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“For Doma?” Kerrigan asked. “Because as far as I’m concerned, it sounds like they could be brought down a peg or two.”
“Certainly. Though I suspect it would be worse for the Doma to use it on others.”
Kerrigan blanched. “Oh.”
“Right. Now, we need to leave immediately, find someone with expertise in Doma magic—someone who will remain silent.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “And we need to do it before the sun sets.”
“I know someone who is a professor in theoretical casting. She was training me before my magic disappeared.”
Keres looked up at her. “I didn’t think they had professors and universities in Alandria yet.”
“They don’t. She’s here, in Domara.”
“How exactly did you meet and have her train you then?”
“She’s a spiritcaster, like me. Or … like I was.”
“Oh no,” Keres said, as if realizing where this was going. “No, no, no.”
“What?”
“You speak of Cleora Ectorius.”
“Well, I didn’t know her surname, but yes, Cleora. She’s been training me.”
“We’re already damned,” Keres said, sinking into the first available seat.
Kerrigan and Fordham exchanged a glance of confusion.
“She has been helpful thus far,” Fordham explained.
“Does she know about us? About your parentage?”
Kerrigan swallowed hard before nodding. Which was the wrong answer. “I trust her.”
“She’s one of Vulsan’s,” she said, burying her face in her hands. “She will do anything to remove her debt from him. She will sell you out. Her brother is a soldier in his dragon vanguard. There is nothing she wouldn’t do to get her into a better place for them.”
“No,” Kerrigan said at once. “She’s … she hates him.”
Keres laughed humorlessly. “Everyone hates him. That doesn’t mean currying favor isn’t more important than your hatred. Self-preservation is the key here.”
“Do you even know her?” Kerrigan asked. “That doesn’t sound like her at all. She wanted me to quit the tournament and help me get back home. She even tried to warn me that you were at the tournament today. She’s not what you think. You should give her a chance.”
“I’ve lived a long time. Chances are death traps waiting to be sprung.”
Fordham gently placed a hand on Keres’s shoulder. She stiffened under the touch, as if it had been so long since anyone had handled her with care.
“I once thought like you. I lived in a world that was battle-strewn and vicious and vengeful. I would not have given another chance to anyone without expecting a knife in the back. Kerrigan changed that.” Keres raised her head to meet his gaze. “You do not yet know your daughter, but I do. Let me illuminate her character for you. She is a freedom fighter, stubborn, willful, generous, kind, and talented. She wants the best from this world. She sees the best from this world and the next. Even with all the many reasons it has given her to hate it. She still stands on her feet and will do anything to make it right.
“We came here to find you. We came here to end an atrocity done upon us. And the only guiding light I have had in all that time is Kerrigan’s judgment. If she says that Cleora is trustworthy, then listen as I have learned to listen. It might seem rash and unreasonable and dangerous, but in the end, it is always worth it.”
Tears came to Keres’s eyes as they found Kerrigan’s heated cheeks. “To have someone speak so highly of you is a treasure far beyond anything I have known in many, many years.” She swallowed. “I have forgotten … been forced to forget the idea of trust and hope.”
“If it helps, you can tell me ‘I told you so’ if it blows up in our face,” Kerrigan offered.
Her mom laughed and came to her feet. “I will summon Cleora Ectorius.”
“Thank you.”
“If we choose to follow her, I have a cousin near Rhithymna. I trust her at least. We can stay there.”
Kerrigan nodded. A cousin. Her aunt. She would get to meet another member of her family. She choked up on that word. Back home, she had only ever had her father and the people she had found as family. She hardly knew how to breathe around the fact that she had more family.
“Do I have many aunts?” Kerrigan asked.
Keres beamed then. “Oh, how I would let you meet all of them, but alas, most are terrible, horrendous abominations. She was lost for many years. Her and her sister. I was thankful to have her return to us. Someone almost normal,” she said on a laugh. “You’ll like her.”
“I hope so.”
Keres patted her arm. “I’m going to send my summons.”
Something wasn’t sitting right with her. Could she leave Carithian without speaking to Constantine or Danae? Could she leave Danae behind to be trapped behind the walls of Constantine’s fortress in Eivreen? She had become something of a sister over the last couple of weeks. It would be wrong to walk away without at least trying.
