It sounded so similar to what Corinth had recently endured.
Needless to say, now was not the best time for Sar Branón’s bastard Liagé—a Sol Velorian born with Shah power—to miraculously reappear.
As if Imari’s mysterious Liagé half weren’t enough to make Ricón’s saredd suspicious, ten years in The Wilds had seasoned her marrow with new things—things they didn’t understand. She felt it every time she caught them watching her. She might have an Istraan papa, and she might have been raised in Istraa, but she was not one of them. The years had turned her wild, like The Wilds that had kept her. She was…different.
Avék—the most insouciant of the three—approached them, his karambits dangling from his waist like silver claws. The wind inflated his loose pants, and without his headwrap, his long black hair flowed freely. He grabbed the viper from Ricón and spared Imari a cursory glance as he took the snake to Tarq, who was the largest of them and entirely without humor. Imari had wondered at her brother’s rationale for bringing him, until she witnessed Tarq throw a knife fifty yards and strike a coyote square in the skull.
It had been the best dinner they’d had since leaving Skyhold.
Tarq sat sharpening his knives beside a small fire, his dark eyes fixed on Imari as they often were. Always watching, never trusting.
She tried not to take offense—they didn’t know her, not yet—but sometimes it was hard.
Scrape. Scrape. Scraaaape.
Avék tossed the viper, and it landed at Tarq’s feet.
Scrape.
“Tarq,” Avék said flatly.
Tarq allowed one more scrape before setting his knives down. He grabbed the viper by the neck, observed the crushed skull, and glared at Imari. “You smashed the glands.”
“I didn’t have time to be particular,” Imari said.
Tarq frowned.
Imari approached and held out her hand. “I’ll do it, if it’s too much trouble.”
He eyed her. “You ever skinned a snake before, cala?”
Girl.
Not surina. Not Imari. Just girl.
She supposed it was better than some of the other names she’d been called.
Imari flashed her teeth. “You might be surprised by what I’ve skinned.”
Tarq’s gaze sharpened. The others stopped and glanced over too.
She probably shouldn’t have said it, but she’d grown tired of being overly polite to assuage their suspicion, and to little effect. Finally, Tarq walked over and dropped the viper at her feet.
“May I borrow your knife?” Imari asked.
He only looked at her.
It was Ricón who finally produced a small blade, which Imari took. Ricón exchanged a heated glance with Tarq, who resumed sharpening his knives, while Imari crossed their camp, sat down, and got to work.
Wards, it niggled at her. How they all watched her and whispered at night when they thought she slept. It was also why she hadn’t touched her bone flute since leaving Skyhold two weeks ago.
She’d wrapped it in linen and tucked it deep within her saddlebags, out of mind and sight. Sometimes, while they rode, when the golden sands of the Majutén stretched endlessly before them and the wind lamented its desolation—those times, her soul ached for the flute. To hold it in her hands, to run her fingers over the smooth bone, to feel its warmth against her palms. She resisted, imagining the saredd’s reaction when the flute’s glyphs flared with moonlight at her touch.
But she could not stop the music.
That night in Skyhold had unleashed something inside of her, and the world had become a symphony of sound. It was in the earth, thundering beneath them as they rode, the wind as it howled across the dunes. Sometimes the music pulled her in so deeply that she did not realize she’d begun to sing in harmony—not until Ricón would stop her, touch her arm and say her name. Bring her back. Once, she’d almost slipped from their shared saddle, and would have, had Ricón not caught her waist.
Those times, she understood the saredd’s fear. Because she felt it too.
She wished there were someone she could speak to about her power—someone who could teach her how to use it, control it. There were three she could think of, but Tolya was dead, Tallyn might be dead, and Rasmin could not be trusted.
Imari still didn’t understand Rasmin’s role in all of this. He had been Corinth’s Head Inquisitor—built his life interrogating and torturing Liagé. He’d discovered her in The Wilds, convinced Prince Hagan to bring her to Skyhold under the guise of healing his father, King Tommad. Of course, Prince Hagan’s real intent had been to use her power to control his enemies. She’d assumed this had been the Head Inquisitor’s purpose as well, but as it turned out, the Head Inquisitor was Liagé.
He was also part owl.
Imari focused on the task at hand, carefully carving off the viper’s head, making sure to avoid the crushed venomous glands. Once she’d severed the head completely, she tossed it at Tarq’s feet.
The scraping stopped.
She didn’t glance over to see his face, though she imagined it well enough. Avék crouched beside her, but not too close. Never too close. They always kept a distance.
“You’re quick,” Avék said. It sounded like an accusation.
Imari cut a slit down the middle, peeled the skin from the meat, and set the skin aside, her hands slick with blood. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Avék studied her. Imari felt Tarq’s attention too. She ignored them both, pulled out the guts, and, by the end of it, she had one long piece of snake meat.
“May I?” Avék asked, gesturing to the snake skin.
“Go ahead,” Imari said, wiping Ricón’s blade clean.
Avék picked up the skin and took a seat near Tarq as Ricón walked over and observed her handiwork. He looked as though he wanted to ask, but didn’t know where to start. It was how he’d looked at her for much of their journey south.
“Tolya taught me,” Imari explained. She wrapped the meat around a stick, stabbed the ends to pin it in place, and set it atop the embers. Flames licked, meat sizzled. She settled back and watched it cook, remembering the woman who had kept her alive. Tolya, with her wild gray curls and weathered face and ageless determination.
“You miss her,” Ricón said.
Imari wrapped her arms around bent knees. “She was all I had for ten years.”
The silence stretched as the years crowded uncomfortably between them.
“You have us now, mi a’fiamé,” Ricón said quietly. “And I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
Safe.
Would she ever truly be safe, being what she was?
Sar Branón, Istraa’s king and their papa, had no idea Imari was on her way home. Ricón had lied about his destination, fearing discovery for this delicate and dangerous mission, but for all Ricón’s promising that their papa would be happy to see her, neither of them could really know how he would react. After all, he’d proclaimed his bastard daughter dead to all the world ten years ago.
It was not lost on Imari that Sar Branón could lose his life for this betrayal.
But Ricón had meant his words as a comfort, and even though they weren’t completely true, she loved him for trying. She loved him for believing he could make them true.