And yet, he didn’t take his off. Not that day, or the next, or the next. It was silly, he knew—after all, the ring was useless on its own, nothing but a sentimental trinket, but he wore it, still, to spite her. To say that in his mind they were still linked, that they would always be, that she was one of only two he loved so much, that he would let himself be bound to them like this.
Kell ran his thumb over the black band, then thrust his hands into the basin, rinsing them clean, before he set to work on his wounds.
Antari magic was an incredible thing.
It was the only kind of power that was both element and spell. Chaos and order. A drop of blood, a pair of words, and you could turn a man to stone, open a door into another world, mend almost any injury.
As Hasari.
Two words he had said a hundred times, to heal the sick, undo a mortal wound. What a simple thing it would have been, to mend a shoulder.
Lila would have done it, of course, if he had asked.
Instead, Kell drew two bottles from the cabinet beneath.
The first he brought to his lips, drinking long and deep. The second he used to douse a cloth. The sharp smell filled his head, and then the narrow room. As he pressed the cloth to his shoulder, the pain flared, bright enough to steal his breath, and he clenched his teeth against it, but in moments, the bleeding had stopped, and he said a silent apology to his brother as he threaded a needle, and adjusted the light, and leaned toward the mirror.
As the barb bit into his skin, he forced his mind back to the fight on the Crow. With every pierce, every tug, every tightened stitch, he counted his missteps, his mistakes, reliving every motion until the fight was burned into his memory, and he was certain that next time, he wouldn’t forget.
XI
Somehow, the second drink Lila ordered looked even worse than the first.
It was the color of oil and the texture of silt, and when she lifted the glass to the low tavern light, it was like staring at paint. She brought the glass absently to her lips, was even about to take a questing sip when a nearby voice interrupted.
“Wouldn’t do that.”
Lila glanced up to find a woman on the other side of her table, dark hair bundled up into a crown. Her eyes glittered in the tavern light, and when she smiled, only her lips moved, drawing taut over her teeth.
“Let me guess,” said Lila dryly. “It’s poisoned.”
“Might as well be,” said the woman, dropping down into a chair as if invited. Her gaze went, almost immediately, to the weapon Lila had left out on the wood.
“That,” said the stranger, “is a very nice knife.”
“I know,” said Lila. “Worth the ship I sank to get it.”
“Ah, a pirate, then.”
“A captain.”
The woman glanced around. “And your crew?”
Lila didn’t know if she was being threatened or wooed. “Minding their own business.”
The woman didn’t take the hint.
“Tanis,” she said, by way of introduction. She waited for Lila to give her name. Lila didn’t.
“What do you want, Tanis?”
The woman leaned back in her chair, studying Lila. “You’re not from here.” Lila said nothing, and Tanis went on. “Most people aren’t. They’re just passing through, they don’t know how the city works.” Tanis spread her hands. “Sometimes, they need a guide.”
“Let me guess,” said Lila. “You’re a guide.”
Tanis smiled again. All lips, no teeth. “That’s me. So, what brings you to Verose?”
Lila tipped her head as if considering. “I’m on holiday.”
Tanis let out a barking laugh. “And you came here?”
“I wanted to see where the Rebel Army made their stand.”
It had been forty years since the makeshift army, led by magicians from each of the three empires, had sailed up the Blood Coast, on their way toward London, determined to overthrow Arnes.
It was a gamble. A baited hook.
Tanis tipped her head. “Not a fan of the crown?”
The bait, taken. The line drew taut. Lila let her face slide from bland amusement into anger. She looked down at the blade on the table, deciding on her next words.
“Priests talk about balance. They say magic follows the laws of nature. But nature changes. So why doesn’t power?” She looked up when she said this last bit, met Tanis’s gaze. Fire bloomed in Lila’s hand, and she turned it, pressing her palm down against the table, burning the handprint into the wood. “Verose strikes me as the kind of place where sparks grow into flames.”