“The Kings know the stakes are high.” Another smile crossed Kiri’s face, but this one was almost dreamy. “They know all of it rides on her shoulders, whether they will find salvation or annihilation. But they are confident. It came so naturally to her, drowning in the dark.”
“Tell me how to save her.” It sounded like begging. It was. In a rush of movement, Red stepped forward, letting go of Eammon’s hand. She heard him start after her, heard the low murmur of Fife’s voice, telling him to let her go. “Tell me how to bring Neve out of the Shadowlands. Please, Kiri.”
“You can do nothing. Even with your key, your way between worlds. She will not leave until her path reaches its end.”
Tears blurred Red’s eyes; she swiped them away with a savage slash of her hand. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Wait,” the High Priestess said. “You are to wait.” Her fingers twitched on the blanket, pale and thin. “You are a vessel, too. One for light, and one for dark. And what happens when they collide? Entropy. Emptiness.” A soft laugh, made chilling by its gentleness. “You, Golden-Veined, Second Daughter, Lady Wolf, can do nothing but wait. Just like they did, all those centuries.”
The last words faded, grew quiet. By the end, Kiri’s chest rose and fell rhythmically, like her doomsday words had lulled her back to sleep.
They all stood still, silent. The key burned in Red’s hand. Slowly, she closed her fist around it, the golden glow seeping through the gaps in her fingers.
“Well,” the dark-haired priestess said brightly. “I hope that was enlightening. I’ll show you to your rooms.”
“We can’t stay here.”
The whisper came from Fife, low and anxiety-churned, only loud enough for the rest of them to hear. Paces ahead, the priestess who’d bathed Kiri’s brow walked unhurriedly down the hall, apparently leading them to prepared quarters.
Red’s mind couldn’t catch up, still stuck back in the sickroom with Kiri. There was no way to bring Neve home. It reverberated, echoed, a constant tic at the back of her head. The key in her hand could bring her to the Heart Tree, but it couldn’t make Neve come out.
She made a small, pained noise. Eammon’s arm, wrapped around her shoulder, pulled her tighter.
“No, we can’t stay,” he agreed quietly. He glanced at Kayu. “The galley is still waiting, right?”
The Niohni princess had been silent since they reached Kiri’s quarters, her dark eyes fixed straight ahead, her mouth a thin line. At Eammon’s words, she seemed almost to rouse from sleep, shaking her head like her mind had been somewhere else entirely. “I think so,” she said softly. “I mean, yes, it’s been chartered for a week. They should still be at the dock.”
“Then that’s where we go,” Eammon said. “We found what we came for.”
Maybe, in the most stringent sense. They’d heard what Kiri had to say, learned that the key Red held would open the Heart Tree, learned that Neve had chosen to stay in the Shadowlands. But what they’d come here for was a way to get her out, and they still didn’t have that.
Red’s eyes pressed shut. Opened. Stung with tears she wouldn’t let fall.
As if the thought came collectively, the six of them sped up their stride, hurrying toward the door that would take them out onto the moors, away from the Temple and its mad High Priestess.
But as they approached the freckled priestess still standing by the door, she said sweetly, “Where do you think you’re going?”
The threatening words delivered in such a nonthreatening voice made Red’s steps stutter. Her eyes narrowed, the veins in her arms already blushing green.
But it was Raffe who spoke, his tone low and courtly and more intimidating for it. “Excuse me?”
The priestess’s expression was pleasant, her eyes blank. “We have rooms for you.”
The other, dark-haired priestess nodded with a wide, guileless smile.
“We aren’t taking them.” Kayu spoke like a dagger strike, quick and sharp. “We’re leaving.”
The freckled priestess cocked her head like an inquisitive bird. “How?”
The question raised gooseflesh on the skin between Red’s shoulder blades. She turned, rushed to the door, out into the fragrant garden with its bobbing blooms, out to the edge of the dune, where the sparkling band of the sea became visible.
The dock was empty.
Chapter Thirty
Neve
Tell me a story,” Neve said.