I had one of my most vivid dreams yet that night. I awoke gasping, covered in sweats, the image of Esmaris’s
sneer and Serel’s eyes burned into the pre-dawn darkness.
I threw the covers off my body, padded down the hall and out the front door, and practiced my magic until the sun crested the horizon. There was no time for sleep.
 |
“I WOULD LIKE to write a letter to Zeryth,” I said to Max in the morning. “How would I send it to him?”
Max placed his teacup carefully on the table before responding. “Zeryth Aldris, I take it.”
“Yes. He is in Threll.”
“Right. I do remember that interesting bit.” He narrowed his eyes, just slightly. “Well. If you know exactly where he is, you could try sending it to him with a Stratagram. Or you could send a falcon and hope the thing is able to find him before it keels over in the plains.”
So basically, he was telling me that I needed someone at the Orders to send it for me, since they were the only ones I knew who had any idea where in Threll Zeryth was.
“Why do you need to write to him?” Max stirred his tea far too casually.
“I need to find out what is happening in Threll, with my
—” I wasn’t sure what to call Esmaris, or his estate, now that he was no longer my master and his home was no longer mine. “My friends.”
“You should talk to Willa. See if she can help.” Despite his helpful answer, his voice still held the unmistakable tang of disapproval. “How did you meet Zeryth, exactly?”
“He would stay at my—” I stumbled, but I had no other word. “— my master’s home when he traveled. We became friends then.”
“Your master,” Max repeated. “Is he the one who gave you those scars?”
“Does that matter?” “I think so. Yes.”
A pause. I didn’t know who I was protecting — why it pained me to confirm it. “Yes, he did.” I watched Max pick at the wood grain of the table, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “You do not like Zeryth.” A statement, not a question. Max was perhaps the least-subtle person I had ever met.
“We have never gotten along. And…” A brief moment of hesitation. “He had the resources to have gotten you out, and chose not to.”
“It was not his for doing. He could not free every slave he met in Threll.”
I spoke casually, but the truth was, the first two times Zeryth came to visit, I dreamed that he would take me with him when he left. It took a few years for me to decide that my freedom would have to be my responsibility and no one else’s. I couldn’t fault Zeryth for not taking that upon himself, especially since he spent so much time teaching me and indulging my questions. Lighting that fire in my stomach was its own kind of freedom. At least, that was what I told myself.
Max shook his head. “That just isn’t what I would consider a friend.”
“You do not have friends,” I tried to joke, but Max shot his answer back with decisive intensity.
“I have one excellent friend who is far better than I deserve. And if Sammerin were in that position, I would never, ever allow him to stay there.”
His words slid between my ribs and twisted in my guts. In that moment, my mind was far, far away from Zeryth. No, my thoughts furled only around Serel. Around my mother.
My cheek and forehead burned, scars left by everyone I had abandoned.
“It is never so simple,” I shot back, too-quickly, too-loudly. And perhaps the vehemence of my answer told Max that somehow, we had started talking about something different, because his face shifted in the beginnings of concern.
But I was relieved when a knock at the door rang out. Max hesitated briefly before standing to answer it, muttering, “I don’t even know what that noise is, considering that no one ever bothers.”
He swung open the door, and there stood Nura.
“How wonderful to see you,” Max said, baring his teeth in a smile.
