The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(99)
“And even then, I knew I could not speak up,” the Heartforger admitted. She thought I was unconscious the whole time back then, and that her secret was safe. “I held my tongue for Likh alone. I could not risk retaliation against her.”
“You must have been mistaken, Tea,” Zoya said, her voice quavering. “After the fight at Mithra’s Wall, Althy placed me in charge of the asha and told me to return to Kion without her. She said she had mulled it over and decided to accompany Kance back to Odalia, to keep watch over Aadil. She said she would follow me in a few days. Althy…Althy would never…”
“Look around you. Where is Altaecia now? I have scried the whole area while you all stood compelled and could find no trace of her anywhere. Isn’t her absence enough evidence?”
The asha sagged. “But it can’t… Surely there’s an explanation…”
I swayed on my feet. “She must have taken the letters,” I choked out, remembering her strange insistence at seeing them, her indifference after the pages were missing. “I refused her at first…but then turned them over when she asked again. She might have…”
“Subtlety is her asset. It would be easy enough to compel you in the middle of the Willows, surrounded by asha, if she thought herself beyond reproach. And now she is gone.”
“But Althy did not know compul—”
“Why would she go through all this trouble?” Lady Zoya croaked.
“This war is a farce. Druj intends to keep you occupied here while she journeys to Drycht and to the Ring of Worship, where the First Harvest lies. Shadowglass and lightsglass are the keys to unlocking its secrets, and I possess both. She has woven wards around the Ring of Worship to ensure that I cannot enter without her presence, and took on a new identity to hide herself from me. I attacked Kion in the hopes of drawing her out, trying to dismantle the disguise she now assumes.
“In response, she orders the Drychta to occupy the Hollows, knowing it will bring me out in the open, knowing I will not stand by and allow Kance and the others to come to harm. She knew that when I came to Mithra’s Wall, to aid the Odalians and risk discovery when I could have chosen prudence and kept myself away.” Her lip curled. “She knows my weaknesses, and she knows that I am aware of her ploys—and that I have no choice but to rise to her bait. But there is no turning back. She will be waiting for me now at the Ring of Worship, where she believes the runic wards will give her the upper hand.”
“But if she shares your goals of completing shadowglass…”
The Dark asha laughed. “Did you believe her? Druj rages against the elder asha for usurping their powers, but Druj has known the Dark longer than they and wants it more. Should I complete shadowglass, she will find some new way to wrest it from me. I will see that monster dead before anything else.”
“And how will you defeat Druj?” Lord Fox was hoarse.
The Dark asha offered her hand to her brother. “You can come with me and see for yourself.” There was a quiver in her voice. “I could not tell you all this before, Fox. You testified against me in my own trial. You told them about my black heartsglass. You would not have believed me had I told you the truth about Altaecia, and you would have told her about your suspicions. That you didn’t kept you safe from her. Do you understand now, Fox? Why I refused to contact you all this time?
“She thought me a powerless vagabond, and I needed her to think that. Your trust in her would have prepared her sooner for my rebirth. I could not have asked you to choose between Inessa and me any more than you would ask me to choose between you and Kalen. But everything is out in the open now, and as I told you in Daanoris, there will be no more secrets. Please trust me one final time. Give me a good burial. I never gave you one, Fox…but oh, please give me this.”
He stared at Lady Tea for the longest time before he silently took her hand.
I sprang to my feet. “Let me go with you.”
“It is one thing to summon a bard to write my song. It is another thing entirely to bring a Drychta royal noble as vanguard to a fight I may not win.”
Kance looked stunned. Zoya’s eyes went wide.
“So you know.” I understood then why she had been adamant about sending me away—not to break her promise, but to preserve a bloodline.
“I am not so arrogant as to find a bard solely for him to sing my songs. You are good at tales, but you would make a better ruler for a kingdom mistreated by tyrants for far too long. I am sorry for what happened to Princess Esther, Your Highness. We can choose who we love, but we cannot choose who loves us. Your father was a tyrant in his own way—but you are not. For the good of Drycht’s future, you must be kept out of harm’s way.”
“I am a bard more than I am a king. And I am not the last of my lineage. Please. Let me do one last service for you.”
She paused, staring at me with the gentlest look on her face.
And then, as she had done with her brother, she extended her hand.
“We will fight her together then,” she said.
I nodded, then clarified, “Altaecia? She is Druj, right?”
“No.” Her smile this time was grim. “Druj is a woman who has hidden herself away within the Willows for decades. A woman who has counseled me and others for so long, with none of us the wiser. Not Altaecia. Someone else.”