Chapter 34 Kasira #2
The quakes had been a part of her life in Kalthos for years, and though they had grown more frequent recently, she had dismissed them in favor of more immediate problems like surviving the day.
Even when Allaster told her about the impact beast hunting was having on the world, Kasira had thought it a distant problem, something for the Assistant who came after her to worry about.
But if she succeeded at the Conclave and left with her freedom, the next Librarian would still be Kalish, and they would only make the problem worse.
“He’s only supposed to get a handful of those a day, not an entire bucket.”
Kasira looked up to find Allaster watching them impassively from outside the pen. It had only been a few hours since they saw each other last, but he looked twice as haggard, leaning against the railing as if it were the only thing holding him up.
She glanced into the empty pail as Gievra cleaned one paw in satisfaction. Shrugging, she sent the bucket back to the shed with a snap of her fingers. “Some days you need a bucket. You should try it.”
“That would require me to have an appetite,” he muttered. “Are you ready?”
Kasira gestured to the pasture. “I thought we might stay here instead. We can keep an eye on the portal room through the magic.” For that was how they had laid their trap: By announcing to the council that Allaster intended to get Thane dismissed, they had provided the spy with news to share with Vera.
If their plan progressed, they would catch the culprit delivering it through the portal room door, which they were most likely to do after everyone had retired for the evening.
Allaster frowned but sat down beside her in the paddock. “Remind me again why this requires both of us.”
“It doesn’t, but seeing as you don’t trust me, I want to be sure you witness this for yourself,” she explained. “And seeing as you’ve never run a con before, I’m here to make sure you don’t ruin it.”
“How hard can it really be?”
She raised an eyebrow with an amused scoff. “Tell me a lie.”
A faint blush rose in his cheeks, softening the edges of his face. “It’s not—I don’t mean—”
“You can’t.” A smile curved her lips, then faded. “Most people can’t. They feel guilty or foolish or obvious, and they usually are the latter.”
Allaster’s gaze shifted from her, his fingers curling in the long grass.
It was nearly as blatant a tell as the way he spun his rings.
Her words had touched on something, something he wasn’t going to share with her.
A wall existed around the Librarian, one nearly as thick as her own.
Most of the mages she had spoken to remembered a very different man before Mora’s death.
One every bit as forthright and studious, but who didn’t spurn the company of others.
This Allaster had become a stranger to them, and he didn’t even seem to realize it.
“Tell me how you do it,” he said without looking at her.
“What?”
“Lie like that.”
She laughed, leaning back on her hands. “Why? Thinking of running your own game?”
When Allaster failed to share her amusement, she sobered.
Loraya and Thane had always been the ones instructing her.
She had never had to teach someone else, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to tell him.
It wasn’t that she thought he would turn the skill against her; only that, with him, she liked knowing she only ever got the truth, even if she had to work for it.
But despite his mood, this felt like Allaster was … trying.
“The first question you always ask yourself is, what does your mark want?” she explained.
“Take the Kalish King, for example. He wants to eliminate threats to his power. It’s why he’s marrying his son to the Yadora heir: so that they become allies instead of rivals.
If you show him how the imbalance of magic will impact his grip on the throne, he’ll be more inclined to listen to you. ”
“That sounds like a good argument, not an elaborate scheme.”
She shrugged. “A lot of cons are about convincing your target to give you what you want by giving them what they want. Not all of them end with your mark losing.”
“Like you did to me,” he noted. “You wanted to become Assistant Librarian, so you gave me the Assistant you thought I wanted.”
“Was I wrong?” She tilted her head.
Allaster was quiet for so long she didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally spoke, she didn’t know if his words were for her or himself. “No one should have to live like that.”
Her initial reaction was to defend what she was, to say she hadn’t been forced into anything.
She liked the thrill, the challenge, liked pitting her wits against another’s, and unpacking each mark like a puzzle to be pieced together.
But if she’d had the chance, would she have chosen this life?
If she had truly been born Eirlana Corynth, who would she have become?
May would say she had been destined for the Library. Loraya would tell her their lives were theirs to live, and they could do anything. Thane would laugh and say she was what she made herself and nothing more. Kasira didn’t know what she believed.
If life dealt in destinies, what did hers say about her? A girl fated to tell lie after lie until the truth became a distant memory.
And if the world was truly open to her like Loraya had believed, then what was she doing here, betraying Allaster with every breath?
Perhaps, in the end, all a person really had was the choices they made. Perhaps the most elaborate con of all was believing you could be anything more than what the world made you.
“I became what people wanted of me because who I am has never been enough,” she said quietly, thinking of Revna, of the husk she had become. “Not if I wanted to survive.”
That was why this mattered to her so much, why she was willing to betray her own heart to do it. Because if she succeeded, if she finally earned her freedom, for the first time, her life would be hers to control. She could be whoever she wanted.
She could live.
A soft brush against her hand surprised her, and she looked down to see Allaster’s finger against her own.
Truth, she thought, the word more painful than ever before.
Then he sat forward abruptly. “Someone’s there,” he said at the same moment that she detected a shift in the magic. “It’s—no. It can’t be.”
I’m sorry, she thought, and they both snapped their fingers.
Kasira sought the person in the portal room so that when she appeared, she barreled straight into them. Elyae shoved her off with a sound of surprise, looking between her and Allaster in confused alarm. It was Allaster’s anguished expression that struck her though.
“Elyae,” he bit out. “What are you doing in here?”
The girl swallowed hard, but for all she had tried to outmaneuver Kasira, she didn’t have the same ability to lie. “I was meeting someone. They promised me information on Kasira.”
“You had information for them, more like,” Kasira cut in. “Who’s your contact? Were you on your way to Kalthos, or were you just going to send a message?”
“What are you talking about?” Elyae recoiled, seeming to realize there was something larger at play here. “Is this about me being a spy again? It’s not true!”
Allaster was quiet, and Kasira took the chance to swoop forward and pluck free the paper she had planted in Elyae’s pocket when she’d appeared.
She opened the note and read, “Allaster intends to get Thane dismissed, even if he must orchestrate it himself. He’s instructed the others to keep an eye on Thane. Should I do anything?”
Elyae snatched the paper from Kasira. “I didn’t write this. I wasn’t going to—I don’t—” Her face ran through a complicated array of expressions, settling at last on indignant rage.
“You,” she hissed at Kasira. “This is your doing!” She lunged, but Allaster caught her around the middle and spun her back toward the wall.
Elyae rolled off it, her dark eyes flashing. “She is a liar and a fake, Allaster. She conned her way into her position. She doesn’t deserve it!”
“But you do?” Kasira closed the distance between them. “Is that what the Kalish promised you if you spied for them? The position of Assistant Librarian?”
Something close to laughter spilled across Elyae’s face, and she looked to Allaster, whose expression was marble-still. “And you?” she asked hoarsely. “Do you believe this too?”
Allaster closed his eyes for a brief moment before he replied, “I believe you were asked a question.”
Elyae’s mouth snapped shut, and she turned with a yell, driving her fist into the wall. It fractured in a spiderweb of cracks, her knuckles leaving smears of blood in their wake. Allaster slid in front of her before she could strike again.
“Elyae, please—” he began, but her laughter rose over him.
“I should have known better.” Her voice pitched. “I defended you when the others criticized you, but you don’t care about any of us anymore. You barely show your face except to deal with her.”
“Is that what this is about?” Allaster asked in exasperation. “I didn’t pay you enough attention, so you turn around and betray me to Kalthos?”
Elyae shook her head, stepping back until she collapsed against the far wall, her face glistening with sweat. “I’m done explaining myself to you.”
Allaster ran a hand through his hair, sending the curls askew, and stared down at the mage as though she might suddenly make sense. But Elyae kept her silence. “Very well,” he said heavily. “Elyae Valim, you are relieved of your position.”
Elyae got up and approached Allaster like someone no longer in possession of their own limbs.
Kasira knew the look of someone trying not to break.
She had seen it in her own face every day after Belvar.
The girl was stronger than Kasira had given her credit for, and it was that strength, that leadership, that had made her the perfect target.
It was why Kasira had lured her to the portal room with the promise of information, although the mage was no longer a threat to her.
Elyae was loyal to the Library. So loyal that when the news of her banishment broke, the other mages would talk.
They would ask what Allaster was thinking, would whisper that maybe Thane was right, and maybe Allaster wasn’t fit to be Librarian anymore.
And when Elyae arrived home, and Queen Sarren demanded to know why she had been rejected, the girl would spin a story of injustice that would poison the Queen against Allaster come the Conclave.
Allaster held out a hand. He had explained the process to Kasira, that magic could not be taken, only given.
Elyae would have to return it willingly, and without access to the pool, it was Allaster she surrendered it to.
She touched the tip of her fingers to his palm, and in a flash of silver, something vital seemed to leave her.
She didn’t say a word as Allaster opened the Ayadese portal and she stepped through, the door closing with a resounding thud. The note fluttered to the floor in her wake. Allaster picked it up, then dropped into the chair and buried his face in one hand.
“I’m sorry, Allaster,” Kasira said into the thickening silence. “I know you didn’t want it to be her.”
“I didn’t want it to be anyone.” He peered at her between his fingers. “I wanted you to be wrong.”
Then he was gone.