Chapter 21 #2
Nori had not sent any additional messages in my sleep, but it was clear her first attempt had resulted in establishing contact with Princess Embry.
She had gained her trust and retrieved valuable information that we would soon share with the rest of the Imperi.
There hadn’t been any murmurs of plague throughout the castle, so she had either convinced them the incident had been contained, or they’d all been discarded by now; their bodies sent away for cremation.
I worried every day about Nori’s safety and if she’d be treated as one of the sick ones and made to stay down there.
My job throughout the week involved routinely lacing the prisoners’ food with small doses of the Woodsworth to prevent their ailments from resolving fully.
This would keep a healer in visitation if they hadn’t stationed Nori or someone there permanently.
Plagues were not to be taken lightly. Entire bloodlines could be wiped out in a fortnight.
Any signs of such would be met with extreme measure.
In fact, there were some days when I wondered why Idris didn’t just give me the go-ahead to take out the entirety of Nasallus Castle.
With the right set of ingredients, it could be done.
Was Cambria intentionally showing restraint?
When I let my mind wander to darker, more deviant means, I had to remind myself we were here to avoid something more catastrophic occurring.
So, sleight of hand it would be, until they gave us a compelling reason to conduct ourselves otherwise.
We waited over an hour at the safehouse to see if Nori would arrive.
When she never showed, and the rest of us had all arrived, I was forced to convey everything I’d learned from the memory shared with me, as Saryn’s impatience was wearing extremely thin.
I did my best to ignore the shaking of my hands as I considered her unknown whereabouts.
Varro’s face was the only thing that had brought me any sense of comfort.
As I felt a calm wash over me, I met his eyes, knowing that he was using Siren Song to settle my nerves enough to get through the debrief.
My side of the bond always felt soothed when in close proximity to him, and I needed to control my desires to satiate the bond.
“Nori successfully engaged our target. The princess is being treated for the skin ailment that afflicts a majority of the prisoners. Upon gaining her trust, Nori has made it clear she is a sympathizer and stands with the now-deceased King Baelin.”
Cairis interrupted me before I could continue. “She should be careful; both of them. Nori could get herself killed admitting to something like that. I’ve heard about what they’ve done to others who shared those sentiments.”
Trace’s response was filled with skepticism. “The princess trusts her already? This female is either an idiot, or she’s luring traitors to keep her own head.”
Saryn pounded his fist on the table, directing all our attention to where he sat at the head. “She’s managed to stay alive all this time; does that sound like something an idiot could do?”
Trace rolled his eyes and tugged his folded arms closer against his chest in an even more defensive posture than he normally displayed.
“She’s alive because of something to do with the Ledor Canyon,” I announced, thinking about its placement on the map.
To the far southwest, the mouth of the Ledor River formed a canyon of great depths from years of erosion and, according to historians and scribes, massive land quakes.
The Ledor River was a natural barrier between Cambria and Artume, but the canyon was meaningless to Artume for all I knew.
A majority of it sat on the northern side, belonging to Cambria.
I couldn’t fathom what interest the Artumians would have in it.
“What about it?” Trace grumbled.
“Her father knew something about the area he had been keeping a secret. Not even Princess Embry truly knows why her father had a fascination with the region.”
“That’s not helpful,” he replied, and I wanted to smack that smug look off his face so he’d give me a damn minute to finish sharing everything Nori conveyed.
Giving him my best I-will-stab-you look, I took a deep breath and continued: “Zarif knew Baelin had secrets, so he put his daughter through an interrogation until he was able to get her to utter the words Ledor Canyon. He tried his best to pry more from her until he was resigned to believe that she had no other information to share. But Zarif is untrusting, and he keeps her alive just in case there is more to be learned or gained by her eventual execution.”
Silence hovered between us all as we sat contemplating what little information we had.
Were we at an impasse? Would Nori eventually make contact again and have something more valuable to share?
Did Embry have more resolve than we all expected and harbor more truths about her father’s secrets?
This seemed like a meager amount of intel, and the Ledor Canyon was far from Nasallus, so it wasn’t as if it were an easy there-and-back mission to scope it out.
At the end of the table, I watched as Saryn’s one good eye narrowed.
“I know what they are after,” he finally said through gritted teeth.
“What is it?” Gia demanded.
“No one is supposed to know about this. Not even I have clearance for this information. I only know because Idris made the mistake of unknowingly confirming my suspicions.”
Each of us hung on his every word, sitting at the edges of our seats, waiting to see if Saryn would unveil this hunch he’d stitched together.
What could it be if we weren’t supposed to know, let alone him?
This did confirm one thing I’d always wondered: The king does keep secrets from the Imperi.
We may have been privy to a lot, had access to his treasury, and been given the freedom to carry out his will without retribution, yet there were secrets kept even from the Order of Forgotten Fae.
Saryn pulled a small object out of his shirt pocket and placed it in the center of the table. We looked down at the familiar item, smooth, polished and milky white. His moonstone.
“This is what they seek.”
“I thought these are rare and few,” I inquired, eyeing the stone with new speculation.
“They are.” Saryn’s brow furrowed in deep consideration. “But there is believed to be a vein buried deep within the canyon walls.”
“What are they going to do with a few portal stones?” Cairis asked, sounding unconvinced that this posed any true threat, especially when said source resided on the Cambrian side of the border. Would Zarif really attempt a mission across enemy lines?
“A few stones? Try thousands. A mine like that in the hands of our enemy’s military…who knows how many they could already have?” he said, exasperated. “Whatever the amount, it’s too many. We must cut them off at the source.”
Once more Saryn appeared visibly concerned, and that was alarming indeed. Sure, I’d seen him surprised, proud, annoyed, impatient—a whole slew of disappointed and judgmental emotions, but there was real fear emanating from him now. Because of that, I knew to take his grave conclusions seriously.
Saryn’s certainty of Zarif and the king’s intent set into motion a plan that had my unique gift at the center of it.
Everybody had quickly resolved that he was right, and our next move should address whatever was going on in Ledor Canyon.
Whether because Saryn had already known of these secret mines or because Embry’s words somehow corroborated it, we all surrendered to the process of building a plan that would have Saryn and I making the long journey together.
There was no way we could all abandon our posts for that long and then easily return to them.
Plus, there was still more to learn. Varro had yet to uncover the details of the ships they were building.
Gia couldn’t be away from the king’s side for long, and if Trace wasn’t out committing atrocities, then that might get back to Zarif.
To account for my absence, a letter would be delivered to Shira informing her that one of my family members in Caano had been murdered during one of the night attacks from the Northerners.
I would be granted leave to tend to funeral arrangements in my home village, so long as my Lady gave permission.
Much of the rest of our time together was spent discussing travel arrangements and how my gift might come into play.
The thought of being on a mission with Saryn and not for Saryn was intimidating, to say the least. I had never thought of myself as his peer, certainly not his equal.
Yes, we were both blood-sworn Imperi, but he was from another Order, and his demonstration of shapeshifting alone made me feel like his power had always surpassed mine.
He had much of what I lacked. Discipline.
Control. Years of experience. And, if I were being honest with myself, ruthlessness.
Saryn was what I’d describe as cold-blooded.
Every Fae in his path was just an obstacle to be dealt with in whatever manner suited him.
He was hardened from years of performing the duties required of him.
He was compliant in the same way Trace was, except Trace still bore the agony of his misdeeds, whereas Saryn wore them with ease.
Saryn had surrendered to the inevitability of the Imperi, whereas our youthful optimism still believed that there would be an end.
The end of this mission. The end of our time in Artume.
We hadn’t yet accepted the harsh or inescapable truth that he, Theory, and Idris lived by.