Chapter 41
An hour or so later, Theren and Elegy are standing outside of the trailer in the desert town of Twentynine, and Isre’s ship is flying away from them, toward Losan.
Theren has to duck to get into the trailer, which is narrow enough that he couldn’t extend his arms in both directions if he tried, and short enough to keep him hunched even at its highest point.
Hela arrived first, and she’s already scrubbing out a mug with a sponge.
She sets it on a drying rack beneath a shelf of figurines—-upon closer examination, he realizes they’re all cats.
“Your brother isn’t going to join us?” Hela says.
“No, Isre had to get back to base,” Elegy says, in the kind of tone that invites no further questions.
But when Hela glances at Theren, he adds, “He’s angry with me.”
It’s true, though Isre didn’t say it, and wouldn’t have.
He must know he has no right to be angry with Theren for being so harsh with Kesia, but the heart is often at odds with the mind, particularly where family is concerned.
So he gave Theren’s shoulder a squeeze when he dropped him off, and tried to be pleasant in his farewells, which is as much as Theren could have asked for.
“I think we should drink,” Hela says to him.
“Yes,” he agrees.
Elegy busies herself at the little countertop, taking out a bottle marked whiskey in her cramped handwriting, lining up three glasses of different heights and shapes.
He looks around at the trailer—-at the corner of a mattress in the back, right up against the edge of a desk, where an array of tech sits, dormant now.
There’s an odd shape on the desk, something covered in burlap that he can’t identify.
The kitchen is clean but cluttered with mismatched things, each plate on the drying rack a different color, the two doilies nailed to the wall in languages he doesn’t speak.
Elegy offers him a blue glass, hexagonal, with a shot of whiskey in it, neat. He runs his fingers over hers as he takes it, and suppresses a smile at how that simple touch makes impatience flare to life inside her.
She sets another glass down in front of Hela, and then slides into the seat across from her. Theren leans against the counter, next to the cat shelf. He feels like he can’t move without knocking something over.
“So,” Elegy says, looking at him.
“I know I’m supposed to—-to go looking for a doorway in the stars,” he says. “Because if Rava doesn’t want me to go somewhere, that’s exactly where I need to go. But first I have to go get Fenn.”
He’s known it since he unearthed his hidden memory, since he realized Fenn was still alive.
But he meant to hold it close for a while, to turn it over in his mind and let a plan take shape—-not to throw it at Elegy Ahn Rosyk, Hope of Cedre, who has no obligation to help him rescue a friend from a Talusar monastery, whose very involvement could spark a huge conflict with the Talusar.
“We have to go get Fenn,” Elegy corrects him.
He feels . . . well, he’s not sure how he feels, exactly. Relieved. Grateful. He doesn’t read Elegy intentionally anymore, not unless she orders him, as she did last night. But he’s sure, now, that she’s forgiven him.
“I’m sorry to say this,” Hela says. “But . . . do we? Don’t get me wrong, I feel for him, being a hostage of the Talusar and all. But shouldn’t we be focused on Rava?”
Elegy is quiet for long enough that Hela starts fidgeting, impatient. Theren just lets the feeling of her take up space inside him until her eyes widen, and she looks up at him.
“Avka Becken didn’t know Julia Martin’s name because Julia changed her name when she came to Cedre,” Elegy says. “Did Tor Kovek do that, too?”
“Of course,” Theren says.
“Why ‘of course’?” Elegy asks.
“Because he’s Ileth’s cousin,” Theren says. “I thought you knew that—-he’s blond enough.”
“He’s Ileth’s cousin. His name is ‘Vidar,’ ” Elegy says.
Hela chokes on her whiskey.
“Yes,” Theren says. “There are a lot of them. He’s not an important one.”
“One will bear the Vidari name,” Hela says, and it sounds like she’s quoting something.
Elegy gives her a warning look. Theren is curious, but he’s also used to not asking questions.
“Per the augur in Theren’s recovered memory,” Elegy says, “Rava Vidar’s triumph is assured by keeping Theren out of that doorway. And Fenn, an epocha, can help us find out where that doorway is.”
Hela’s jaw works. He can almost feel her sorting through all of it: the memory Rava buried, of a father who waits for him in the stars.
The message his mother failed to tell him about, hidden in the past where only an epocha can reach it.
Fenn resurfacing has the hum of inevitability in it, something he’s destined for, something he can’t avoid.
And it sounds like he was mentioned in Elegy’s prophecy.
“So he’s in a monastery,” Hela says. “Is he a priest of the Fever, too? I thought only priests lived in monasteries, and epocha lived in city strongholds.”
He frowns at her, and after a moment of hesitation, he switches to Talusar to ask, “Are you from Vidara?”
Hela’s eyes are hard.
“I was born in Silvis,” she replies, and he can feel the certainty of a native speaker in the way she says it, every consonant and vowel falling together as they’re supposed to.
There’s a kinship between them, automatic and unspoken. Two people born to Talusar parents, living now in Cedre. Half of one thing, half of another. Intere.
Elegy is looking from Theren to Hela, her eyes thoughtful, as if she’s just realizing this common ground they share, too.
“In the monastery just outside of Valla, priests and epocha share the same building, so it can be better protected,” he says.
Hela laughs harshly. “ ‘Protected.’ So: contained. Because they’re property of the Talusar state. Sounds miserable.”
“Yes, but also no,” he says. “They’re treated like .
. . royalty, almost. They’re not free, but they’re revered.
If you touch one without their permission, you can be burned alive, which is the worst punishment the Talusar offer.
Which speaks to the quality of soldiers assigned there.
It’s a position of honor. Only meant for the most trustworthy and the most loyal. ”
“Yet your mother is there,” Elegy says.
“In the eyes of the Talusar, my mother delivered the Sword and her Knights to Rava,” he says. “So yes.”
Elegy’s hands tighten around her glass.
“There’s a problem,” Theren says. “The monastery is where people on the west half of the continent go to infect their children with Fever, once they turn sixteen. All summer, there will be a huge influx of people—-which means a huge influx of Talusar soldiers.”
“When does that start?” Elegy says.
Theren hesitates. “By the next full moon. So . . . two weeks.”
“So you’re saying we have to do this before then,” Elegy says. “Or wait until autumn. If whatever catastrophe Rava has planned hasn’t hit us by then.”
Theren nods.
“Hold on a second,” Hela says, scowling. “We all know that even Cedre’s best soldiers are outmatched by the Talusar on the ground. So how do we have even a shred of hope of getting into a place that well--guarded, even before summer hits?”
Theren considers this, the vanilla taste of whiskey on his tongue, the corner of the glass digging into his sternum.
Hela is scrutinizing him, as she has been since he walked in, like she’s trying to figure him out.
He ignores her, thinking instead of Rava assuring him that Orda was released from the Crucible to guard the monastery, a place of honor.
“Someone on the inside will help us,” Theren says, and at Elegy’s confused expression, he adds, “Orda.”
He can tell she remembers the name from his memories. His teacher, the one who told him how to kill Maeve with as much mercy as possible. “He’ll help us?”
“Yes,” Theren says.
“You’re sure?”
“If he doesn’t say yes to me, he’ll say yes to you.” He inclines his head to her, just a little, half joking and half not. “Your Grace.”
Elegy’s eyes glitter a little as they fix on his. She sips her whiskey, then sets the empty glass down on the table between her and Hela.
“What about you?” Elegy says to Hela. “Will you help me? Even if it means working with soldiers?”
Hela taps her glass against Elegy’s empty one. “Obviously, Your Grace.”
“Thank you.” Elegy’s voice is uncharacteristically soft.
“Don’t say that shit to me,” Hela says, and she comes to her feet, glass in hand. “We can’t start thanking each other for stuff, or we’ll never stop.”
“Two weeks, then,” Elegy says.
“Fantastic,” Hela says.
Hela downs the rest of her whiskey and disappears into the bathroom, leaving Elegy and Theren alone.
Theren gathers up the glasses and hunches over the sink to wash them. Insects tap against the window in front of him, struggling toward the light. The desert is otherwise silent and dark. He can feel Elegy’s eyes on him, can feel the tension between them like a guitar string, humming.
“What’s with the cats?” he says, nodding toward the shelf of cat figurines.
“Oh, those?” She stands next to him at the counter, and picks up one of the figurines—-this one a plastic cartoon cat with wide, white eyes.
“Whenever my dad went out on jobs, if he found one, he would bring it back.” She smiles a little.
“I don’t even like cats, really, but he liked the things that old cultures had in common. Dumplings. An obsession with cats.”
He considers this for a moment.
“One of the only words that’s the same in Talusar and English,” he says, “is ‘elegy.’ ”
“Yeah. I know,” she says, her eyes dropping to his mouth as he says her name.
He can feel his pulse in his throat. He turns off the water, sets down the sponge, and kisses her. He doesn’t try to read her, but it’s hard to ignore the sudden rush of guilt she feels as he touches her, though it ebbs away quickly, replaced by something fiercer, hungrier.