grief is raw and unabashed and so very different from my own. After a moment, I take his hand, because it seems like something Laia might do. He grips it tight as he sobs, and my eyes grow hot as I watch him grapple with the horror of losing the love of his life as well as his king.
“Shrike?” a voice calls from the door. Harper scans the room, scims in hand. “The wights called me.”
“It’s clear,” I say. He sheathes his blades as I hand him the note. Our eyes meet over Musa’s head, and I know he is thinking what I am: Keris Veturia needs to bleeding die.
After a moment, Harper kneels down, and I scramble back, thankful that someone else has come. Someone who will know how to deal with Musa’s pain. But the Scholar does not release my hand.
“I shouldn’t mourn her.” He wipes his face, and I almost don’t hear him. “She jailed my father. Took my lands. My title. The Scholars suffered under her rule.”
“She sounds . . .” Horrible, I think. “Complicated.” I wince as soon as I say it. But Musa chuckles unexpectedly.
“We got married a decade ago. I was eighteen. She was nineteen. Her brother was crown prince, but he died of an illness and the palace healer—my father—couldn’t save him. She—” He shakes his head. “Grief took her. The ghuls found ripe prey with her, and they nibbled at her mind for years. And when I spoke of them to her, she called me insane. King Irmand was so grief-stricken after his son’s death that he did not see what was happening to his daughter.”
“My father died in prison. My mother soon after. And yet—” He looks between Harper and me. “I still loved her. I shouldn’t have, but I did.” His hands curl into fists. “Keris slaughtered Nikla’s guards. Stabbed her through the—the chest and pinioned her to the walls of her palace. Then—killed her father in front of her. The ghuls finished her off.”
Skies above. The details unsettle me because they are so barbarous. So vile.
But also because of the timing. First Livia. Now Nikla. These murders are targeted. Keris knows how essential Musa and his wights are. She is trying to weaken us.
“I have to go to Marinn,” Musa says. “Find Keris. Kill her. Nikla’s heir is a first cousin. Skies know if he’s still alive, but he’s young. He’ll need help.”
I look at Harper helplessly. How do I tell Musa the Commandant is manipulating him when his heart is broken? I wish Laia were here. Or Livia.
But it must be me. And in that moment, it hits me that with Livia gone, and until Zacharias comes of age, it will always be me. For a thousand things I don’t wish to do.
Damn you, Keris.
“Musa, this is a great blow,” I venture, and as he searches my face, I am thankful for the first time that I do not have my mask. “I have been a victim of Keris’s cruelty also. And it is never without intent.”
“You want me to stay,” he says. “But the Mariners were my people first. They need me. And you owe me a favor, Shrike.”
“I know that,” I say. “If you still want to go tomorrow, then I will offer you my best horse, and an escort. All I ask is that before you leave, consider all you know of Keris Veturia. She is manipulative. Ruthless. She kills who she must to weaken her foes.”
Musa is silent. But at least he’s listening.
“She wants you angry. Alone. On your way to the Free Lands instead of working against her. Your people are here, Musa. Thousands of Scholars that Nikla drove out. They look to you too.”
“I will wait until tomorrow,” Musa says. “But if I wish to leave, you cannot keep me here.”
“I won’t. I swear it.”
We leave him then, and though I wish to put guards outside his door to protect him, I do not want him to think I’m locking him in. His wights, I hope, will keep him safe.
All the way to Avitas’s quarters, where we can speak without interruption, I think of Musa’s cries. The way he sounded as if his soul had been dug out of his body.
“We cannot let him go,” Avitas says as soon as we enter his room. “He is too important. What if we—”
“Emifal Firdaant,” I interrupt Harper. May death claim me first.
“What does that mean?”
I do not answer, instead drawing him toward me
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