Chapter 31
When Theren finally remembers something useful, it’s not about that strange blankness in his mind that Julia Martin was supposed to help him fill before Larke sent her away.
And it’s not about Rava Vidar’s big plan that casts a shadow over everything.
Instead, it’s about Ykev Talus, son of the emperor.
Theren dreams about it. Dreams about rain drumming on the windowsill of a dark sitting room in Rava’s mother’s house—-and that explains why he struggled to remember this, because so much of what he experienced in Ileth Vidar’s house was her layering false memories into his mind like icing into a cake.
In the dream, the air is close and hot and smells of petrichor. He runs a finger along the wood to catch some of the water. Behind him, a door opens, and he turns to see a man.
The man is older than Rava, but not by much. He’s handsome, his face tan and his hair a light brown swoop over his forehead, threaded with gray. He has a strong jaw, and there’s something familiar about him.
He reminds Theren of Rava’s mother. Ileth.
Sitting on the sofa near the fireplace—-full of lanterns, then, since it’s too hot for a fire—-is Rava, her hair loose around her shoulders. She wears a lightweight dress with wide sleeves.
“Ykev,” she says. “It’s so good of you to join me. I worried your feud with my mother would prevent you from so much as glancing in this house’s direction.”
Ykev Talus. Fear rises in Theren’s throat like bile. Ykev Talus is the probable heir to the emperor’s throne. Ileth Vidar’s greatest rival.
“Your mother is at dinner with my father at the moment,” Ykev says. “So I felt I was unlikely to run into her. Though she has more to fear from that altercation than I do, I assure you.”
Theren isn’t sure whether to believe that or not.
Ykev doesn’t have a reputation for showing mercy any more than Ileth does, but he’s more straightforward.
The kind of man who will stab you in the front instead of the back.
If Theren had to choose an opponent, he would choose Ykev, but there’s no relief in the thought.
Rava shrugs at the implied threat to her mother. Ykev’s eyes shift to Theren—-and to the vine tattooed on his hand.
“I see you’ve picked up your mother’s affectation of marking her territory,” Ykev says, and he crosses the room to Theren. He bends down, seizes Theren’s hand, and twists until pain shrieks down Theren’s arm. Theren bites back a scream.
“I thought we agreed no weapons,” Ykev says, leaning closer to Theren’s face.
“Come now, cousin,” Rava says. “I bring you something nice to look at, and you try to break its wrist?”
Her voice is light and careless, but Theren feels the sharp twist of fear in her gut. It’s different from his own low--level terror.
“Something nice to look at. Really.” Ykev releases Theren and straightens.
Rava says, “Get up, Theren.”
Theren’s face is hot with humiliation, but he stands in front of the windowsill, the rain at his back. Ykev stares at him, his eyes like an unwelcome touch.
“Not bad.” Ykev shrugs.
“He’s a Knight.”
Ykev’s demeanor changes. Relaxes. He looks back at Rava, a smile playing over his lips.
“I heard rumors. I didn’t know you’d actually succeeded in taking them from Cedre.”
“They’re dead, except for this one.” Her answering smile is like the slash of a knife. “You asked me if I’d ever accomplished anything without my mother. Well, I invaded Losan. I murdered the Sword of Cedre. And I took her Knights. Here’s the proof.”
Ykev turns away from Theren, and sits across from Rava. “You have my attention. What is it you’re proposing?”
“A temporary alliance intended to achieve a particular purpose.”
“A particular purpose?”
Rava focuses on Theren. “Go. This discussion isn’t for Cedrae ears, even if you’re barely a Cedrae anymore.”
Theren doesn’t hesitate. He crosses the room and walks out the door. The hallway beyond is empty and airy, with polished wood floors and sturdy exposed beams in the ceiling. Everything smells like flowers.
He tells himself he doesn’t want to hear what Rava is concealing from him, but he’s already turning to press his ear to the door.
At that moment, a woman with bright red hair turns the corner up ahead. She wears Talusar military dress, with the symbol of Ykev’s army stitched over her chest in copper. Theren lurches back from the door as soon as he sees her, but judging by her raised eyebrow, she knows what he was doing.
“You’re Commander Vidar’s,” she says.
His face heats. He wants to say no, no he isn’t, he’s no one’s, least of all Rava’s. But the symbol tattooed on his hand says otherwise. And really, what’s the point in pretending his life still belongs to him?
“Yes,” he says.
“I’ll walk you to her quarters, then,” the woman says. “Come.”
The hallway dissolves into nothingness. It’s as if Theren is walking over a ravine. His stomach drops, like he’s falling, and then he wakes.
There’s a hand on him. His stomach lurches. He wants it gone; he wants to pull away from it. But he knows the cost of doing that too well. So he goes still, instead, and tries to keep his breaths quiet so she won’t realize he’s hyperventilating.
But then the hand withdraws, and he realizes that Rava Vidar never felt like this, like something warm and light. Ciro Arias crouches next to the head of the bed, his hands clasped in front of him where Theren can see them. His brow is furrowed with concern, but he keeps his distance.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out the best way to wake you, but we’ve been summoned by General Thompson.”
Theren turns on the lamp on his bedside table and sits up. The blankets are tangled around his legs, so it takes some effort to dislodge himself. He’s wearing the loosest shirt he could find in the Losan Stronghold supply closet and a pair of drawstring pants; he has to change.
He grabs what’s nearest and goes into the bathroom to get dressed and brush his teeth. The dream is still clinging to him—-the feeling of rain on his fingertips, the pain in his wrist when Ykev twisted it. He shakes out his hand, like that will dispel it, and picks up his toothbrush.
By the time he leaves the bathroom, he feels more alert. Arias is standing by Theren’s bed, leafing through a book of poetry Theren picked up from the Losan Stronghold library. It’s a Cedrae poet from the Oneiromantic Period.
“This poem is pages long, and it’s just about the petals of a lily,” Arias says. “I’ve never thought that hard about anything in my life.”
“Well, when the Oneiromantics were writing, Cedre had just restored the relics from before the Empty Time,” Theren says. “They were afraid of what relying on technology would do to people, so they focused on the natural world, instead. Sometimes they focused a little too hard.”
Arias gives him an odd look, and Theren feels, for a moment, like he’s twenty years old again, a library custodian who was so desperate to be a university student that he followed along with the Talusar Poetry in Translation curriculum on his own time.
It’s a version of himself that he thought was long dead, killed by Fever and four years in Valla. Not as dead as he thought, it seems.
Arias asks, “Did they also romanticize dying of sepsis? Because before we got Imbued, a lot of people died of sepsis.”
Arias sets the book down, and they walk down the hallway to the back door. The air is cool; it makes goose bumps prickle over Theren’s arms. The sun is a long way from rising.
They walk to the administration building and down the empty, dark hallways to General Thompson’s office, identifiable as such because the lights are on.
The space is warm and busy, all the furniture the same polished orange wood, all the surfaces cluttered with keepsakes—-sculptures shaped by child hands, notes in a child’s scrawl, a line of mugs that declare him to be the world’s greatest father.
The man himself stands at an obsidian that’s projecting a map; Theren doesn’t recognize it, and his gaze doesn’t linger on it.
Because standing across the obsidian from General Thompson is Elegy.
He hasn’t seen her since that day in the training room, the day he made a declaration she neither asked for nor wanted. My life is yours. Not a promise, and not an offering, but a fact, as sure as their planet’s revolution around the sun.
He always tries not to read her. The sight of him tends to bring grief to the surface of her, like oil beading on water. And now, after she’s seen his memories . . . if she pities him now, he doesn’t want to know.
So he only skims the surface of her, now. Feels turmoil in her, and panic.
“Arias, Forint,” General Thompson says. “Thank you for coming, I apologize for the hour.”
Arias salutes the general, and touches Elegy’s shoulder in greeting. She’s staring at the map, her brow furrowed. She doesn’t look at Arias, just covers his hand with her own, briefly, to acknowledge him.
“Show me where the ship went down, again?” she asks.
“What ship?” Arias folds his arms and looks up at the map.
Theren is suddenly aware that he’s the odd one out.
The only one who isn’t in the military, and never has been.
The only one who can’t use most Cedrae technology.
The one who’s barely a Cedrae citizen, barely trusted, barely useful.
He stands back, unsure of his welcome, and waits to be told why he’s here.
“Julia Martin’s ship went down on the way to Naarm,” Elegy says, and a red light appears in the map projection, right off the coast of a land mass Theren now recognizes as Austra.
“She was supposed to see if she could heal the memories of a witness who saw the recent Talusar attack on the base. The one where the Talusar didn’t steal anything or kill anyone. ”
“Sounds like the Talusar didn’t want Julia to fix that witness’s memories,” Arias says. “How long has it been since the ship crashed?”