* * *

  —

  I may have quelled the fear, but no one much feels like celebrating after that. I dispatch soldiers to keep order as the crowds disperse. They start with the folk of Apple Hill, and Lanna rushes over to me as my bodyguard prepares to sweep me back to the safety of Mother’s keep.

  My hands are filthy from hauling the stone, but she takes them in hers, squeezing. “Some of us are staying in Cutter’s Hollow,” she whispers. “At the Sunny Inn, on Garden Street. In case you…” Her face colors, and she steals a last peck on my lips before running off to join her friends.

  I don’t want her to go, but I am not ready to ask her to stay. Tonight was a clear reminder of that.

  But even if I had time for such distractions, I cannot help my feelings of guilt about Chadan. I don’t love Lanna—not like I did Chadan—but our intimate moments predate him, and somehow she reached a part of me I thought covered in armor.

  I expect my prince would understand, but it still feels like betrayal. I thought I might never love again after his death, but now I see how naïve that was. I haven’t yet seen sixteen summers. If I survive whatever the Father of Demons has planned, should I expect to be alone the rest of my life? Eventually I will need to marry, if only to secure the throne. I would have married Chadan, borne his children happily, but now that he’s gone, who is to say I should marry a man and not a woman? Perhaps Grandmum’s suggestions aren’t so bold, after all.

  Mother wanted me to grow beyond the boxes society tries to force me into, but even I don’t entirely understand what that means.

  How do I best serve my people? By staying here, offering stability to Hollow and providing an heir, as Arther and Emelia suggest? By going to rescue Mother, and restoring Hollow’s true leader?

  Or by taking an army and putting my spear into the heart of what would destroy us?

  Alagai Ka wants me to come to Safehold. He expects it. All part of the plan I saw in his mind.

  And all the more reason to do otherwise.

  Inevera thinks Darin better suited to sneak into Safehold than me, and I can hardly argue. I am more inclined to break doors down than pick their locks. If Darin and the others can find Mother and Mrs. Bales, freeing them before the queen hatches, it could change everything.

  But if Asome is right and the hatching is just a few months away…

  The moment the new queen hatches, they will make for the hive. The image of their swarm was clear in Alagai Ka’s thoughts.

  The hive is Alagai Ka’s seat of power. His life’s work. That is where the true fight will be. Not Safehold.

  That’s where I have to go, even if it means my friends and perhaps my own mother will never forgive me.

  We’re all worried, but I know things are really serious when Olive calls me, Selen, Arick, and Rojvah to her office and activates her mother’s wards of silence around the room.

  Always made me uneasy when Aunt Leesha used to do it—usually because she was more worried about me listenin’ in than some spy. She and Mam knew about my senses, and anytime they wanted to talk private, there was a little pop, and it was like they vanished. Like the office and everythin’ inside was dead.

  From the inside, it’s even worse. Whole world outside slips away. Might think this would be something I like, but truer is, it scares me. I’m used to hearing everything. Every footstep, every creak of floor, every turning hinge. It’s how I orient myself with the world, and how I keep anyone from sneakin’ up on me.

  But now there’s no sounds to get my bearings, like I’m in the dark under water. There could be a pack of demons at the door, and I’d never know unless they broke it down.

  “I’m going to the Spear of Ala.” Olive ent one for preamble. “In the spring, once the snows melt and I’ve gathered forces.”

  “So that’s it,” Selen says. “You’re going to choose that sand witch’s dice over your own mum?”

  “Tsst!” Rojvah hisses. Inevera’s her grandmum, and as legend as anyone left in the land.

  Olive doesn’t seem to care about that, but she’s got a ready head of steam. “Cut the demonshit, Sel.” She raises a balled fist and smells ready to use it. “You try to tell me this means I don’t love my mum, Creator my witness I will black your eye.”

  I can smell Selen’s anger, but she ent ready to take it that far. She crosses her arms, refusing to escalate. “Loving your mum doesn’t mean you ent wrong.”

  Olive lowers the fist, putting it on her hip. “You’ve got some stones, judging me for doing exactly what Mother would have done.”

  “You think if Alagai Ka had you, Leesha wouldn’t come?” Selen is incredulous.

  “Not if the dice told her it was a bad idea,” Olive says.

  “You can’t know that,” Selen snaps.

  “I do.” Olive makes no effort to argue, but I don’t need convincing. I heard every whisper in this keep growin’ up, and if Aunt Leesha had a religion, it was those dice.

  “Alagai Ka wants me to go to Safehold,” Olive continues. “He’s baiting me. It’s a trap. If I take an army and go east, there will be countless opportunities for him to strike, and it will end up the same as Mother’s force.”

  Can’t really argue that, either. Mam was a force of nature, and Leesha the strongest ward witch this side of the Damajah. They had cavalry and flamework and the Warded Children, all with magic of their own. Tougher than anythin’ we got.

  What I remember most about findin’ them was the smell. Blood and ichor and demonshit, smoke and mud, but most of all somethin’ I never smelled before, and never want to again.

  What folk smell like, spitted over a fire like a Solstice pig.

  “Spear of Ala could be a trap, too,” I note. “Maybe Alagai Ka made it go silent on purpose, knowing it would send you runnin’.”

  “I don’t think so.” Olive shakes her head, and her scent ent lyin’. “I saw his plan, plain as a portrait on the wall. He wants all of us in Safehold, to feed to the new queen when she hatches.”

  I shudder in spite of myself. Da was the most powerful person in the world, but when he was stung by a demon queen, even he couldn’t heal from her venom.

  “It’s not just the Damajah and Belina whose dice cast us on this path,” Olive says. “Mother had two foretellings. The city to the east, where the mimic sleeps…”

  “And the father waiting below,” I say.

  “You thought that was your da, Darin,” Olive says. “But I think it means the hive. Alagai Ka wants to repopulate it, and we have to stop him at all costs.”

  “Maybe it is a trap,” I say. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spring it. This mimic queen’s in Safehold. Said it yourself. Might be we can slip in and kill her before her egg even hatches.”

  “Ay,” Olive agrees. “But if you fail, the demon queen will make for the hive, taking Alagai Ka and every last demon in Thesa with her. Someone’s got to be there to meet them. Perhaps I cannot sneak an army into Safehold, but nothing less will be able to reclaim the Spear of Ala and stand guard over the hive.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “None of it matters. Maybe you got what it takes to put the greater good over kith and kin, Olive Paper, but I don’t. If Safehold’s where Mam is, then that’s where I’m goin’.”

  “Ay,” Olive agrees. “You’re better at slipping into places you ent welcome than I am, Darin Bales. If you can’t get in there without being spotted, it can’t be done.”

  She’s flattering me. I can smell it. “Two weeks ago you were tellin’ me I couldn’t be trusted to go to market without havin’ a fit. Now you’re sayin’ I got what it takes to trick the Father of Demons?”

  Olive shrugs. “You’re going no matter what I say, aren’t you?”

  “Corespawned right.”

  “But not alone,” Rojvah says. “Where my intended goes, I will follow.”

  “And me,” Arick puts in.

  “Ay, and—”

  Selen cuts off as Olive raises a finger. “Not you, Sel.”

  “I don’t care if you’re duch or king or the ripping Shar’Dama Ka, Olive Paper,” Selen growls, “you can’t just order me to sit your throne while you run off and play Inevera’s puppet.”

  That sets off an angry scent from Olive, but it’s nothing compared to the rage stink on Selen. Olive may be stronger, but I wouldn’t take this fight, I was her.

  “Hollow needs a leader,” Olive says. “We can’t both go.”

  “Then you stay!” Selen snaps. “You’re the one with the crown.”

  “Dice say I’ll bungle Safehold, but there isn’t anyone else who can bring the Hollowers and Krasians together to march on the Spear,” Olive says. “You can’t do that, and…”

  Selen puts her hands on her hips. “And what? I’m no use on the road to Safehold because I can’t lift a big rock, or carry a rippin’ tune?”

  Olive holds up her hands helplessly. “You’re the one who said it.”

  I hear Selen’s teeth grinding together. Her bones creak as tendons and muscles tighten. Her heart is pounding, and it ent gonna help anyone if they start fightin’.

  “Selen needs to come,” I say, turning them both to notice me.

  “Stay out of this, Darin,” Olive says.

  “Core I will,” I say. “Ent a Hollower, Olive. Don’t get to tell me what to do any more than Selen, and I can’t do this without her.”

  “If you need another spear, take someone else,” Olive says. “Gorvan, or Faseek. Lots of fighters to choose from.”

  “Don’t need a spear,” I say. “Need Selen Cutter.”

  “So does Hollow,” Olive says.

  “Hollow needed your mam,” I point out. “Didn’t stop her from going to war when she was needed.”

  “Oh, ay, and look at how that turned out,” Olive says.

  “Don’t matter,” Selen says. “There’s a time to sit on a throne and talk about taxes, and there’s a time to go out and fight what’s trying to end you. Hollow economy don’t mean spit if there’s no Hollow.”

  “The forces of Nie cannot be bargained with,” Rojvah says. “Nie cannot be satiated or appeased.”

  “Nie can only be fought,” Olive agrees. It was the speech she and her spear brothers recited every night before going into battle, and seems to reach her when other arguments can’t.

  “Folk of Hollow are tougher than you give credit for,” Selen says. “If they can’t last until we get back, here safe on the greatwards, then things are worse than we thought.”

  “And if neither of us comes back?” Olive asks.

  “Then they got bigger problems than who decides the sanitation tax,” Selen says.

  Olive seems to deflate at that.

  “Question now is how we find Safehold,” I say. “Olive, you saw the place when you and Alagai Ka were linked. Anythin’ you can tell us?”

  “I think it’s a city,” Olive says. “A human city, I mean. The minds call them larders—breeding grounds to fatten us up like cattle for slaughter. He’s been marching folk right into the mimic’s mouth like spoons full of porridge.”

  “The Father of Demons will have protections over his private stock,” Rojvah says.

  None of us sits well with that idea. Remember what the demon’s greatward was like in Krasia, sucking the strength from us.

  “If it’s magic, it won’t work in sunlight.” Olive moves to a map on the wall, pointing. “And the city is near a natural reservoir, fed by the same snowmelt that becomes the Angiers River. If you follow the river upstream, you will at least get in close.”

  “I dunno,” I say. “That’s a long way, and there are a lot of little lakes in the mountains. Like lookin’ for a pea in a silo of beans. Might hunt for months and not find it.”

  “You won’t have months,” Olive says. “Best guess I have says the queen hatches on Summer Solstice.”

  “How can you know that?” Selen demands.

  “A foretelling.” Olive smells evasive.

  “Whose?” Rojvah demands. “Not my grandmother’s or she would have told me. Favah?”

  Olive shakes her head. Her scent tells me we ent gonna like the answer. “Asome.”

  “Tsst!” Rojvah hisses. “Tell me you do not listen to my uncle’s heretical prophecies.”

  Olive shrugs. “I watched him cast in wardsight. Heresy or no, there is real magic in his foretellings. Already they are coming true.”

  “Sure about that, Olive?” I ask. “My experience with prophecies is you never really know if they’ve come true, or not.”

  A tinge of doubt enters Olive’s scent at that, but she shakes it off. “He knew things he should not have. Things he could not have. He knew about the queen, and when she was laying.”

  “And you did not inform Grandmother?” Rojvah asks.

  Olive puffs up at that. “I am not Inevera’s creature, Rojvah. Even now, can you swear she tells me everything she sees in the dice?”

  Rojvah stares back at her a long time. I can tell she wants to argue. That she thinks Olive’s an idiot for keepin’ this to herself. But there are some lies so big that tellin’ ’em means no one’s ever gonna trust you again.

  “Of course the Damajah…has secrets—” Rojvah concedes.

  “Mother had secrets, too,” Olive cuts in. “Our families are full of them, and I am finished letting them rule my life. I am Duch of Hollow and will keep my own counsel.”

  “Ay, that’s how it is?” Selen’s voice is irritation, but her scent is…hurt. “Just called us to hear the duch’s decrees? Ent got a say in all this?”

  Olive spreads her hands. “If that was the case you’d be staying in Hollow, Sel. Would you do it, if I wrote a decree?”

  Selen ent so crass as to spit on the fine carpet, but she makes the noise, and it’s answer enough.

  “Ay, thought not,” Olive says. “So let me help you.”

  I can smell the secret on her, and her eagerness to share it. “Help us, how?”

  “Mother and Mrs. Bales aren’t the only ones unaccounted for,” Olive says. “We’ve identified most of the dead from the massacre, but several prominent names are missing from the roster, including Wonda Cutter and Kendall Demonsong.”

  “Kendall,” Rojvah whispers.

  Kendall Demonsong was Aunt Leesha’s herald. She traveled from town to town and court to court, speaking with the authority of Hollow. But she was also the apprentice—and some say lover—of Rojvah’s father. Amanvah had meant to take Kendall as a sister-wife before Halfgrip died. Reckon she still liked the idea, because a few years later, she married Olive’s sister Micha.

  Rojvah’s always been in awe of Kendall. Remember it from when we were kids. Kendall called Rojvah and Arick niece and nephew, and lavished them with gifts and affection whenever she visited Jardir’s court. But it was her Jongleur’s motley Rojvah could not tear her eyes from. Even in modern Krasia, a woman wearing bright colors in public was a rare sight, and often a sign of power. Messengers were sacred in Krasia, and that allowed Kendall to get away with dressing outrageously, in trousers and bright colors.

  “I don’t have a way to track Mother, or Wonda,” Olive says. “Might be a way to use Mrs. Bales’ knife to find her, but that’s beyond anything I was able to master in Favah’s Chamber of Shadows.”

  I touch Mam’s knife at my belt, feeling it tingle with power. She might be right. Mam’s knife is full of magic, but it ent got any demonbone in it. The magic is more like a twisted version of Sharik Hora. Knife’s been in my family a long time. The bone handle is imprinted with the emotions of its history, and Draws magic like ants to an apple core. But it ent the pure golden glow of heroes’ bones. It’s darker, bloodier, painful. The power makes the weapon formidable, but it’s always scared me, I’m to tell honest word.

  Using the knife to find Mam would mean opening myself up to that power, and Drawing it through me to Read it. Reckon it would be like rummaging through my family history for the most painful and awful things I can find, and living ’em myself.

  Ent ready for that.

  “You think you can track Kendall,” I guess, instead.

  Olive nods, reaching into the black velvet hora pouch at her waist. “When Micha died, the Majah returned her possessions to me.” She lays them on the table. A velvet choker with a gem at its center. Two bracelets and two anklets, woven of thick links of gold, and a delicate earring with a dangling golden ball.

  All are stitched or etched with delicate wardwork, and glow to my night eyes. The flows of the bracelets and anklets are familiar. They are how Inevera’s elite Sharum’ting can mimic my powers, summoning shadows, climbing walls like a spider, and Drawing strength and speed as needed.

  The choker, too, is familiar. Rojvah wears one that is nearly identical to focus the power of her spellsong.

  “The earring…” I tilt my head, looking closer. Its magic is similar to the choker, but not the same.

  “It is a marriage earring,” Rojvah says, “and a resonance stone, allowing spouses to communicate over distance.”

  “Meaning Kendall has its mate,” I say. “We find her, maybe we find the others.”

  “Ay,” Olive says. “Belina used my armlet to make a compass to find me. Rojvah, can you…”

  Rojvah takes the earring reverently, running a sensitive finger over the wardwork. “Yes, I can fashion something like that. But marriage earrings are meant to allow wives to listen in on their husbands over short distances. I can prepare hora to boost its range, but even that has limits. We will need to get very close before it’s much help.”

  “How close?” Selen asks.

  Rojvah shrugs. “A few miles?”

  “So it will be a bigger pea in the silo of beans.” Selen’s right, but she ent helpin’.

  “Ent as much help as we were hopin’ for, but it’s more than we had,” I say. “Selia Barren always said havin’ a hundred problems ent much different than having two. Still need to solve them one at a time. We’ll figure out a way to get close enough, and with a point in the right direction, maybe I can sniff out the rest.”