Chapter 29
After the conversation with Hector, I was desperate to speak with Kallen.
I sent a note asking him to go spying with me, rather than sparring, and he replied, saying he’d heard a rumor that construction was happening late at night in the cavern where state dinners were held, and he wanted to know what Imogen was up to.
I’d hoped to bring up the changelings, but once we were in the catacombs, he launched straight into a discussion of military matters: how Fire and Void were running drills together, which young faeries he thought showed the most potential—Edric had apparently impressed everyone enough to gain leadership of a squadron—and which of my new house members might be able to fight in our combined army.
He was rarely this talkative, and I wondered if he was nervous about the conversation he must know was coming.
“The Illusion army is also training heavily,” Kallen said as we walked side by side. “Imogen tasked Ulric with getting them up to standard. I heard he’s brought Torin in to consult.”
I grimaced. “That doesn’t bode well. Doesn’t he oversee the Sun Soldiers?”
“Yes, but he’s not going to overcome hundreds of years of benign neglect in a month.
And Torin’s expertise is tailored to what the Sun Soldiers are best at, which is ambushes and targeted strikes.
He’ll make the Illusion troops stronger and more disciplined, but he’s not an expert in pitched warfare. ”
The corridor narrowed, and the floor grew uneven. I braced one hand against the damp wall, stepping carefully. “I assume the Light army also started training?”
He gave me an ironic look. “They never stopped.”
“I worry Gweneira is losing ground in Light House,” I admitted.
“Lara says they nearly poisoned her a second time.” We’d learned the poison in her drink paralyzed the heart and lungs.
It had a slow onset, but after the first symptoms appeared—a lagging heartbeat, labored breaths—death would follow within thirty minutes.
Kallen’s arm brushed mine as the narrowing passage pushed us closer together.
“She’s not going to win,” he said bluntly.
“It was a nice thought, but she still only has the loyalty of a third of the house, and the Accord is ending in just over two weeks. It’s only a matter of time before one of their assassination attempts succeeds. ”
I had come to like Gweneira. More importantly, Lara liked her, even though she supported Drustan. I rarely saw her so engaged as when she was discussing Gweneira’s books or Gweneira’s insights or some conversation they’d had at a party.
I frowned, a sudden suspicion forming. Lara talked about Gweneira a lot .
My toes caught the edge of an uneven paver. I lurched forward, but Kallen’s arm was already wrapping around my waist, yanking me back against his chest. It took a few moments to get my feet under me again.
“All right?” he whispered.
I was pressed against him so closely I felt the rise and fall of his breathing. I gripped the forearm banding my waist, then nodded. “Fine. Thank you.”
I didn’t let go of his arm, though. He didn’t move, either.
The seconds stretched out, and the silence between us began to feel heavy. I was too aware of the muscles beneath my fingers and the subtle, delicious scent that clung to him.
It felt far too good to be held by him.
He abruptly let me go. “Careful with your footing. It’s uneven up ahead, too.”
He could see in the dark, I remembered. My perception was limited to the pool of light cast by the key, but he could look into the deepest black of the catacombs.
I used the treacherous footing as an excuse to keep my head down in case I was blushing. “So, the cavern,” I said, changing the subject with as little grace as I’d exhibited walking. “Do you think Imogen’s doing something nefarious? She might just be redecorating it to her taste.”
Kallen didn’t seem flustered by the interlude that had passed between us, but he rarely seemed flustered by anything. “I worry what her taste involves,” he said, falling into step beside me as if we’d never stopped.
“She likes pink.”
“So long as she doesn’t like boiling oil to go with it.”
That got me to look at him again. The key’s light bounced off his features, highlighting his cheekbone and the sharp edge of his jaw. He didn’t look like he was joking, but it was hard to tell with Kallen. “Boiling oil?”
“An old defensive technique. It’s hard to mount a frontal assault when that’s pouring down on you.
” He angled his face towards me so the light caught the rest of it, and I was struck once again by how beautiful he was.
The lines of his features were so precise they were nearly severe, but his eyes seemed deep enough to drown in.
Stop it , I told myself. Stop thinking like that.
“Don’t humans do that, too?” he asked.
“Do what?” I’d lost track of the conversation.
“Boiling oil. I’ve heard of it being used in castles under siege.”
He was talking about murdering people, and I was thinking about how pretty his eyes looked. “I didn’t live in a castle,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “I lived in a one-room hut, selling peat bricks and bog trash for a living.”
Despite the harsh words, wistfulness drifted through me for that lost place. I could picture it so clearly: the dried herbs hanging from the rafters, the scarred wooden table, the sunlight spilling through warped window glass.
“Will you tell me about it?” he asked.
I laughed uncomfortably. “About my hut? It was hardly up to the standards of the Fae.”
“About where you came from. What you miss.”
It was a melancholy question, and I wondered at the shift to discussing something so personal. Maybe it had something to do with the conversation we both knew was coming. A vulnerability for a vulnerability, a piece of me for a piece of him.
“I was not well loved in my village,” I said.
“It was an unkind place a lot of the time. Small-minded people who didn’t like a girl wearing trousers, devout people who cared more about the distant Fae than their own neighbors.
Most of us lived one meal to the next, and a single bad harvest or a single illness could spell ruin. ”
I was starting this all wrong. He’d asked what I missed, and here I was telling him everything I didn’t.
But it was possible to hate something and love it, too.
Maybe that was required of the places where we grew up.
We had to point at something and say, “That’s where I used to be,” to tell ourselves why the place we were now was so much better.
“It was pretty, though, in its rough way,” I continued.
“Everything was a little crooked—the houses, the market stalls, the chimneys. Like some giant had picked the whole town up and set it down too hard.” I smiled, thinking of those rows of tilted chimneys coiling smoke into the dawn sky.
“And the area around it was beautiful. There were moors to the east and a forest to the south and mountains lining the horizon to the west. And to the north was the bog.” Wistfulness caught in my throat.
“I loved that bog, awful as it was. It stank in places, and it was dangerous, and one of the worst nights of my life happened there, but there was also so much wonder to it. We lived at the edge, and I used to go fishing there at dawn, pulling up trinkets people dropped a long time ago.”
“We,” he said, eyes steady on my face. “You said we lived at the edge.”
Our steps had slowed, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to rush, and neither did I anymore.
I was caught up in memories: summer sunshine on my face and icy winter rain splatting against the flagstones, the scent of peat smoke, the pink-and-gold slice of sunrise across the horizon.
Warm, calloused hands holding mine, blue eyes smiling down at me.
“My mother and I.” My throat felt even thicker now.
“She was an herbworker, and her fingers were always stained yellow and green. She had the nicest laugh, but she always covered it with her hand like she was embarrassed. And she fought so hard.” For us, for her health, for the dreams that had turned to ash before she’d had much time to dream them at all.
The pathway branched ahead. The right turning would take us to Earth House, the left in the direction of the cavern. “Turn left,” I said, grateful for a moment to compose myself.
I was chewing over words, wondering what else to tell him, when Kallen spoke. “I like hearing about your past.”
“You do?”
“It’s nice to imagine the world through your eyes.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Maybe not.” He looked sad now. “What happened to your mother?”
My breath felt sharp in my chest. “She died. She got sick, and it took a long time.” There was no reason to tell him the rest of it, but I found myself confessing anyway. “She begged the Fae for mercy in her last moments.”
Kallen was quiet for a while. “I’m sorry, Kenna.”
The simple statement nestled quietly into my heart. He wasn’t offering me philosophy or comfort or clever words. Kallen was sorry she was dead and sorry for how and sorry that the Fae hadn’t helped.
“Thank you,” I said, fighting back tears. “I don’t think anyone’s said that to me in a long time.”
The spy holes overlooking the cavern were narrow cracks in the rock, just wide enough to fit the head of an arrow through.
I squinted at the Illusion and Light servants bustling around below.
Some were erecting lattices covered in pink and yellow flowers on either side of the dais, while others used long poles to hang banners from hooks screwed into the walls.
The violet fabric held a sigil I was unfamiliar with but could guess the significance of: a silver crown over a rearing unicorn, surrounded by flowers.
The fringe at the bottom was the color of a blushing rose.
“Pink,” I whispered to Kallen, stepping back to let him take a turn. “Not boiling oil.”
He bent slightly to peer through the gap. “Not yet, anyway.”