Sisters?

I translated the last passage again, certain I had made a mistake, but it was true. Gaudrel and Venda were sisters. Venda was once a vagabond too.

And then I read more.

Let it be known,

They stole her,

My little one.

She reached back for me, screaming,

Ama.

She is a young woman now,

And this old woman couldn’t stop them.

Let it be known to the gods and generations,

They stole from the Remnant.

Harik, the thief, he stole my Morrighan,

Then sold her for a sack of grain,

To Aldrid the scavenger.

I closed the book, my palms damp. Stared at my lap, trying to understand. Trying to explain it away. Trying not to believe it.

It wasn’t just any child that Gaudrel told this history to.

It was Morrighan.

She was a girl not chosen by the gods, but stolen by a thief and sold to a scavenger. Harik wasn’t her father, as the Holy Text claimed. He was her abductor and seller. Aldrid, the revered founding father of a kingdom, was little more than a scavenger who bought a bride.

At least according to this history. I wasn’t sure what to believe.

Only one thing felt certain in my heart. Three women were torn apart. Three women who were once family.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

RAFE

Calantha and Ulrix dragged me to the stables. I was to have another ride through their miserable city, the only advantage being that I could search for another way out, though it was looking more certain there were none.

Vendan riders were swift, and the lost days burned in my head. I went through every military strategy Sven had ever drilled into me, but none of those strategies had ever included Lia and the risk to her.

These thoughts were consuming me, so I didn’t recognize him at first. He dumped dried patties into a bin near the stables. His clothes were dirty and torn. When I followed Calantha and Ulrix into the stable, my eyes had passed over him, focusing instead on my own horse in the first stall. One of the chievdars had claimed him for his own. He was well cared for and groomed, but it goaded me that he would now serve Venda.

Calantha and Ulrix were taking me out on the Komizar’s orders. I saw him leaving with Lia as we arrived in the stable yard. I feared for her in the Komizar’s company. “She’ll be fine,” Calantha said. I averted my gaze, saying I was only curious about the purpose of these rides throughout the city. “A campaign of sorts,” she told me vaguely. “The Komizar wishes to share our newly arrived nobility with others.”

“I’m only a lowly emissary. Not a noble.”

“No,” she said. “You’ll be anything the Komizar wishes you to be. And today you’re the grand Lord Emissary of the Prince of Dalbreck.”

“For a nation that despises royalty, he seems eager to flaunt it.”

“There are many ways to feed people.”

As we led our horses from the stable, the patty clapper carted a load in front of the door, tripping and spilling it to its side. Ulrix cursed him for blocking our way. “Fikatande idaro! Bogeve enar johz vi daka!”

The patty clapper scrambled on the ground, trying to return the patties as fast as he could to the cart. He stopped and looked up, cowering, spilling out apologies in Vendan. I squinted when I saw him, thinking I had to be mistaken.

It was Jeb. He was filthy, with matted hair, and he stank. Jeb. A patty clapper.

It took every bit of my willpower not to reach down and embrace him. They had made it—at least Jeb had. I looked around the stable yard, hoping to see the others. Jeb vigorously shook his head as he apologized for his clumsiness. He briefly aimed his gaze just at me, shaking his head again.

The others weren’t here. Yet. Or did he mean they wouldn’t be coming at all?

“Bring some of those up to my room when you’re done. North Sanctum Tower,” I said.

Calantha exchanged some quick words with Jeb. “Mi ena urat seh lienda?”

Jeb shook his head and gestured with his fingers. “Nay. Mias e tayn.”

“The fool doesn’t understand your tongue,” Ulrix growled. “And your room gets heated last, Emissary. When the Council is nice and warm, then maybe you’ll get some.”

Jeb nodded, throwing the last of the patties into the cart. North tower. The fool understood perfectly, and now he knew where to find me. He wheeled the cart out of the way, and Ulrix pushed past us, his patience spent. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Where is there?” I asked Calantha.

She sighed as if bored. For someone so young, she was jaded beyond her years. As much as I had tried to pry information from her about her position at the Sanctum, she was an icy wall when it came to details about herself. “We’re going to the Stonegate quarter with a quick stop at Corpse Call,” she said. “The Komizar thought you might find it entertaining.”

*   *   *

I had been a soldier in the field for almost four years. I had seen a lot. Men stabbed, maimed, their skulls split wide. I’d even seen men torn apart by wild animals, half eaten. In the Cam Lanteux and on the battlefield, there were no delicate considerations for how a man died. I had learned to expect anything. But the bile rose in my throat when we topped the crest of Corpse Call, and I stifled the catch in my chest as I started to look away.

Ulrix pushed on my shoulder. “Better get a good look. The Komizar’s going to ask you what you think of it.” I turned back. I looked steady and hard. Three heads on stakes. Flies buzzed on swollen tongues. Maggots roiled in eye sockets. A raven yanked stubbornly on something sinuous from a cheek, like it was a worm. But even through the decay, I could tell they were boys. They were once boys.