Page 165 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“You’ve done no wrong,” the Viper said, laying the tray on the table. “But…” He trailed off, his hands fidgeting with one of the knives on the tray. Nore was surprised they’d been provided with real cutlery. If she were feeding one of Celestine’s prisoners, she wouldn’t have risked it.

“But?” she prompted.

Kier looked between the two of them. He turned away, chewing his lip, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d removed his armor at some point—another concession Nore did not think she would’ve made—and was dressed simply.

“I want you to tell me what it’s like,” he said. “On the mainland.”

Nore exchanged a glance with Caspian. It seemed impossible that Kier wouldn’t just know. “Surely, you’re aware of the unrest…” she started, but found herself without other words. “You haven’t… been… to Scaela? After the war?”

“My second-in-command accompanies Locke when duty calls her away from the Isle,” Kier said sharply. “But no. I have not left, and though I receive direct reports… Well. You know how slippery truth is, surely.”

Nore looked at Caspian, nodding for him to take the lead. Anything to do with magic would be more valuable coming from him.

Caspian cleared his throat. “The power is sometimes unstable,” he said finally. “Not like during the war—sometimes surges happen, and that’s worse.”

“Like the surge that wiped out half the Nestrian irrigation system over the winter,” Kier said, rubbing his eyes.

“It is not as bad as that, but the unrest is, and… the thought is, if Locke can be bound to the mainland, there will be a way to forge stability again.”

“But Locke is already bound to the mainland,” Nore said, scrabbling for pieces. “You two have committed your power to one another, right? So her power favors Scaela. That is not something she can undo, even if she wanted to.”

“And yet the power remains in flux,” Caspian said.

“Then there has to be something wrong, something deeper than I can understand,” Kier said, all in a rush. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t be admitting it.” He looked at Caspian. “But I heard… you know about magic. You’re Cleoc’s spy who could go between systems.”

Nore, too, looked at Caspian. She had the sense that the Viper didn’t trust her (for obvious reasons, probably), but perhaps he trusted Caspian enough to outweigh that.

What an odd shift that was.

“Why are you telling us this?” Nore asked. She couldn’t rule out the idea that the Viper was feeding them false information, hoping they would spread it.

The Viper studied her, then seemed to come to some decision. “Because I trust Cleoc,” he said. “And Cleoc knows the truth of the matter. If she sent Caspian to find secrets for Lindan, she knew what else he might uncover, and she knew that would not pose a risk to Grey or me.”

Nore turned that over. She had known that Cleoc and Locke were allies, but now she wondered if there was something closer than that.

“We’ve seen what it looks like on the mainland. But for Locke—does she feel any difference in the power?” Cas asked, coming closer. Nore moved to the corner of the room, to a chair by the bookshelf. She’d learned, both as a girl who was sometimes a servant and as a merchant, how to blend into the back of a room until someone could forget she was even there.

The Viper didn’t answer the question, and Nore wasn’t sure he was going to. He considered them both, then waved a hand to the tray. “Please,” he said. “Eat.”

Caspian regarded the food—some sort of stew, parceled into bowls, and thick slices of bread. He brought a bowl of it to Nore, and she busied herself with eating and remaining unobtrusive.

The Viper—Kier—took a seat by the fire. Caspian claimed a seat on the sofa. “You can sit with us instead of lurking in the corner,” Kier said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

Nore raised an eyebrow, but she brought her bowl over and settled on the sofa next to Cas, tucking her feet up under her.

“It’s nothing physical,” Kier said finally. “Not that we can tell. It started about half a year after we raised the Isle, maybe seven or eight months—since then, she’s suffered. The demands of controlling all Idistran power are just too much. It was more unstable at the start; if she found herself annoyed with Nestria one evening, our ambassador reported that the system was no longer strong enough to run passive castings. If Epras sent another suitor who insulted Grey over dinner, her frustration was enough to make their power flicker for weeks. She managed to get it under control for the most part—it takes a lot of focus and leads to headaches, fatigue, exhaustion… She can barely sleep, and still the power is far too attuned to her whims. But she is a person with feelings, and thoughts, and she cannot be the root of everything. And I thought—we both thought we would figure out how to fix it, but the longer it goes, the more she takes on… She can’t continue like this, shouldering everything.

“We didn’t realize how dangerous it could be until Wintertide—Grey fell ill, and it was like everything just collapsed. We can’t let something like that happen again.”

“Does anyone else know?” Caspian asked. “Of course, we heard suspicions, but nothing actively confirmed the tenuous nature of her power.”

“Cleoc, to a degree. Scaelas knows more—he was a friend of her mother’s, so we went to him first to find out if this was a usual affliction for the Isle’s sovereign.”

“And is it?” Nore asked.

“No,” Kier said shortly. “I was hoping that you had heard something about magic. That you could help.”

They exchanged a glance. “We have some theories,” Nore said finally. “We were hoping to discuss them with the High Lady.”