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It’s the now that matters.
Quil hadn’t told Sirsha everything. She’d asked about Sufiyan having magic—not Quil—and he hadn’t volunteered the information.
After the vision of his father’s death, Quil didn’t comprehend the extent of his skill. It took the accidental leeching of other people’s memories and thoughts—a language tutor, a palace gardener—to understand his magic. It spoke to him—urging him to use it. So one day, he did—on his aunt.
She’d fallen into one of her darker moods. Nothing Quil said pulled her from it.
Take her thoughts, the magic had whispered.Then you will understand her.One moment, he was wishing he knew how to help. The next, he was neck-deep in her sorrow and regret, which threaded through his aunt’s mind like mold through a crop, spawned by the loss and heartache she’d experienced when he was a baby.
Quil couldn’t extract himself from her thoughts or memories. That day, she dwelt on one especially: one in which she stood with a slender, dark-haired man in a cave, breaking stone after stone with a club, before falling to the ground, moaning.I am unmade, she’d said.I am broken.
The prince had never seen his aunt lose control. Her pain was raw and visceral, and he knew in his marrow that she would hate that he’d witnessed the innermost sanctum of her heart. He couldn’t help her with what he’d learned. He couldn’t do anything but wish she didn’t carry such a weight.
After that, he vowed he’d never use his magic to read someone’s thoughts again. But memories were different. So many seemed to have a will of their own. Theywantedto be witnessed. Especially when filled with violence or pain. The older Quil got, the harder it was to resist their pull.
“Thank the bleeding skies,” Sufiyan muttered when the town came into view, his voice wrenching Quil from his brooding. “I need a hot meal. And a bath.”
“We shouldn’t stop,” Quil said. “It’s not safe.”
Arelia pulled her mount even with Quil’s. She’d persuaded Sufiyan tobuy her coveralls from a Devanese village they’d passed, along with a few basic tools, and her mood had been annoyingly buoyant. “Cousin, it’s late. We’re tired. We all need to bathe in something that’s not freezing river water. We haven’t seen a Sail in days.”
Quil looked up. Devan’s interior was a breadbasket for the Southern Continent, and thus ideal for invasion—if food and livestock were the goal. If the Kegari wanted this land, they could have taken it. But Arelia was right. They hadn’t seen a sky-rat since Jibaut.
“I know an inn.” Sirsha jerked her head toward a cobbled street on their right. “It’s busy enough that no one will notice us.”
She’d been quiet the last week too. Jumpy, forever looking behind them. Quil had scouted heavily, taking the most watches and ranging both behind and ahead. But with every day that passed, Sirsha seemed more ill at ease.
As she pulled ahead, Arelia watched her. “She’s not herself.”
“She’s used to working alone,” Quil said. “She doesn’t trust people easily. Nor does she like to be indebted to people. But now she has to fake a holy Jaduna bond with me so her sister doesn’t kill her. She’s depending on protection from someone she doesn’t much like. That would irritate anyone.”
“You’ve made quite the study of her.” Arelia lifted her eyebrows in interest. “But you’re wrong. Not about the frustration bit. That makes sense. About not liking you. She stares at you all the time.”
Quil’s skin tingled. He couldn’t tell whether it was a good feeling, or a bad one. “Because she’s thinking of ways to kill me?”
“Or she likes what she sees,” Arelia said. “The simplest answer is usually the right one, cousin.” She rode off, leaving Quil flummoxed and a little pleased.
The inn they stayed at that night was a sprawling stone structure with three separate wings and a common room with four fireplaces. Almost every table and room were taken, as it was the only lodging for fiftymiles. Left alone, Quil would have simply found a barn to sleep in.
Sirsha nixed that plan, and after a brief conversation between her and the bluff-faced innkeeper, they were seated beside the fire with two room keys, three roast chickens, and a pile of butter-soaked root vegetables in front of them.
“Your father was generous with his coin,” Sirsha said to Sufiyan’s admiring glance. “Probably because he felt uneasy about sending me to my death.”
Sufiyan shifted uncomfortably, exchanging a look with Quil, but Sirsha rolled her eyes and slapped Suf on the shoulder. “No hard feelings. We aren’t our parents, thank the skies. You’d know why that was a good thing if you ever met my mother.” She flashed a smile that made Quil’s chest lurch even as he glowered at Sufiyan for being the recipient of it.
Arelia frowned at Sirsha, equally irritated. Which was a surprise to Quil, since his cousin had sworn off men and women a few months ago, after a castle maid had broken her heart.
Sufiyan didn’t appear to notice. He raised his glass to the table. “To good friends on bad days.”
They dug in then, and after tearing through their meal, the four travelers huddled over a map that Arelia had stolen from Kade.
“It’ll take us three weeks to get to the border with Ankana,” Quil said. “Another to get to the capital—”
“Five weeks to the border,” Sirsha said. “Two more weeks to the capital. We can cut our journey in half if we take the highways.”
“Too dangerous,” Sufiyan said. “The Kegari will be scouting the roads. The map—”
“—doesn’t account for how bleeding long it takes to cut through the Thafwan jungle, which is crawling with bandits,” Sirsha said. “If you want to avoid the roads, it’s a seven-week journey. If we take the roads, three and a half, give or take a day.”
