“My mother did her tutoring in private. A sneak-around scholar, she used to say. That was before the Hunters came to our cottage.”
Quin steeled himself for what was coming. This girl had every right to hate Clan Killian.
But, to his bafflement, there was no malice in her expression. Only curiosity.
“My mother,” Brialli said, “used to say you weren’t rotten like your father. She saw you in the village once, when you brought bread and toys to the orphans. Mother said you were gentle with them. She believed you’d make a fine king someday. There are those of us who still—” She stopped herself. “Mother also said you were easy on the eyes.”
Quin coughed. Brialli looked up at him, guileless.
“What does it mean, ‘easy on the eyes’? She never would tell me. Is it an expression in the old language?”
“And your father? What of him?”
“Mother did that, too. She always changed the subject.”
Brialli let out a deep sigh, as if she was resigned to adults being evasive. Quin was charmed. The girl reminded him of Karri, so frank and unfettered. Sometimes he missed his sister so much it was physically painful, as if a part of him had been cut out.
“My father was a cook. He died when Queen Angelyne sent her men into Killian Village. I was in the next room, hiding where Father told me to, in an old canvas flour sack. I heard everything. He tried to tell them how much he hated the old regime, seeing as how it was King Ronan who took his wife away, but they . . .”
She trailed off. Quin didn’t need to hear the rest to know what had happened. She’d lost her mother to Ronan, her father to Angelyne. How had a girl so young survived much loss?
Quin had stared into the eyes of many orphans; he knew how easily grief could give way to despair, despair to resignation. But, by some miracle, this girl still had hope in her eyes.
Careful, Quin thought. Remember these people are not your friends.
“Tell me, Brialli Mar.” He flashed his friendliest smile. “How long have you been with the Embers? Is it quite a large group?”
She shrugged. “Large enough. There was hardly anyone left in the village. They’d all either been killed or run away. When Toby found me scavenging for food, he invited me to join them. We’re building a different sort of kingdom, one where the powerful won’t use their power against the weak.”
“Going to destroy anyone who stands in our way,” said a deep voice.
Quin was annoyed to find the big man from the brothel skulking behind them, shamelessly eavesdropping.
“It appears,” Quin said, gesturing grandly toward the remains of the village, “you have destroyed everything already. You Embers roam my kingdom, killing and pillaging, leaving your trail of flames.”
“There’s naught left to burn.” The man waved a meaty arm around them. “This is magic’s doing. People with that kind of power are always hungry. Doesn’t matter how much they eat.”
A trickle of dread dripped down Quin’s spine.
“In a perfect world, no one would ever hurt anyone,” Brialli said brightly. “Magic or not. But, like my father used to say, sometimes you have to skin a few rabbits to make a good stew.”
Quin expected Tobin to take them to a row of cottages, or perhaps a tavern on the outskirts of town. His mouth watered at the thought of a hot meal and a frosty pint of stonemalt. Surely the Embers had some kind of headquarters where they slept and ate.
Only when they started to ascend the eastern road snaking out of Killian Village and up the mountainside did Quin realize where they were going.
They were leading him to the castle.
They were taking him home.
Chapter 8
Celestial
“IT’S EXQUISITE.”
The word was woefully insufficient. Mia stood at the top of the floating staircase, unable to tear her eyes away from the House of Shadows. Towering over them was a masterpiece of a door, its gilded facade embellished with moons and stars.
“People actually live here?”
“Don’t let the fancy exterior fool you,” Nell said. “The House is much more relaxed inside.”
The door was nested in two curved alcoves, the first a dark, scalloped teakwood that sat atop the golden door like a crown. The larger alcove boasted dazzling mosaics: rust, teal, and sable tiles arranged in intricate patterns.
“Mahraini tiles,” Nell explained. “Made by the Mahraini mystics thousands of years ago.”
“The door’s so pretty I don’t want to touch it.”
“I’ll touch it.” Pilar scowled. “Since you won’t.”
Mia was losing patience. What had she said or done to make Pilar so angry? Granted, anger seemed to be Pilar d’Aqila’s default emotion. But something had definitely inflamed it. On the boat Pilar had been guarded. Since arriving in Pembuk, she’d become downright hostile.
And yet. When Mia stepped toward the labyrinth, hesitating on the first stone to look back, she’d seen a flicker of something on Pilar’s face. Fear? Hope? She knew how easily those two intertwined. Even now, staring up at the House of Shadows, she felt both emotions. Surely a place this beautiful, this magical, would be able to help her. But what if it couldn’t?
If even the Shadowess couldn’t fix her, who was left?
“There’s the Bridge.” Nell motioned toward the west. “You can see it from here.”
“Bridge to where?”
“Prisma.”
In the middle distance Mia saw glinting steel, clean and unsentimental, liquid silver arcing over the water. Beyond the Bridge, the Isle of Forgetting was a white smudge. The color of pale sand. The color of nothing.
Mia turned back to the House. Two brass sconces flanked the door, cradling spheres of green fire. They called to mind the cool green flames from the pinewood sulfyr sticks her father had gifted her after one of his journeys.
She gave a start. It was the same fire. Her father had brought the sulfyr sticks back from the glass kingdom. Perhaps even from the House of Shadows, where she knew for a fact he had been. She couldn’t explain why, but it soothed her, knowing that some part of Pembuk had found its way to her long ago.
As far as reconciling how Griffin Rose, legendary Hunter—killer—of Dujia, had whiled away the hours among peaceful pilgrims and truth seekers? Mia’s mind was not up to the task.
“Are we going in or not?” Pilar huffed. She shoved at the door. It didn’t budge.
“Funny thing,” Nell said. “You actually pull it.”
Pilar grunted and gave the gold knocker a hard tug. The door swung toward her so quickly she swore and jumped back.
The door was transforming before their eyes. The gold sheen dissolved and became translucent; a glimmering hinge materialized down the center, splitting the pellucid glass into two perfect halves. Mia watched, spellbound, as the door fell open like a book.
“I’ve always thought that part was a bit much,” Nell said.
Mia didn’t hear her. She was already stepping over the threshold, drawn onto the page.
The interior of the House took her breath away.
They’d stepped into a cavernous hall. Immense glass pillars stretched from floor to domed ceiling in rich hues of rose and emerald. Crystalline water filled an entire billowing wall, aquatic creatures gliding and drifting. Mia saw fish in every shade of blue: robin’s egg to azure, powder to peacock, rich royal to midnight indigo. And, in their midst, a single orange melonfish, its long lappets whirling bright and brilliant tangerine. Like a coquettish girl at a ball, Mia thought, twirling in place as her skirt spun around her.