents will fall to his campaign. Your uncle’s job is to think about that. To weigh lives and ensure the least horrible outcome occurs.”
Kit blew out a frustrated breath, then slumped into an open armchair opposite Sephone. “It isn’t as though I don’t understand that. But I do not think he is acting—or refusing to act—out of concern for his people. Not really. He is reacting to what happened in Kingshelm, the losses already suffered.”
“I agree with you there, too. So, if the king will not act to stop Malakar’s darkness from spreading, then we will have to do it ourselves.”
There was that “we” again, and Kit knew Sephone wasn’t just talking about the two of them. And she wasn’t talking about their merry band of misfit champions, now spread across the continent, either.
Master Tartanis was a powerful man. Kit had never met him personally, but she certainly knew all about him. The criminal overlord of Coralith had resources and connections great enough that they had won him the ear of the king and given him the freedom to send his own underlings into the heart of Havensreach as part of the official royal delegation.
