Much like Corrick’s home in Kandala, the Palace of the Sun is vast, and it takes a while to walk from room to room. When Rian leads us to a wide, spiral staircase, sunlight beams in through the yellow-and-red stained-glass windows to create a vivid pattern on the walls. We’re heading to his strategy room so we can look at maps and records, but my eyes keep falling on the signs of battle that must have happened right here. Little burn marks along the walls, nicks in the railings that must have come from a blade.
Rian sees me looking, and he says, “I didn’t lie about the war either.”
It’s the first thing he’s said since offering to explain about the poison, and his voice is quiet, mild, almost an apology after the way we were yelling at each other.
“I know,” I say, making my voice match. “I saw the outside.”
“A lot of people haven’t returned to Tarrumor. You saw the damage—they’re afraid to rebuild in case Oren’s people return to raze the citadel again. Easier to head into the hills.”
“But you stayed,” I say.
He nods. “I’d never convince them to return if I were hiding, too.”
“What have you told them?” I ask.
We’ve reached the landing, and he looks at me in the buttery light from the windows here. “Told them?” he echoes.
“Your people,” I say. “What have you told them about what happened with Kandala?”
“They’ve seen the ship. It’s not seaworthy right now. It’s clear we were attacked, and there’s no secret the most likely offenders would be Oren and his pirates. I’ve said a few people from Kandala’s contingent survived.” He glances between me and Rocco, who’s followed along with Rian’s guards. “And here you are.”
My heart thumps against my rib cage. I didn’t intend to walk right into the reasons Rocco and I discussed coming here, but the opportunity has arisen, and I don’t want to waste it.
There is more than one way to fight.I swallow and hope I don’t throw up on him again. It doesn’t help that I still want to stab him, too.
“On the ship, you were so worried about the promises you made to arrange for a trade for steel. Are you still?”
He glances over in a way that tells me he can see right through me. “Of course.”
“Do you intend to return to Kandala to negotiate again?”
“I sense it’ll be a bit harder if I return without the king’s brother and two of his guards.”
I take a slow breath to let those words land so I can speak evenly. “To say nothing of the fact that you’d be returning as a king yourself, not a displaced emissary.”
“You seem to be maneuvering toward a goal, Miss Cade, and you’ve made no secret of your feelings for me.” He stops beside an open door, and I can hear the muffled sounds of a woman’s voice somewhere deep within. “Ask for what you want. If we can come to terms, we will.”
I somehow forgot that he was like this. Everyone at court in Kandala was always full of double-speak and hidden motives. Rian obviously hid some things, but he’s always been direct.
“Fine,” I say. “I want to go back to Kandala. If you need steel, you want to go back, too. You know King Harristan won’t negotiate with you after what happened. You need me and Rocco to explain so you don’t look like a complete villain.”
“So I should return you to Kandala, under the pretense of negotiation, where you would claim to speak in my defense. An intriguing offer, but you just came at me with a dagger. I feel rather certain your king would hear that his brother was dead and shoot me on sight.” He extends a hand toward the doorway. “After you.”
I stare at him with my mouth open. “So . . . you’re never going back? But you were so desperate for steel!”
“I was desperate. I am desperate. I didn’t say I was never going back, but it was a tremendous risk for me to go once—and you see how it turned out. I don’t know if I can attempt returning again so quickly.”
I can’t believe this. I’m defeated before we even started. “But—but if we went with you . . . we could explain—”
“Explain? Explain what? There is no explanation the king would hear that would work in my favor. And even if I believed youwould speak in my defense, which I’m not sure I do, there is still the matter of your guard.” Rian looks past me at Rocco.
Behind me, the guardsman is silent. “What does Rocco have to do with anything?” I demand.
“He’s the only one to survive. His one charge is dead. He failed in his duty. Do you believe the king would turn a blind eye to that?”
I inhale sharply—but then I remember the story Rocco just told me during our walk. How Harristan dismissed all of his father’s personal guardsmen after his parents were assassinated.
Rian’s eyes haven’t left Rocco. “I would expect your guard to say anything possible to keep himself in the king’s good graces—and that certainly wouldn’t paint me in a good light. No matter what you say about me, I feel rather certain that Rocco would tell a different story if it meant he might keep his head. It’s no surprise he’s dedicated himself to you. If he can bring at least one person back alive, it might be the only way he escapes an execution.”
“King Harristan will not execute him,” I snap.
Rian looks back at me, and his eyebrows go up. He gestures into the room again, where the voices have fallen silent. “Again, Miss Cade. After you.”
I clench my jaw and walk into the room. I glance at Rocco, wondering if he’s bothered by Rian’s comments, but his expression is cool and unaffected. Guard eyes, the way he’d be if he were standing behind the king.
So I look back at the room—and I’m surprised to find Gwyn, Rian’s first lieutenant, and Sablo, both from the ship. Sablo lost his tongue in an attack by Oren Crane, and he was rescued by Rian. Gwyn and her daughter were both attacked by Oren, too, and she bears the scars. They’re both sitting beside a table that has a wide assortment of maps and books and instruments strewn all over.
Gwyn gives me a nod as if I’ve been coming here daily. “Tessa. Good to see you.”
Sablo taps the table and gives me a nod as well.
“Hello,” I say, because I don’t know if it’s good to see them yet.
“I see you already started arguing,” says Gwyn. “I heard what happened out front.”
She was always even more direct than Rian. My cheeks warm. “I’m glad gossip travels as quickly here as it did in Kandala,” I say.
Rian slices through my embarrassment and says, “Miss Cade was curious about the Moonflower poison, and I wanted to show her what we know.”
“You brought it to Kandala as a cure,” I say. “How is it a poison at all?”
“If you boil the stems,” says Gwyn. “It causes the fever and the cough. Too much, and it can be downright debilitating. That’s how we kept Bella subdued for so long.”
I look between them, trying to work this through. “But the petals are a cure. That’s why you brought it.”
“No,” says Rian. “I truly only brought it for Bella. Making an elixir of the petals acts as an antidote for the poison.” He pauses. “It was a lucky turn to discover you were all so desperate when I first docked at Port Karenin.”
“None of this makes sense.” I stare at him. “How would someone poison an entire country?”
“I don’t know.” He moves closer to the table. “Come look at the maps. I have a few thoughts.”
My curiosity is overpowering my anger, and I join him beside the table—and a second later, it occurs to me that the guardsman shouldn’t be excluded from this conversation.
“Rocco,” I say. “Come look.”
He steps away from the wall, and he stands on my opposite side. I wonder if that’s deliberate.
He’s been completely silent since Rian basically accused him of manipulating me against the king, and I’m sure that’s deliberate.
I wish I could reach out and squeeze his hand to reassure him, but this feels more precarious than any second I spent in the Kandalan court.
I look at Rian instead. “Even if someone had the means, why would someone poison all of Kandala?”
“Perhaps because there’s so much money to be made in curing it?”
My heart pounds when he says that. I don’t want to think someone could be that heartless—but I’d be wrong. Consul Sallister was funding the rebels himself, raiding his own supply runs to drive up the cost of Moonflower petals. He practically funded the whole revolution—then supplied the rebels with faulty medicine so they got sicker.
“Well, there’s still the matter of how,” I say.
Rian taps the first map on the table. “These are the islands of Ostriary.” He points to the center. “We’re here, on Fairde. We were attacked by Crane’s people here, just south of Silvesse. Kaisa is where the Moonflower grows.” He points to the northernmost island. “That leaves Iris, the strip of land that you all believed was the whole of Ostriary, and Roshan and Estar.” He drags another map closer, laying it alongside, and I realize it’s a somewhat rudimentary map of Kandala. “Here. Kandala sits north, so Fairde actually lies about parallel to your southern sector, Sunkeep.” He adjusts the maps a bit.
I study the two countries lying side by side. The sectors are very crudely marked, and I wonder how old this map is. Each sector has a name labeled under it, which I’m assuming are the consuls, but some of the names are unfamiliar. I’m about to ask how old this map is until I get to the Sorrowlands. Under that one is the name Pelham.
“Roydan Pelham,” I say. I glance at Rocco. “He’s the current consul for the Sorrowlands.”
Rocco nods—but his eyes hold mine, and he says nothing else.
I don’t know if he’s telling me not to give away any more information—or if he just doesn’t have any to give me.
But at my side, Rian nods, too. “These are old maps, so a lot of the consul names are out of date. I was surprised to hear this one at dinner, though.” He taps the northern part of the map.
Pepperleaf.
“Laurel,” I whisper. “Her father was a baron. But not a consul.”
“Well, someone in her lineage was a consul in the past.”
Rocco taps on Trader’s Landing.
Montague.
I inhale sharply, but Rocco’s finger brushes against my hand when he withdraws, and I swallow.
That was definitely a warning.
Rian’s no fool. He looks at me. “What?”
“Montague died,” I say, scrambling for something to say, because I have to say something. “King Harristan never replaced him.” I pause. “It’s been a bit of a scandal in Kandala for years.”
He studies me as if he suspects I’m lying, but I’m not, and maybe he realizes that. “Why has it been a scandal?”
I’m frozen in place, staring at him. I’m such a terrible liar—and I’m so unprepared for a discussion about this. Barnard Montague was the consul who was behind the assassination of King Harristan and Prince Corrick’s parents. He was never replaced because they were never able to determine a motive. I don’t know if any of that information is good or bad to share with Rian.
I consider how the entire sector was always suspected of shady dealings—until the fever sickness grabbed everyone’s attention. I frown a little, thinking of Rocco’s job in the night patrol, how he talked about explosives being smuggled out of Trader’s Landing. Trader’s Landing was also involved in the shipping logs that Arella Cherry and Roydan Pelham were reviewing—the same ones that showed trade deals with Ostriary from long ago that went sour.
All of this has to be related somehow, but I don’t know the key players in the palace well enough to piece it together.
Rian has clearly had enough of my silence. “Did it have anything to do with Montague poisoning King Harristan as a child?”
I nearly choke on my tongue. “What?”
“You said it was a scandal. According to our records, Montague is the one who used to barter for steel—and the one who first began demanding more silver. He said he had leverage on King Lucas. That the heir wouldn’t survive. I’ve seen the letters to my father myself.”
My mouth has gone dry. “That doesn’t mean anything. King Harristan—he’s always been sick—”
“Miss Tessa.” Rocco’s voice is soft at my side, but a tone of warning hides under the words.
Rian glances between him and me. His eyes narrow.
I don’t say anything else—but my brain is spinning. Could Harristan have been poisoned? I don’t know enough about this side of the Moonflower. I don’t know enough about any of this.
I shake off all the things I don’t know. But I can’t deny basic facts. “Montague killed the king and queen. He was killed during the attack. That’s why there was a scandal. But if he thought he had leverage, it didn’t work. Harristan and Corrick clearly aren’t getting more silver from Ostriary.”
Maybe Rian can’t deny that either. “And they’re not benefitting from sales of the Moonflower?”
He asks this like a genuine question, which takes me by surprise. I have to remind myself of what Olive said, how he truly does mean well—but he also doesn’t care who gets hurt when he thinks he’s right. “No. They’re not.” It draws my attention back to the maps. “So let’s say someone is poisoning all of Kandala somehow. Why did you show me the maps? What have you figured out already?”
“Nothing yet. But I showed you where Moonflower grows here.” He points to Kaisa again. “Where does Moonflower grow in Kandala?”
I point to the northernmost sectors. Based on how he’s positioned the maps, they sit farther north than Kaisa. “Here. Moonlight Plains and Emberridge. But how would they poison the entire country? They barely produce enough Moonflower to treat it.”
Rian winces. “I’m not sure. But it doesn’t take very much poison to cause an effect. Just a bit of boiled stem will cause the fever in an adult. A bit more will bring the coughing.”
“And it has to be boiled?”
“Or soaked,” Rian says. “Though that takes longer. Far quicker just to boil it.”
I study the maps, remembering the way Corrick and I did the same thing in the palace. It was so late at night, and we went through books and records and pored over maps, talking about how Sunkeep fares the best with the fevers, but it has the lowest population in Kandala. He revealed that several people had theorized that Sunkeep’s access to the ocean water might stave off the fever sickness, but it was determined that every sector has access to fresh water. It was a dead end.
“Could the ‘medicine’ be tainted?” Rian asks. “Could they be handing out vials of poison mixed in with the cure so no one would know what they’re getting?”
I shake my head. “No. Moonflower is sold as petals. No one is given vials of elixir because it doesn’t really last, and the elites are allowed to buy as much as they want.”
Rian scoffs. “Of course they are.”
I can’t even disagree with his reaction.
“How much does it take?” I say. I look up at him. “You said you brought so much Moonflower to keep Bella subdued. Does the poison take repeated doses?”
He hesitates, and for the first time, a hint of shame flickers in his eyes. “Yes. And you have to be careful. Too much, and it can be debilitating. Too long and damage can be permanent.”
I think about that, turning it around in my head. “But if people in Kandala were given access to an antidote, even infrequently, maybe we weren’t curing the fever sickness. Maybe we were just holding back the poison, over and over again. Only the most vulnerable fell very sick and died.”
Or those who didn’t have access to medicine at all.
My eyes trace the lines of the rivers that neatly slice through Kandala on both sides again, the Queen’s River in the east, and the Flaming River to the west. Rian said boiled or soaked. There’d be no way to hand out vials of poison to the entire population on a regular basis—but there must be hundreds of streams branching off each river, leading into towns and valleys that each have their own system of water mills, with pumps and wells and sewers all throughout each sector, even the Wilds. The Royal Sector, completely landlocked, even has running water provided by a complicated sewer system that diverts water directly from mills fed by the Queen’s River.
The Queen’s River, which starts at the northern tip of Kandala, just like the Flaming River.
The northern tip of Kandala, coincidentally home to the two sectors where the Moonflower grows.
Where the “cure” was discovered.
I stare at the map. Maybe every sector doesn’t have access to fresh water.
“They’re putting it in the water,” I say in horror.
“In the water?” Rian says in surprise.
But Rocco leans close. “How, Miss Tessa? How would they do it?”
I have to shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know enough about water mills or wells or how any of that works.” But now that I’m thinking about it, a lot of other things begin to fall into place. “But it would explain why Sunkeep doesn’t have as many sick people. If the rivers are poisoned in Emberridge and Moonlight Plains, by the time water travels that far south, the poison is probably diluted. It would also explain why people who work at the river docks always seem to get the worst fever sickness.”
I tap my finger against my chin. I’m on a roll now, and I can’t stop. “It would also explain why it’s so difficult to determine who gets sick and who doesn’t. Some people might be drinking water from a rain barrel, some people might be drinking from a well, some people might be drinking water from a faucet. With the size of Kandala, the rain surely dilutes the poison from time to time, too, so there’d be no way to figure out a rhythm or pattern to who is getting the sickest either. And some people would be more vulnerable than others. Maybe the sea life can be affected, too. So people who eat fish would be influenced. Or what about livestock who’ve drunk the water? Would the poison be in their flesh?” I let out a breath. All of a sudden, I want my books. I need to get to the king. I need to warn someone. “This is too big! There’s too much.”
But then my eyes lock on Rian’s, and I remember what he said about returning to Kandala.
I don’t know if I can attempt returning again so quickly.
“We have to go back,” I say. “We have to go back now. I have to tell the king.”
Rian looks at me steadily. “And how will you get there? Swim?”
I inhale a breath of fire and move like I’m going to launch myself at him.
Chairs scrape against the floor, and the two guards who followed us step away from the wall, but Rian puts up a hand, and they all stop. I’m aware of Rocco right against my side.
“I can’t,” Rian says to me. “Not even if I wanted to. You saw the condition of the Dawn Chaser. The ship is going to take weeks to repair, if not a month—”
“I know you have other ships,” I snap.
“I do. But you also know we were just engaged in a war, Miss Cade. A lot of the bridges have been destroyed, so any steamships I have are running cargo to rebuild. If I claim failure on this mission and then take a ship away from rebuilding, it’s going to be a tough sell to my people. If I do that and leave now, Oren Crane will absolutely take over.”
My fists are clenched at my sides.
People are dying, I want to scream.
But he knows that—and as much as I hate to admit it, people are at risk here, too. I saw the citadel.
I hate this. It’s no better than it was in Kandala.
I wish we’d never come.
But if we’d never come, I never would have known about the poison. We would’ve kept trying to figure out a way to make better medicine, fighting our own war endlessly.
I unclench my fists and sigh.
“Fine,” I say. “Then I’m going back to the house. I’ll take the horses and cart you promised.” I remember what Rocco said about our little boats and add, “Some sailcloth, too. And some maps, if we’re to navigate Fairde on our own.”
He could easily make a dig about how we wouldn’t have to navigate anything alone if I weren’t choosing to leave, but he doesn’t. “I’ll give you anything you need to make yourself comfortable, Miss Cade.”
I somehow refrain from giving him a rude gesture, and instead, I turn for the door. “Goodbye, Gwyn,” I say. “Goodbye, Sablo.”
As I listen to their farewells behind me, I stomp down the stairs, feeling Rocco’s presence at my back. Rian’s footsteps are lighter behind him, and I’m sure there are guards following him, too. This all feels like such a failure. He hasn’t promised to bring me back. I have no way to tell Harristan what happened to Corrick—or about what’s truly happening in Kandala. I don’t know how much time will need to pass before he’ll launch a rescue mission, if he can even accomplish one.
Rocco and I could be stuck here . . . forever.
My chest tightens, and my breathing hitches for a moment. That’s almost too overwhelming to comprehend.
There is more than one way to fight.
Well, I told Rocco I couldn’t lie. I’m not an emissary, and Rian saw right through me immediately. I probably ruined any hope we had the very instant I drew that dagger and vomited on his toes. The only thing I know how to do is take care of people.
Is that something? I don’t know. It never seems to make a difference.
I think of those people we passed when we rode through town. The ones who looked at Rocco’s livery and wondered if I was someone important. I’m not. Even in Kandala, the only time I felt like I was making a difference was when I was working in the Wilds as an outlaw, with Weston Lark at my side.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, I turn and look at Rian. “In addition to the horses and the cart and everything else, I’m going to need extra silver.”
His eyebrows go up. “Oh, you are?”
“Yes. I worked as an apothecary in Kandala. I’d like to do the same here. If your people are rebuilding, they surely get sick and injured from time to time. I have my books and a few things I brought on the ship, but I’ll need to buy supplies so I can be prepared. Once we have the wagon, Rocco and I will ride through your towns to determine what’s needed.”
Rian stares at me. His mouth opens like he wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. I think I’ve truly surprised him.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say. “I’m certainly not going to sit in that house waiting around for some man to decide my fate. If I’m stuck here, I’m going to make myself useful.”
He clamps his mouth shut. “Fine. I’ll grant you whatever you need.” He pauses, and his eyes narrow. “But if I hear that you’re causing trouble among my people—”
“I’m not causing trouble.” I take a step closer, looking him dead in the eye. “I’ve never caused trouble. You criticized Prince Corrick for manipulation and scheming at every turn, when you did exactly the same thing. And you know what the problem with that is? You think you’re doing the right thing, but all you’re really doing is turning everyone into your enemy. If you knew Moon-flower was a poison, you had a chance to tell King Harristan when you were there. You could have saved lives right then. But you knew it was a way to lure Corrick onto that ship, so you didn’t.”
“I didn’t because it was clear I was sitting with traitors and—”
“I’m done talking to you, Rian.” I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is help people, and that’s all I’m doing now.”
“Truly.” His eyes search mine, and I can tell he suspects me of lying.
But I’m not.
“Truly,” I say. “So give me my silver, and I’ll be on my way.”
He hesitates, and for a breath of time, I think he’s going to refuse. We’ll have gained nothing at all.
But then Rian nods. “Consider it done.”
