“How did you make it here?”

Yrene’s mouth tightened, her tears fading. She loosed a breath. “It is a long story.”

“I have time to listen.”

But she shook her head again and at last looked at him. There was a … clarity to her face. Those eyes. And it did not falter as she said, “I know who gave you that wound.”

Chaol went wholly still.

The man who had taken away the mother she so deeply loved; the man who had sent her fleeing across the world.

He managed to nod.

“The old king,” Yrene breathed, studying the pool again. “He was—he was possessed, too?”

The words were hardly more than a whisper, barely audible even to him.

“Yes,” he managed to say. “For decades. I—I’m sorry I did not tell you. We’ve deemed that information … sensitive.”

“For what it might mean about the suitability of your new king.”

“Yes, and open the door to questions that are best kept unasked.”

Yrene rubbed at her chest, her face haunted and bleak. “No wonder my magic recoils so.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. It was all he could think to offer.

Those eyes slid to him, any lingering fog clouding them clearing away. “It gives me further reason to fight it. To wipe away that last stain of him—of it forever. Just now, it was waiting for me. Laughing at me again. I managed to get to you, but then the darkness around you was too thick. It had made a … shell. I could see it—everything it showed you. Your memories, and his.” She rubbed her face. “I knew then. What it was—who gave you the wound. And I saw what it was doing to you, and all I could think to stop it, to blast it away …” She pursed her lips, as if they might start trembling again.

“A bit of goodness,” he finished for her. “A memory of light and goodness.” He didn’t have the words to convey his gratitude for it, for what it must have been like to offer up that memory of her mother against the demon that had destroyed her.

Yrene seemed to read his thoughts, and said, “I am glad it was a memory of her that beat the darkness back a little further.”

His throat tightened, and he swallowed hard.

“I saw your memory,” Yrene said quietly. “The—man. Your father.”

“He is a bastard of the finest caliber.”

“It was not your fault. None of it.”

He refrained from commenting otherwise.

“You were lucky that you did not fracture your skull,” she said, scanning his brow. The scar just barely visible, covered by his hair.

“I’m sure my father considers it otherwise.”

Darkness flashed in her eyes. Yrene only said, “You deserved better.”

The words hit something sore and festering—something he had locked up and not examined for a long, long time. “Thank you,” he managed to say.

They sat in silence for long minutes. “What time is it?” he asked after a while.

“Three,” she said.

Chaol started.

But Yrene’s eyes went right to his legs. His feet. How they had moved with him.

Her mouth opened silently.

“Another bit of progress,” he said.

She smiled—subdued, but … it was real. Not like the one she’d plastered on her face hours and hours ago. When she’d walked into his bedroom and found him there with Nesryn, and he’d felt the world slipping out from under him at the expression on her face. And when she had refused to meet his stare, when she’d wrapped her arms around herself …

He wished he’d been able to walk. So she could see him crawl toward her.

He didn’t know why. Why he felt like the lowest sort of low. Why he’d barely been able to look at Nesryn. Though he knew Nesryn was too observant not to be aware. It had been the unspoken agreement between them last night—silence on the subject. And that reason alone …

Yrene poked at his bare foot. “Do you feel this?”

Chaol curled his toes. “Yes.”

She frowned. “Am I pushing hard or soft?”

She ground her finger in.

“Hard,” he grunted.

Her finger lightened. “And now?”

“Soft.”

She repeated the test on the other foot. Touched each of his toes.

“I think,” she observed, “I’ve pushed it down—to somewhere in the middle of your back. The mark is still the same, but it feels like …” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t need to.”

It had been her joy—the undiluted joy of that memory—that had won him that bit of movement. What she’d opened up, given up, to push back the stain of that wound.

“I’m starving,” Chaol said, nudging her with an elbow. “Will you eat with me?”

And to his surprise, she said yes.

24

Nesryn knew.

She knew it hadn’t been mere interest that had prompted Chaol to ask her to talk to him last night, but guilt.

She was fine with it, she told herself. She had been a replacement for not one, but two of the women in his life. A third one … She was fine with it, she repeated as she returned from stalking through Antica’s streets—not a whisper of Valg to be found—and entered the palace grounds.

Nesryn braced herself as she peered up at the palace, not quite ready to return to their suite to wait out the brutal late afternoon heat.

A massive figure atop a minaret caught her eye, and she smiled grimly.

She was out of breath when she reached the aerie, but mercifully, Kadara was the only one present to witness it.

The ruk clicked her beak at Nesryn in greeting and went back to ripping at what appeared to be an entire slab of beef. Ribs and all.

“I heard you were headed here,” Sartaq said from the stairs behind her.

Nesryn whirled. “I—how?”

The prince gave her a knowing smile and stepped into the aerie. Kadara puffed her feathers with excitement and dug back into her meal, as if eager to finish and be in the skies. “This palace is crawling with spies. Some of them mine. Is there anything you wanted?”

He scanned her—seeing the face that yesterday her aunt and uncle had complained looked tired. Worn out. Unhappy. They’d crammed her with food, then insisted she take their four children back down to the docks to select fish for their evening meal, then shoved more food down her throat before she’d returned to the palace for the feast. Still peaky, Zahida clucked. Your eyes are heavy.