Gritting her teeth, Kiva said, “I mentioned it because the council is worried about Mirraven, but they’re not worried about the rebels.”
Zuleeka’s eyes slitted. “Explain.”
“The royals have spies among you — I assume you already know that, or you wouldn’t be so cautious.” Kiva tapped the silvery mask resting on the table. “They’re not in deep enough to provide useful information, but there’s a guard who seems to know more than anyone else, including that you — the Viper and the Jackal — have Corentine blood.”
Torell swore, but Zuleeka didn’t seem fazed.
“What guard?”
Kiva opened her mouth to share Eidran’s name, but then she recalled what the council had said about the two spies he’d trained turning up dead. She didn’t need something like that on her conscience, not when she was already battling so many other demons.
“They didn’t say,” Kiva lied. “But from the sounds of it, he’s moved up north and is no longer a guard” — not until he’d fully recovered from his injury, at least — “so he’s out of the picture now.”
Zuleeka looked like she wanted to press for more details about Eidran’s identity, so to distract her, Kiva quickly went on, “There’s one more thing. Before that guard left, he heard about a secret rebel meeting place in the city. You might want to tell your Vallenian followers to keep a low profile, because I have a feeling he shared the location with Jaren.”
“I’ll warn them myself,” Zuleeka said.
Kiva breathed a quiet sigh of relief. If Eidran had indeed told Jaren the address, then at least the prince wouldn’t be walking into something dangerous.
At the thought, Kiva gave herself a mental slap, since what she should have worried about was that Jaren would learn rebel secrets. She needed to realign her priorities before she slipped up again and earned another verbal lashing from Zuleeka.
“Did the council mention anything else?” Torell asked.
Kiva answered by asking, “What’s the Royal Ternary?”
Blank faces met her question.
“Ternary, as in three?” Zuleeka asked. “The Royal Three?” She frowned. “Three what?”
Kiva didn’t know, so she shared, “I told you that the council isn’t worried about the rebels. They think you’ll — we’ll — eventually give up, especially now that Mother is gone, and with her, the figurehead of the Rebel Queen.”
“They’ll soon learn how wrong they are,” Zuleeka said coolly.
“That’s not my point,” Kiva said. “When they were talking about it, the Grand Master mentioned something called the Royal Ternary.”
“In what context?” Torell asked, his head cocked in puzzlement.
Kiva tried to remember exactly what Horeth had said. “I think it was, ‘without the Royal Ternary, there’s no other way for them to claim the throne.’”
Both Torell and Zuleeka froze like marble.
Warily, Kiva asked, “Are you sure you’ve never heard of it?”
Zuleeka unfroze first, shaking her head in the negative. “I’ll ask our palace spies to look into it.” Tor opened his mouth, but Zuleeka went on, “Do you have more for us?”
Kiva held her sister’s eyes, thinking of everything else she knew, including — and especially — the greatest secret of all.
Jaren’s magic.
I trust them.
His words flitted across her mind, his steadfast faith in both Kiva and Tipp. It was a mere whisper of a thought, but it was enough.
“No,” Kiva said, her voice catching slightly. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but at the same time, a weight lifted from her shoulders. Revealing what she knew about Jaren’s power wouldn’t change anything — her brother and sister already believed him to have control over two elements, so what did it matter if he could wield all four?
Ignoring the churning of her stomach, Kiva kept her eyes locked with Zuleeka’s, honey-gold connected to emerald green. Her sister looked away first, but only so she could turn to Torell and say, “Can you give us a minute?”
Tor hesitated, as if gauging Kiva’s reaction to being alone with Zuleeka, but then he collected his jackal mask and stood.
“We should leave soon,” he told Kiva. “I’ll have Olix brought around and meet you outside in a few minutes.”
Kiva nodded, her heart beginning to pick up speed as Torell left the tent.