The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(50)

“There was a reason.” Lord Fox stared into his goblet. “She didn’t betray Kion. Not in the way one thinks of betrayal. Some days, it almost feels like Kion turned her back on Tea first.” Like mine had, his silver heartsglass seemed to glitter. “Did she say anything about Kion while she was with you?”

Lord Knox paused. “Not explicitly, no. But she said some things about wanting to leave and be someone else. To travel the lands without the need for a name. Where she could carve out her own peace, her words were. I remember, because she’d looked so sad and vulnerable. With all due respect, Lord Fox, it was easy to admire her, even knowing the damage she could do, even knowing how Kalen would beat my arse. Maybe the danger was a part of her attraction.”

“We all admired her, Knox.” Lord Besserly raised his glass. “Let’s raise our glasses to the Dark asha. As strong and mighty as we are, able warriors one and all—may nothing we do piss her off.”

“Hear, hear,” the rest of the table chorused, and that made Lord Fox crack a smile.





12


There were minimal injuries from the daeva hunt, no thanks to the Yadoshans or their leader. The man the nanghait had first attacked would live with a broken leg—and despite the injury, still attended the party later that night where we were made honored guests, ignoring my pleas for rest.

“It wouldn’t be much of a celebration if the people we were celebrating weren’t present,” the minister pointed out. “Tomorrow is as good a day to sleep as any. But tonight, we drink!”

And that was why I sat at the center of a very long table, staring down at a roasted hog with a caramelized apple in its mouth. Yadoshan parties were as grand and as outlandish as their hunts. While their gatherings in Kion were tame out of respect for the Willows’ policies and general dislike of loud noises, the Thanh celebration was a citywide affair, spilling out of the council house and finding lodgings in the endless number of taverns and inns surrounding it. While the more influential nobles and ministers dominated the great hall we stayed at, the locals conducted their own festivities with lesser frills and more beer.

“This is ridiculous,” I complained once the First Minister was out of earshot. “There’s no point to all this. They deliberately went out of their way to get themselves hurt or worse, and now they’re celebrating the fact that they survived?”

“Sometimes people do things because they want to, and not because they make sense.” Khalad took a small sip of his ale and gingerly placed it back on the table. “It’s not like you’ve never met Yadoshans.”

I snorted. “I’ve never been responsible for their lives before.”

Kalen chuckled, mellower than I’d expected. “One of the few rules for the hunt requires participants to take sole responsibility for their actions should they die underfoot. It’s the only way they can claim a hero’s burial. You may have to endure this every several years whenever the nanghait wakes, but I don’t think the Yadoshans would oppose our staying here as normal citizens. Their policy is to never get themselves involved in southern kingdom politics—staying neutral is good for trade. Hunting the nanghait might actually put them in your debt.”

“That’s not exactly the best way to start a life incognito.” Kalen was serious about leaving Kion for good, but I still wasn’t sure what my own thoughts were on that the subject. I couldn’t let Mykaela shoulder all the duties of a Dark asha alone.

I looked around at the throngs of men and women talking and laughing and noisily chugging down dark butter ale like tonight was their last night on earth. “Maybe Yadosha isn’t the best place to settle. Maybe we should live in the frozen tundra with the Gorvekai instead.”

“But you’re seriously considering my proposal?”



“Would you expect me to let other daeva roam free? Even if Mykaela could no longer put them down herself?”

“Mykaela has her heartsglass back. And she can train someone else in your stead.”

“Then it’ll never end, will it? Endless cycles of Dark asha dying too early, teaching new apprentices the craft, so they can die too early too.”

Kalen sighed. “I don’t want you to die early either. But Mykaela has never once complained about her fate. You can’t decide how she lives her life.”

“You can’t do the same for me either, Kalen. I would have been all right staying at Kion.”

Kalen stared at me, his expression turning angry. “You want them to kill you? You’re giving up, just like that?”

“What else can I do? Being a bone witch is harder to relinquish than a title, Kalen! I can’t be selfish!”

“And you’re implying I am?” Kalen pushed his chair back. “This isn’t a game!”

“You can’t tell me not to speak for Mykkie and then speak for me!” I snapped before realizing this was brewing into a fight neither of us wanted.

Kalen came to the same conclusion; he slumped and sighed. “We’ll have all the time in the world to decide where to go after tonight. But it’s best we stay in Thanh and wait for favorable winds. Can we at least agree to that?”

I nodded meekly. “Yes. I can.”

“I’m just—” Kalen ran a hand over his dark hair. His voice softened. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”