The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2)(18)
Fox stayed with me until I fell asleep. When I woke sometime later, he was gone. I could feel him somewhere within Kneave, aimless. Beyond him, the shadows stirred and sighed, the azi sensing my melancholy and commiserating.
Alone in my room, I held up my heartsglass. Framed against the moonlight, it sparkled back at me. Resigned sadness occasionally marred the surface, but to my credit, neither resentment nor anger clouded its glass. It would take much more than this, I knew, to break my heart.
“I heard of the engagement,” I said, intrigued despite myself. “I had always wondered what brought it about.” Kion rarely made arranged marriages. Possessions and titles were passed down through the matriarchal line, so their women often had a say in who they married.
The bone witch closed her eyes, as if done with the conversation. “I can feel him, Kalen,” she said after a moment. “He’s here in the palace.” She strode to the still-cowering emperor, and her voice rose. “Where do you keep him, maggot? If you have shorn so much as a strand of white hair from his head, you will regret it for days.”
The Daanorian noble cringed. The Dark asha’s hand whipped through the air, and he sank back, crying out in pain.
“The prisons,” he gasped. “The prisons!”
The asha’s eyes hardened. She stepped toward the fallen man and crouched. “You will stay here until I return,” she said. “You will not move or blink from the moment I step out of the throne room until the moment I step back in. If you so much as twitch, I shall twist your insides and roll out your entrails like a royal carpet, and you will die as you choke on your own liver, your heart in my fist.”
The emperor said nothing and remained stock-still, his eyes round with fear.
And then, inexplicably, the asha began to laugh. “You are powerless. You are powerless! You are nothing more than an illusion. Oh, the irony!” She pushed him, sending him sprawling back to his corner. “If I find him harmed in any way, Your Majesty, I shall make good on my promise to gut you.”
The aeshma plodded nearer, settled itself at the base of the throne, keeping a languid, lazy eye on the dethroned noble.
Kalen rose as well. “I will search for the princess, and I will ask the soldiers about the blight. There might have been more sightings.”
The asha nodded. “Follow me, Bard. There is someone I would like you to meet.”
I followed her down the hallway and into an unused wing of the palace. The asha knew the way; she drew a sword and a locked wooden door shattered under its blow. Darkness beckoned us in. She led me down to the dungeons, and I shuddered to think of what we might find there.
But only one of the cells was occupied. Its prisoner sat, unblinking, as the asha moved closer. Even in the gloom, his heartsglass shone a blinding silver that was a light all on its own.
“This is Khalad, Bard,” the asha said. “The first-born son of Odalia, the former crown prince of House Wyath, and Heartforger to the Eight Kingdoms.”
Khalad stared up at us from underneath a shock of white hair—though he was still a young man, no older than Lord Kalen—with eyes almost the same shade as his heartsglass.
“What took you so long?” he asked quietly.
6
“And to what do I owe this honor?” Aenah drawled. “Two visits in two days! What a wonderful surpri—”
The rest of her words were cut off as she sagged back against the wall, coughing uncontrollably, her hands clutching at her throat. I hated being in her head, even when forcing her to do as I wanted. But I had all of the anger and none of the patience, and this was the fastest way to find my answers.
“Tea!” Fox had never followed me inside the cell before. Khalad was close on my brother’s heels, looking nervous.
“How did you know?” I nearly snarled.
“How did I know what?” Aenah gasped, struggling for breath.
“Quite ominous circumstances for a betrothal, I’d think.” I echoed her words from my last visit. “How did you know about the prince’s engagement to the Kion princess?” I ignored Fox’s startle of surprise. The thought that someone within the prince’s inner circle worked for this Faceless scum was terrifying enough. “Who are your spies? Tell me!”
The woman laughed weakly. “You have nothing to fear, Tea. I compel no one from the Odalian nobility. I simply found a flaw in your wards.”
I applied more pressure—not enough to rob her of speech but enough for her to realize I was willing to do worse. “This room is warded with enough magic to stop a daeva!”
Aenah smiled. “You exaggerate. The magic here is impressive, that is true. It prevents me from escaping. The wards can cloud your bond with your brave older brother here and, to a lesser extent, with the azi you share your innermost thoughts with.”
“What?” Fox exclaimed, but I refused to let go.
“Are you saying you can overcome these wards?”
“Not in the way you believe.” She tapped her forehead. “When you were but an asha apprentice, I was foolish enough to think I could compel you. I could plant suggestions in your mind and you would believe them as your own. All that changed, however, when the azi chose you. And now it is I who, embarrassingly enough, must dance to your tune.”
“That’s not an answer,” I said, seething.