Such a Daring Endeavor (21 page)

I talk over them. “We have to set up camp around Mt. Rhine. We have to warn the sirens, and then stand guard to defend them, to do everything we can to keep Tyrus from getting those tears once more.”

“You’re kidding, right?” says Cadie.

“You seem like a nice girl,” says Zeke. “But I’m gonna need a lot more to go on than your word in this case. You’re talking about Tyrus vrecking Blinnsdale, and last I checked we was staying as far from him as we possibly could.”

“Zeke is right,” says Ayso. “Do you know what he’d do to us if he caught us?”

It’s silent for a moment.

“Very well,” I say.

I skim a finger along my neck and remove the teardrop, dangling it before them on its chain. The crystal facets catch fragments of light spearing in from the window. I would never dare display it like this, but these people have put their trust in us over their other leader. They’re risking their businesses, their lives for this cause, and they need to know I can do what I say I can.

The tears purr from their distant perch, soothing me.

Please let this work.

I concentrate all my energy into the crystal and pray to the angels, to the Firsts, to the powers still keeping Itharia afloat. My hairs stand on end. Energy crackles through the walls, short-circuiting the half-filled magic canteen near the door, draining every ounce of light from the house. Clouds visible through the large window roll in, rumbling as they go. Gradually, people around me lift their hands as though they don’t know why they’re lifting their hands, and their magic joins mine, sparking in unison like emergency flares.

I shudder, my bones humming from the surge. “You see? When I channel magic into it, it enhances what I already have.”

“Incredible,” Jomeini says. I release the energy and their hands all lower. The sky clears outside, and the lights in the room return.

“Where did you get that?” Talon mumbles, leaning in close.

“Nattie gave it to me,” I whisper. My knees tremble, my body’s attempt at coping with the fluctuation of power. “She was in the forest when it collapsed on me.”

“How come you never told me?”

I open my mouth, but the group’s silence draws my attention. Everyone is watching us talk, waiting for me to continue. I suddenly feel bigger than I am. “I’ll explain everything later,” I mutter.

“That’s not enough,” Cadie calls out. “We need proof.”

“That’s how you did it,” Jomeini says, pointing to my amulet. “You helped me save Shasa’s life. With that.”

Shasa glances side to side as if we could possibly be talking about someone else.

“Remarkable,” says Solomus, hugging the book he got from Craven’s shed.

“Dircey told me Ambry was using magic even around the talc powder set over their room,” says Ayso.

“I belonged to Tyrus,” Ren adds. “She gave my magic back.”

“Tyrus isn’t dead,” says Ayso. “I saw him on the news this morning.”

“No, my sister didn’t kill him to do it. She reversed it.”

I force away the embarrassment gathering in my cheeks. This is no time to be self-conscious, but they’re all praising me far more than I deserve. “I can do a lot, but I can’t do it alone. We’ve got to get to Mt. Rhine.”

“What if they fly out and take us?” Zeke asks. “Sure, you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve, but them sirens ain’t too friendly, last I heard. ‘Specially not toward us menfolk.”

A valid concern, considering the state of the men when I went up their mountain to rescue Talon. I decide not to elaborate on this one.

“That won’t happen,” I assure, hoping it’s enough. “Not if I’m there. They pledged their friendship to me. They won’t attack anyone on my side.”

The other Black Vaulters look to Ayso for her decision. She steps forward, hand extended to me. “We’re in.”

I exhale, my chest expanding in relief.

They all branch off. Caught in whispers, Shasa and Jomeini take a seat on the now-vacant couch, legs crossed. Solomus and Zeke are speaking, a match bobbing between the vendor’s lips. Ren is gripped in conversation with the other Black Vaulters, and Talon stands aside, hands in his pockets.

He cocks his head to the left. I dip my chin in response to his invitation, and his mouth twists up just slightly as he strolls toward the back of the house.

I
t takes a few minutes before I can break away from the others. Several of them have questions, which is completely understandable. I don’t go into detail about how I ended up meeting sirens in the first place, and I tell Ren I just need a minute to myself—which is true. Grime from the dungeon coats my clothing and hands. I’d love nothing more than a hot bath. But Ren extends his hands to the Black Vaulters, and I duck out the back door.

Talon stands near a solitary tree with its clustered trunk and skeletal, coiling branches. The leaves are speckled with blossoms, a sure sign that summer is in full swing. I take a moment to watch him before he sees me. With a hand braced against the twining trunk, Talon bends at the knees as though testing the limit of the healing. His broad shoulders, the line of his posture. His blond hair curls over his ears in a way it hadn’t before.

Breathe,
I tell myself.
We’re just going to talk. It’s nothing more.

“Hi,” I say.

His eyes soften, the corner of his mouth rising. He limps toward me. “Hi.”

“How are your legs?” I ask. “I can’t believe they broke them.”

“Neither can I,” he says. “Tyrus was always harsh, but never to me. Not until just before I left the army.” He blinks away some painful memory.

“You’ll continue healing, won’t you?”

He glances down at his lower half. “I think so. I hope so. It fluctuates. Sometimes I’m stronger, then other times I’m back to limping again. I can’t fight the way I am now.”

Speaking of fighting, I wonder what he thinks of this latest idea. “You’re the only one of us who has seen battle, Talon,” I begin. “Would you lead us?”

His brows rise. “To Mt. Rhine? These aren’t warriors, Ambry. They’re salesmen. Dircey was right to run.”

“Is that what we should do, just let the Arcs charge in? Adrian may be dead, but he implied that he created some type of immunity elixir from the siren he captured. Tyrus is going to get the tears, and then what do we do?”

Talon answers my question with one of his own. "Why does he want them?"

"What do you mean?"

“Did anything about that conversation strike you as odd?” Talon asks.

“You mean besides finding out that you’re basically a Feihrian prince?”

Talon chuckles. “That makes it sound too glamorous. We’re warriors. I’m just next in line to rule the people—that is assuming they let me. I mean, it almost seemed like Tyrus was determined to get my father, my people, to attack him. Goading him with tears, taunting that he would be basically invincible because of them.”

“You think Tyrus has some other motive?” I ask.

“Tyrus doesn’t care about avenging his father’s death. In fact, that was the first I’d heard of it. They took me to Arcaia when we left my homeland—I had no idea my father came to Valadir to avenge my death. Whenever I asked about my father, Shasa always told me what a disappointment I would be to him.”

How nice of her
, I think but don’t say.

“All that passion about Tyrus’s father was a show for
my
father. Nothing more.”

“That’s suicide,” I say. “Egging Feihrians on, demanding a duel? Maybe Tyrus is losing his mind.”

“No, he’s not,” Talon argues. “Tyrus knew exactly what he was doing down there. He was trying way too hard to get my father to come to him.” Talon’s words slow, as if he’s realizing something at the admission. I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.

“Then you think he wanted to lure them away from Feihria?” I ask. “What could the Arcaians possibly want there?”

Talon shakes his head, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not sure.” He glowers, turning his face away from me.

“Whatever it is, the tears have something to do with it. What if he’s right, Talon? What if those tears make him so powerful that not even your people will be able to stop him?”

Maybe that’s what Nattie’s prophecy about me meant. Maybe I’m just supposed to keep them from being drunk by those who would seek to tear down my world.

“We have to get to the tears first,” I conclude.

Talon thrusts out a hand. “These Black Vaulters can’t fight,” he insists.

“Is that what’s really holding you back?”

He exhales, and then to my surprise, he laughs humorlessly.

“I’m sorry you were captured,” I blurt before he can say anything else. I have to get it out before another word is spoken. “It’s my fault. You should have stayed with Shasa, you should have—”

He turns away, head sagging so his hair falls into his eyes. “Don’t blame yourself. I was outnumbered—they Proned me when Ren dragged you off. They were watching for us.”

“I should have figured as much.”

He limps to the edge of the yard toward a collection of trees not quite large enough to be considered a forest. He sits at the base of a thick trunk and raises his eyes to me, but something is off, some sadness, like he left a piece of himself back at the palace.

“That was some show you gave everyone. You never told me Nattie gave you anything in that archway,” he says.

I sink beside him, resting my head against the trunk. “I wasn’t sure whether I should or not. She didn’t say not to, but she was very clear about my…purpose,” I finally settle on the word, “in this war.”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to drink the tears,” he surmises.

“Nattie told me as much. I just don’t see how. They burned me when I tried. They burned you! The tears told me to take them to the sirens, Talon.”

“Maybe it was just a matter of timing,” he suggests.

“Maybe. I wish I could see the end from the beginning.”

“Have you talked to Jomeini yet?”

“Shasa is always with her.”
And you’re always with Shasa
. I shouldn’t be bitter, but I can’t help this pebble in my chest wherever the Feihrian maiden is concerned.

Talon stands again, brushing leaves from his pants. He offers a hand, and I take it while I make it to my feet. I long to keep mine in his—to have him close to me in whatever way we’re allowed. But I’m not sure what that is.

We wander the trees for a while, exchanging glances, admiring branches or a particularly large dragonfly that lands on a bush nearby. He smiles at me, catching my heart.
This is how I like him best. Unguarded and alone, with only me.

“I know how you must feel about her,” he says. “About me. You must hate me.”

I lower my head, remembering the way he showed up in the city after I left him and the wizard, stealing me back into an alleyway and kissing me to stop my petulant rant. He told me she wasn’t a choice, but an obligation, that he didn’t know what would happen with her.

I resolved to get him out of the palace, and I did. I know I can’t expect anything more with him. So why do I want him to draw his arms around me, to pull me in and make me promises I know he can’t keep?

“I had a lot of time to think in that cell.” He has that tone. The tone of someone about to let a girl down easy. “I can’t keep balancing between loyalties, Ambry.”

I stare back at the Black Vault safehouse, small in the distance. “You don’t have to say anything else. I already know. I know it by heart.”

“I’m sorry. I tried—” His voice breaks and he clears his throat. “I tried to keep you at arm’s length. But the closer we got the less motivated I felt, until—”

“It’s okay,” I say, knowing we’re both remembering the same moment. That night in the house, just before I found out Gwynn joined with Tyrus and held my tears. The night I asked him to kiss me. And he did.

“We can still be friends,” I add.

He clears his throat, tangled at the word. A word I suddenly hate, but I force a smile to be as genuine as I can make it.

“Friends,” he repeats. A question. A confirmation.

We sit together as the word strings a new sort of awkwardness between us. It’s unchartered ground. We went from despising one another, to relying on one another, to teacher and student, to trading hearts before falling into this.
Friend
ship.

It’s not enough, I want to scream. But it has to be.

Talon sniffs. “Can I see the amulet the Firsts gave you?”

I remove the chain from my neck and pull the crystal teardrop from within my shirt. The fading twilight catches on a few of its facets, casting rainbows in the air before I lower it into Talon’s palm.

“Nattie said they tried to recreate tears, and this was the result. All of their tears combined and hardened into this crystal amulet. The power of the First creatures of Itharia is in the palm of your hand at this very moment. It’s only been within the past week or so that I’ve figured out what it can do.”

“Incredible,” he says, dangling it before his face. “I wonder if it works for anyone else but you.”

“Too bad you aren’t going to have the chance to find out,” I say with a smirk, reaching for the chain.

“Hey, I taught you my secrets.”

“Yeah, and look how well that turned out for you.”