The winds howled across the plain like a forlorn beast.

Kazi and I burrowed close together in our bedroll, the blankets pulled over our heads, sharing each other’s warmth. Her sleep-filled breaths were moist against my chest.

Do you blame me?

I knew what silence could do, the fear and doubt it could sow. I used it with calculating purpose on prisoners, letting the long ticks of silence twist their imagination into something hideous and painful. I used it on traders and ambassadors to push a negotiation in my favor, making them think I was about to walk away. I used it on Zane to produce Devereux’s name. I never meant to use it on Kazi, but I had been consumed, feeling my denial fade with every mile we traveled. I wrestled with the fact that the note could be true. The silence Kazi heard was only fear trapped inside me. But how was she to know that? I knew firsthand how silence had pushed me to a breaking point when my father wouldn’t speak to me.

Give it time, Jase, Tiago had told me. He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s blind with grief right now.

Tiago’s words had meant nothing to me.

My father had burst through the front door, yelling for my mother. The news of Sylvey’s death had reached him. He’d been away, chasing down the perpetrators of an attack on our farmstead. He had stomped through the hall, muddy, dripping with the wet of a storm. I tried to stop him at the foot of the stairs to explain, and he shoved me aside. Get away from me!

As the following days went by, all energies were focused on my other brothers and sisters who were still sick. Micah died. The rest recovered. The fears I had wanted to share with my father stayed sealed up inside of me, especially once I stole Sylvey’s body. My father couldn’t have known the

guilt his silences had helped fuel. But Tiago did. Give it time, he repeated days later when the whole house could hear my parents arguing.

If I had been here—

You couldn’t have changed anything! I would have—

You are not a god, Karsen! Stop acting like one! You don’t have a cure for the fever! No one does!

We should have had more healers! More—

For the gods’ sakes, Karsen! What’s done is done! What matters is what we do now!

Their screams had cut through me, colder than the icy wind that howled outside. It was true. He couldn’t have changed the outcome. But what about me? Could I have changed the outcome for Samuel? I shouldn’t have put him on at the arena, but I had thought the arena office was secure. We had well-armed guards posted because too much money traded hands there. Who had attacked him? Or did it happen somewhere else? An angry trader in a back alley? Another mysterious crew like Fertig’s waiting on a deserted trail? Where were his straza?

“You’re awake,” Kazi whispered, her voice drowsy. “Shhh,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

“What are you thinking?”

My arm tightened around her. “I’m thinking how much I love you.” “Then I’m glad you’re awake. Tell me again, Jase. Tell me the riddle…”

She mumbled a few more incoherent words and drifted back to sleep, her cheek nestling into my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head. My breath, my blood, my calm.

We were in the foothills, the sun warming my face. A sense of hope stirred in me, like we were back on course, back in the familiar, and no more dead birds would fall from the sky onto a bloody and barren landscape. We had returned to a world of reason I understood. Still, just in case, we altered our path so we’d approach Tor’s Watch the back way, through Greyson Tunnel,

as a precaution. It was the longer route, but if a league was stirring up that much trouble, they would likely be in town, and we had no straza with us.

Kazi’s lips parted with a sudden small gasp.

“What is it?” I asked, immediately scanning the landscape.

She smiled, wonder filling her face. “I just realized, Hell’s Mouth won’t be the only city within the borders of your new kingdom. There’s another one.”

I knew every hill, valley, and gorge of Tor’s Watch. “No,” I replied. “Hell’s Mouth is the only city. That’s it.”

“There’s the settlement.”

The revelation sank in. It wasn’t exactly a city yet, but it was within the new borders I had declared. I whistled out a worried breath. “What will Caemus think of that?”

“I don’t think it will be a problem. In fact, I think he’ll be fine with it. Now, Kerry, on the other hand, may take another swing at your kneecap when he learns you’re his new sovereign.”

“I’ll be sure to wear my tall boots next time I visit. What about your queen?”

“She’s grateful for what you did, Jase. You already know that.”

I did. She had expressed it again when we’d had dinner with her and the king. “But that was before she knew that her settlement would be under my rule. I don’t want any complications that will jeopardize—”

“It’s going to need a name. Any ideas?” “That should probably be left to Caemus.”

“True.” But she went ahead and tried out several anyway, her head cocked as she listened to their sounds on her tongue, her dreams as full as my own.