Chapter 41
I try not to spend extra time fussing with my charcoaled hair before meeting Alaris in the hallway as usual. I’m so distracted by him, and the distance between our shoulders, that it takes me a moment to notice a new figure in the office with Dashol and Karns.
“Ly,” Alaris says as he sits behind his desk. “This is Nykiri. Nykiri, Ly.”
Unlike Alaris’s other guests, Nykiri doesn’t strike me as a noble. Her cropped hair is not in fashion, her clothes leaning toward practical rather than ornate. Plus, she’s here in the office, not meeting Alaris in his bedroom. And she’s sitting on the windowsill with her boot up.
Karns straightens his glasses. “Officially, Nykiri helps move goods between Arastos and other provinces as an independent operator.”
“I’m a smuggler,” she says, her tone as bored as her eyes.
“Unofficially, she is also a traitor,” Dashol adds, plopping maps on my table. “Like us!”
I give Nykiri a small smile as I take my seat at the table near her.
She doesn’t return it. “And what about her?”
“Ly is our hawk keeper and cartographer,” Karns answers. “Who happens to specialize in maps of the Citadel.”
Nykiri snorts, but her eyebrows go up. “And she is staying in Alaris’s room because…?”
Dashol coughs, choking.
My shoulders tense. Apparently, Nykiri isn’t one to avoid awkward questions. Karns’s eyes flip between me and Alaris over his glasses, but he doesn’t say a word.
The memory of Alaris’s fingers in my mouth last night flashes across my mind unbidden. “I am…we’re not…”
“There are some extraordinary circumstances that require it,” Alaris says, his tone smooth. “And it makes for a short walk to work each morning.”
I’m glad for the cover his easy answer provides, but I still wish I wasn’t the only one flustered for once.
Nykiri’s mouth opens like she wants to say more.
Alaris continues. “We’ve waited months for your return, Nykiri. Your report.”
She grunts but begins catching the office up on her reconnaissance.
I tune out most of the conversation, the supply lines and trade routes and people involved going over my head. I don’t know much about the world outside the palace, so I have nothing to offer about shipments of lobellum, marble, and rare minerals.
I catch myself cataloging the slope of Alaris’s shoulders, the black silk bunched around his forearms, the way his voice dips low on certain words.
Heat climbs my neck. What is wrong with me?
We are planning a coup, and I am thinking about whether I can find a good enough excuse to cross the distance between my bed and his tonight.
I almost miss when Nykiri mentions wagons.
“…wagons bring feathers from Nyvos every few months for the fans in the throne room. The white plumes are so delicate, the boxes can’t be opened on the road.”
She has delivered most of her report with crude efficiency, but now her eyes are alight.
It’s clear that this is a discovery she’s excited about as she rises from the window and walks straight for the desk.
“We have Lady Bira’s support. We can replace the crew and hide soldiers in the boxes with the feathers.
They won’t be opened until they are in the throne room.
The next shipment is due to arrive in time for solstice. ”
Something about it sounds familiar. Feathers for solstice. Intruders hidden in wagons…
“No!” I say, straightening.
Nykiri whips her attention to me. “No what?”
Everyone’s eyes are on me now.
I swallow. “That won’t work. They’ll search the wagons.”
“How would you know?” Nykiri snaps. “I’ve been researching this for months. This is the perfect shipment, the only shipment, that will go deep inside the Central Palace.”
“I know because…” My head pangs briefly.
I smelled the smoke that day. I heard about it from the maids, then again at a party, too drunk to care, only thinking about how to end the conversation with an overeager lord and refill my glass of wine.
But he carried on, drawing my attention to the charred tang in the air.
Burned feathers, he said. Intruders breached the palace in carts.
They were incinerated inside. Pity about the plumes.
It was there in my fuzzy memories, but I didn’t connect it to the coup. I didn’t realize the gossip of that day related to one of Alaris’s attempts to get his people inside.
“It won’t make it through,” I say. “The people in the wagons will be caught and burned.”
“Are you delvarian?” Nykiri looks between Dashol and Karns, then back to me. “Because that’s an incredibly quick prophecy for an idea you just heard two seconds ago.”
“No, but I…have a very strong feeling this will not work.”
“A feeling?” she sputters.
I lock eyes with Alaris, lips pressed together, hoping he understands my silent warning.
“The wagons will not work,” Alaris says, calm and even.
Her mouth opens, then she snaps it shut. “You believe her? Did you have her working the trade routes too?”
“No, and I trust you explored every possible detail, Nykiri. But if Ly says it won’t, it won’t.”
“How could she possibly know?” Nykiri steps forward, the gold ring in her eyes catching the light.
“Listen to her as you would to me.” His gaze moves around the room. “I expect everyone here to do the same.”
A flush rises to my cheeks.
Karns pulls his glasses off, wipes them, then slides them back on. “The wagons are out, then. What else do we have?”
The meeting continues. I sit back in my chair, quiet, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself.
In all my evenings reviewing maps in the basement, I figured out that I experienced my lives backward.
It was my most recent birthday when I ended up in the tower, then one further back when I went to Nyvos, and the earliest when I indulged in drink and parties. That’s when I heard about the wagons.
Even after I woke up in the present, I didn’t think of it as the coup—just a strange event that winter. But that was because it didn’t succeed. Life in the palace continued as usual.
Were there any similar events I could remember and draw on to help?
Something I dismissed, which might have been a sign of unrest?
I rack my memory, rubbing my forehead. When I traveled off to Nyvos to be married, I missed winter in the palace.
And in my most recent life, I was shut away in the tower, cut off from any news.
My breath catches as I feel the strap tightening around my throat…
“That’s enough,” Alaris says, pulling me out of my thoughts. I look up to find his eyes on me. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow. Thank you, everyone.”
Nykiri storms out, followed by Dashol, then Karns, then me, each of us shedding our role as rebel and donning a mask as a regular member of the staff.
I step into the corridor, only to find Nykiri standing there. I glance down the hall to where Dashol has his back to us, chatting with Karns.
Nykiri crowds me back against the office door. “Who are you?”
I draw myself up tall. “Why does that matter?”
“Six months of work dismissed in seconds, and I’m just supposed to take a stranger’s word for it?”
“Don’t take my word. Take his.”
“No.” She crosses her arms. “I want to know exactly why you think the best route to the throne room any of us has at this point won’t work.”
We are in the hallway. We never speak of the plans outside of Alaris’s office or bedroom. Even though we are still in his wing, maids could come by. Drina could come by. “Stop. Talking,” I hiss. “If you want to say anything else, come back into the office.”
“So you can hide behind him? I don’t think so.” She holds up her arm, flashing a wooden charm on a woven bracelet, the thread and medallion blending in with her brown wrist. “This keeps the conversation just between us.”
I assume it’s a muffling charm, a mobile alternative to warding fixed spaces against prying ears. Banned, of course, but common enough that I’ve heard of them being used at court.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see one on a smuggler and a spy.
It’s better than nothing, but I still scowl. “If you have questions, Alaris can—”
She leans in close, and I shudder. She could pull a knife, or drive a fist into my stomach, and I could not stop her.
She is slight but wiry, and I have never been in a fight.
“The woman who investigated the supply lines before me burned alive getting this information. So while Alaris might accept your magical answers, I’ll trust hers instead. ”
“Lyra?” Dashol calls, starting down the hall toward us.
The charm must be working because he doesn’t seem to have overheard any of our conversation. In fact, he looks surprised to see Nykiri and me standing so close together.
“Relax, Commander, we’re just having a chat.” Nykiri pushes past him. “See you at the next meeting.”
Dashol glances between my face and her retreating back. “Alright?”
I nod, gritting my teeth. I roll out my shoulder, shaking off the feeling of her getting so close. “Is she…staying?”
“Now that she’s done with her mission, yes. Nykiri can be a bit intense about setbacks. What did she say to you?”
“Nothing.” I fall into step beside him. My skin pricks at her accusations. “She just wasn’t very impressed with my magical answers.”
Dashol glances at me. “Your information is so valuable, Lyra.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. Solstice is coming soon. If we don’t have a sure plan by then…” He shakes his head. “You are going to be the reason we succeed. I know it.”
His words make my chest swell, but just as quickly, it deflates. I didn’t do anything special to gain this knowledge except stumble into the oraculi. Nykiri spent six months on the ground gathering information.
For all I know I’m wrong, and with a few adjustments, the feather plot could work. Just because it failed once before doesn’t mean the whole idea should be thrown away. Especially considering…
“Nykiri mentioned someone who died.”
Dashol nods. “Her aunt. They worked together.”
Her aunt burned. Nykiri presented the work her aunt died for. To have it suddenly dismissed, and by a stranger no less…no wonder she is angry.
I’ve seen ladies in silk passing information to Alaris. I haven’t seen the soldiers and spies who have bled, burned, and given up their families to stop the wither. I never met the men Alaris took to test the shadowgates, who are now dead and injured.
I’m trying to help, but I’m still so protected in this fight. However terrified I am about the idea of moving forward with the wrong plan, I won’t be the one carrying the sword.
I keep my words vague, even though we are getting close to the aviary. “Is getting in really the only problem?”
Dashol nods. “Alaris can do it…as long as we get him close enough.”
I cringe at that. I knew Dashol and others would be risking their lives, but it’s Alaris who has to go straight to the center. Alaris who will fail, and fall, if there isn’t a safe way in and out.
Solstice is less than a week away. After that, it’s only two weeks until the deepest cold at the midpoint of winter.
“What if midwinter comes,” I say at the door of the aviary, “and we still don’t know which plan is safe?”
“Then Alaris will try anyway,” Dashol says firmly. “No matter what, he will still try.”