They both nodded. I started to bend down to replace the shutter and marble front, but Nash reached out and grabbed my arm. “Vatrésta,” he said.
“No, Nash,” I corrected. “Vatrésta is for a final good-bye. We will see each other again. Chemarr is for a short farewell.”
“Chemarr,” they both said back to me, and then I sealed them in the crypt. I pressed my fingers to my lips and then to the face of marble that had Sylvey’s name engraved on it. Chemarr. Watch over them.
Relief and fear flooded my chest at the same time as I pressed my back to the tomb door, wedging my feet against the ground while I shoved it closed one grunt and push at a time, sealing them inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
KAZI
“There!” I said, smiling as I dashed up the pavilion steps. I let true victory shine in my eyes—the hardest step was behind me—though the king would interpret my triumph differently. “All done. They’re happily searching for eyestones.” I shed my cloak and weapon belt, laying them over the railing beside Montegue’s.
He was already sitting on the first step, soaking his feet. “What took you so long? I was about to send a guard to get you.”
“I wanted to give them some extra incentive and found this.” I pulled a large, colorful eyestone from my pocket that was about the size of my little finger—just the right size—and held it up. “I told them whoever found the most stones would get this one as a prize. They’re searching in earnest now. They’ll be occupied for a good long while.”
He smiled. “Well played, soldier.” He motioned to the step next to him. “Come soak your foot.”
I sat on the lone bench in the pavilion, which was across from him, stalling for time as I slowly took off my first boot. I had to draw this out for at least another half hour.
“The town looked festive this morning, didn’t it?” I said, a topic I knew he would like, proof he was winning them over.
“Yes,” he agreed. “They’re finally coming around. Moving on. I knew they would. I ordered the hanging bodies removed from the tembris. It seemed like the right response. They will see me as a fair ruler willing to meet them more than halfway.”
The right response? Cutting down innocent rotting bodies? Such a kindness. I checked the revulsion rolling up my throat. “A wise move,” I agreed and pulled off my sock, tucked it in my boot, and began unlacing the other. “And it will certainly help elevate the festive mood.”
He talked about other changes that he and Banques had in the works, assigning new magistrates nominated by the townspeople for the districts, rebuilding the livery that had been burned down, and breaking ground on a new temple that would be bigger and better than the last one. “And soon I won’t need to travel with the children at all.”
I pulled off my boot and set it beside the other. “What will become of them?” I asked cautiously, biting back my next words. Would you kill them? But he managed to anticipate my thoughts anyway.
“I would not kill them, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not a monster.”
“I know that,” I answered quickly, trying to soothe his injury. “I was thinking of Banques. I heard him call them a necessary evil.”
“We have to do what is best for the kingdom. We’ll send them away where they can forget about being Ballengers. They’ll have a nice fresh start.”
A fresh start? Or would they simply be prisoners somewhere else? He spun everything into a golden solution that eliminated his culpability. I twisted the sock I had just pulled off around my fingers. Even though I knew that now he would never get his hands on them again, his words still plagued me—the things he planned that I hadn’t even begun to grasp. “Send away? Where?”
“Zane knows places. He—”
“Zane?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
“I told you—you have to bury your grudges with him. Zane is useful to me, and as a former Previzi driver, he knows of places not that far from here that will take them in for us.”
He was going to give them to Zane.
Zane.
“Places? More than one?” I asked. “You plan to separate them?”
“Yes, we decided it would be easier for them to make a clean break from their past that way.”
And ensure that they forget. I knew what it was like to be isolated. Alone. No one to tell you stories. Memories drifted away. I was Nash’s age when I lost my mother, and Lydia was only a year older. Yes, Montegue, send them away and eliminate two young Ballengers who might grow up and challenge you one day. Break them, destroy them, but at the same time, keep them close just in case you need to bring them back again to serve some scheming purpose of yours. You are a brilliant monster.
I struggled to keep my mind fixed on the endgame. A game that had new rules that I had made—not him. He won’t be able to do any of these things, Kazi. Stay focused on each step. You’re almost there.
“What about the Ballengers?” I asked. “What if they come out? They’ll want their kin back.”