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“It will be done tonight.”
I emptied the glass. No more half measures. “And block the underground passages. Destroy the flowers and anything else found under the city.”
“There is no knowing how stable the buildings above are or how far the tunnels go.”
I sighed. “Then send the bone soldiers as far as they get. I don’t want to lose anyone but better they fight the undead there than on the streets.”
Von Uster tilted his head considering. “What makes you think they’ll leave?”
“Besides what I saw of them in Lowtown? Your reports say city guards don’t return from patrols. I’m reluctant to blame it all on rebels when I have seen what the priestesses are doing.”
The old man smiled. “You do read my reports.”
“Upon occasion.”
We shared the moment, perhaps both feeling the approaching storm. Then he rose and bowed deeper than ever before.
“I know it’s not my place to say so, but I’m glad you showed restraint. I can guess what it cost you to be merciful tonight. It gives me hope.”
I could not explain that it had not been mercy, but a change in priorities, a shift in the center of my life. A new purpose. Instead, I nodded in thanks.
When alone, I stepped onto the balcony and let the night wrap around me. Tal’s lights spread below, the stars above.
One three-day left until the Day of the Dead. Almost three months since I returned. How many times had my life changed this summer?
Whispering to the wind, I asked it to blow away the summer heat, closed my eyes, and imagined myself back in the mountains where I had dreamt only of revenge and death, of plots and my own pain.
Somehow, I had become someone else.
It was Alexei and Mariska, Eki and Dasha. Perhaps even von Uster was having an influence. And Vanya…
Laughter where there had been none. Questioning my ignorance and callousness. Touches and passion. That kiss when I caught her in my chambers… I had no longer cared if she was a thief or murderer or spy. Only known her lavender scent and that each touch was felt a thousand times. If I had not cared then, why did I now?
It doesn’t matter, a voice inside me chanted. But I was no longer listening. She might be gone from my life forever, but it still mattered. Each moment had mattered.
Ordering her death had been my only possible move for me to retain the throne and her walk away.
But I would carry each memory with me as a light for the dark times surely ahead.
Heading to undress, I brushed my fingers over the worn leather shoe she left behind. It was not much of a memento, but it was more her than any jewel had been. Releasing it, I accepted my place in the bed where my father and grandfather died. The gilded monstrosity was a place for kings. Perhaps it could mold me into one as well.
There was a wedding to prepare, new Council members to select, changes to be made and priestesses to question. I could not push Morovara without starting a civil war. Still, I needed answers to what I had seen under my city.
She ignored my questions in the crypt and every letter since. I might be king, but if she did not answer, I would go to the temple and not leave before she divulged her secrets.
Vanya had told me tomorrow would be a better day. I intended to make her words true.
Chapter twenty-three
Vanya
My legs had cramped from sitting on the hard bed for bells. Someone had slid a food tray under my curtain, cold tea still sitting in my cup as Eydis’s tight script raced before my eyes.
The books were not official records, but her personal musings. From her writing, I assumed there were more of them. My first one started after she met Herebov and his two sons at a banquet in Denyev. From reading between the lines, Eydis and her mother visited the steppe city to bless a yearly festival. It was already under Herebov’s rule. Eydis did not seem to care that her mother spent the nights with him but dismissed his sons as bores. She had been a girl who loved sneaking away into the city searching for hidden treasures. She also wrote about the dead as friends and servants. It seemed this was not the first time the undead walked in Tal.
I raced through descriptions of magic trinkets beyond my imagination and rites for the dead. There were only snippets of Ealhswip as Eydis did not seem close to her mother. Mostly complaints of increased time preparing the dead, necromancy lessons, and orders not to wander.
In the second book, Herebov visited Tal for the first time. Eydis believed he and her mother had exchanged letters. A wedding wasannounced though the divine rulers of Tal did not marry. Eydis wrote of Vsadnik riders overrunning Tal and griffons—a creature they did not have in the city—circling above.
