36. Kira
Chapter 36
Kira
WE NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING
T here was frost on the cobblestones in the main courtyard this morning.
It’s gone now, washed away by the constant gray rain beating at the whitewashed walls of the Towers, but it crunched under my boots this morning. I glance out of the window and through the veil of rain to the Barrier Mountains. The peak of Victory Mountain glistens with snow. Soon, all the foothills will wear that white shawl.
The Daggers are smaller than the Barriers, and further south. Still, it won’t be long until they get their first snowfall. A shiver runs up my arms as I picture snow drifting around the windows of the little cabin, Xavier the cat curled in the window and watching it fall.
At least they’re safe, Reznyk and Xavier. At least the Towers will leave them alone now that they have the amulet. At least I gave him that.
“Kira?” a voice calls at the door. “Are you there?”
Because no one is here to see it, I roll my eyes as dramatically as I want. Gods above, I could lock myself in the outhouse and Benja would still find me.
“I’m here,” I say.
I pick up the sharpening stone from the bench beside me and make a half-hearted attempt to run it along the dull edge of the dagger on my lap. Not that I think Benja will make a fuss about the fact that I clearly shut myself in the armory closet in an attempt to find some privacy.
The door creaks open. The torch on the wall flickers with the push of wind from the courtyard. Benja gives me his usual hesitant smile. Benja’s a decent guy, friendly and approachable without pushing too hard, and he’s fairly easy on the eyes. He’s probably interested in me, and I should probably be interested in him too. But his dark hair reminds me of someone else, and that hesitant smile only makes me think of another smile that was like the edge of a blade winking in the darkness.
Godsdamn it, what is wrong with me? I shake my head, put the sharpening stone back down, and try to look normal. Benja doesn’t push or ask what’s going on, which is very decent of him. I should find it attractive, just like I used to. Before something broke inside of me, and now I can’t seem to get the pieces of my old life to fit back the same way.
“It’s always the same message, isn’t it?” Benja says.
“What?” I reply.
I’ve spent the past month feeling like I’m ten heartbeats late to every conversation around me. Still, that was especially confusing.
“I mean, the message I have for you,” Benja continues. “It’s always the same.”
“What message?” I ask.
Benja winces slightly. “Fyrris wants to see you.”
“What?” I say again, as a chill twists inside my chest. “Why?”
“You really think he’d tell me?” Benja asks.
I shut my mouth. No, of course Benja wouldn’t know. We’re only Guards, after all. I put the dull dagger back on its rack and set the sharpening stone in its cradle as my heart knocks around inside my chest.
“Same place?” I ask Benja.
He nods. “You want me to walk you there?”
I shake my head. I’m a Guard; I don’t need an escort. I try to turn away before I meet Benja’s eyes, but I don’t quite make it. He gives me a look like he’s not quite sure who I am anymore, or like the person who came back wearing Kira’s body is a total stranger.
Hells, I can’t blame him. I feel like that too.
The main courtyard is empty, filled only with rain and shadows. The sound of murmured conversation flows out of the open doors to the dining hall, making me realize how late it must be. I wasted the entire afternoon in that armory closet, staring through the window and wondering if leaving the Towers in a coffin would really be worse than living here right now.
I hunch my shoulders against the rain and walk past the sad little door to the Archives without giving it a second glance. I haven’t been back there since that woman in the white robe told me the truth about my worthless lineage. Why would I? My parents weren’t Exemplars. There won’t be any records about me in those dusty rooms.
I’m nobody. Nothing.
I shiver as I enter the same cold hallway Benja brought me to before I left Silver City with Tholious and the mercenaries. No one has lit the torches in here yet. The hall is filled with the early gloom of the rain. It gives the place a strangely solemn air. I walk quietly, as if I’m trying not to disturb the peace. Ahead of me, an open door spills its golden light across the polished stone floor. Something flutters inside my chest. It takes me a minute to recognize the feeling.
It’s fear. I’m afraid.
Great. The first thing I’ve felt in days, maybe weeks, and it’s fear. I feel like smacking myself across the face, but that would be awfully loud.
“—all these weeks. I cannot believe it’s useless without him,” a voice rumbles from inside the room. “After everything we put into crafting the nightmare steel. It should have absorbed all the old god’s magic.”
I freeze. Fear tugs at the skin on the back of my neck.
“Well, we don’t have much choice,” a woman replies.
My heart stops. That voice belongs to the woman who was in the room with Fyrris when I arrived. The one who shattered my entire world with one sentence. You’re one of Lord Castinac’s many bastards.
“If it won’t work without him,” the woman’s voice continues, “then we need to capture him. Just like I’ve been saying. He can make it work again, I’m sure. With enough persuasion.”
They’re talking about Reznyk. They have to be. I force myself to breathe as my pulse hammers at my temples. The man makes a murmur of assent.
“Of course,” he says. “And we know what he wants.”
Feast day fireworks explode inside my skull. Capture him? Gods, no.
Reznyk is safe in the Daggers. I took the only thing he had, and I brought it here. There’s nothing the Towers would want from him anymore.
But I think of Reznyk holding my broken ankle in his hands and making the pain vanish. I remember golden sparks swirling around us when we made love, like the stars themselves fell from the sky to dance for us.
The magic the Towers want was never in the amulet. Godsdamn it, the magic is in him.
Somehow, I manage to put one foot in front of the other until I’m standing in the pool of light spilling through the open door. And I clear my throat. Loudly.
“Kira,” Fyrris announces, from the other end of the long, polished table in the middle of the room. “Enter.”
There’s a scattering of parchment spread across the table. It appears to be building plans and layouts. I try not to stare too hard at any one thing as I make my way to the same chair I sat down in twice before.
“Where are the rest of them?” the woman asks.
I blink as my mind stumbles over possible answers to that strange question.
“Coming from further away, of course,” Fyrris replies. There’s a cold edge to his voice. Once again, I decide the two of them don’t get along.
Fyrris slides a piece of parchment across the table toward me. The parchment has been divided into four equal partitions with ebony ink and notes scratched along the edge.
“Do you know what this is?” Fyrris asks.
I frown as I weigh my various options. I manage not to say a piece of parchment , a rectangle , or fuck you, you’re a godsdamned monster . The woman makes a little snorting sound.
“Tholious told us about the fortress where you found the Godkiller,” Fyrris continues, ignoring the woman. “We need you to confirm a few details.”
“Of course,” I whisper.
“And you said you found the amulet in a garden?” Fyrris says.
Panic flares inside my mind like lightning flashing across a thundercloud. I look down at my hands as my cheeks burn. The woman makes another snorting sound.
“Kira Silver,” Fyrris says, in a voice that’s probably supposed to be reassuring. “It’s very important you tell us exactly what happened.”
“There’s more to it than the amulet,” the woman adds. “That man, Reznyk, he did more than kill an old god. Somehow, he took the amulet, our amulet, and he ruined it. It no longer works the way it’s supposed to.”
I glance up. They’re both staring at me in a way that makes me want to shrink into the chair.
“We need to know everything,” Fyrris says.
My breath catches. Everything? Reznyk’s smile dances through my mind, the way the wind lifts his hair, the way his dark eyes dance in the sun. The feel of his lips. The sound of his laughter. The scars across his chest.
And the answer comes to me.
I blink, then wipe my sleeve across my face like I’m embarrassed. And I am, but not for the reasons they’ll assume.
They want a story about the amulet? One that makes Reznyk a villain and the Towers the heroes? One that will scare them away from his lonely little cabin in the Daggers?
Well, of course they do. And if I do that, if I tell them what they want to hear, they’ll forget about me. I’ve only ever been a means to an end for them. I keep my mouth shut, do my job, and I’m invisible.
And if I’m invisible, perhaps I can just walk through those open gates. I lean forward and take a deep breath.
I’m going to tell them everything they want to hear.