A Promise of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles, #1)(45)

I nod, resisting the urge to sniff.

As soon as Selena leaves, Desma and Aetos burst into the tent.

“Cat! You’re awake!” Desma falls on top of me, hugging me, the cot—everything. It would hurt if she didn’t weigh less than I do.

Aetos looms over us, huge and blue.

“Don’t you try that,” I warn.

He grins, and I reach up, drawing him down for a quick hug. Happiness bubbles inside me at seeing these two again.

“How are you?” I ask, smiling.

He pats my hand. “Better, now that you’re back.”

My smile falls, landing somewhere near my toes. “I can’t stay.”

“You have to!” Color erupts from Desma. Without thinking, I gather the magic she released. I let part of it go, and it shimmers around the tent, turning the warm air the color of jewels in the sun.

“You’re not leaving with him,” Aetos growls.

I think we all know who him is. “I have to. I gave my binding word.”

“That son of a Cyclops!” Aetos pounds his massive fist down on Selena’s vacated chair. It shatters like a toy made of twigs. “He made you promise before he brought you to Selena.”

I shake my head. “I promised before I got hurt.”

His mouth snaps shut. I’ve left Aetos speechless. Definitely a first.

“Why?” Desma asks.

“There was about to be a battle. I was magically tied up. Actually, I was tied to him. Neither of us could fight like that.”

“So if he untied you, you promised to stay with him?”

I nod, and Desma looks appalled by my stupidity. “You traded one shackle for another, much stronger one.”

“I know,” I say, disgusted. “I had a better chance of escaping the enchanted rope than my own binding word. But we’re alive, right?”

“We?” Desma asks pointedly.

My face heats. “They’re not that bad. And they might be better for the realm.” Unless having a Hoi Polloi Alpha makes Tarva and Fisa rain years of fire and monsters down on us.

“What do they have to do with Sinta?” Aetos asks.

As I explain who the Sintans are, my two best friends turn an interesting shade of yellow. Aetos looks a bit green, actually, given his blue tattoos.

“So, a strapping warlord, who is actually Beta Sinta, takes one look at you and decides he has to have you?” Desma asks.

“Strapping?” Aetos grumbles.

“Not as strapping as you, darling.” Desma smiles sweetly, and Aetos looks mollified, lowering his head to kiss her soundly on the lips.

My jaw goes slack. I’ve been waiting years for this. I go away for a month, and it happens without me? Life is not fair!

I clear my throat, and Desma breaks the kiss, blushing.

“Apparently,” I answer, my eyes bouncing back and forth between the two of them so fast it gives me vertigo.

“But why? Why you?” Desma asks, still pink.

“Because I’m cute and funny?”

They stare at me.

“No, really,” Desma insists. “Why you?”

I sigh. “He needs a Magoi with my skills. He thinks I can be helpful in diplomatic situations. Alliances and treaties. Things like that.”

Aetos chokes on something. “You? Diplomatic?”

“I know!” I throw my hands up. “I guess he thinks insult first and kill after will be good for the realm.”

We all laugh, but it feels forced.

“There’s more to it,” Desma prods.

I shake my head. “He’s Hoi Polloi. He needs Magoi. I’m a soothsayer.”

“You’re more than that.” Aetos doesn’t ask. He states a fact.

When I don’t say anything, Desma asks, “How does Beta Sinta know you’re more than that? Why work so hard to save you when he could just abduct himself another soothsayer?” She frowns, obviously hurt. “You didn’t just tell him whatever else you are, did you?”

“Of course not!” I say hotly. “It was an oracular dream.” I roll my eyes. “Thanks a bunch, Poseidon.”

Silence. It lasts so long I get sleepy. Magical healing saps my energy like nothing else.

“Poseidon?” Aetos eventually echoes.

I yawn. “Because of him, Beta Sinta watched me, put two and two together, and found some old scroll confirming it all.”

Silence again. Then Desma asks, “Will you ever tell us, Cat?”

It’s getting hard to focus. Fatigue turns the multicolored tent into a kaleidoscope. “I don’t know. It’s not what I want to do with my life. It’s what I ran away from.”

Blue lines pull tight around Aetos’s mouth. “But you’ll do it for him?”

I don’t answer, and my eyelids sag.

*

I wake up sometime late in the afternoon and then eat like a person three times my size. An embarrassing amount of roast chicken and an entire tray of spice cakes, which I’m guessing Desma left by my bedside, disappear in less than an hour. I feel stronger but stickier than the cakes I just inhaled.

A parade of visitors keeps me from leaving the tent for a bath. Dozens of circus residents pop their heads in to see if I’m awake and to check on me. I get tired again fast, but I’m too happy to see everyone to say so. Tadd and Alyssa bring me a pot of honey from the beehive they carry around with them everywhere the circus goes, and Zosimo and Yannis tell me about the performances I missed while I was gone. Vasili and his wife give me a new knife, clearly under the impression I need more blades.