Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,12
out on the ballroom floor. Or Brekken kissing me. Whatever. But all my uncle does is pull out the counter stool next to him.
“How did getting the signatures go?”
“Great.” I let myself feel proud as I pull out the folio and smooth it on the countertop. “A few more to go, but I’ll try again tomorrow.”
I look down at the Silver Prince’s papers, covered in writing in a language I don’t know. To each, Willow has stapled a printout of her translation. At a glance, it just seems to be a mundane recount of life at the summit—meeting logs and notes about fellow delegates. But Marcus must have found something else. He looks shaken, his hair mussed and sticking up, which means he’s been running his hands nervously through it. Stress curls, my mom used to call them. He palms through the papers too fast to be reading anything, like he’s just giving his hand something to do.
“What’s up?” I ask, pride giving way to nervousness.
My uncle shakes his head as he pulls one page from the pile. “The Silver Prince talks about meeting his traders outside of Havenfall. He could be referring to legitimate trade from Byrn, or something else. But I’m more concerned by the ‘outside of Havenfall’ part.” He stabs a finger down on the page. “Maybe he was planning to use a proxy instead of going himself, or maybe it’s a misdirection, but …”
He trails off and hands me the sheet of paper. My heart sinks as I read over Willow’s translation.
I haven’t enough to travel at the moment, but I will soon. In Haven’s winter, I can meet you far away from the inn to discuss further and examine the gemstones.
I pass it to Enetta, reeling inside. “How can that be?”
Far from the inn. No one, except for Solarians, can survive outside of their home world or Havenfall. If I were to step into Fiordenkill or Byrn, I’d sicken and die within hours. The sphere of protection the inn offers extends to the town of Haven—but no farther. That’s what makes Havenfall special. Safe—the fact that we guard the only way in and out of Earth.
The Silver Prince shouldn’t be able to get in without us knowing, nor survive elsewhere. I watch Enetta’s brow wrinkle as she reads.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s another doorway,” Marcus says, and I can tell he’s trying to keep an even keel. “He could mean to meet this trader in Byrn, far from the inn, though that’s an odd way of putting it. Or it could be deliberate. Could be he left this letter so we’d find it in case his plan went wrong.” Marcus turns to Graylin. “Have you and Willow found out anything more from the delegates?”
“The elder King of Byrn has agreed to rule in the Prince’s stead, since he’s still missing from Oasis,” Graylin replies. “They think he’s in hiding somewhere in the wildlands, outside the city walls.”
In the wildlands, or here on Earth, I think.
Graylin exudes calm, the characteristic Fiorden stoicism, but I can tell he’s anxious by the way he fidgets with his wineglass.
“Willow is interviewing all the Byrnisian delegates from the summit,” Graylin goes on. “Of course, she’s not making it obvious what she’s doing, but that means she’s slower to get answers. So far she says no one appears to know what the Silver Prince might be planning.”
“Do we think they’re telling the truth?” I ask. “The Byrnisians, I mean.”
Graylin tilts his head at Marcus, who is the one to answer. “We can’t know for sure. I figure we can run two scenarios, one where they’re honest and one where they’re not.”
Hearing that makes me sad. We never used to ask these kinds of questions, not me or Marcus or anyone. We used to trust the delegates unconditionally—that they meant well. At least I did.
“I hadn’t realized the extent of dissent against the Silver Prince in Oasis, and in Byrn more generally,” Graylin says, his long, dark fingers drumming the stem of his wineglass. “Of course we know about the nomads, who have never accepted the Prince’s rule and are therefore shut out of Oasis. But from the Byrnisian correspondence I have in my library from around the time of his ascension, it appears that there are some who didn’t entirely support his rule, even among those who elected to renounce their magic and stay in Oasis.”
“Hmm.” Marcus runs a hand through his curly hair, leaving it to spring back higher than