Chapter 30 #2
In the morning we packed up quickly, my fascination unending when the silver-helmeted guards reduced the tents to twigs and leaves once more. It had been a veritable palace compared to my home with Safiyya and Nani, and now it was nothing more than forest debris.
The Viceroy rode ahead with the other guards, leaving me and Kiyan to travel together.
I thought about our conversation from the night before over and over.
I didn’t want Kiyan to be suspicious of me—distrustful was fine, but as long as he didn’t suspect I was going to take off with the crown, things would be easier. Which meant I had to get him to see past my initial lies and trust me, at least a little.
A truce, then.
It was time I laid the groundwork of that truce.
“Do you have any family?” I asked as we rode through the forest toward the lower mountains.
His head snapped to me, his forehead creasing in confusion. “Did you think I just sprang up, fully formed?”
My face heated, but I persisted. “Not quite. But you are alone.”
He studied me for a moment.
“There’s no one,” he said after a long pause. “That’s why I work for the Viceroy. Even if there was, they wouldn’t want me as their family anymore. Not after what I’ve done.”
What I’ve done.
His words were bitter.
“So why work for him? Why do his bidding?”
He set his jaw and stared straight ahead, his gaze focused on the mountains.
“Why not?” His knuckles were white on his reins.
“I was living on the city streets when I got the job at the palace. I was scraping by, getting beaten and spat on by hags and giants, fighting soldiers for coins and not doing much of anything. I was good at hunting and good at ferreting out traitors.”
He kept staring straight ahead. I leaned forward in my saddle, and my metal-legged horse Cheeni sensed my mood, and matching Kiyan’s pace. “What a load of bullshit.”
He whirled his head in my direction, a snarl curling his lips. “Is this what a truce is, then?”
I waved my hand. “I believed everything until you said you were good at hunting traitors. Because I don’t think you are.”
He reared back, his eyes blazing. But before he could speak, I did.
“Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to wear the skin of another animal so I don’t get mistaken for a kill? Or to sneak in amongst the wolves, in order to poison their water? You aren’t telling me everything, Kiyan, which is fine. But don’t think I don’t understand why.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, his throat bobbing. “What did you do?”
I inclined my head, confusion furrowing my brow.
He cleared his throat. “In the human world. What did you do to make you say that? And what did it cost you?”
I was quiet for a moment. “I stepped over people dying in the streets. I helped the Citadel build their power. I took whatever they gave without question and passed it to the people I loved. But I didn’t do it blindly, and I didn’t do it without plans.
I may have worked for them, but I did it to protect my people. ”
I did it so I could steal back the relics that were taken in the first place. So I could bring life magic back to Astola. I didn’t tell him that, because he might guess my plan revolved around the crown.
I didn’t tell him we were being starved. I didn’t tell him being cut off from life magic by both the wall and the Empire was killing us.
“And you? You didn’t do this job because you thought you were good at it, or you had nothing else to do. You did it because you have someone you want to protect. I heard you say it earlier—you have some power, even if it is much less.”
“Protect is one way of phrasing it,” he said finally. “I want to protect all of River, if I can.”
“Even the rebels?”
“Especially the rebels—even from themselves.”
We were quiet after that, riding through the forest under a light rain, the droplets hitting the legs of my horse like drips from a leaky roof hitting a tin bucket below.
“Where are we headed?” I asked finally, breaking the silence between us where we both were taking new measure of each other.
Kiyan looked out over the head of his horse. “The map takes us to the edge of the lower mountains, but from there I am not sure where exactly the entrance to the vault is.”
“But once we head there, I might be able to narrow it down with my magic,” I said, sitting up straighter in my saddle.
I looked past the lower mountains and turned my head toward Tirich Mir, the Mountain that rose high above the low clouds, its snowy peak so high it seemed to touch the sun.
“Why is the Mountain cursed?”
Kiyan shot me a surprised look, then looked ahead at the Viceroy, whom we had gotten closer to.
His voice lowered when he answered me. “When the royal family of the River Court saw what was happening, saw the destruction the Viceroy and the Salt armies wrought, especially with King Rusul’s crown, they fled to the Mountain, to unearth an ancient weapon hidden there.
But much like all Queen Azari’s powerful objects, there are protections around them.
They triggered a curse, with no real way to break it, at least not from the outside.
You cannot even find the entrance to the Golden palace in Tirich Mir anymore.
” He released a heavy breath. “Now instead of a palace, it is a prison.”
“And that’s why the Viceroy wants the crown?”
“I’m sure he wants the curse broken so he can take the weapon hidden in the Mountain and kill the royal family.”
“And you? Do you want the royal family freed?”
“My heart’s far too black to care about them,” he said and gave a bitter laugh. “They are protected. Those living outside of the Mountain are not.”
“But if you could free them, that might change everything.”
“If they’re free, they’ll be dead.” Kiyan said bitterly. “They’re no use to anyone.”
“And now, instead of fighting the Viceroy, you’ve accepted him. What’s more, you work for him.”
“As do you, scholar. As do you.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m not killing anyone.”
He gave a small smile. “Aren’t you? What will happen when you give him the power to remake magic itself, I wonder?”
I wouldn’t be giving it to him.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be killing anyone with it.
I thought about his words, then remembered my cousin’s to me.
Finally you’re acting like a Nazir.
Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to wear the skin of another animal?
What skin was Kiyan wearing?
Was he the lamb, or the wolf?
And which was I?