24.
In the morning, Thalia woke first, as tentative fingers of light crept across the window sill.
For a few seconds, she stared at Raff and then she slipped out of bed silently. If Lileth was here, breakfast would already be cooling outside the door. Her absence ached like a bad tooth, too deep for cutting, and she put on her clothes in the dark. She understood grief; they were old, intimate companions, and Lil wouldn’t thank her for breaking down. If the older woman wouldn’t let her weep over missing her mother, even as a child, then she wouldn’t be gentle about this, either. That strict regimentation had kept Thalia alive, so she couldn’t resent it.
She stepped out into the chill hallway, listening to the guards and workers hurrying to restore order. The fortress was still recovering from the battle and its aftermath. She mourned for those who had chosen Tirael’s side even after Thalia’s return, and wished there was a path to victory not so strewn with the bodies of her people. This war would dangerously deplete their numbers, and it might well take four or five generations to recover, given their low birth rates and difficulty with conception.
Making her way to the kitchen, she keenly felt Lileth’s lack. By now, the older woman should be by her side, apprising her of all the most important issues. Instead, Thalia hunted up her own breakfast, toasted bread and cheese for her, and a dish of hearty stew for Raff.
A young Eldritch stopped her with eyes wide, head down, though she couldn’t stop snatching peeks at Thalia. “Let me carry that for you.”
“It’s all right, I’ve got it. What’s your name?”
“Belen, Your Highness. Did you need something?”
“No, I just wanted to learn a bit more about you.”
The girl shuffled her feet, trying to hide beneath a spill of fair hair. Hers had a golden cast, and it hung past her shoulders in unwashed tangles. “Am I in trouble? Is it because I served Tirael? Nearly everyone did, Your Highness. We had no way of knowing that you were coming back.”
Thalia filed that statement away under regrettable truths. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me while you have my ear?”
“If you’ll pardon my candor, since you seem to be in a listening mood, at my level, it doesn’t matter who sits on the big chair. We just want to be left alone to live and eat. I guess we’re also a bit worried about going to war with the brutes and the beasts, so it’d be good if the high hat could keep us safe from them as well.”
Her face felt frozen. Maybe this was why Lileth always kept a buffer between her and the rest of the staff. Otherwise, she would’ve realized how little anyone else cared about her destiny. Just as Tirael had accused, she wasn’t chosen, fated to lead their people. The All-Mother wasn’t on her side. Perhaps the rest of what Tirael had said was even true; that Thalia was simply a little luckier than most.
“Understood. I’m sure you have other duties. Please tend to them.” It was hard to speak with the weight of that disappointment on her chest.
The worker dodged around Ferith as she ran back into the kitchen. Thalia gauged the Noxblade leader’s mood by her expression, and it was dark indeed. “You have more bad news, I gather?”
“I suppose it could be read that way.”
“Let’s talk in the strategy room.” She left Raff’s breakfast just inside the bedroom and then continued with Ferith, who waited until the door closed behind them.
The chamber smelled musty, a layer of dust on all her maps and books. Lileth would never have permitted such laxness, but she supposed that, overall, she was lucky to be standing here again. Things could have gone the wrong way, and it might be Tirael burning her things while her own head was impaled on a spike above Daruvar, warning others not to reach beyond their grasp.
She sat and gestured Ferith to the opposite chair. “I hope you don’t mind if eat?”
“Go ahead. I’ve had breakfast and I presume you can listen when you chew.”
Thalia smiled. “It’s one of my many talents. Please, go on.”
“There aren’t enough parents voluntarily enrolling their children in the Academy. People are frightened, and they aren’t sure…” Here, Ferith paused.
“About what?”
“If we’re going to win this. They want to wait until the war is over and make sure they’re pledging their children to the right cause.”
That…was terrible news. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and stifled a wave of impotent outrage. This was almost the same as saying outright that Thalia was a pretender, and that Ruark might do a better job leading in her stead. It put her in a completely untenable position because if she allowed them to delay, it read like a tacit admission that their doubts were warranted, and if she conscripted their little ones, then she became an unreasonable despot who didn’t respect parental rights.
“How do we win this?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
Lileth would have known.
More likely, if Lileth had survived the wedding feast, they never would have lost Daruvar in the first place. She wished she hadn’t sent Gavriel away; he had more experience than Ferith, and at the time, his request to be set free had seemed little enough reward for a lifetime of loyal service. Calling him back would only dishonor her current head of the Noxblades, and there was no guarantee Gavriel could get back in time to help.
Ferith let out a tired sigh. “I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t slept in days. The prison cell wasn’t precisely restful.”
Remorse overtook her, and she cringed at how selfish her thoughts had been. “Get some rest. You reported the issue to me. I can take it from here.”
While that sounded tremendously capable, inwardly she had no earthly idea how she could resolve the matter without a deep deficit, either of leadership or
