Servants began bringing in stacks of hammered plates; trays of salted pork snouts, ears, and feet; platters of dark meat that I guessed to be venison; bowls of thick gruel; and pitchers to refill empty tankards. The energy in the hall was different tonight. Maybe it was because the Komizar was gone, or maybe it was just I who was different. I noticed the servants whispering more among themselves. One of them approached me, a spare girl, tall and wispy. She hesitated, then offered a short, awkward curtsy. “Princess, if the ale isn’t to your liking—”

Stavik roared, and the poor girl fell back several steps. “Watch your tongue, maid!” he yelled. “There’s no royalty in Venda, and she’ll sure as hell drink what the rest of us do or not drink at all.”

A rumble ran down the table, a growing discord that echoed the chievdar’s contempt. The unexpected welcome was being challenged as swiftly as a lash to the back. I felt Kaden’s hand on my thigh. A warning. And I realized, even as Assassin, he was feeling the edge of what he could control.

I returned the chievdar’s glare, then spoke to the girl, who was still trembling several steps away. “As Chievdar Stavik so wisely said, I’ll drink whatever you serve and be glad for it.”

Kaden’s hand slid from my thigh. The discord was replaced with uneasy chatter. Baskets of bread were brought to the table. For all their wretched and coarse ways, no one partook prematurely. They all waited for Calantha to offer the acknowledgment of sacrifice.

The same girl who had cowered before the raging chievdar just moments earlier now came forward, the platter of bones rattling in her frightened hands as she set it before Calantha.

Everyone waited.

Calantha looked at me, her lone eye narrowing, and then she nodded. The air in the room shifted. I knew what she was going to do before she ever moved. My temples throbbed. Not now. This might be the move that killed me. The timing was all wrong. Not now. But it was all already in motion. Calantha stood and shoved the platter across the table at me. “Our prisoner will give the acknowledgment tonight.”

I didn’t wait for dissent, nor for a sword to be drawn. I stood. And before Stavik could utter a word, before Kaden could pull me back to my seat, I sang the Vendan acknowledgment of sacrifice and more. E cristav unter quiannad.

The words poured out, hot and urgent, like my chest had been laid open. Meunter ijotande. And then more flowed out languid and slow, a wordless language, like that day in the valley, remembrances known only to the gods. I lifted the platter over my head, Yaveen hal an ziadre.

I lowered the bones to the table once again and offered the final paviamma.

The room was swept silent. No response came back to me.

Seconds ticked as centuries, and then finally a faint paviamma echoed back from Eben. The slight tear in the silence opened wider, and more paviammas rolled down the table and back again, the brethren looking at their laps. The meal began, food was passed, talk resumed. Kaden breathed an audible sigh and leaned back in his seat. Finally, Rafe looked at me too, but the expression in his eyes wasn’t what I wanted to see. He looked at me as if I were a stranger.

I shoved the platter toward him. “Take a bone, Emissary,” I snapped. “Or are you not grateful?”

He glared at me, his lip lifted in disgust. He grabbed a long femur and turned back to Calantha without a second glance.

“It seems that if the Komizar doesn’t kill them, they might kill each other,” Governor Faiwell quipped to Stavik.

“The worst enemy is one that you’ve slept with,” Stavik answered.

They both laughed as if they knew this from experience.

This was our plan, I told myself.

A performance. That was all.

The kind of performance that could rip out a heart a piece at a time. Rafe didn’t look at me again for the rest of the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kaden was silent as he got ready for bed, the kind of silence that made every other sound grating—his breathing, the weight of his footsteps, the sound of water poured from a pitcher. It was all laced with tension.

He scrubbed his face over the basin, and ran his wet fingers through his hair. His movements were brusque. He crossed the room and pulled his belt from his trousers with a quick yank. “The soldiers told me you sat on the wall outside the window today,” he said without looking my way.

“Is that forbidden?”

“It’s not advised. It’s a long drop.”

“I needed fresh air.”

“They said you sang songs.”

“Remembrances. Just the evening tradition of Morrighan. You remember that, don’t you?”

“The soldiers said people gathered to listen.”

“So they did, but only a few. I’m a curiosity.”

He unlocked his trunk and threw in his belt and scabbard. His knife was placed just under the fur rug where he would sleep—he kept his blade close, even in his own locked room. Was it habit or a requirement of the Rahtan, who always had to be ready? It reminded me that I still had Natiya’s knife in my boot and I’d have to be discreet when I removed it.

“Is something wrong? Was it the way I said the blessing?” I asked as I struggled with the laces at my back.

He took off one boot. “You said it fine.”

“But?”

“Nothing.” He saw me fiddling with the laces. “Here, let me look.”

I turned around. “Aster seems to have knotted them,” I said.

I felt his fingers fumbling with the task, then finally felt the fabric loosen. “There,” he said. I turned to face him. He looked down at me, his eyes warm. “There is something else. When I saw you in that dress, I was—” He shook his head. “I was afraid. I thought— Never mind.”