room and took the seat opposite her. “Always best to discover the truth for one’s self.”
Malahi gave him a pitying look. “And it’s always good to have aspirations.”
Laughing, he took the deck from her and dealt out the cards before splashing a generous measure of brandy into two glasses. He wanted answers from her, and in his experience nothing loosened tongues quite like a few drinks and a deck of cards. Eyeing his hand, Killian dug out a handful of gold and tossed it on the table. Malahi’s brow furrowed; then she eased a ring off one finger and added it to the pile. “You’ve changed,” he said.
“It’s been over a year since you last saw me.”
Killian put down a card and drew another. A bloody two. Not what he wanted, but he added to his bet, nonetheless. “Time itself doesn’t change people, Highness. What happens to them while it passes does.”
“Wise words from the dashing Killian Calorian.” Malahi added an earring to the pile, the amber the same shade as her eyes. “Employing you as my bodyguard is paying dividends already.”
He didn’t answer, only drew another card. Cursed seven. His luck wasn’t normally this bad.
“Does the kingdom change to fit the ruler or the ruler to fit the kingdom?” she finally asked.
Killian shrugged. “I’ve spent all my wisdom for the day, Highness. Your turn.”
The corner of Malahi’s mouth turned up, and she arranged and rearranged the cards in her hand. “I don’t know the answer, only that everything is different.” Toying with the corner of one card with a polished nail, she said, “You’ve been gone. At the wall, and before that, with Dareena in the North. So you weren’t here to see.”
“To see what?” He’d heard things. Rumors. Whispers. But what Killian was after was the truth, because he rather thought the truth was the reason he wasn’t on his way to the headsman’s block.
Malahi gave a slow shake of her head. “It’s like the wilting of a flower. An incremental decay that is seen only by comparing what is before one’s eye with the bloom in one’s memory.”
Killian’s skin prickled. Exhaling a long breath, he leaned back to listen.
“Failing crops. Dying livestock. Drought. Disease. At first it was isolated to pockets in the center of the kingdom, but it’s been spreading, and with it has come a loss of faith. A belief that the Six are abandoning us.”
“That’s nonsense. A few years of bad weather, that’s all,” Killian replied, though he’d heard from his own family that dozens of foals in the Calorian horse herds had been stillborn. Fruit rotting overnight on the trees. Springs drying up. Ill omens.
“Maybe so. But the weather doesn’t explain why the gods have stopped bestowing marks.”
“Even Hegeria?”
Malahi nodded.
Killian’s hands chilled, and he splashed more brandy into both their glasses, despite the Princess not having touched hers. Hegeria was the kindest of the gods, and she was also the most generous with her healer’s mark. The last count he’d heard, there had been close to three thousand healers in Mudamora alone.
“Not a single healer marked in over a year in Mudamora. Neither Yara nor Lern have marked tenders or shifters in at least two. And the last Mudamorian to be marked by Tremon was you. That was fifteen years ago. I can’t say as to whether Madoria and Gespurn have also ceased giving marks, as neither the Maarin nor the giants are forthcoming, but that something is wrong in Mudamora is certain.”
Something rotten. The thought crossed through Killian’s mind, then faded away. “Gods … I didn’t know.”
“No one outside the Council of Twelve and certain individuals within the temples does. It’s been kept quiet lest it further erode faith in the Six.”
“I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of our people. This isn’t a secret that can be kept. Not for long. Nor should it be.”
“I don’t disagree,” Malahi replied. “You know my father has always been … devout. He believes marks are a gift from the gods as a reward for our faith. But he also believes that those marks are often squandered.”
Such had been the impetus of requiring all Mudamorians blessed with marks to come to the capital for training, most especially the healers. Killian himself had been subjected to intense schooling in the art of war, including three years of tutelage under Dareena in the North, she being the only other individual marked by Tremon in the entire kingdom. Yet his father’s parting words echoed through Killian’s thoughts: The god