catch in my chest as I started to look away.
Ulrix pushed on my shoulder. “Better get a good look. The Komizar’s going to ask you what you think of it.” I turned back. I looked steady and hard. Three heads on stakes. Flies buzzed on swollen tongues. Maggots roiled in eye sockets. A raven yanked stubbornly on something sinuous from a cheek, like it was a worm. But even through the decay, I could tell they were boys. They were once boys.
“The Assassin took care of these three. Traitors, they were.” Ulrix shrugged and walked back down the hillock.
I turned to Calantha. “Kaden did this?”
“Overseeing executions is his duty as Keep. The dressing up on stakes is done by soldiers. They’ll stay there until the last flesh falls from the bone,” she answered. “That’s on the Komizar’s orders.”
I looked at her, her single pale eye glistening, a weakness to her shoulders that were usually rigid with cynicism.
“You don’t approve,” I said.
She shrugged. “What I think doesn’t matter.”
I reached out and touched her arm before she could turn away. She flinched as if she thought I was going to strike her, and I stepped back.
“Who are you, Calantha?” I asked.
She shook her head, her bored manner returned. “I’ve been no one for a very long time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It was a rare cloudless morning of crisp blue sky. Fresh air was warmed with the fragrance of thannis, for though its taste was sour, its scent was sweet. The brightness of the day helped chase away my exhaustion. As if I didn’t have enough to think about, I couldn’t get Gaudrel’s book out of my head. Through the late night hours, I woke again and again, with the same thought: They were family. Morrighan was stolen and sold to a scavenger. Though it might be true that she had the gift and led a people to a new land, those she led were not a noble Remnant chosen by the gods, but scavengers who preyed on others. They had preyed on Morrighan.
“You slept well?” the Komizar called over his shoulder.
I clicked my reins to catch up with him. My sham was to continue today in the Canal quarter, at the washing grounds opposite the jehendra.
“Your pretense warms me,” I said. “You care not one whit how I slept.”
“Except for the dark circles under your eyes. It makes you less appealing to the people. Pinch your cheeks. Maybe that will help.”
I laughed. “Just when I think I couldn’t hate you more, you prove me wrong.”
“Come now, Jezelia, after I’ve shown you every kindness? Most prisoners would be dead by now.”
While I wouldn’t call it kindness, his remarks to me had grown less biting, and I couldn’t help but note he did something my father had never done in his own kingdom. He walked among those he ruled, both near and far. He didn’t rule from a distance, but intimately and thoroughly. He knew his people.
To an extent.
Yesterday he had asked me what the claw and vine design on my shoulder was. I didn’t mention the Song of Venda, and I hoped no one else would either, but I was sure that at least a few of those who had stared at it were digging it up from dusty memories of long-forgotten tales. “A mistake,” I had told him simply. “A wedding kavah not properly applied.”
“It seems to have captured the fancy of many.”
I’d shrugged it off. “I’m sure it’s as much a curiosity to them as I am, something exotic from a faraway kingdom.”
“That you are. Wear one of your dresses tomorrow that shows it off properly,” he had ordered. “That dreary shirt is tedious.”
And also warm. Only that was of little concern to him—not to mention, the dresses weren’t particularly suited for riding, again, inconsequential in light of his greater plans. I had nodded, acknowledging his demand, but I wore my shirt and trousers again today. He hadn’t seemed to notice.
When he wasn’t scrutinizing my every movement and word, I enjoyed my interactions with the people. They provided me with a different kind of warmth that I probably needed more. That part wasn’t a sham. The welcome of the Meurasi had spread to many clans. The moments of sharing thannis, or stories, or a few sincere words gave me balance, if not a few hours of relief from the Sanctum. My gift rarely came into play. A few times I was gripped with a sense of something large and dark descending. I sucked in