Defy the Sun (Beware the Night #2) - Jessika Fleck Page 0,80

keep my eyes on Veda’s until she too is pulled away and then the tunnel closes in.

A large piece of rock hits my head, and warm blood trickles into my right eye. I smear it away with my hand.

As I try to stand, smoke clutches the icy ground all around me.

Sulfur and the woodsy smolder of nearby trees fills the air.

There’s painful moaning.

I didn’t realize the sour scent of blood could fill an open-air space, but it can.

And it does.

The walk back to the palace is a haze.

The next hour or so rushes by in a slow blur. I only recall snippets …

Blood on my hands, is it mine? That soldier I saw fall to the ground?

The High Regent comes to visit me. Congratulates me. For what, I don’t recall, but he’s thrilled, a wide grin stretched across his face. “You’ve stepped up, Nico, I’m proud of you.” That part I do remember. Then thinking, Ah yes, I’ve finally won him over.

I bathe. The water turns rusty red, is drained and refilled until it runs clear again.

Salazar helps me dress.

A doctor examines my head.

I’ll live. He blesses the Sun for protecting me, heir to Bellona.

* * *

I AWAKEN IN the middle of the night with a splitting headache. I light a lamp to discover cold tea long since delivered to my residence, a basket of stale muffins left alongside it. One is blueberry.

Under the dim light, I read Veda’s letter.

The first part allows me to temporarily escape the horror of what will forever live in my mind.

The second part reminds me of how broken it all still is and how the two of us might as well have the weight of the world stacked against us.

And the last bit simply makes me smile.

Long to be with her again.

We were so close only moments ago.

Even surrounded by the horrors of war, if only for a fraction of a second, somehow we were able to connect.

And, once again, we were torn apart. Dragged to our respective sides, fire erupting between us.

I glance at the hourglass and then quickly take out paper and pen.

Ink drips on the page, smears across my palm, as I carefully but swiftly craft a new letter.

Veda,

I must see you.

And not on the battlefield.

Please don’t let us ever meet again on the battlefield.

I’m always being watched here except at night when in my room. I don’t know how to get to you, but please, dear Lunalette, find your way to me?

We must devise how to end this war but in person.

No more letters.

Be safe.

Love,

Nico

WHEN I AWAKEN the next morning, the muffin with Veda’s letter and tea have disappeared.

I stare out the window. The sun is bright and the snow is melting down, but it’s still freezing, leaving everything glazed under a thin sheet of ice. Sun knows what’s hidden beneath.

With that image—one mixed with flower petals frozen in time, the personal possessions of soldiers who died on the battlefields covered below inches of frost, and mud beetles deep in hibernation—my mind goes to another hidden place. Right here in the palace.

Of a room that seemed to contain Raevald’s secrets, things he’s ashamed of or doesn’t want the public to find out. Mementos of deeds he couldn’t quite let go of.

Mementos … trophies, more like.

And something hits me.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.

If logic serves me, something I need might also hide in that exact room.

That pile of documents before him the other evening.

He did not want me to see them. The way he not so casually pulled them toward him and out of my line of sight while distracting me with the list of “missing” Basso, his speech about how it should please me.

I throw on my clothes, dart from my room, and make my way to the spiral staircase that leads to that musty cellar. I descend the stairs two at a time, praying Salazar isn’t already on my heels.

The room is just as I last left it. Lanterns lit. Everything in its place. A sort of ordered chaos. I march straight to the door behind the shelf and squeeze through.

There, just as before, are the portraits of a young Sindaco, a youthful Raevald posing with his family. To the right is Veda’s atlatl. To the left, a few ceramic vases, a pile of tapestries. No desk or chest or anything that might hide important documents.

Damn it.

It had made sense only five minutes ago, but now the notion he’d store something like that here is