I opened my eyes slowly. I was greeted with no racing heart, no panicked start, no dramatic fight for breath—only the sight of a familiar bronze
tiled ceiling.
I rolled over. My room came into focus. Piles of books buried every flat surface. Mid-morning light flooded through the windows, bright enough to make my head ache. Everything ached, actually. My mouth was so dry that I thought I might choke on my own swollen tongue.
I stretched my fingers, and my left hand brushed something soft—hair?
The head jerked up. Caduan blinked away sleep, rubbing his eyes. The moment his gaze fell to me, though, all vestiges of exhaustion fell away. A faint smile twisted his mouth.
“At long last, welcome back, Aefe.”
He helped me sit up, and gave me water. My bones, muscles, and head screamed at me, but the wounds in my gut and my throat had been healed.
“You’re fortunate to be alive,” Caduan told me. “You were nearly dead by the time I got to you. Your recovery has been… difficult.”
The memory of it all came back slowly. The humans who had attacked me. The blood. The way life felt draining from me. And the shadowy image of Caduan, tearing my attackers apart.
The sour taste in my mouth now had nothing to do with my thirst. “Did you find them?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Tisaanah. Maxantarius. Your wayfinder.” Caduan placed the cup in my hands. “No.” My heart crashed to the ground.
I looked down at the water and my faint reflection within it—a face I still barely recognized. Once I had destroyed entire armies. Now, five humans had nearly killed me.
My knuckles were white around the glass, clenched tight. “I was stronger than them. It should not have happened that way.”
“It shouldn’t have. But not for the reasons you mean.” I could feel Caduan’s stare on me, but I could not bring myself to meet it. His voice softened. “I knew you weren’t ready. I was selfish and impatient, and you paid for that. That was a mistake.”
“I felt them. I could have fought through, I could have—” “It was too soon.”
A surge of frustration. I slammed the cup down on the nightstand. “I was using magic. I am powerful enough to—”
“Yes, you are powerful. More powerful than you know, and yet weaker than you’ve ever been. I was so caught up with the potential of the former that I forgot…” His eyes fell to my throat. “I forgot that flesh is flesh. You are just as fragile as anyone else. Perhaps even more so, because you have been given a new body and so little time to understand its workings and limitations.”
“I understand my limitations.”
“Do you know how difficult your recovery was? How close you were to death?” He spoke sharply, then abruptly paused. When he resumed, he was once again carefully calm. “I thought for a time that… maybe I wouldn’t be able to save you, and my own hubris would be to blame for that. I owe you an apology. I put too much on your shoulders.”
Those piercing eyes flicked back to mine, paralyzing me. They reminded me of images from my fever dreams—bracketed by darkness, peering from shadow, surrounded by strange orange light in a room that was not this one.
A knock on the door pulled me from the memory.
Caduan rose to his feet as Iajqa entered. When she saw me, she smiled. “Ah, some good news at last. It’s wonderful to see you awake after so long, Aefe.” Then, to Caduan, “I apologize for interrupting, my King. The caravan has arrived. We are ready.”
It was only then that I realized he was wearing unusually formal clothing—a long black jacket lined with gold thread, and the copper crown perched upon his head.
“Yes. Thank you. I’m ready.” He turned to me. “I wish I did not have to leave, but I’ll be back in a week. In the meantime, Meajqa has agreed to—”
“Where are you going?”
I was getting better at reading faces. I knew he did not want to tell me.
“Threll,” he replied. “I have decided to grant the Zorokovs’ request and support them in their attack on the rebels.”
Shock nearly stole my words.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why would you offer your help to those creatures?”
“Their time for reckoning will come, but we can’t afford to lose the Threllians’ manpower. Not yet.”
Caduan’s tone was so careful, so calm. But the truth crashed over me all at once, bringing with it a tide of shame. I remembered the way that he had looked at me after our meeting with the Threllians. We have options.
I was the option. And I had failed. Now, he had no choice but to cede to the Zorokovs’ demands.
“I can still do it,” I said. “I can find Tisaanah, and the wayfinder— I can still find them.”
I pushed myself upright, and Caduan jerked forward a little, as if preparing to steady me. “I think…I think they were nearby,” I went on. “The soldiers mentioned a military base. Perhaps they are still there. Let me go back and search.”
Caduan’s face shifted. “There was a military base, but they aren’t there.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because nothing is there anymore.”
It took me a long moment to understand. There was a military base.
Caduan’s expression was always so calm that, at first, I did not notice the intensity of the hatred lurking beneath it, sharp enough to cut the breath from my lungs. I realized this was exactly what he must have looked like when he killed the humans that attacked me.
This was what he must have looked like when he went back to that military base and wiped it off the earth.
The vengeance is for you.
Caduan turned away. “Rest, recover, and we’ll discuss what comes next when I return.”
I wanted to say something more, but I didn’t know what. Caduan offered me one final smile as he left with Iajqa.
The room was now very silent. I sat in bed alone, feeling foolish. I tethered myself to my heartbeat and whispered to my magic. A tiny black rose sprouted in my palm. I stared at it.
How had I been so pleased with this? How had this little flower earned Caduan’s proud smile?
This was a war. I needed to kill, and you could not kill anything with a flower.
