Princess Selivia and Lord Latch sat at one end of the table, and Crown Prince Chadrech lounged at the other, his shiny black boots propped on the polished wooden tabletop. A young scholar leapt from his seat halfway between them and offered it to Dara. The others shuffled papers and whispered to each other, not bothering to make room for Tamri. They tended to view her with skepticism when they weren’t ignoring her altogether. She took up a position by Dara’s chair and met their stares as defiantly as she dared.
Princess Selivia caught Tamri’s eye and winked. She’d split her time between the Archive and Latch’s sickroom over the past few weeks. During their rare study breaks, she and Tamri had tried strange foods together, puzzled over odd Soolen customs, and teased the stodgy scholars. Selivia always treated Tamri as an equal, even though her upbringing in a mountaintop castle had been vastly different from Tamri’s in a Gutter District stilt house.
Today, Selivia looked every inch the princess. She wore a fine green vest in a flowing Soolen style, and little Firegold feathers were woven in her dark, curly hair. Her longtime bodyguard, a soft-spoken, muscular redhead named Fenn, hovered behind her chair with a hand on her short sword, watching Prince Chadrech and the Wielder-soldiers grouped behind him as if they might overturn the table and launch themselves at the princess at any moment. The alliance was delicate, as Dara had said.
“So good of you to join us,” Chadrech said, adjusting his boots on the tabletop. Thin-faced and not quite as handsome as he thought he was, the Crown Prince oozed arrogance with every word. “Shall we finally hear the account we’ve been awaiting with such patience?”
“Good afternoon, Your Excellency,” Dara said, ignoring Chadrech’s rudeness with admirable restraint. She turned to Latch. “It’s good to see you up and about. How do you feel?”
“I won’t be winning any duels against you anytime soon, but I’m mobile.” Latch Brach was a broad-shouldered man in his mid-twenties, with dark-brown skin, close-cropped black hair, and grave brown eyes. His face was clean-shaven today, making him almost unrecognizable as the gaunt, wild-eyed figure Tamri had freed from a sphere of pulsing, jagged power.
“You couldn’t beat me even before you got sick,” Dara said lightly.
“Maybe not with steel,” Latch said. “I still say I’m better at Watermight combat.”
Dara grinned. “Maybe we should test that.”
“Neither of you take injury or illness seriously enough,” Princess Selivia said. “And you’re too competitive for your own good.”
Prince Chadrech gave an audible sigh and muttered something that sounded like “wasting my time.”
Tamri suspected Dara was chatting casually like this to remind Chadrech she didn’t answer to him. She’d be polite to her host, but she was a powerful queen in her own right.
Wind rattled the workroom door, as if urging them not to delay. The Fire and Watermight spheres hanging above Dara’s chair flickered.
“Are you ready to tell us about the Lightning cavern, Latch?” Dara asked. “We’re all eager to hear what happened to you.”
The scholars leaned forward, quills poised above parchment. Tamri’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. Prince Chadrech stopped admiring his fingernails.
“I’m afraid I must disappoint you,” Latch said. “I have some gaps in my memory from when I was close to the chasm.”
Dara frowned. “Gaps?”
Latch lifted his shoulders. “I vaguely remember studying in the cavern, but most of the research is a blank void.”
An uneasy murmur rippled through the onlookers. Prince Chadrech twisted around to exchange looks with the leader of the Wielder-soldiers, a heavyset man called Captain Boorn.
Dara took the alarming development in stride. “We’ve read your notes, and Sel and Rosh filled us in on the theories you were developing.”
An older scholar with silver-dusted hair inclined his head. Rosh had spent months at Thunderbird Island with Latch and Selivia. Over the past few weeks, he’d opposed using the Lightning again even more emphatically than Dara herself. Sometimes Tamri wondered if she was the only one tempted by it.
“You probably know more about the Lightning than I do at this point,” Latch said.
“Do you remember Wielding it at all?” Dara asked.
Latch thought for a moment. “I can recall touching tiny quantities. We were careful.”
“At first we were,” Rosh said grimly. “Until the princess arrived.”
Selivia straightened in her seat, and an awkward tension beat through the room. She’d explained how Latch started drawing in more Lightning than they thought safe in order to protect her. That’s what had started his downward spiral.
Quell the Archive Steward cleared her throat and dipped her pen in a jar of ink. “Could you describe how those small quantities of Lightning felt to you, my lord?”
“It . . . crackled,” Latch said. “It was this vibrant, energizing sensation, like pure light inside my skin. It made me feel invincible.” Latch paused, frowning at his palms. “Watermight can get that way too, but it’s easier to keep in check than the Lightning was.”
“But you controlled it, didn’t you?” Tamri said, speaking up for the first time. “At least for a little while.”
Latch met her eyes over Dara’s head. “You must be Tamri.”
“Oh. Uh, yes.” Tamri fidgeted with her sleeve. She’d risked her life to save Lord Latch, but they didn’t actually know each other. She’d done it for Princess Sel and for the information she hoped would buy her freedom from King Khrillin, not for Latch himself. But as they studied each other, a tremor of understanding passed between them. Only they knew what the Lightning had really been like in those final blazing moments.
“I wasn’t in control,” Latch said at last. “The Lightning took hold of me and did as it wished.”
“I’m not sure that’s accurate, my lord.” Rosh held up a stack of parchment. “Our sources discuss the ‘malice within’—sometimes translated as the ‘monster within’. We believe the substance responds to and amplifies the most malicious feelings of the Wielder.”
Latch’s brow furrowed. “You’re saying the Lightning reacted to my intentions? I became the monster?”
“I’m afraid so,” Rosh said.
Selivia fiddled with the Firegold feathers in her hair, appearing troubled.
“Those effects must have been strongest when I drew in larger amounts then,” Latch said after a long pause. “My memories are sparsest from those times, and I don’t remember feeling malicious.”
“Convenient,” Prince Chadrech said.
“Hardly.” Latch looked at the Crown Prince levelly then back at Dara. “Sel told me I used the Lightning to control the island’s thunderbird population and somehow sent them after the men who were attacking us.”
“My men.” Prince Chadrech dropped his boots to the floor with a thud and sat forward. “Loyal men of Soole who were serving their country.”
Latch bowed his head. “I regret that, but as I said, I have very little memory of it.”
Several Wielders muttered angrily to each other behind Tamri, something about “excuses” and “traitors”. Fenn shifted closer to the princess, knuckles whitening on her sword hilt. The weapon wouldn’t do much good if the Wielders demanded retribution for their comrades. Lord Latch’s thunderbirds had killed a lot of people. Tamri inched nearer to the Watermight sphere.