Daughter of Smoke and Bone(99)

“Do you ever sleep anymore? Where were you last night?”

“Working,” she said.

“All night?”

“Yes, all night. Though I may have fallen asleep in the shop for a couple of hours.” She yawned. She felt safe in her lies because no one outside Brimstone’s inner circle knew what went on in the west tower, or even knew about the secret passageway through which she came and went. And it was true that she had slept for a little while—just not in the shop. She’d dozed curled against Akiva’s chest and woken to him watching her.

“What?” she’d asked, bashful.

“Good dreams? You were smiling in your sleep.”

“Of course I was. I’m happy.”

Happy.

She thought that was what Chiro really meant when she asked, “What’s going on with you?” Madrigal felt remade. She had never guessed how deep happiness could go. In spite of the tragedy in her childhood and the ever-present press of war, she had mostly considered herself happy. There was almost always something to take delight in, if you were trying. But this was different. It couldn’t be contained. She sometimes imagined it streaming out of her like light.

Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star.

Her foster sister was scrutinizing her in silence when a trumpet blast in the city caused her to turn to the window. Madrigal went to her side and looked out. Their barracks were behind the armory, and they could just see the facade of the palace on the far side of the agora, where the Warlord’s gonfalon hung, a vast silk banner that indicated he was in residence. It bore his heraldry—antlers sprouting leaves to signify new growth—and beside it, as Madrigal and Chiro watched, another gonfalon unfurled. This one was blazoned with a white wolf, and though it was too distant to read, they both knew its motto well.

Victory and vengeance.

Thiago had returned to Loramendi.

Chiro’s hands fluttered so that she had to steady them against the window ledge. Madrigal saw her sister’s excitement, even as she fought her own rising bile. She had chosen to take Thiago’s departure and absence as a sign—of fate conspiring in her happiness. But if his absence had been a sign, what did his return signify? The sight of his banner was like a splash of icy water. It couldn’t douse her happiness, but it made her want to curl around it and protect it.

She shivered.

Chiro noticed. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid of him?”

“Not afraid,” Madrigal said. “Only anxious that I gave offense, disappearing like I did.” Her story had been that she’d drunk too much grasswine and, overcome by nerves, had hidden in the cathedral, where she’d fallen asleep. She studied her sister’s expression and asked, “Was he… very angry?”

“No one likes to be rejected, Mad.”

She took that as a yes. “Do you think it’s over now, though? That he’s through with me?”

“One way you could make sure,” said Chiro. She was glib, jesting—surely—but her eyes were bright. “You could die,” she said. “Resurrect ugly. He’d leave you alone then.”

Madrigal should have known then—to take care, at least. But she hadn’t the soul for suspicion. Her trust was her undoing.





59





THE WORLD REMADE



“I can’t save you.”

Brimstone. Madrigal looked up. She was on the floor in the corner of her barren prison cell, and didn’t expect saving. “I know.”

He approached the bars, and she held herself still, chin raised, face blank. Would he spit at her, as others had? He didn’t have to. The simple fact of Brimstone’s disappointment was worse than anything others could hurl at her.

“Have they hurt you?” he asked.

“Only by hurting him.”

Which was worse a torture than she could have believed. Wherever they were keeping Akiva, it was just near enough that she could hear his screams when they crested into full agony. They rose, wavering audible at irregular intervals, so she never knew when the next one was coming, and had lived the past days in a state of sick expectancy.

Brimstone studied her. “You love him.”

She could only nod. She’d held up so well until now, high dignity and a hard veneer, not letting them see how inside she was dissolving, as if her evanescence had already begun. But under Brimstone’s scrutiny, her lower lip began to tremble. She crushed her knuckles against it to still it. He was silent, and once she thought she could trust her voice, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what, child?”

Was he mocking her? His ovine face had always been impossible to read. Kishmish was on his horn, and the creature’s posture mimicked his master’s, the tilt of his head, the hunch of his shoulders. Brimstone asked, “Are you sorry for falling in love?”

“No. Not for that.”

“Then what?”

She didn’t know what he wanted her to say. In the past, he had told her that all he ever wanted was the truth, as plain as she could make it. So what was the truth? What was she sorry for?