Lord Reginal clasped his heart. “The Undergod was well fed.”
“By our greed,” the cleric said.
I agreed with the cleric, which felt fundamentally wrong. Six years ago, an illness spread throughout my kingdom. Thousands of lives were lost. Harsh ugly deaths. Nothing we tried could stop it, not until the Savak revealed the cure.
Brewed from the bloom of the hibisi.
They knew the hibisi held healing properties, unlike anything we’d ever found. They’d seen it in their visions. Centuries before the disease first spread, the Savak knew the lives it would take, and yet they hoarded the truth. The clerics came to our shores with the cure, which they offered for a price, and only if the recipients would praise the Savak goddess for her goodness. The Savak watched, holding the cure, as people—our people—who could not afford to pay, or who were too pious to blaspheme, died gasping in front of them. And the Savak never shed a tear for us.
And now she wanted us to trust her? There was not enough fortune in the world.
Father leaned away and clasped his hands under his chin. “You wish to ally yourself with us?”
The cleric’s expression was still as a bluff. “Not as such. We need to be united to save as many lives as we can from what is coming.”
I glanced at their seer water, despite myself.
Mother tapped her fingers on the table. With her black hair cascading over her shoulders, and a thin golden band tracing the line of her brow, she was the picture of a queen. “You come alone. Do you have your queen’s blessing?”
“Our queen does not know,” she whispered. Her shoulders hunched. “She must never know.”
“What is coming?” Father asked.
“War,” the cleric said. “Our young queen has assembled an army. She will make herself empress. We have seen it. We have seen the loss of life, the destruction she will reap in her rise to power. She will not govern well. She will not take prisoners. But there is a path to survival. You must drink to see it.”
“How do we know this isn’t poison?” Tomlinson asked. “How do we know she’s not sent you here to kill us all?”
“I will drink with you,” the cleric answered.
Not enough. Still, curiosity drove me forward. I lifted Lord Reginal’s cup to my nose and sniffed. It smelled clean and fresh, almost sweet. I gave it back.
The cleric lifted her eyebrow. “It is an honor to drink seer water. No one outside our island has ever been offered of our spring, and this we freely give to you. There will be no price.”
I clenched my jaw. “The Savak always have a price.”
She acknowledged my anger with a softened look. “At least not for you. If the queen finds me, my life will be forfeit for smuggling this water and for giving it to you. But I shall give my life gladly. For there is a future you must see. A future we must avoid. And we can, but only with your help.”
The Historians stepped closer.
Father had been still. Considering. “What do you say, General?”
General Franciv considered her cup. Her dark hair framed one side of her face, but the other was shaven close to her scalp. Her crisp white uniform was similar to a common Everstrider uniform, except for the rows of jeweled awards on her lapel, and the line of black kohl from her forehead to her neck.
“If her life is forfeit anyway, there is no guarantee of our safety. It could be poison, or a trap. If it’s poison, they would take out the spine of our kingdom in one act. We can’t let our greed destroy us—”
“It’s not greed,” Lord Reginal interjected, his voice polished from all the time he spent in the university. He tugged at his fine collar, and his gray mustache twitched beneath his wide nose. “The pursuit of knowledge is never greed. If we can learn our future, we can change it for the better. I vote we drink.”
“Well, I will not,” I replied. “Father, I would not trust a Savak to post a letter, let alone drink their piss—”
Tomlinson coughed.
No heathen war. Right. I bowed my head and said nothing.
“We must face the future. Together,” the cleric said. “Or we will not survive.”
“If she’s lying, it’s a risk,” Sir Tomlinson said. “But if there is a chance danger is coming, it may be worth it.”
I tapped the table. “Then we let a servant drink. Someone we trust.”
The cleric looked about. “Only a chosen few are worthy of our goddess’s tears. It must be this council.”
“A king never asks a servant to take a risk he would not take.” Father’s gaze was sharp.
I tensed, my tongue slid over my teeth, and I refused to look at anything except the shining wooden surface of the table.
Father was wrong. A king’s life was worth more than a servant’s. My father never listened to me when it came to the greater good. He only summoned the King’s Executioner when the taking of one life would save hundreds. He couldn’t see that if we smashed a threat when it was small, the kingdom would be at peace.
Mother folded her hands. “I’d rather trust and be prepared.”
“Trusting an enemy is a good way to get killed,” I warned.
“If we only take knowledge from those who agree with us, we will be led into a trap of our own making,” Mother said. “We can’t let our biases leave us blind.”
“I’ve reached my decision,” Father announced. “Kings must have longer memories than generals or sons. I know the source of their spring’s magic and I do not fear it. I will drink.”
I dropped my hands. “Father, no.”
Our people would not approve of this. After the hibisi, my people saw the Savak as murderers, as monsters more foul than any Lurcher. To side with one and share seer water with a cleric? It wasn’t just blasphemy. To many of our people, this would be treason.
“As king, I must know what threatens my people.” He sighed. “Be brave, my son.”
The general reached for her cup. “My king. Wait.”
She dipped her kohl-darkened fingertips into the cup and drew them to her pale mouth. She paused as she tasted, then she licked her lips and gave a brief sniff. “I am nothing if not brave. I will drink with you.”
They all ignored my warnings. I might as well not have even been there, if they weren’t going to take my counsel over a Savak cleric’s.
The cleric smiled and lifted her glass. “To a new future,” she toasted.
She pressed the cup to her lips, and the rest of the council, including Father, followed her example.
I watched, in horror, as my parents fell victim to the seer water’s pull. Their eyes rolled upward, flashing white, their skin paling to a soft gray. The council slumped in their chairs. Lord Reginal nearly fell off his.
And they didn’t wake.
I sped to my father’s side and struck his back. Once. Twice. Again.
“Father. I beg of you. Wake up!” My pulse raced with a panic so sharp it seemed almost a memory. “Father!”
I knew they shouldn’t have drunk. I knew they should have listened to me.
My father’s guards rushed to the cleric’s side and held her bound. Those at the door lowered their weapons and searched about for something to do. The fools.
“Get a doctor. Quickly!”