lifting my chin. Fingers stroked my eyes shut, brushing the tears away.
“When I am free I will choose,” he said again, whispering, very close. “You must do the same.”
“But I will never be—”
He kissed me silent. There was longing in that kiss, tangy and bittersweet. Was that my own longing, or his? Then I understood, finally: it didn’t matter.
But oh gods, oh goddess, it was so good. He tasted like cool dew. He made me thirsty. Just before I began to want more, he pulled back. I fought not to feel disappointment, for fear of what it would do to us both.
“Go and rest, Yeine,” he said. “Leave your mother’s schemes to play themselves out. You have your own trials to face.”
And then I was in my apartment, sitting on the floor in a square of moonlight. The walls were dark, but I could see easily because the moon, bright though just a sliver, was low in the sky. Well past midnight, probably only an hour or two before dawn. This was becoming a habit for me.
Sieh sat in the big chair near my bed. Seeing me, he uncurled from it and moved onto the floor beside me. In the moonlight his pupils were huge and round, like those of an anxious cat.
I said nothing, and after a moment he reached up and pulled me down so that my head rested in his lap. I closed my eyes, drawing comfort from the feel of his hand on my hair. After a time, he began to sing me a lullaby that I had heard in a dream. Relaxed and warm, I slept.
23.
But also…
In the morning I went to the Salon early, before the Consortium session began, hoping to find Ras Onchi. Before I could, I saw Wohi Ubm, the other High North noblewoman, arriving on the Salon’s wide, colonnaded steps.
“Oh,” she said after an awkward introduction and my inquiry. I knew then, the instant I saw the pitying look in her eyes. “You haven’t heard. Ras died in her sleep just these two nights past.” She sighed. “I still can’t believe it. But, well; she was old.”
I went back to Sky.
I walked through the corridors awhile, thinking about death.
Servants nodded as they passed me and I nodded back. Courtiers—my fellow highbloods—either ignored me or stared in open curiosity. Word must have spread that I was finished as an heir candidate, publicly defeated by Scimina. Not all of the stares were kind. I inclined my head to them anyhow. Their pettiness was not mine.
On one of the lower levels I surprised T’vril on a shadowed balcony, dangling a clipboard from one finger and watching a passing cloud. When I touched him, he started guiltily (fortunately catching the clipboard), which I took to mean he had been thinking about me.
“The ball will begin at dusk tomorrow night,” he said. I had moved to stand at the railing beside him, absorbing the view and the comfort of his presence in silence. “It will continue until dawn the next morning. That’s tradition, before a succession ceremony. Tomorrow is a new moon—a night that was once sacred to the followers of Nahadoth. So they celebrate through it.”
Petty of them, I thought. Or petty of Itempas.
“Immediately after the ball, the Stone of Earth will be sent through the palace’s central shaft to the ritual chamber, in the solarium spire.”
“Ah. I heard you warning the servants about this last week.”
T’vril turned the clipboard in his fingers gently, not looking at me. “Yes. A fleeting exposure supposedly does no harm, but…” He shrugged. “It’s a thing of the gods. Best to stay away.”
I could not help it; I laughed. “Yes, I agree!”
T’vril looked at me oddly, a small uncertain smile on his lips. “You seem… comfortable.”
I shrugged. “It isn’t my nature to spend all my time fretting. What’s done is done.” Nahadoth’s words.
T’vril shifted uncomfortably, flicking a few stray windblown hairs out of his face. “I’m… told that an army gathers along the pass that leads from Menchey into Darr.”
I steepled my fingers and gazed at them, stilling the voice that cried out within myself. Scimina had played her game well. If I did not choose her, I had no doubt she had left instructions for Gemd to begin the slaughter. Gemd might do it anyhow once I set the Enefadeh free, but I was counting on the world being preoccupied with survival amid the outbreak of another Gods’ War. Sieh had promised that Darr would be kept safe through the cataclysm. I wasn’t sure I entirely trusted that promise, but it was better than nothing.
For what felt like the hundredth time, I considered and discarded the idea of approaching Relad. Scimina’s people were on the ground; her knife was at Darr’s throat. If I chose Relad at the ceremony, could he act before that knife cut a fatal wound? I could not bet my people’s future on a man I didn’t even respect.
Only the gods could help me now.
“Relad has confined himself in his quarters,” T’vril said, obviously thinking along the same lines as me. “He receives no calls, lets no one in, not even the servants. The Father knows what he’s eating—or drinking. There are bets among the highbloods that he’ll kill himself before the ball.”
“I suppose there’s little else interesting here to bet on.”
T’vril glanced at me, perhaps deciding whether to say more. “There are also bets that
I laughed into the breeze. “What are the odds? Do you think they’d let me bet, too?”
T’vril turned to face me, his eyes suddenly intent. “Yeine—if, if you—” He faltered silent and looked away; his voice had choked on the last word.
I took his hand and held it while he bowed his head and trembled and fought to keep control of himself. He led and protected the servants here; tears would have made him feel weak. Men have always been fragile that way.
After a few moments he took a deep breath. His voice was higher than usual as he said, “Shall I escort you to the ball tomorrow night?”
When Viraine had offered the same thing, I had hated him. With T’vril, the offer made me love him a little more. “No, T’vril. I want no escort.”
“It could help. To have a friend there.”
“It could. But I will not ask such a thing of my few friends.”
“You aren’t asking. I’m offering—”
I stepped closer, leaning against his arm. “I’ll be fine, T’vril.”
He regarded me for a long while, then shook his head slowly. “You will, won’t you? Ah, Yeine. I’ll miss you.”
“You should leave this place, T’vril. Find yourself a good woman to take care of you and keep you in silks and jewelry.”
T’vril stared at me, then burst out laughing, not strained at all this time. “A Darre woman?”
“No, are you mad? You’ve seen what we’re like. Find some Ken girl. Maybe those pretty spots of yours will breed true.”
“Pretty—
