Eris pulled the curtain closed, concealing them both from view. The mist was thick around them.
Safire spun to face her. The sight of her made Eris’s heart beat twice as fast.
Her black hair was twisted up in its usual knot, held in place by one of her throwing knives, and she wore the blue dress Eris left in her bedroom. The hue complemented her eyes perfectly.
“She killed them,” Safire blurted out.
Eris frowned. That was not what she’d expected her to say. “Killed who?”
“Kor. Rain. Lila.” Safire’s hands fisted at her sides, as if she were only just now considering the words she was saying. “She executed all of them.”
It didn’t sink in at first. The idea of Kor and the others being dead, when they’d been alive just yesterday . . . she couldn’t make sense of it. And then, when it did make sense, Eris didn’t know how to feel. She hated Kor, that was certain. She’d stabbed him and set his ship ablaze, after all. But she’d done those things because she was angry and tired of being abused; not because she’d wanted to kill him. If she’d wanted to kill Kor, she would have locked him inside that burning room.
Eris didn’t want him dead. Nor any of the others.
“Are you sure?”
Safire turned away, looking out over the balustrade, into the mist-cloaked city. “I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” she said, hugging herself. “But it’s what she told me: Pirates don’t get trials.”
Eris watched her, unsure of what to say. She wasn’t surprised by this. But Safire clearly was.
“Why are you here?” Safire whispered, her voice sounding small.
Eris stepped up to the balustrade. “I know what Jemsin wants your cousin for.”
Safire turned, her blue eyes hard as jewels. “And?”
Tides, this would be so much easier if you weren’t so pretty. Eris shoved the thought away, needing to focus. She was deep in enemy territory right now. She needed to keep her head about her.
“The empress made him a deal: she’ll give him free rein over her territorial waters if he delivers Asha to her.”
Safire’s dark brows knit in a skeptical frown. “You have proof of this?”
“Not . . . exactly.” Eris looked down to her stolen boots. “No.”
“So I’m supposed to take you at your word.”
“Yes?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Safire murmured, staring out into the mist. “What does she want my cousin for?”
“I have no idea. But if she’s making deals with pirates in order to obtain her, my guess is: nothing good.”
Safire studied Eris for several heartbeats. “Does this mean you won’t hunt Asha down?”
Eris glanced up. “What?”
“If the empress wants my cousin,” Safire said, crossing her arms tightly against her chest, “and you believe the empress is a monster, then it should follow that you’ve decided not to uphold your bargain with Jemsin.”
Eris stepped closer, keeping her voice low. “If I don’t deliver your precious cousin to Jemsin, he’ll hand me over to that monster instead.” Eris shook her head. “Don’t you understand? Leandra won’t show me any more leniency than she showed Kor. If she doesn’t execute me . . .” She touched the spindle tucked into her stolen belt, suddenly thinking of Day. Of the blade driven through his chest. “She’ll make me wish she had.”
“I see,” said Safire stiffly. “So you came here to say that a villain wants my cousin, for reasons unknown to you, but you think those reasons sinister enough to warrant warning me.” Safire’s eyes were like bright flames as they bore into Eris. “But it’s not going to stop you from hunting Asha down like prey and delivering her to that same villain.” Her voice was rising now. The air seemed to grow hot with her anger. “Did I get that right?”
Eris stared at her. “Did you not hear what I said? If I don’t do what Jemsin wants, I’m as good as dead.”
Safire’s mouth curled in disgust. “Maybe you deserve to be.”
Eris stepped back, stung.
“You’re a criminal, Eris. A thief. A pirate. A murderer.” Her voice was hardening. Where before there had been hesitation, there was now resolve. “The world needs to be protected from people like you.”
Eris stared at her. “I never murdered anyone.”
“So you say.” Safire lifted her chin, eyes flashing. “Where’s your proof?”
What hurt the most wasn’t that Safire didn’t believe Eris. It was that she didn’t care what happened to her.
Of course she doesn’t care, thought Eris, setting Safire’s stolen knife down on the balustrade before turning to leave.
No one had cared what happened to Eris. Because she didn’t matter.
Twenty-Eight
Safire picked up her knife from where it rested on the cold, hard marble. Normally she could see a clear path and take it with decisive action. But ever since she’d met the thief known as the Death Dancer, the path had disappeared and she was stumbling through the murk.
No more.
Safire knew that to sound the alarm—alerting every soldier in the ballroom to Eris’s presence—was to bring a death sentence down on her.
She also knew that to not sound the alarm was to let a dangerous criminal go free—one who cared more for her own hide than the lives of others.
When Dax promoted her to commandant, Safire took a vow to bring order where there was chaos. To protect innocents from those who wished to do them harm. She was a soldier, first and foremost, and her soldier instincts told her to detain Eris. To stop her from walking away and call for the Lumina soldiers in the ballroom.
So that’s exactly what she did.
Safire turned to find Eris now thrusting aside the curtain, about to step back inside. “The enemy of the Skyweaver is here!” Safire shouted, pointing her knife at the girl in a stolen Lumina uniform. “Arrest her!”
Silence fell over the grand ballroom. Eris froze in place as several soldiers turned toward them, the sound of their blades ringing free of their sheaths.
“If you so much as reach for that spindle in your belt,” whispered Safire, stepping close enough to smell the sea on Eris’s skin, “I won’t hesitate to put this knife in your back.”
“You’ve already put a knife in my back,” said Eris, keeping her gaze on the Lumina—swarming now, running for the balcony they stood on. “What’s one more?”
She let go of the curtain and stepped backward, closer to Safire and the balustrade, as if to put space between her and the enemies coming for her. But there was no escape. Nowhere for her to go.
Raif arrived well ahead of the others, his sword drawn, his mouth curling in a vicious scowl as he pushed back the curtain. He pointed his blade at Eris, his eyes cold and hard as she stepped slowly forward. “Palms up, fiend,” he barked. “Move away from the commandant.”
Several more Lumina arrived, halting behind Raif.
“Lock the doors!” he shouted as they all drew their swords. “The fugitive is on the balcony!”
But Eris couldn’t be confined by things like doors and locks.
She was the Death Dancer.
As the room beyond them exploded in panicked murmurs and shouts, Safire fixed her gaze on the spindle at Eris’s hip, keeping her knife trained on her. The moment Eris reached for it, Safire would have no choice but to . . .
“Maybe it’s time you took a good, hard look at your allies,” said Eris. She looked up, her gaze catching Safire’s. “Are they heroes or villains? And what does that make you?”
Safire narrowed her eyes. Manipulative until the very end. If Eris thought she could drive a wedge between her and those who’d come to Safire’s aid, she was dead wrong.
“At least I have allies. Who do you have, Eris? No one.”
She expected the thief to smirk. To say something sarcastic and cutting.
Instead, Eris said so softly, only Safire heard: “To think I fancied myself in love with you.”
Those w
ords were like a blow, knocking her backward.
“What?” Safire whispered, lowering her knife.
With Raif screaming commands several paces away, with the soldiers at his back pressing onto the balcony, Eris shot Safire one last look. It was the Death Dancer stripped bare of her confidence and cockiness. It was longing and hurt and regret, all woven together.
And then, before Safire could stop her, before she even knew what was happening, Eris leaped onto the balustrade and dropped into the mist below.
Twenty-Nine
Safire stared into the gray fog, her heart in her throat.
“No one could survive that fall,” Raif said from beside her, the frown on his brow deepening. “We’re five stories up.”
Eris can, she thought. Or maybe it was more like hoped.
Because suddenly, in Eris’s absence, things seemed murkier than ever.
As Raif told one of the other soldiers to go check the gardens below, the empress herself arrived. Her naval uniform had been replaced by a gown of the same shade that was fitted to her torso, then fell in shimmering waves from her waist to the floor, revealing a silver underlayer at the bottom that frothed like waves.
“What happened here?” Her voice was cold and commanding.
Raif looked to Safire, clearly wondering the same thing.
“Your fugitive was here,” she said. “Disguised as one of your soldiers.”
Every pair of eyes was on her now. Safire burned beneath their gazes.
“She jumped off that balcony just a moment ago,” added Raif.
Leandra’s eyes narrowed on Safire.
“She was here—on this balcony—with you?” Her voice was edged with accusation. “How long were you two alone for?”
Safire swallowed, trying to stave off the heat sweeping through her at those words.
“Perhaps she was under threat,” said Dax, moving their attention to himself. Safire didn’t know how long he’d been there, but his eyes remained fixed on her.
He was giving her a way out.
“She had a knife to my back,” Safire told him. “If I’d called for help, she would have thrust it in.”
She didn’t really believe that. She only said it because it might curb the skepticism in the empress’s eyes.
“So she forced you out here,” said Leandra. Her lips thinned and her jaw stiffened. “She came, she singled you out, she isolated you. For what purpose?”
Safire forced herself to meet the empress’s gaze. “She came to turn me against you.” This was pure truth. “She said you’re the one who made the deal with Captain Jemsin. That it’s you who wants the Namsara.”
Leandra tilted her head, her gaze locked on Safire’s. “And what, exactly, would I want her for?”
Safire shook her head. “She didn’t say. But it’s nonsensical. He’s a vicious pirate. And seeing as you just executed Kor and his crew, you don’t seem fond of pirates.”
From the corner of her eye, Safire saw Dax turn his head, puzzled by this news.
“And,” Safire went on, “why would you make a deal with a pirate when you could just invite Asha to your citadel?”
But you did invite her, thought Safire. And Asha declined the invitation.
And in their conversation earlier, Leandra seemed eager to send her soldiers out searching for Asha—but that was because she was in danger of being hunted by Eris.
Neither fact was proof of anything, though. All Safire had was Eris’s word. And that, she knew, was useless.
There was movement from behind the empress as Caspian stepped up beside her. “There’s no body,” he informed her. “She must have survived.”
Safire felt the hard knots inside her—knots she hadn’t even known were there—loosen at this news.
“That’s impossible,” said Raif, shaking his head, staring down into the mist below once more.
Before Safire could join Dax, the empress stopped her.
“If she comes to you again, don’t detain her. Don’t call for help.” Leandra’s gaze bore into Safire, as if it was just the two of them alone on that balcony. As if the others didn’t exist. “The next time she seeks you out, I want you to kill her. Is that understood?”
Safire held that stormy gaze. “Understood.”
The word was like ash in her mouth.
Thirty
To cancel the banquet—one held in honor of her esteemed visitors—would be seen as weakness, so Leandra insisted they continue on as if no interruption had taken place. As a result, Safire now sat at a long table, staring down into the glazed eyes of the mackerel on her plate. While those around her had all but eaten the bones of their meals, their plates now cold, Safire hadn’t so much as touched hers. She kept thinking of the way her heart stopped as she watched Eris jump from the balcony. Of the last words she’d said, and the look in her eyes.
To think I fancied myself in love with you.
“Are you all right?”
Dax’s voice jolted Safire out of her thoughts. She looked up into her cousin’s brown eyes.
“I . . .” The thought of the empress’s kill order turned her stomach.
He glanced around them. To his right sat Roa, and beside Roa, the empress. To Safire’s left sat Raif. Leaning in, Dax lowered his voice as he said, “You did the right thing.”
Had she? Then why did she feel so wretched?
Safire kept her voice down as she said, “Is killing her the right thing, too?”
Normally upholding the law made Safire feel good and right and worthy. This time, it made her one of them: the Lumina who beat women in the street; the empress who executed people without a trial.
Safire quickly glanced around the table. Raif was deep in conversation with Caspian. Roa had the empress talking about the blight.
“What if she’s right?” Safire thought of Eris’s question on the balcony. “What if I’m not one of the good soldiers?” She swallowed, suddenly seeing herself through different eyes. What if I’m one of the bad ones?
“Safire . . .”
“Leandra executed those pirates you brought her without a trial, Dax.”
He nodded. “I know.”
She frowned up at him. “You know?”
“It’s not a decision you or I would have made.” He looked down to his plate, the line of his jaw hardening a little. “But we can’t go around imposing our ways of doing things on everyone else. The laws of the Star Isles are the laws of the Star Isles. And while we’re guests here, we need to abide by them. It’s not our place to interfere.”
Safire stared at her king. “And if those laws are unjust?”
He glanced at her. “What if they are just? You and I have never had to deal with pirates, Saf. Leandra has to. There may be good reason for not giving them trials.”
Safire felt like her body was turning to stone. “Are you listening to yourself?” she whispered.
Dax had never cared if Safire challenged him. In fact, he welcomed it. He always wanted her opinion—most especially when it was contrary to his—because he respected and admired Safire. Because in arguing with her, in talking through the issue, Dax came out the other side better prepared to make whatever decision needed making.
Now, though, instead of arguing back like he usually did, his eyes darkened and he looked away from her.
“What would you have me do?” He kept his voice so low, it was almost a whisper. “Challenge her? Condemn her laws? Tell her you won’t catch the criminal you promised to catch for her?”
Safire opened her mouth to respond, only to find she didn’t have an answer.
“We need her, Safire. The scrublands need her. Without those seeds she’s promised us, hundreds of thousands will die. Tell me those lives matter to you.”
Safire’s throat burned. Of course they mattered to her. How could he ask her that?
Because if they mattered, she realized, I would put them first. Above Eris.
People were starving to death. Roa’s family was starving to dea
th. And here Safire was, compromising the very alliance that would save their lives.
She suddenly wanted to rise from the table and leave. Not just the grand ballroom. Not just the citadel. But Axis itself. This city, these islands, they were was twisting her into someone she wasn’t.
Sensing her agitation, Dax said, “What is really going on here?”
Safire couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at any of them. So she stared down at the dead fish on her plate and said, “I killed a man I hated once. That decision haunts me. I won’t kill a girl I—” She stopped herself, afraid to say the words aloud.
Dax turned to her a little more, casually resting his elbow on the top of his chair as he reached for his goblet—but he didn’t drink. He was trying very hard not to draw attention to their conversation. But his gaze was sword sharp.
“Saf,” he said gently. “This is the same thief who ran you ragged back in Firgaard. All you wanted was to lock her up.”
Safire studied the fish’s blackened scales and limp fins as she thought, Things have changed since then.
“She tortured you on Jemsin’s ship.”
“Actually,” Safire said, knowing she was grasping, “she had other people do the torturing.”
She thought of Eris watching as Jemsin’s men dunked her head again and again into the water. Trying to break her. To force information out of her.
Dax threw her a strange look. “Safire.”
She was losing him. She could hear it in his voice. And the awful thing was, he was right. Eris wasn’t some innocent; she was a criminal.
But she was also the one who held back Safire’s hair while she was seasick. The one who stopped that sea monster from eating her alive. Eris had saved her from Caspian and the other Lumina soldiers in that alley.
They would have beaten that woman to death, she thought. But that didn’t prove anything. Every barrel had a few bad apples. And not so long ago, a few of Safire’s own soldats had plotted against Roa—their queen. There were always going to be a few corrupt soldiers in a sea full of loyal ones.
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