a sharp shake of her head. “When I asked Helene to describe the girl she’d purchased this from, she said you were filthy, built like a boy, and ghastly tall. Probably northern. And lo and behold, the clean version of such a girl arrives in my employ not two days later. One my sworn sword abandons me in the middle of a riot in order to go back and save.”
Malahi’s voice was steady, her face serene but for the throbbing vein in her forehead that gave away her anger. Her hurt. “Then the rumors began that Hegeria herself was walking the sewers at night to care for Mudaire’s orphans with a marked swordsman guarding her back.”
“Someone needed to care for them.” And it should’ve been the Crown. Most were the children of men fighting in the King’s army, and even if they weren’t, they deserved better than sewers and scraps.
“Peas in a pod.” Malahi gave a slight shake of her head. “Both of you seeing only the suffering in front of your faces with no mind for what good you could have done for those fighting to defend those children.”
“Then why didn’t you stop us? If you knew who I was, why didn’t you turn me in?”
“Because,” Malahi said, “what you two were doing in those sewers did more to bolster the people’s faith in him than anything I ever did. Your identity might have been a secret, but the whole city knew that the swordsman was Killian.”
Neither of them spoke, the only sound the faint crash of the waves below.
“So now that I’ve done my part in rebuilding your future husband’s credibility, am I to assume you intend to turn me over to Quindor?” Lydia stared Malahi down, clenching the arms of the chair to hide the tremor in her hands. Once she was in the hands of the temple, there’d be no escape.
Malahi gave a slight shake of her head, but instead of relief, Lydia felt trepidation as the other girl said, “I’ve different plans for you.”
Sitting back in the chair, Malahi smoothed her skirts. “Let me articulate our circumstances so that you understand my predicament. Rufina’s army marches on Mudaire. They will be here in three days’ time unless Killian and those under his command are able to beat them to Alder’s Ford, which is the only reasonably defensible position. If, by some act of the Six, they make it in time, it will be Killian’s two thousand men and women, only half of whom are trained soldiers, against an enemy that numbers in the tens of thousands. There is no chance of them prevailing—they are sacrificing their lives to give us a chance at evacuating the city. And even then … There is a chance it won’t be enough. That Rufina’s army will arrive while Mudaire is still full of innocent undefended people. And that she’ll slaughter every last one of them.”
All her life, Lydia had heard talk of military strategy. Her father and his peers sitting on couches, wineglasses in hand, while they discussed which legion would be moved where. The gains and losses. Who’d be saved and who’d be sacrificed. It had always seemed so distant to her—not real lives, but game pieces on a board. To be in the midst of it, with lives that she knew, lives that she had touched, at risk, was another thing altogether.
“You’re queen now—take control of your army.”
Malahi’s jaw tightened. “Unfortunately, High Lord Torrington was killed last night. His heir is Helene, and she finds herself … disinclined toward supporting my reign, particularly if it means a Calorian on the throne beside me. I’ve sent word of our situation to High Lady Falorn, but there is no love lost between our families, so I have little confidence that she’ll vote for me no matter how dire the circumstances. As it is, I don’t see how she could make it here in time.”
It was sickening. Sickening that people were dying and these men and women were scrambling for power rather than scrambling to save every soul they could. Yet the question remained. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
Malahi didn’t answer, and the tension that hung between them was thick enough to cut with a knife. A thousand scenarios ran through Lydia’s mind, but none of them—none at all—ended with her boarding a ship south to Serlania.
“There’s another way for me to remain queen.”
Lydia’s blood chilled, because gods she knew what was coming.