Chapter 26
Kier refused to leave my side for a week, during which Clyrard’s army crossed the River Saul and made their way towards Lazankh.
By now everyone knew that Greenheart had employed their human enemies, as if they hadn’t been slaughtering goblins for decades in an endless war.
How long until Bluescale took their rage out not on Cleodora’s compelled rebels but innocent Lucrecians, sparking the war anew?
My marriage to Kier was more a comma than a full stop on the fighting.
It was only a matter of time before it broke out again.
And honestly, a full-scale human war was the last thing we needed.
I had my head bowed as I read the book he’d given me this time—it was called How To Grow Tomatoes, bless his awful, book-choosing soul—but I lifted my head and took an obnoxious sniff.
“What’s that I smell? Teenage angst?”
“Very fucking funny,” Aerona drawled, slouching into the room in a black tunic three sizes too big for her, the hood pulled over her jet black hair, and her turquoise face full of so much scorn it was amazing. “You heard me come in.”
“I sensed a disturbance in the air. You can only fit so much sarcasm and disdain into a space before it starts to warp—alright!” I laughed, protecting my stomach as she drew her foot back in a threat to kick me she’d never follow through with. “Get over here, brat. What have I missed?”
“Nothing exciting,” she sighed, slumping to the floor beside me, her hands tucked inside the long sleeves of her tunic. “Honestly, it’s boring without you. Ryvan’s been dull.”
“Aww.” I knocked my shoulder into hers. “You missed me.”
The look she shot me was acidic. I expected denial but instead she said, “No shit I missed you. If you thought we wouldn’t miss you, you’re a fucking idiot.”
“Noted,” I replied, my heart all warm and squishy. “Can I interest you in a stale oat biscuit?” I held one out to her from the tin Kier brought me. The tin was lovely; the biscuits were as dry as an unmoisturised elbow.
She eyed it with disgust. “Can I interest you in a lobotomy?”
“Fair.” I shrugged and put it back.
“I can’t stay forever,” she sighed, glancing over at me, her stare lingering. “Xiona’s going to teach me how to throw a knife into a man’s groin.”
“Of course she is.”
“I just came to make sure your brain hadn’t rotted out your nose after being underground so long.”
“Is that possible?” I mused.
“With you? Definitely.”
I decided to ignore that insult, and instead made her tell me about the siege preparations going on aboveground, the shields being wrapped around the walls. They wouldn’t hold forever, but it was better than what Skayan had; at least we had warning of an attack.
“Okay, well, I’m bored,” Aerona said twenty minutes later, pushing to her feet. “Enjoy your solitude. Don’t go mad down here.”
“Thanks,” I drawled, and watched her leave.
“You know, I really am sorry about pillaging your mausoleum,” I told Gaia the next day, leaning against the solid chunk of stone beneath her statue. Thankfully, this one hadn’t come to life to attack me, though I swore those dragons watched me wherever I went in the room.
Kier had finally caved to pressure to attend a meeting and was upstairs in the great hall, making emergency siege preparations, hence I was talking to a statue. Anything was better than talking to the vicious queen in my head.
I’d been blessed to have a full week without her interference, and I wasn’t about to do anything to risk it now.
So even though I was bored out of my skull, I settled on the floor beneath the smaller stone dragon and cracked open the book Cherish dropped off this morning, along with some sesame buns and four cold sausages.
(I loved that woman, but cold sausages? She’d committed a crime.)
“As soon as Cleodora’s dead, I’ll return it,” I promised the Mother, glossing over the fact that I’d lost the sword, or it had been stolen, or I’d been manipulated into hiding it where it could never be found. By anyone except Cleodora at least. “I’ll even throw in a new dagger as an apology.”
Was it illegal to bribe a goddess?
I lifted my head, a smile already pulling at my lips when one of the archways grated open, the sound of stone grinding over stone now as familiar as my own breathing. Would it be Kier, suffering from separation anxiety? Or one of my friends, come to distract me from our mutual impending doom?
Then again, would the army ever find me if I stayed down here? I’d suggest it as an evacuation plan to Kier when he returned. Unless this was him now…?
Nope. “Calanthe,” I greeted with a beaming smile.
She’d been to see me once before, but with the chaos descending on Lazankh, along with everyone trying valiantly to pretend things were completely, utterly normal, she’d been rushed off her feet.
I saw the exhaustion lining her eyes now, even though it did nothing to dim her smile as she left the arch open and hurried across the room to hug me when I stood.
“How are you doing?” she asked, squeezing my shoulders. The enormous bag she had slung over her arm took that moment to thump me, something solid and heavy hitting my hip.
“Only slightly insane, so I’d say well.”
Her laugh warmed me from the inside out. “I have something that might cheer you up. My girlfriend’s here. She’s upstairs; I thought you could come meet her.”
“Uh—” Meeting someone new, putting on social graces, pretending to be civilised and cultured and nice didn’t exactly fit my definition of cheering up, but Calanthe looked so hopeful. Refusing her was like kicking a puppy. “I can’t leave the chamber. I don’t want to risk it.”
She squeezed me tighter. “I can get her to meet us halfway…?”
I debated it, though with her giving me those pleading, puppy eyes there was really no other answer I could give. “Oh, go on then,” I sighed, unable to fight a smile. “But she better be nice. If I get one hint that she’s treating you badly, I’m stabbing first, asking questions later.”
Calanthe bounced on her heels, her giant bag clanging.
“What in the ruthless gods’ realm do you have in that thing?”
“Supplies,” she whispered mysteriously.
I rolled my eyes and crossed the room to grab my own satchel.
It only had a sandwich, apple, and three knives, but I’d hate to look unprepared.
“I can give you ten minutes, then I have to get back down here,” I said, trying to inject some authority into my voice.
The trouble was Calanthe was literal sunshine, and so disarmingly sweet, and I was weak.
“Ten minutes,” she agreed, her voice bubbling higher. “Then we’ll come right back. Pinky promise.”
I held out my hand expectantly, and nodded, business-like, when her finger linked with mine. “Come on then, I have a girlfriend to give threatening warning glares to.”
“Or you could be nice to her…” she suggested as we headed for the archway she came through.
“Nah, definitely gonna threaten her into treating you well.”
She knocked her shoulder into mine. “You’re the best friend I could ask for.”
“No, you just have low standards.” Plus, she’d been treated awfully for being half goblin, half human all her life. I still remembered the shitty way her ex-girlfriend behaved, and I knew it still affected Calanthe. So, I hauled myself through the arch and up the stairs.
You’d think after climbing these stairs multiple times, I’d have become super fit and could now scale an entire flight without being out of breath.
Nope. I panted, wheezed, and clutched at the wall as I put one foot in front of the other, regretting bringing my bag because those few extra grams were weighing me down.
I gazed lovingly upon the landing fifty steps ahead. Just fifty steps. That was all, just fifty. I could make it.
I groaned, splaying against the wall. “You owe me big time for this,” I wheezed at Calanthe.
She turned three steps above me and snorted. “This isn’t even that bad. Try going from the kitchens to the laundry to the guest rooms on the top floor, four times a day.”
I let out a stunningly accurate cow impression. I was going for a soft, sympathetic sound but oh well. “I’d rather die.”
Her answering giggle echoed off the high walls as she skipped down the steps to retrieve me, offering moral support as I resumed the hellish climb.
“At least tell me she’s pretty,” I wheezed.
“So pretty,” she sighed wistfully. “The most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Her eyes sparkle like sunlight through gemstones. Her whole face lights up when she smiles. And her laugh.”
“Musical?” I presumed.
“So musical.”
I grinned, and focused on putting on foot in front of the other, sucking down air so I didn’t keel over. Even several floors above the Chamber of Truths, it still smelled of history and dust and rooms long-since disused, but I gobbled it down and ignored the stale taste it left on my tongue.
We reached the landing, and I exhaled a groan of relief, splaying against the wall. “Breather,” I panted. “How are you—not winded?”
“Practise,” Calanthe replied with a smile, tapping my nose with the tip of her finger. “I probably train more than soldiers bound for war.”
I snorted, nudging her bag. My hand brushed what felt like the hilt of a weapon and the top edge of a scabbard. “You’re more than prepared for battle with all that shit.”
My words sunk in as Calanthe snorted, as did the impression of a sword’s handle against my palm. “I could never fight. What am I going to do, throw hot tea in their face? Use fresh sheets to suffocate them.”
“Precisely,” I agreed. “What’s in that bag anyway? Confess all your secrets, wench.”
Calanthe rolled her pretty hazel eyes, and I hated the seed of suspicion that rooted itself in my gut.
But I’d been through too much to ignore an instinct.
I snapped my hand out and dove inside her bag, fully prepared to find a polishing brush or maybe a flask of tea.
Instead, the distinct shape of a handle fit into my hand and I pulled out a sword wrapped in grey fabric.
“So much for never being able to fight,” I said, keeping my tone light, hesitant to let my paranoia take hold.
There was a perfectly innocent explanation for all this.
Sure, the sword in my hand had the heft and feel of the one I took from Gaia’s mausoleum, but that didn’t mean it was the same one.
“Is this one of Kier’s? Or maybe Xiona’s?
If you’re taking it to get serviced, that’s a good idea with soldiers getting closer every day. ”
But even as I spoke, even as Calanthe lunged forward and grabbed my forearm, trying to halt me, I unwound the fabric. Nestled within, still in the scabbard Kier found for me, was Gaia’s sword.