For long minutes, Chaol remained in silence, marking those at the table, the servants flitting by. The guards at the windows and archways.
The minced lamb turned leaden in his stomach at the sight of their uniforms, at how they stood so tall and proud. How many meals had he himself been positioned by the doors, or out in the courtyard, monitoring his king? How many times had he laid into his men for slouching, for chattering amongst themselves, and reassigned them to lesser watches?
One of the khagan’s guards noticed his stare and gave a curt nod.
Chaol looked away quickly, his palms clammy. But he forced himself to keep observing the faces around him, what they wore and how they moved and smiled.
No sign—none—of any wicked force, whether dispatched from Morath or elsewhere. No sign beyond those white banners to honor their fallen princess.
Aelin had claimed the Valg had a reek to them, and he’d seen their blood run black from mortal veins more times than he cared to count, but short of demanding everyone in this hall cut open their hands …
It actually wasn’t a bad idea—if he could get an audience with the khagan to convince him to order it. To mark whoever fled, or made excuses.
An audience with the khagan to convince him of the danger, and perhaps make some progress with this alliance. So that the princes and princesses sitting around him might never wear a Valg collar. Their loved ones never know what it was to look into their faces and see nothing but ancient cruelty smirking back.
Chaol took a steadying breath and leaned forward, to where the khagan dined a few seats down, immersed in conversation with a vizier and Princess Duva.
The khagan’s now-youngest seemed to watch more than participate, and though her pretty face was softened with a sweet smile, her eyes missed nothing. It was only when the vizier paused for a sip of wine and Duva turned toward her quiet husband on her left that Chaol cleared his throat and said to the khagan, “I would thank you again, Great Khagan, for offering the services of your healers.”
The khagan slid weary, hard eyes toward him. “They are no more my healers than they are yours, Lord Westfall.” He returned to the vizier, who frowned at Chaol for interrupting.
But Chaol said, “I was hoping to perhaps be granted the honor of a meeting with you in private.”
Nesryn dug her elbow into his in warning as silence rippled down the table. Chaol refused to take his stare from anywhere but the man before him.
The khagan only said, “You may discuss such things with my Chief Vizier, who maintains my daily schedule.” A jerk of the chin toward a shrewd-eyed man monitoring from down the table. One glance at the Chief Vizier’s thin smile told Chaol the meeting wasn’t going to happen. “My focus remains on assisting my wife through her mourning.” The gleam of sorrow in the khagan’s eyes wasn’t feigned. Indeed, there was no sign of the khagan’s wife at the table, not even a place left out for her.
Distant thunder grumbled in the thick silence that followed. Not the time or the place to insist. A man grieving for a lost child … He’d be a fool to push. And coarse beyond measure.
Chaol dipped his chin. “Forgive me for intruding in this difficult time.” He ignored the smirk twisting Arghun’s face while the prince observed from his father’s side. Duva, at least, offered him a sympathetic smile-wince, as if to say, You are not the first to be shut down. Give him time.
Chaol gave the princess a shallow nod before returning to his own plate. If the khagan was set on ignoring him, grief or no … perhaps there were other avenues to convey information.
Other ways to gain support.
He glanced to Nesryn. She’d informed him when she’d returned before dinner that she’d had no luck seeking out Sartaq this morning. And now, with the prince seated across from them, sipping from his wine, Chaol found himself casually asking, “I heard that your legendary ruk, Kadara, is here, Prince.”
“Ghastly beast,” Hasar muttered halfheartedly into her okra, earning a half smile from Sartaq.
“Hasar is still sore that Kadara tried to eat her when they first met,” Sartaq confided.
Hasar rolled her eyes, though a glimmer of amusement shone there.
Kashin supplied from a few seats down, “You could hear her screeching from the harbor.”
To Chaol’s surprise, Nesryn asked, “The princess or the ruk?”
Sartaq laughed, a startled, bright sound, his cool eyes lighting. Hasar only gave Nesryn a warning look before turning to the vizier beside her.
Kashin grinned at Nesryn and whispered, “Both.”
A chuckle escaped Chaol’s throat, though he reined it in at Hasar’s glare. Nesryn smiled, inclining her head in good-willed apology to the princess.
Yet Sartaq watched them closely over the rim of his golden goblet. Chaol asked, “Are you able to fly Kadara much while you’re here?”
Sartaq didn’t miss a beat as he nodded. “As often as I can, usually near dawn. I was in the skies right after breakfast today, and returned just in time for dinner, thankfully.”
Hasar muttered to Nesryn without breaking from the vizier commanding her attention, “He’s never missed a meal in his life.”
Kashin barked a laugh that had even the khagan down the table glancing their way, Arghun scowling with disapproval. When had the royals last laughed since their sister’s passing? From the khagan’s tight face, perhaps a while.
But Sartaq tossed his long braid over a shoulder before patting the flat, firm stomach beneath his fine clothes. “Why do you think I come home so often, sister, if not for the good food?”
“To plot and scheme?” Hasar asked sweetly.
Sartaq’s smile turned subdued. “If only I had time for such things.”
A shadow seemed to pass over Sartaq’s face—and Chaol marked where the prince’s gaze drifted. The white banners still streamed from the windows set high in the walls of the hall, now caught in what was surely the heralding wind of a thunderstorm. A man who perhaps wished he’d possessed extra time for more vital parts of his life.
Nesryn asked a touch softly, “You fly every day, then, Prince?”
Sartaq dragged his stare from his youngest sister’s death-banners to assess Nesryn. More warrior than courtier, yet he nodded—in answer to an unspoken request. “I do, Captain.”
When Sartaq turned to respond to a question from Duva, Chaol exchanged a glance with Nesryn—all he needed to convey his order.
Be in the aerie at dawn. Find out where he stands in this war.
CHAPTER
10
A summer storm galloped in off the Narrow Sea just before midnight.
Even tucked into the sprawling library at the base of the Torre, Yrene felt every shudder of thunder. Occasional flashes of lightning sliced down the narrow corridors of the stacks and halls, chased by wind that crept through the cracks in the pale stone, guttering the candles in its wake. Most were shielded within glass lanterns, the books and scrolls too precious to risk open flame. But the wind found them in there, too—and set the glass lanterns hanging from the arched ceilings swinging and groaning.
Seated at an oak de
sk built into an alcove far from the brighter lights and busier areas of the library, Yrene watched the metal lantern dangling from the arch above her sway in that storm wind. Stars and crescent moons had been cut from its sides and filled with colored glass that cast splotches of blue and red and green on the stone wall before her. The splotches bobbed and dipped, a living sea of color.
Thunder cracked, so loud she flinched, the ancient chair beneath her creaking in objection.
A few feminine yelps answered it, then giggles.
Acolytes—studying late for their examinations next week.
Yrene huffed a laugh, mostly at herself, and shook her head as she focused again upon the texts Nousha had dug up for her hours ago.
Yrene and the Head Librarian had never been close, and Yrene was certainly not inclined to seek out the woman if she spotted her in the mess hall, but … Nousha was fluent in fifteen languages, some of them dead, and had trained at the famed Parvani Library on the western coast, nestled amid the lush and spice-rich lands outside Balruhn.
The City of Libraries, they called Balruhn. If the Torre Cesme was the domain of healers, the Parvani was the domain of knowledge. Even the great road that linked Balruhn to the mighty Sister-Road, the main artery through the continent that flowed from Antica all the way to Tigana, had been named for it: the Scholars’ Road.
Yrene didn’t know what had brought Nousha here all those decades ago, or what the Torre had offered her to stay, but she was an invaluable resource. And for all of her unsmiling nature, Nousha had always found Yrene the information she needed, no matter how outlandish the request.
Tonight, the woman had not looked pleased when Yrene had approached her in the mess hall, apologies falling from her lips for interrupting the librarian’s meal. Yrene might have waited until the morning, but she had lessons tomorrow, and Lord Westfall after that.
Nousha had met Yrene here after finishing her meal, and had listened, long fingers folded in front of her flowing gray robes, to Yrene’s story—and needs:
Information. Any she could find.
Wounds from demons. Wounds from dark magic. Wounds from unnatural sources. Wounds that left echoes but did not appear to continue to wreak havoc upon the victim. Wounds that left marks but no scar tissue.