CHAPTER SIX
Rama catches up to me halfway down one of the servants’ stairways. There’s no sign of his bodyguards.
“Esmae.” He sighs. “You know I loathe running at the best of times. Don’t think for one second that I appreciate all the activity that’s been demanded of me today.”
“You didn’t have to come after me.”
“You may have failed to notice this, but I don’t often do things because I have to.” He pauses. “Am I allowed to call you Esmae or do you prefer Princess Alexa? Should I bow? Do you outrank me now? I think you might. You are, after all, heir to the throne of Kali, while I am only third in line to Wychstar’s.”
I glare at him, which only makes him grin all the more brightly back. “I am not the heir!” I snap. “My uncle is on the throne.”
“And if your brother were to take back that throne, who do you think would be his heir?”
“It wouldn’t be me after what I just did.”
“I concede he might not want you to be after that display,” Rama says, “and yet by right of birth, it’s you.”
I stop on the stairs and turn to face him. “Are you angry?”
“Anger is exhausting,” he replies, “and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s an enterprise that’s exhausting. Truth be told, Ez, it’s your right to keep your secrets. I’m not upset you kept them from me, but I am a little cross you spent years letting me share my family’s secrets with you and never bothered to mention you were keeping your own.”
“I should have told you,” I say. “I lied to you for years. And I’m sorry. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I wanted to tell you. I almost did so many times. I guess I missed my chance.”
He scowls at me. “You missed your chance? Really? You haven’t stumbled across a single opportunity since you were six? How long would it have taken? Rama, I am King Cassel and Queen Kyra’s lost daughter. There! What was that, two seconds? Three? You couldn’t find three seconds in over a decade?”
“It didn’t feel that easy,” I say and start walking again.
“No,” he says, gentler now, “I suppose it didn’t.”
We get to the bottom of the stairs and start down the corridor, past the palace laundry rooms, toward one of the servants’ exits. Several people stop to gape at us. Not because of Rama; they’re used to him wandering in and out of places royals don’t usually go. They’re staring because of me. Because they all watched the competition.
“You were very good, by the way,” Rama goes on, lazy and admiring. “All that in there about doing whatever it takes to get what you want. Even I believed it for a moment. Then the moment passed. I know you too well. I know you’re not the sort of person who joins the usurping uncle and jealous cousin who have made your brothers’ lives a misery. So what are you up to?”
“I want nothing more than to be with my mother and brothers,” I say softly, “but I can’t protect them if I’m with them. No war I’ve ever read about was won on the backs of just ships and soldiers and weapons. We need more. We need someone on the inside to find out exactly where the traps will the sprung. To spring traps of our own.”
“And do your brothers know of this plan?”
“Not yet. I was hoping to tell them before the competition, but it didn’t quite work out that way.” I swallow. “It’s probably better this way anyway. If the rift between us looks real, Elvar is that much more likely to trust me.”
Rama’s face is more worried than I’ve ever seen it. “What happens if your uncle realizes what you’re up to? It’ll be your head on a spike.”
“No one uses spikes anymore.”
“A figurative spike doesn’t change the fact that executions are real.”
I manage a smile. “Then I’d better not get caught.”
We duck into the cellars; the most discreet exit out of the palace is tucked away at the back. The cellars are dim and chilly, a labyrinth of rooms where the palace wines and preserved stores of emergency food are kept.
“You beat every single person in that competition,” Rama says after a moment. “Just to trick your uncle into letting you get close.”
It’s not a question, but he’s not convinced. I won’t lie to him again. “No,” I admit. “I wanted to win. Not just because it was Titania, not just because of the war. For me. I wanted to be in the sun just once.” I smile ruefully. “Not that it matters. I’ll be disqualified and Alexi will get Titania. Our mother chose him. The world will choose him.”
I love my brother, but I’ve always wished that someone, just once, would choose me.
We turn a corner, and Amba materializes in front of us.
Rama lets out an undignified yelp and takes a hasty step back. I don’t think he’s ever met a god before. He’s one of the few people I know who doesn’t hold any devotion to them whatsoever. He’s no more disrespectful to them than he is to anyone else, which is to say he’s fairly disrespectful but somehow gets away with it, but he doesn’t pray or make offerings at altars or care much about them one way or another. Still, it’s hard to be irreverent when you’re looking into the eyes of a god.
Amba raises her eyebrows at me. “I underestimated you.”
“Most people do.” She knows that. A part of me is disappointed that she did, too. I wanted her to know me better, to see me better than that. She was so sure she knew what I wanted. When she described that dream of me, of Alexi flying into war and me there by his side, she was so sure she understood. And she was right, of course, but she just didn’t see it all.
“You have no idea what you’ve set in motion today,” says Amba. Her voice echoes in the cavernous cellar space, bouncing off stone walls and glass bottles. “There will be consequences, and those consequences will breed further consequences, and it will go on and on until whole cities crumble to dust.”
“All I did was shoot an arrow,” I protest. “A single arrow can’t do all that.”
“Your arrow was a spark,” she replies, “A spark of fire so hot and white that no one will be able to put it out. And even a spark of fire can consume an entire forest if it can jump from tree to tree. Watch, Esmae. Watch as one act leads to another and then to another after that. Watch the trees pass white flames on. Watch the forest burn.”
And then she’s gone.