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We finally reach the teleportation hub, and the crowd steps back to let us enter the standing stones. Everyone in the crowd seems to be talking at once, and quite a few of them are also crying. Hey, at least I’ve gotten their minds off of Rowan. I take a deep breath and try to focus on the next step.
The ambassadors have used teleportation hubs before, but still, I ask them to link hands just to be sure we all end up in the same place. It takes a lot of magic to jump from the World’s End to the Crystal City, but we have a lot of magic, and the hard ground of the Crystal City’s barrier gardens slams into my boots moments after I touch the teleportation hub in the World’s End.
And then I stagger into the bushes surrounding the hub and puke up all of last night’s bad decisions. One of the ambassadors pukes too, thank the stars for small favors, and the rest of them are far too polite to say anything. For a moment, I’m actually grateful Rowan stayed behind.
By some miracle, King Galan is actually in his throne room when we finally reach the Palace of the Kingdom of the Fall. One of the guards, a guy named Breim who always looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin, leads us through the palace’s magical gates and passageways that Rowan loved to infiltrate until we reach the cavernous throne room, with its polished stone floors and intricately carved wooden wall panels. The massive obsidian slab of a throne is empty. Off to the side, King Galan sits at a simple table with his heir Orryen and Aloserin, the former Captain of the Royal Guard.
There’s the sound of wooden chairs squealing as they’re shoved across the polished stone floor, and then King Galan jumps to his feet and steps back from the table, whose glossy surface is scattered with playing cards. Aloserin reaches for the sword at his hip, but Orryn stops him before he can pull the blade from its sheath.
“Phaedron Undervale,” King Galan says, his eyes wide as he takes in the four elegantly dressed, dark-skinned ambassadors from the Worlds Above who are standing behind me. His voice is strong, although the echo trembles as it ripples through the massive room.
I freeze as some part of my brain stumbles over the fact that King Galan knows my name. And then I take a deep breath, turn toward the four ambassadors, and actually manage to remember each of their names and official titles.
But that’s the high point, because the rest of my explanation comes out in a patchy, scattered mess, with the various ambassadors picking up the threads of the story when my voice falters. As we speak, members of Galan’s Royal Guard and castle staff melt in and out of the room, bringing chairs and drinks, setting up a buffet, taking our cloaks, and then someone starts playing a freaking harp in the far corner of the throne room.
King Galan is now talking very seriously about trade negotiations with the ambassador from the Kingdom of Stone and Sea, a woman who has hundreds of tiny little braids piled atop her head in a hairstyle so intricate I think it has to be an illusion. Orryen and Aloserin stand behind the king like the Royal Guards they are, each chatting amicably with one of the ambassadors I just led through the new portal in the World’s End, and the room is tilting ever so slightly beneath my feet.
I sip gently from the mug of tea someone pressed into my hand, then hold it to my lips for a long time, just in case anyone gets the misguided idea of trying to engage me in a conversation about trade negotiations. My mind wanders as the room pulses around the edges, drifting from worrying about Rowan to wondering what he and Arryn are doing to very suddenly trying not to think about what he and Arryn are probably doing. And then I’m trying not to think about Alindra in her burgundy dress with her arms wrapped around her chest, the only person brave enough to stand beside the portal as we went through.
I sigh into the dregs of my tea. My hangover has come back with a screaming vengeance, my missing arm aches, and the effort of maintaining this illusion arm suddenly seems idiotic. What in the nine hells am I doing in the throne room, after all? I’ve delivered the ambassadors. Shouldn’t I just go home?
“Don’t you think, Phaedron?”
I blink, realizing too late that King Galan just said my name. And now everyone in the room is staring at me. Even the woman playing the harp.
“I beg your pardon?” I ask, trying to smile.
“I think it’s high time,” Orryen says, with a wide smile that somehow makes me think of his wedding, the one I watched from outside the windows of the banquet hall. Was that just a few days ago?
“As long as Rowan is coming back to explain,” Aloserin says. His voice twists up at the end, making his words sound like a question.
“He is,” I reply, getting the words out quickly, before I can think of a reason to disagree. Rowan will come back here if I have to drag him.
“Then I see no reason to disagree,” Aloserin finishes.
He gives me a strange, sympathetic flicker of a smile that instantly makes me uneasy. What in the nine hells were they just talking about? And why, in all the stars’ many names, did I think this would be a good morning to replace breakfast with half a bottle of wine?
“Then, please,” King Galan says, giving me a smile I’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve. “Phaedron Undervale, in light of your recent service to the Kingdom of the Fall and your extraordinary record as sentry of the World’s End, I would be honored if you would join my Royal Guard.”
Chapter42
Alindra
IT WAS EASIER
Iwake up shivering.
It’s not a surprise, of course. Everyone told me the days were going to get colder and shorter as fall chased summer to the other side of the world. Still, I pull myself into a ball in the center of my heavy quilts and close my eyes, trying to recapture just a taste of my dream.
I’d been dreaming about Phaedron. Again. This time we were in the Barrier Mountains together, sitting around a campfire and laughing, and then he leaned across the flames and brushed his fingers up my cheek. Kissed me. Long and slow, his lips and tongue dancing with mine, his hand tracing a path down my neck to slip my shirt from my shoulder, and then we leaned back—
Stars, it’s cold in here! I throw the quilt back and huff in annoyance. My breath comes out in a little white cloud. The first light of the rising sun traces a golden line across the canvas roof of my tent, making the frost that’s accumulated overnight sparkle like diamonds.
I glare at the woodstove Therian from the World’s End installed for me a month ago. He was perfectly friendly, in that way older people have when they’re trying to tell you you’re an idiot without actually saying those words.
“You know,” he told me, after he showed me how to use the damper to adjust the heat of the wood stove. “In a few months, it’s going to get cold.”
I bite my lip as his warning rattles around the inside of my head. Therian was one of the first people to move through the portal, coming from the World’s End into the new collection of ramshackle buildings in this valley they christened the World’s Beginning. After spending a lifetime in the Lands Below, Therian had a different definition ofcoldthan I did. Hells, he was still wearing short sleeves around town, along with almost everyone else who’d moved out of the Lands Below.
