Chapter 28 #3
On the fifth morning, I check on the hawks before anything else.
They are with the healer, bundled in warmth and barely drinking.
Their eyes stay closed. When I press my fingers to their chests, the pulse under their feathers is slow.
I wish lobellum could help, but the healing magic only works to mend flesh and skin. They have no apparent injuries.
I carry the grief with me as I wait across from Alaris’s empty chair. I stare at it until Dashol arrives.
“You can’t expect me to believe Alaris going missing and the hawks being sick is a coincidence,” I say, as soon as he shuts the door behind him.
He sighs. “No. I don’t think it is. I can’t explain it, but they’re tied to his power somehow. I assume this has something to do with him.”
“Do you think it means…?” I can’t even think the words to finish that sentence.
Dashol shakes his head. “I’m sure he’s fine, just overdrawing, maybe. Come on, let’s keep going.”
I let him brush me off, but on the sixth day, when the office is still empty, I stand my ground. “Where did he go, Dashol?”
“Reconnaissance.” He doesn’t meet my eyes.
I narrow mine. “Reconnaissance where?”
“Lyra, it won’t help to have you worrying too.”
“So you are worried!” I cross my arms and tap my foot. “I’m going to worry more if you don’t tell me, not less.”
Dashol’s eyes slide sideways. “I don’t know if that’s true…”
“Dashol! Now you have to tell me!”
He doesn’t speak.
“Didn’t Alaris tell you to help me with whatever I need?” I press. “Well, what I need right now is to know where he is.”
Dashol exhales through his teeth. “The Citadel.”
“Why?”
“He and four others went to test his shadowgates.”
“At the Citadel?” My crossed arms slacken. “It was warded against magic by Emperor Illio himself, and strengthened every year since. You know that. He knows that. Anyone even thinking about visiting knows that.”
“That’s why he’s never tried.” Dashol’s voice is steady, but his hands tighten into fists. “But we’re running out of time. We have to strike in winter, when the Flame is weakest.”
“Then wait until next winter!”
“We have waited, Lyra. Last winter, and the one before, and the one before. The time to plan is over.”
“But I’m here now! Why couldn’t he wait for me to…” I close my mouth. It’s not like Alaris could have predicted I would come back, let alone guessed who I am. He couldn’t have known I would help, after learning the plan involved killing my father.
“Maybe he should have waited…but this plan was already set. And we’re desperate.” Dashol sinks into the armchair. “In the next year, the wither could move as far as it has in the last five. As soon as it becomes public knowledge, there will be war. More people will die.”
I try to picture my father’s reaction to a public outcry, but all I can picture is Alaris, a lone dark figure in a palace of white marble.
“Trust me, Lyra. No one cares about this more than Alaris. More than me.” Dashol’s voice is gentle. “I came here when my whole family was killed in the wither. I’ve lived for nothing else since I was fourteen.”
I exhale slowly. I don’t get to be more passionate about this than Dashol. I don’t get to be more worried about Alaris, and I don’t get to act like I know more than people who’ve been planning this for years.
“I just wish he had waited,” I say finally.
“Let’s do our best to make sure we have better answers ready for him when he gets back.”
News comes the next morning. Dashol swings into the office, a crumpled notice in his fist. His eyes are shadowed and his face unshaven.
“With the hawks sick, our usual communications are down, but I just got word from an ally. There are reports from the palace. Intruders were caught inside the walls.” His grip wrinkles the paper.
“The word is they killed them all on sight.”
The room tilts. I put a hand on the desk. “Everyone? Alaris?”
“That’s what the message says, but…this just means the palace believes no one got away.” He straightens. “Alaris is one of the strongest divinials I have ever met. If anyone can survive the impossible, it’s him.”
He holds my eyes, his shoulders square. He means his words.
If my father had captured the Sovereign of Arastos trying to break in, the news wouldn’t stay quiet. He would drag Alaris through the capital in chains. Orso and his men would march on Arastos. I hold onto that.
I turn toward the mirror. “Then we keep working.”
He nods once and leads me downstairs.
We try. Dashol lays out the maps. I struggle to remember what I was talking about, much less buildings and corridors I haven’t visited in years.
He draws a line, erases it, draws the same line.
I stare at a guard rotation chart until the ink blurs, pressing the voidstone into my palm until the facets leave marks.
Dashol doesn’t object when I turn in early, skipping our usual late dinner.
The days are getting shorter, and colder, but I don’t add another log to the dying fire.
I change and tuck myself into my bed. My only relief from worry will be sleep.
I can’t even think about Alaris not coming back.
If he isn’t back tomorrow, I don’t know what I’ll do.
I turn onto my side and freeze. Someone is standing on my balcony.