Asha was still damp when she stepped out of the stairway and into the temple. Her anger fizzled out when she heard a familiar voice.
“You truly are a useless fool,” Jarek growled from somewhere in the maze of corridors. Asha followed his voice until she stood at the bottom of a stairway. The same stairway leading to a locked room, where his slave had been hiding just yesterday.
Her heart leaped into her throat.
The sound of scabbards clanking against belts and buckles made her turn. Two soldats stalked down the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the whitewashed walls.
“The next time you do something illegal, do us all a favor and pick a crime punishable by death.”
A second voice rose up, equally familiar and just as fierce. “You know, Jarek, I’m really looking forward to your binding. Specifically the part where my sister cuts off your balls and hoists them high above the walls on your wedding night.”
Dax.
His words were followed by a loud crack!
Dax swore.
Asha took the steps two at a time, her heart hammering. When she reached the open door, the light of a torch illuminated her brother—who was reeling from the punch Jarek threw, his cheek already swelling.
Flanked by two soldats carrying torches, the commandant stood with a scroll gripped in his fist. More scrolls littered the floor at his feet, while behind him, hidden in darkness, was the cot, its linens folded in what looked like a hurry, then tucked up against the wall.
But far worse than the cot was what lay on the bottom shelf, half hidden in shadow: a worn-looking lute, fashioned out of pale pine. On its flat, pear-shaped face was the elegantly engraved name Greta.
Distracted by the scrolls, Jarek hadn’t yet noticed this telltale sign of his fugitive slave. But the moment he did . . .
Suddenly, Maya, the temple guardian, stepped into view. She stood inside the room, flanked by a soldat. Her eyes widened at the sight of the Iskari in the doorway. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, telling Asha to go, to escape being implicated in whatever was happening.
Asha ducked back out of the doorway and into the shadows of the stairwell, pressing herself against the wall, out of view.
“I didn’t realize you knew how to write,” Jarek said. Asha heard the smirk in his voice. Heard the sound of him unrolling one of the scrolls. “Did your scrublander whore teach you? Or did she write it for you?”
Asha dared a look around the doorframe just in time to see Dax’s fists tighten and his jaw clench.
Jarek ripped the scroll’s parchment—once, twice, three times. He picked up another scroll and tore that one too. Dax watched, his eyes sharp as daggers.
With every rip, Asha’s chest constricted.
Shame scorched her. She didn’t care about torn scrolls. Of course she didn’t. The old stories killed her mother. She hated them. She wanted them destroyed.
When Jarek turned to the shelves for more, he caught sight of her, frozen in the shadows beyond the doorway. His sneer slid away.
“Asha? What are you doing here?” His hand fell away from the shelves. “Why are you wet?”
She looked to the lute. The moment he turned around, he would see it and recognize it.
She needed to prevent that from happening.
Asha strode into the room, positioning herself between Jarek and the lute while motioning to the crumpled, torn scrolls at their feet. “What happened here?”
“After the news broke this morning, I followed your brother to the temple,” Jarek answered. “He led me straight to this.” He waved a hand around the room, then bent to pick up a scroll, handing it to Asha. She didn’t need to unroll it, of course. She knew what it was.
Leave it to Dax to lead the commandant straight to the evidence of his own treachery.
“News?” Asha took the scroll. “What news?”
Jarek’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. “No one told you?”
She shook her head. She’d been in the Rift all night.
“The scrublanders took Darmoor last night by force. Your father got word this morning.”
Asha thought of Roa and her hawk. Thought of the way Dax always leaned toward her. Like she was a moon and he was a moonflower.
Thought of the way Roa didn’t seem to notice him at all.
Asha looked to her brother, who refused to meet her gaze, staring at the floor instead.
Oh, Dax.
The scrublanders had betrayed him twice now.
“Your brother’s guests”—Jarek said guests like they were something vile—“have disappeared. Their presence here was a ruse. A distraction while their army invaded our port.” Jarek turned back to Dax, towering over him. “This is further proof he’s not fit to rule.”
Asha moved to protect her brother from Jarek’s ridicule, but Dax met her gaze, then looked sharply and meaningfully to the lute.
Get rid of the evidence, said the look in his eyes.
But how was she supposed to do that, with Jarek standing in the room?
“If Dax is too foolish to know the difference between a friend and a foe, how can he protect a kingdom? If he’s too stupid to notice me tracking him through the streets of Firgaard, how will he notice his enemies plotting against him at his own table?”
Dax’s fists uncurled, the fight suddenly sucked out of him. It was no longer Jarek’s voice he heard, Asha knew, but the voices of their old tutors.
Foolish. Stupid. Worthless.
“He had one task: to appease the scrublanders and put down their insubordination. Instead, after he spent three months treating with them, they deceived him. I’ve sent half our army to deal with the insurgents. He’s jeopardized the safety of the entire city.” Jarek shook his head in disgust. “And now there’s this to contend with.” He gestured to the scrolls. “The old stories, outlawed by your own father.”
Jarek’s gaze roamed the shelves, then the rest of the room. It was about to settle on the cot behind her when Maya came out of the shadows, snagging Jarek’s attention.
“You,” he said, “will be removed from your position immediately.” Jarek took the torch from one of his soldats, motioning for the man to arrest Maya.
It would be mere heartbeats before he discovered the cot and his slave’s lute. If he did, it would surely mean Maya’s life.
Asha stepped forward. “Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
“If you arrest her, you’ll widen the Rift between the palace and the temple.” Which would only weaken the king’s rule.
Jarek’s gaze wandered along the damp shirt she wore, tracing the shape of her through the thin fabric. Asha backed up against the shelves, putting space between them.
“Force isn’t the only way to strike a blow,” she said.
A smile stretched across Jarek’s face, turning her spine to ice. “Is that so?” He stepped closer, trapping her against the shelf, his gaze devouring her in the orange glow of his torch. “How about a proposal, then?”
Dax moved to help his sister. The soldats restrained him.
“We could forget this ever happened.” Jarek put one big hand on her scarred cheek. “You could offer me something in exchange.” His hand moved down her face, then her throat, then ever farther. “If you came with me now, I could overlook the incident with my slave. . . .”
Asha’s eyes stung. She felt vile. Repulsive. Jarek’s touch made her hate herself more than she’d ever hated anything. More than the old stories and the First Dragon and the Old One, she hated her own heart for being desirable to someone so despicable.
It was further proof of her wickedness.
“Tell me how we should proceed.” His voice turned husky. Full of desire. “My fearsome Iskari.”
Asha’s fingers itched for her axe. But there was no axe to reach for.
So Asha reached for something else.
“Has anyone told you about Moria and the fourth king of Firgaard?” Her angry gaze met his. “It’s an old story about a man who took what wasn’t his and the girl who put an end to him. Shall I tell it to you?”
Something shifted, then. Jarek’s grip on her loosened.
Asha pushed away from the shelves and he stumbled back.
“Give me the torch.”
She didn’t wait for him to hand it to her. She snatched it from him.
Before anyone could stop her, Asha set the scrolls on fire.
Maya cried out, covering her mouth with her hands as the flames licked the parchment and the wood. Dax, released from the soldat’s hold, opened the door and held the guardian back, out of the way of the fire, while smoke filled the room. Asha watched the parchment crumple and burn.
“The stories killed our mother.” Asha didn’t look at her brother. “They must be destroyed.”
She tried to remember her mother’s voice chasing her nightmares away, those soft arms pulling her into a hug. But they were only memories of memories and too far gone.
Asha hugged herself tight as she watched the ravenous flames devour the shelves, and with them, any evidence of her brother’s treason. Now, if Jarek went to the king, it would be his word against Dax’s.
But that wasn’t the only evidence the fire destroyed.
As she listened to the strings of the lute—warping, bending, snapping—the skral’s freckled face flared up in her mind, drenched and smiling brightly as he tucked her hair behind her ear.
There are plenty of other lutes in the city, she told herself, pulling her hunting shirt up over her mouth to stop from breathing in the smoke. I will bring him one of those.