Chapter Thirty-Six
“Titus!” squeals the girl holding the crossbow. It clatters to the ground, and she rushes into his arms.
He picks her up, swings her around, grinning like a maniac.
“You made it! I knew you would!”
He sets her down, and I finally get a good look at her. She’s tiny, black skinned, and beautiful, with wide eyes framed with
glorious lashes. She looks all of twelve years old, but when she fixes her appraising gaze on me, I realize she’s more likely
a petite fourteen or fifteen.
“Syla, this is my chosen companion, Bria Angarsold,” Titus says, still grinning. “Bria, this is Sylabet.”
I say, “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
She launches at me. I barely contain my instinct to dodge as her arms wrap around me, and she hugs me so tightly I can hardly
breathe. “Thank you for bringing him home,” she says.
“Are you all right?” I ask as she disengages. “How long have you been hiding here? Do you have enough food and water?” My
face turns hot as I realize this young girl is bringing out all my big-sistering instincts.
“I’m fine, now that you’re both here,” she says. With a wink in my direction, she adds, “Titus, you said you weren’t going
to choose a companion.”
“Bria just . . . happened,” he says.
“Well, I’m glad.”
“That crossbow is as big as you are,” Titus says. “Have you ever actually shot it?”
She turns on him. “No. But you can bet I would. Did you bring the gauntlets?”
He pats the side of his pack. “In here. The horn?”
She sighs, deflating a little. “Yes, but . . .”
“But?”
“We need to talk. Please, both of you, step into my luxurious parlor and make yourselves comfortable.” She indicates a sloppily
ringed firepit on the floor, just steps from the Edge. A blanket and pillow are wadded up nearby. Beside it is a trash pile
made up of orange peels, animal bones picked clean, and used linens.
As we sit cross-legged around the firepit, she says, “Sorry I don’t have refreshments to offer, but I wasn’t able to take
my nightly sneak into the palace last night. The north wing was being searched.”
“For you?” Titus asks.
She shrugs. “Probably.”
“The horn?” he prompts.
“It was in the antiquities archive, just like we thought. I had to open about a thousand crates, but I found it. Then the
sway came.”
Syla is sitting right up at the tunnel’s opening, and my nerves take a tumble when she dangles a leg over the Edge.
“Who is he?” Titus demands. “He sent assassins after us, we think.”
“They were crazed zealots,” I add. “Spewing all sorts of nonsense.”
“I wasn’t at court when he arrived,” Syla says. “But everyone who was in the throne room that day is unable to speak his name.”
“Like Master Mehuda,” I say.
“Yes. Anyway, Mother decided to give me to the stranger in marriage.”
“What?” Titus says.
“She’s really not herself.”
I say, “That must have been terrifying.”
“I was afraid I’d be imprisoned while they planned a royal wedding. So I hid where only Titus would find me.”
“We used to come here together,” Titus explains to me. “Toss rocks off the Edge while planning our escape to the Iolan swamps.”
“I can spit farther than he can,” Syla tells me, in all seriousness.
“The horn?” Titus asks again.
“Oh, right. I hid that too. If I got caught, I didn’t want it falling into the sway’s hands. You know those lamps Grandmother
loved? Made of goat horns filled with candle wax?”
“The ones your mother had removed from the ballroom the day after she died,” Titus says.
“Soooo ugly,” Syla says, nodding. “Well, I found a whole storeroom full of them when I was looking for the dragon caller.
I broke one out of its iron ring and replaced it with the dragon-caller horn. Perfect match!”
“Tell us where,” I say. “We’ll go find it.”
“See, that’s the problem. The staff emptied the storeroom to prepare for the Sundereve Ball. So those lamps are all over the place—in the ballroom, the north terrace, even the gardens. I tried to sneak out and find it, but people are everywhere.”
The dragon-caller horn, the final piece of Titus’s set, is hiding in plain sight.
“How many lamps do we need to search?” Titus asks.
“A hundred,” Syla says. “Maybe more.” At Titus’s gaping mouth she winces, saying, “Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the
time.”
“It was a good idea,” I assure her, and she gives me a shy smile. “We think the sway might be another candidate.”
“Ooooh,” she breathes.
“Which means that hiding yourself and the horn was exactly the right thing to do.”
“So we go to the ball,” Titus says. “We find the horn—”
“If we can avoid being swayed,” I point out.
“I can’t be swayed,” Syla says.
“Why not?” Titus asks.
“You have one of these, right?” Syla reaches beneath her shirt and pulls out an amulet made of a swirling pink marblelike
material, just like mine and Titus’s. Except instead of Cerastes’s coil, hers is a tiny dagger pointing downward. Jeridan’s
knife.
I put my hand to my chest and assure myself that my coil is still there.
“Mine protects me from persuasion,” she says. “Each amulet makes the wearer immune to a single Gift.”
“How do you know?” Titus demands.
“Jeridan told me. Cerastes didn’t?”
“She did not.” Titus’s narrowed amber eyes are spitting fire.
“She said it would offer protection,” I say. “But she didn’t specify.”
“Well, hopefully yours is the same as mine,” Syla says. “Each god creates an amulet to protect against the Gift they believe
their candidate is most vulnerable to. Jeridan may have been bending the rules by telling me that.”
“The amulet didn’t stop the mistwraiths from coming at you,” I point out to Titus.
“Mistwraiths?” Syla says, her face brightening. “I’ve always wanted to see a mistwraith.”
“Mistwraiths are monsters, not humans,” Titus says. “Their magic is not quite like ours.”
“I guess we have to hope this particular sway is a human one,” I say.
“I’m certain he is,” says Syla. “Would a monster force a princess into marriage?”
I say, “Men can be monsters too.”
“Syla, I don’t think this particular monster really wants to marry you,” Titus says. “He was just trying to flush you out.”
“To murder me, you mean,” she says, then adds, flatly, “That’s a relief.”
The three of us are silent a long moment, pondering monsters, monarchs, and men. A raven flies past the tunnel opening. Da
would have thought the sight a poor omen, but I’ve always loved ravens. Ravens are honest birds. You never wonder what they’re
thinking.
Syla lets loose a deep sigh. “I love my city, you know. I love living right on the Edge. I would make a spectacular potentat.”
“You would,” Titus says gently. “Even better than your mother.” He turns to me and explains, “The potentat is a good ruler,
but she’s made compromises Syla and I don’t agree with.”
“Like being in league with the Thieves’ Guild,” Syla says.
“You don’t want to be a god?” I ask.
“I do not,” she says, and the way Titus looks at her squeezes my heart. His gaze is filled with so much love and understanding.
“It’s not right,” she says. “Why should I be responsible for the world? I mean, I just turned sixteen.”
Sixteen. Barely older than Anja. How would I feel if Anja were going off to the godsmoot to vie for godhood? Both proud and
horrified, I suppose.
“And I won’t leave Mother with that madman,” Syla says. “No matter what the gods ask.”
Titus is silent, lips pressed together. I can guess what he’s thinking: We can’t help everyone. Sometimes not even the people we love.
“I chose her for my companion, you know,” Syla continues. “But she was swayed before Jeridan gave her an amulet. She swore
the oath of fealty to me—the high potentat of the Surat Confederacy swore fealty to me! And I in turn swore that her life would be my honor. So I’m not getting on a dragon until I know she’s safe.”
Still Titus says nothing. Maybe he’s thinking of the little girl he healed back in Khefrita, and how our quest nearly came
to ruin because he stopped to help her.
Carefully I say, “So the original plan, if I understand it correctly, was to find the gauntlets and the horn, and get out to the preserve before the moons kiss to call a dragon. Then you and Titus would fly to the godsmoot.”
Syla nods. “Dragons hunt the Corthan highlands along the escarpment this time of year. We shouldn’t have any trouble landing
one.”
“But that was before the sway came.”
Syla crosses her arms over her chest. “I won’t leave unless my city . . . my mother . . . is safe.”
“If we’re not at the godsmoot by the time the moons set on Sunderday, we’re disqualified,” Titus says.
Syla glares at him. “You would turn your back on Mother?”
Titus sighs. “No. No, I would not. Of course I won’t.”
Wind whips into the tunnel, lifting Syla’s hair and sending a fall of dust and gravel past the opening. How long will it tumble?
I’m the one to break the silence. “We have to kill the sway before you go.”
The words give my stomach an ugly twist. I’ve already killed two people, but until this moment, I’ve never had murderous intent.
“It’s the only way to ensure the safety of everyone we leave behind,” Syla says.
Titus’s gaze on me is thoughtful and steady, and I can guess what he’s thinking. He won’t leave me in danger. He might have
to.
The sun’s daily journey is peaking winter-low but hot, making our bodies cast long shadows into the tunnel’s depths. I shade
my eyes and peer into the bright nothing. It’s not a myth; another continent really does exist out there beyond the sea of
sky. A whole half of the world.
“So we go the ball,” I say. “Somehow we kill a powerful sway. We find one specific horn out of a hundred or more. Then we hurry out to the preserve and call a dragon. And we do it all tonight.”
“Easy,” says Titus.
“No problem at all,” Syla agrees, but her smile wobbles.
“Can you get out there without being seen?” Titus asks her.
“Once the ball starts, yes.”
“How will we know the dragon-caller horn from the others?” I ask.
“It looks older. Yellower. There’s a tiny chip at the opening with a brown mote. Old blood, I think. When I last saw it, there
was no candle wax inside. The staff may have filled it, though. Given it a wick. I really don’t know.”