Chapter 41 Kasira
KASIRA
KASIRA WENT TO THE NORTHERN ROOFTOP GARDEN, SEEKING THE fresh air to clear her head.
It was easy to look out over Amorlin’s grounds and pretend nothing had changed.
The beasts still milled about their paddocks, and the Seven Veils cut a glittering swath between emerald banks, each oblivious to the world turning over around them.
Here, with the tranquility of the Library surrounding her, she could tell herself everything was okay.
“Lie,” she whispered and collapsed onto the bench. The sydara vine rustled a greeting at her back, and she wished it would swallow her whole. She deserved no less.
No part of her had thought this would be easy.
Standing before that crowd to condemn Allaster had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
The way he’d looked at her—it was so different than the last time he’d discovered her lie.
Then, he’d been angry, but he had expected it.
This time, he’d truly thought she was on his side.
I am, she thought desperately, her heart tearing.
Not for the first time, she wondered what her life would have been like if she had truly been Eirlana Corynth. Would she have gone through with Kalthos’s plans, or would she have fallen in love with this place like Kasira had?
Would she have fallen in love with Allaster?
You are not capable of love, said Thane’s voice. You are made of lies. There is nothing real about you.
He was right. He had always been right about her.
She gave herself another moment in the sun.
Relished the brush of it against her skin, the way it chased away the shadows.
For so long she had been afraid of Belvar’s darkness.
Though she had been freed from its walls, she had never truly escaped it.
It followed her into her dreams and back into her waking moments, driving every choice she made.
She had been so very close to breaking free of it.
After this, she didn’t think she ever would be.
“The least you could do is face him.” May’s voice startled her to her feet. The First Mage stood at the edge of the alcove. Exhaustion had been carved into every part of her, but she held herself tall nonetheless. Only her eyes betrayed her pain.
“How could you, Kas?” May’s voice trembled.
“It’s not what you think,” she replied before she could question the need to defend herself. There was nothing she could say that would matter now.
“Then tell me what it is.”
Tell me one true thing about yourself.
Even now, her reflex was to lie. It came so easily to her. The truth was much harder, and it would damn them all.
I’m doing this for you, she wanted to say, but knew it would fix nothing. Let May hate her if she must, so long as she was alive to feel it.
May turned away. “They’ve locked him in a cell in the catacombs.” She didn’t wait for Kasira to respond before departing.
Visiting Allaster was not part of her plan.
She remained on the rooftop for nearly an hour debating it, aware that at any second, the council could break from its deliberation to deliver the verdict, and she might not get another chance.
She didn’t even deserve this one. But May was right: She owed him this, at least.
The mages who had arrested Allaster stood guard at the catacombs’ entrance, and one of them led her to his cell and unlocked it.
They remained outside when she entered, the door closing in her wake.
He sat with his back against the wall, his long legs drawn up toward his chest. The links of the chains encircling his wrists disappeared into his lap, his copper hair curling down over his eyes. She didn’t move any closer.
“So this is how your story goes.” In the silence of the cell, his voice rebounded, so different from the silence of Belvar that had swallowed sound like the Isherwood. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. Being Librarian—you don’t want this, Kasira. It’s a curse.”
“So am I,” she replied.
He lifted his head, the pain in his face nearly too much to bear. “I trusted you.”
She closed her eyes. “Trust is a magic trick. You never really knew me.”
How could he, when she barely knew herself? Truth, lie—there was no difference, not with her. None of her was real.
None of this is.
A muscle feathered in his jaw, the fury overtaking the endless hurt. “How long have you been working with her?”
“From the beginning.” She watched him bury his head in his hands. “She approached me in my Malik unit. Told me that if I could infiltrate the Library, earn your trust, and ultimately convince the Conclave to vote against you, she would erase my criminal record, end my sentence, and set me free.”
“Let me guess,” he muttered into his hands. “If I bring this to the Conclave, you’ll produce proof that I’m lying?”
“Letters written in your own hand to me. A second mage who will testify to everything I’ve said.”
He lifted his head. “Another spy?”
“The only one.”
It took a moment for that to settle. His head dropped back against the stone. “Elyae was innocent.”
“Elyae was a problem. I needed her out of the way, and I needed you to trust me.”
“Clever,” he murmured. “Always so clever.”
She wanted to turn away, knew that every emotion flitting through her was plain on her face, but the least she could do was look at him, no matter how much it hurt.
“I didn’t have a choice. If I refused, Vera would have sent me back to Belvar.
This time for good. I couldn’t—I couldn’t go back there, Allaster. ”
The torc bobbed along the long column of his throat. “I would have helped you.”
“You would have chosen the Library, like you always do,” she said quietly. “Like you should.”
“You don’t know that.” And it was the raw ache in his voice, the tenderness, that broke her.
She retreated for the door, desperate to get out, but his words stopped her.
“Is it worth it? Worth my life, Gievra’s life?
They’ll want his head too, you know, for Thane.
Is it worth the soul of the Library and the devastation that will come next? ”
“I won’t let either of you die,” she promised.
He laughed, loud and sharp. “Is that where you draw your line?”
But that was what Allaster didn’t understand, what Kasira herself had only just realized. She had no line. She would do whatever she had to, even if it meant having him look at her that way, as if he didn’t even have enough left in him to hate her.
“My life for theirs, isn’t that what you taught me?” She forced the words out even as her throat closed. “I’m doing what I must to protect the Library, Allaster. You just got in the way.”
A strange look came over his face then, as if the pieces of a puzzle he’d been wrestling with had finally slotted into place. “You’re lying,” he said slowly.
“I’m not—”
“You are.” He was watching her with a new intensity now, his silver eyes locking with hers as he climbed to his feet. “What I can’t figure out is why.”
Kasira fought the urge to retreat, mentally resetting her stance, her face, anything about her that might have made Allaster doubt her, but his expression only grew more certain.
It was as though a veil had been lifted, and the way he was looking at her, like he truly saw her, trapped her heart in throat.
The cell door opened, and one of the mages entered. “The deliberations have completed. The verdict is in.”
ALLASTER WAS LED back to the Glass Room in chains, where the dignitaries had already retaken their seats at the great oak table. The quiet murmur of conversation among the crowd grew silent when they appeared, and Kasira could feel May’s gaze on her, though she refused to meet it.
Talthari stood at the podium, their wizened face troubled.
“The council has reached a decision. In the matter of stripping Allaster St. Archer of his position as Librarian on the grounds of repeated discrimination against an individual nation’s interests and gross misuse of Library resources, the council has voted three to two in favor of Kalthos. ”
The room exploded into an uproar, but Allaster remained impossibly still. Everything in her wanted to reach for him, to apologize, but her touch was poison. She knew that now. First, the Talowell, then Loraya and Thane, Revna, and May—she ruined everyone close to her. She always had.
Talthari’s voice rose above the tumult even as it shook. “Lord Allaster will be released into Kalish custody to undergo trial for the murder of Thane Ryarch.”
Allaster’s cool voice cut through the noise. “I have a right to know the division of votes.”
Talthari bowed their head. “In favor of the Kalish plaintiff voted the leaders of Kalthos, Riviair, and Miraval.”
Utter betrayal filled Allaster’s face. “Ambric?” His brother stared forward, his thick fingers interlaced so tightly, the olive skin had turned white. “Ambric, look at me!” The room shuddered with Allaster’s voice.
Ambric’s gaze finally snapped to Allaster.
Energy crackled about the Librarian, invisible to everyone but Kasira, who felt the magic gathering around him, saw it tracing through Allaster’s veins.
It pooled in his shadow, tugged at the ends of his hair, and spiraled about his throat.
It spread great wings at his back and blotted out the balestone lights above.
“Subdue him, Assistant!” someone cried.
Kasira didn’t move. Her bargain did not include what came next, but more than that, she did not think she could.
This was magic she knew nothing about. Magic Allaster had never said he had.
She had seen glimpses of it, thought she had imagined the wings spread across the bed the day he caught her mid-fall and the claws tipping his fingers in Ayador, but it was clear to her now that whatever this was, it was not the same magic she knew—and he was losing control of it.