Names? Eliana had asked, giggling.
Yes, Rozen had answered, her gaze the tiniest bit sad. They will be the truest friends you ever have.
“How can you live with knowing that you’ll kill people?” Harkan had nervously watched her work. “Good people.”
“It’s easy,” Eliana had replied. Back then, the gravity of what she was doing had sat heavy in her stomach like a stone in a never-ending sea, but her mother had instructed her that if she didn’t learn to tuck away that sick feeling, it would consume her. So Eliana tried on the face she had been practicing in the mirror every morning—thoughtless, bored, sly—and said to Harkan, “It’s the only way to stay alive.”
Harkan had shaken his head and looked away, as if the sight of her was something he could no longer bear.
“I don’t know what’s happening to you,” he had whispered, but he had stayed nonetheless, helped her clean her blades and name them. “Arabeth,” he’d suggested for the wicked, jagged one, even allowing a ghost of a smile when Eliana approved. Once that was done, he’d crawled into bed and held her until falling asleep.
But Eliana had not slept that night. She’d lain there beside Harkan, her eyes squeezed shut, wishing she would wake up in the morning and all would be as it should. Her father would return home, the Empire would be gone, and King Maximilian would still be alive.
Harkan would look at her like she was his friend again and not something terrible and new.
Saint Katell, Eliana had prayed, hear my prayer. Send us the warmth of your wisdom. Light the dark path before me.
Find the Sun Queen. Tell her we’re waiting. Tell her we need her.
She had turned her face into her pillow, tears coursing silently down her cheeks. Tell her I need her.
In the dim light of Crown’s Hollow, Eliana focused on the back of Simon’s head.
How can you live with knowing that you’ll kill people?
Good people.
She ignored the murmuring refugees at her feet and told herself, Don’t look at them.
Don’t look.
Don’t.
Instead she listened to the rebels bustling through the crowd. Passing out food, standing bored on the platforms, squeezing through the narrow spaces between the pit walls and high stacks of crated supplies, they began to drop whispered treasures.
“…Lord Morbrae arrives tomorrow…”
“The raid…two miles northeast…”
Lord Morbrae. Eliana knew the name: one of the Empire’s roaming royalty, he moved from village to village, outpost to outpost.
Something brushed Eliana’s wrist. She flinched away and looked down.
A refugee woman with a black scarf tied around her wrinkled, pale head reached for Eliana with a watery smile. Her arm was mottled with burn scars, skin shining taut in the spotty firelight.
Eliana barely resisted the urge to slap her.
Don’t look at them.
Don’t look.
Don’t.
Simon, however, gently grasped the woman’s hand and knelt down to speak to her.
Eliana looked away, arms folded tightly across her chest. A hot wave of anger rose up her throat—that the woman had dared to touch her, that Eliana had wanted to slap her, that Eliana hadn’t slapped her.
That this room was crowded with people too weak to make a life for themselves in the Empire’s world.
And that Simon was forcing her to walk among them.
She stepped away to lean against a column of rock, gazing about the room with practiced disinterest while her mind kept counting: four doors up above, by the platforms, and four more on the floor level. One stood maybe twenty feet away. Where did they lead? Tunnels?
A pair of rebels exited the nearest door, arms packed with folded bandages.
Eliana lowered her head as they approached, hunched her shoulders, closed her eyes. A dozing refugee, tired and alone, that’s all she was.
“…Monday morning,” whispered one of them, hurrying by, “we’ll blow them all to the Deep—”
“Let the angels wrestle with His Lordship for a while.” The second rebel guffawed. Nobody talked about angels without it being a joke. Not unless you were mad or a child who believed the old stories.
Like Remy.
Eliana listened closely as the rebels passed.
“Not sure even the angels deserve Lord Morbrae among them…” said the first, and then they had passed out of hearing range.
So. She would need to give Simon the slip and roam about until she found someone willing to confirm the scattered bits of information, but if it was true, tomorrow morning, Lord Morbrae would arrive at an Empire outpost two miles northeast of Crown’s Hollow.