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s. You have to put it behind you so that you can heal. And come home.”
“That’s enough.” There was a scythe-like sharpness to my tone; I had no interest in hearing his opinion on what my grief should look like. “I will look in on Conrad, and then I will take my leave.”
“Back to the tavern, so you can continue gambling for scraps?”
“Where I go and what I do is my business, not yours.”
“It used to be. Your safety was my concern—my only concern—for years!”
“Well, you’re a captain now. Sworn to protect the king, not me. You have been released from my service.”
“But not from our blood bond. Or have you forgotten about that?”
That quieted me. Of course I had not forgotten about the consequences of the bloodcloth ritual. It was always in the back of my mind.
Kellan continued, “Your life is not just yours. Perhaps you should take a little better care of it. No more gambling. No more plotting revenge against Castillion. You owe no allegiance to Achleva. You’re not their queen. Zan was barely a king when he died. Let them solve their political problems on their own. I know you want to go back there, but right now . . . it’s dangerous.”
“You think I should just turn a blind eye to suffering? No change in regime comes without cost to the poorest and most vulnerable. Nor can we expect the unrest to limit itself to Achleva’s borders. I mean—you’ve got a camp of refugees living right outside your window!” “Better to have them here than you there. My men brought back stories of gangs on the streets. Militias. A vigilante, calls himself the Horseman, inciting people to violence . . . Fredrick has already helped King Conrad draft a decree offering asylum to Achlevans with useful skills—”
“And what about those who don’t? Those who are too young, or too old, or too sick . . . are we going to tell them to go back the way they came? Back to the gangs, the militias . . . ?”
He paused. “If you really cared about what happens to the refugees, you’d be at court with your brother and Fredrick, advocating for them, working to enact laws that could actually help them, here in Renalt.”
“You tell me I’m unsafe among the sheep and propose that I go wander among the wolves as an alternative?” I could hardly bridle my contempt. “The court is no friend to anybody. They want Achleva to burn so they can pick over the bones for trinkets to wear in their hair or on their wrists.”
“Your own brother has to sit with them every day.”
“It’s not his blood they hunger for!” I snapped. “He’s safer without me there. You all are.”
I pushed past Kellan, moving toward the maze’s exit path. Anger had sobered me considerably; I’d be able to find my way out with my eyes closed now.
“Zan wouldn’t want this life for you,” Kellan called after me.
His pronouncement sang like an arrow through the night air, finding its mark in my back, through my heart.
“Good night, Kellan,” I managed. “Enjoy the coronation.”
4
They said that Zan probably went softly, that he didn’t suffer. That Stiria Bay was mercifully cold and he would have felt no pain, that his end would have been almost sweet. But I’d had ghosts show me their drowning deaths before, and they were neither soft nor sweet.
After the tower, I’d been so sick. So heartsore. I’d only just learned that use of magic was destroying me and that I’d have to give it up forever. I’d only just lost my mother . . .
No. I’d killed my mother. Traded her life for Zan’s. I had intended to be the one who died on the tower, but what did my intentions matter? Mother died because of me.
It wasn’t Zan’s fault either. He didn’t choose for me to break into the borderland of death and drag him back into the material world. That was all on me too.
It all happened because I allowed myself to love Zan. I allowed him to love me.
I was born of bloodleaf, was I not? A poison. I tried so hard to help people, to make a difference, but I only ever made things worse. And just like bloodleaf, whatever small good I worked could never match the magnitude of the havoc I’d wreak trying.
For every one life saved, two must be lost.
Six weeks after the fall of Achlev, I told Zan to go on that tour of Achleva’s western coast with Baron Aylward and Baron Ingram. I told him to parley with Castillion. Forge an alliance with this rising force, the upstart lord of Achleva’s snow-clad, northernmost province. Make him your right hand. Keep him close, I said. We need strong people on our side.
And I was relieved when Zan chose to go. And even more relieved when he suggested he go without me.
For a few days, at least, I wouldn’t have to look at him and remember that, for him, I’d killed my mother.
