I shook my head. “No. The only thing awaiting us was another Ballenger massacre,” I said, then looked at Gunner and added, “If not for Kazi.” I knew he felt my gaze, even if he wouldn’t meet it.
“Once we made it to Marabella, Kazi spoke to the queen not just on my behalf, but on all of our behalves. She told her how Beaufort had first wheedled his way into our lives with his promise of a fever cure. She told the queen about Tor’s Watch’s place in history and our long stewardship of Hell’s Mouth. She told her how we had all pitched in and rebuilt the settlement at our own cost. The queen was very grateful—and curious about our world. She wanted to hear more, so I told her. When I was finished, she and the King of Dalbreck made a proposal to me, an important proposal, and I accepted it.” I looked around the table and the room, making sure they were all listening.
“The Queen of Venda and the King of Dalbreck conferred, and they agreed that Hell’s Mouth should be returned to us. They also agreed we should be a recognized kingdom of the Alliance. The first kingdom,” I said.
“Because of Kazi,” Wren added.
“That’s just one of the many reasons Jase ended up with her,” Synové said, her tone bitter as she looked pointedly at Mason.
There was stunned silence.
And then some tears and disbelief.
“A kingdom?”
“The first kingdom?”
I heard Kazi’s name on their lips as they sent up prayers.
“A blessing from the gods…”
“The girl Kazi, watch over her.”
“Keep her safe.”
“There’s more you should know,” Paxton interjected. It was the first time he had spoken up, but his cocky edge had returned, his hand chopping the air to make his point, his annoying habit of the past that always made me want to punch him. It didn’t anymore. He had some stored-up anger too. There was noticeable bristling on the other side of the table as he spoke. He was only being tolerated because of me, and the fact that my mother had publicly embraced him.
He told them things he hadn’t even told me yet. “She killed four men trying to save Jase from an ambush. I saw it happening as I raced to get there. It was the most horrible, frightening, and awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen, and any one of us can only pray that someday someone will love us as much as Kazi loved Jase to sacrifice everything, including her life. She stayed behind to fight more soldiers off after she sent his horse into the forest to give him time to get away from them. That’s when she was stabbed and captured. And then by sheer fortitude, because they were barely feeding her, she recovered, with the burning goal of saving Lydia and Nash next. And she did. She—”
“How?” Priya asked, her eyes drilling into Paxton. “Drake died trying to rescue them. We were afraid to try again, not until we had more help. We sent a messenger to Cortenai, the nearest kingdom, but there’s been no word. We’re not sure if the messenger even made it past the patrols. How could Kazi do this? She’s not a magician. How?”
Paxton froze, his mouth hanging open as he stared back at Priya. He was oddly speechless.
“Before she was a soldier,” I intervened, “Kazi was an experienced thief. It’s what she’s good at. She stole Lydia and Nash from beneath the king’s nose and hid them.”
“A thief?” several said at the same time.
“Hid them where?” Priya asked cautiously.
“She hid them in Sylvey’s empty crypt.”
Horrified expressions circled the table.
“But…” my mother said, “the crypt isn’t empty.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is, Mother,” I replied. And then I told them what I had done. What Kazi had known. What she had done to save them.
“You desecrated Sylvey’s tomb?” Titus asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
There was another long uncomfortable silence, maybe as they tried to reconcile the lie I had perpetrated for all these years—the crime—with the fact it had saved Lydia and Nash. Maybe trying to absorb that Kazi had another life as a thief that they had known nothing about, or that she had murdered the guard, who now lay rotting in the sanctified Ballenger tomb. Or maybe that Sylvey was buried in an unhallowed grave high on the mountain. It was a lot to take in at once.
“A thief,” Mason said, still mulling it over. He knew she had been an orphan on her own since she was six, but I hadn’t told him how she had survived. I could see it all adding up in his eyes now.
My mother combed her fingers through her hair, her eyes squeezed shut. I knew the truth about Sylvey was an enormous blow to her. It wasn’t just that I had committed a serious crime, or that her daughter’s body was not resting in peace where she and my father had laid it, but that I had kept this lie a secret from them all for so long. She finally opened her eyes, folded her hands in front of her on the table, and lifted her chin. “What’s done is done,” she said. “When this is all over, we’ll have a quiet ceremony at Breda’s Tears with a priest to consecrate Sylvey’s final resting place. This news will go no farther than this vault.” She looked around the room, steel in her eyes, as if she dared anyone to challenge her decision.
My mother, always moving forward. That’s what mattered. This led us back to her original question that brought us to the kitchen table. She wanted to know about my marriage.