Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
EVIE
“ N othing?” I asked, disbelieving.
“Nothing.” Goose bowed his head between his shoulders, slim arms resting on the kitchen table, a mayhem of pages and books in front of him. Mounting them all was the scroll from The Postman, with the angry red symbol, which he took everywhere with him nowadays, scared it might vanish like the others. “No mention of exactly who created it, what energy it needs, exactly how it works. Nothing.”
I frowned. “We do know the symbols are Quorilith and ancient Northern.”
“Its exact origin is very important.” He sounded exhausted, poor thing. “I went through all the civilian libraries in the Capital. I read your library books. I looked everywhere in the Archives. If there was ever a trace of it anywhere in this city, it’s been removed.”
My leather armor creaked as I let out a long sigh.
I’d been wearing the leathers more and more, growing weary with each passing day. The restless sleep didn’t help. For the past few days, he and I kept missing each other in our dreams. Through the bond, I felt him spending his nights lost in concentration and tension, catching a few hours of sleep during the day, when it was my turn to stress and scheme.
The bond was becoming restless, affecting my focus.
Even now, I caught myself touching one of the blood vials attached to my armor.
His blood.
I dropped my hand quickly and cleared my throat. “Someone has scrubbed the city clean of any incriminating evidence, it seems.”
“I’m sorry.” Goose finally looked at me. Dark circles clung to his eyes. “I failed.”
“You didn’t fail, Goose. The odds were stacked against us to begin with.” I bit down on my lower lip. I had such high hopes. “Really nothing?”
“All we could figure out is that only someone who knows its true meaning can use it. I suspect you need a specific incantation, but there’s no trace of it. That’s it. So basically nothing of use.”
“So if you or I write it down…” I tilted my head to the side, the spark of opportunity crackling at my senses.
“We’ll just have a really nasty symbol looking back at us. Nothing will happen. Nothing ,” he muttered, as if talking to himself.
“You did your best, Goose. Thank you.”
“I didn’t, though. I didn’t crack this alphabet–”
“This ancient alphabet which hasn’t been seen or heard in this generation.”
“I’m just–” Goose fisted his palms against the wood. This was the first time I’d seen even a hint of anger on his freckled face. “Warriors are dying on the battlefield to protect this Clan. You’re risking your life to take down the advisors. And I can’t even decode words on paper.”
“Goose,” I said in a pacifying tone. There was enough chaos, I didn’t want him fighting with himself. “You’re studying and taking care of a home. You have a stew bubbling on the stove as we speak, and it smells so good even I might be tempted to eat it. And you did start to decode the Quorilith scrolls and likely would have uncovered their true meaning if they hadn’t been stolen.”
He nodded, but didn’t seem the least bit convinced. He finally looked my way from the corner of his eyes, as if he couldn’t quite meet my stare.
“You know I didn’t figure it out?” he muttered. “Leesa finally told me last night that she’d sensed something was wrong on the day of your wedding. She thought she was crazy, but she was right. She sensed it, I didn’t. I didn’t see the danger.”
My heart gave a painful thump. “I didn’t either and I was the one it happened to.”
“You were in love, you don’t know our Blood Brotherhood ways, you had just survived a kidnapping. I’ve lived here all my life, always under the advisors’ reign.” He ran a tired hand down his face. “Leesa is still hurting after what the advisors did to her family. I remember her being avoided by the children at school, ignored by the teachers. She had to go to the other end of Malhaven to have a chance to make something of herself.”
“I’m sorry that happened to Leesa and we will fix this, so nobody else has to suffer the same way. But you can’t let that weight rest on your heart until then.”
“I can’t.” He rubbed his temples. “I hear Anya playing in the garden and I remember she almost died weeks ago. When I close my eyes, I still see that woman who looked like you, who’s disintegrating somewhere in Phoenix Peak. I bring food to the civilians and I see the mothers only taking enough to feed their children, too afraid to ask for more. Wherever I look, I see the advisors’ interference. Maybe the kids who used to push me in the sand were right. Lil’ Goosey is too sensitive. A lot of them became guards, go figure.”
“Bullies attract other bullies, and Banu and Valuta are the worst.”
“All these things happen around me and I’m not making the smallest difference. I’m as important as the onion peels I haven’t swept off the kitchen floor yet.” He turned fully to me, eyes red with exhaustion and anguish. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll bring them down.”
I stood there, lips parted, no sound coming out. This was the most solemn I’d seen Goose, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. How could I tell him the advisors might bring me down before I had a chance? “The advisors will fall, this I can guarantee you.”
Perhaps I wouldn’t be the one to do it, but I’d rock their foundation enough for someone else to kick them off it.
This I swore.
Goose nodded, satisfied. Then he released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m so tired.”
“It’s okay, we’re all drained. You’ve done so much.” I laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Now I need you to promise me something.”
“Of course.” he said earnestly.
“ Never think you are not important. Don’t let the small minds from your youth affect your big, bright future. You’re awesome, Goose, and you’ve already done so much. Whether they could see it or not, you’re the one who needs to believe it.”
“Thanks.” His cheeks colored and he averted his gaze, but he nodded all the same. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” I nodded at the stack of pages and books. “Put these somewhere safe. I have a feeling we’ll need them again very soon.”
“Will do.” Goose sighed again, then lit up as the crackles in the oven echoed louder. “You said something about eating the stew this time, right?”
Goose didn’t let me leave his kitchen without three healthy spoonfuls of stew and a glass of lemonade. To my credit, I didn’t gag once. Maybe my appetite truly was returning.
“Food’s ready,” I called out as I walked up the steps into the courtyard, finally more stable on my feet. My damn toes still felt off, but now I could stand for more than five minutes without pain.
My front garden was littered with holes and trenches, ranging in size and depth. Owyn was digging one of the last, next to the right wing of the house, sweat on his brow.
“Do we have cake, too?” Anya popped out of one of the shallower holes, wearing an upside-down bowl as a helmet, plump cheeks stained with tracks of dirt.
It was impossible not to laugh. Seeing her childish wonder chased away some of the strain from my shoulders. “We have vegetable stew and it’s really yummy.”
She pouted. “No cake?”
“Not today.” And not until the war ended. Goose still had one jar of cherry jam tucked away in the kitchen basement, but he was saving that for Anya’s birthday.
“You need to wash your hands first.” Leesa popped out of the same hole, somehow looking even funnier than Anya with a paper pirate hat pinned tightly to her curls. “Actually, both of us need to.”
I raised my brows at her, and she replied sheepishly, “She couldn’t find Adara to play with and she was really sad.”
“I’m a guard, just like pa-pa,” Anya declared happily as she and Leesa clambered out of the hole and raced to the kitchen.
“Yes, you’re very fearsome. Careful on the stairs!” I called after her.
With one last smile, I approached Owyn, who hadn’t stopped digging for a second.
“Your daughter is very cute,” I said.
“She is the best thing the gods have ever blessed me with.” A hint of a smile cracked the concentration on his face. “But I’d rather saw off my own arms than let her become a guard. Let that mistake die with me.”
“Not all the guards are heinous. You obviously aren’t.” I cleared my voice. “One of them opened the gates on that night I saved you. Nylen?”
“Don’t know him. Must be my replacement.”
“He didn’t seem high ranking.”
Owyn shook his head, not stopping his digging for a second. “Phoenix Peak needs to have a thousand guards exactly, at all times. Legend says the citadel will crumble if even one is missing. That’s one rule Banu and Valuta actually abide by, shockingly.”
“A thousand? But there’s another new recruit, a young boy named Loryk. Have any other guards left?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Who makes sure there are exactly a thousand?”
“The Senate of Sages.” He gave me a pointed look.
“So there can be more,” I whispered, horrified. “Hundreds more.”
Owyn nodded. “Hidden very well, but yes. I suspect Banu and Valuta are recruiting all the desperate and misguided souls they can find, and their friends in the Senate won’t stop them. I might be wrong, though. I haven’t talked to anyone outside this house since I came to stay here.” The lines of his face tightened. “Some consider me a traitor, I’m sure.”
“Do you?”
“They tried to kill my daughter,” Owyn said darkly. “They can go to Xamor.”
“Do you have any friends left in those ranks?” I asked hopefully. “People you truly trust.”
“No.” Owyn sighed. “Your Highness–”
“Evie.”
“ Your Highness ,” he said gravely. “I can build anything and need the gold, so I agreed to build your weird garden. I appreciate you and your friends housing me and Anya, and that you’re looking after her. But don’t force me to speak to the people who swore to protect me in a fight and then stood by as the flames swallowed us.”
I frowned. Nylen hadn’t. “I can’t force you to do anything.”
“You can,” Owyn said calmly. “You’re part of the royal family.”
“I don’t intend to be that kind of royal,” I said, swallowing my sigh of disappointment. Information from within the guard ranks would have been golden. But if Owyn wasn’t willing to do it…
Out of the corner of my eyes, I spied Adara slowly creeping through the gate, checking the garden.
When she didn’t see a sign of Anya, she sprinted toward me. “I have something for you.”
“Adara, honestly.” I rolled my eyes. “Anya’s not going to bite you.”
“Give me that in writing and we’ll talk.”
“The general is right to stay away,” Owyn said, surprising us. “Her duty is to protect you. If she gets attached to a child, she might hesitate.”
“I’m not afraid of liking her,” Adara said imperiously. “And I’m not the general anymore.”
Owyn shrugged. “My respect doesn’t vanish with your title. You’ll be my general until the day I die.”
Adara could protest all she wanted, but Owyn was half right. It was obvious she was avoiding little Anya to protect that implacable heart of hers.
But I kept my mouth shut for once. “You wanted to tell me something?”
“Give you something.” She crossed her arms behind her back. “Good news or bad first?”
What now? “Let’s get the bad out of the way first.”
Adara handed me a parchment I’d been dreading to see again.
The mysterious pamphlet had been delivered once more.
The Lost Daughter Tosses Her Leftovers Over The Gates and Expects Us To Be Grateful
The second wife of the Crown Prince has once again made a questionable decision. Because of the war, we’ve all had to suffer through a shortage of supplies. Worst of all, our food rations have been restricted, despite esteemed Banu and Valuta’s best efforts to mitigate the problem. The advisors should consider a firmer presence in the Capital streets while The Dragon is gone, which would definitely help the civilians’ morale.
There is no more steel to be found in the Capital–unless we start yanking out the nails in the floorboards. The granaries are almost empty and even the fishermen bring in fewer catches each day.
And what does the Lost Daughter do to combat this and help us? She had the Protectorate audacity to give the civilians whatever dregs of grub she found while cleaning her cupboards and pretended it was all some grand act of kindness on her part.
If you had the misfortune of being tricked into accepting her leftovers, do NOT consume them, and stay away from any such suspicious offering in the future. Some concerned civilians, who chose to remain anonymous, have reported the food is rotten and has such a foul taste, it’s safe to wonder if she poisoned it before–
“Goose can’t know about this.” My blue tendrils shot out, incinerating the scrap of garbage. “His cooking is excellent.”
“I’m more concerned about the suggestion that you’re trying to poison the civilians than a slight on Goose’s cooking,” Adara said. “Few will accept food from you now. Or any of us, they know we’re your people.”
I let the soft breeze carry the ash from between my fingers, not moving. I was sick and tired of trying to help, only to be smacked down for it.
No matter what I did, the advisors twisted it masterfully. With the way they bent the truth to their benefit and struck where least expected, it was no wonder they’d risen so high up in the Clan hierarchy.
“If Banu and Valuta spent as much time actually helping the civilians as they do trying to ruin me in their eyes, the city wouldn’t be facing these problems,” I said.
“They need a villain to pin these problems on. You’re it,” Adara said. “You need to fight these rumors before they grow bolder.”
“People are smart enough not to believe these lies,” I said.
Adara and Owyn exchanged a look, but remained silent.
“Let’s hope everything goes according to plan.” I sighed. “You mentioned good news?”
Adara handed me a crimson letter which had an expensive weight to it. I ripped it open, eyes flying over the words which had been rather crudely and hastily written.
“Adara.” I grabbed her shoulder, still staring at the letter. “It worked!”
The shipment will arrive in a week. Bring the payment at dawn. Nobody can know.
Simple.
Unassuming.
Lying.
Exactly what I’d expected from Petrylla. May the gods bless her child and give it more grace than its parents.
“Guess I have my own letter to send out now,” Adara said. It might’ve been my imagination, but she sounded excited.
“And I need to speak with Dara as soon as possible. If this goes wrong, we’re screwed.” I gingerly folded the letter. It might prove useful in the future. “Owyn, you said you can build anything, right?”
He frowned and finally stopped digging. “Yes?”
My smile grew brighter than the sun. Finally, something was going our way. “I need some special crates.”