Page 65 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Max—”

“Not a discussion.”

Max still regarded me with that pondering stare, and I just stared at him in silence, two realizations dawning.

The first was that I was not going to talk him out of this.

And the second hit me harder: the realization that something had shifted in the nature of our relationship, and I had simply failed to notice. But I understood with a resolve that settled deep in my chest that I had been given something precious in this fragile, tentative friendship. I closed my fingers around that delicate gift and drew it close.

“Thank you,” I said, and Max just nodded. One look at his faraway stare, and I knew he was already on that battlefield.

Chapter Twenty-One

Max peered over the edge of the bridge and clutched the metal rail as if he might topple into the murky water at any moment. I watched the white overtake his knuckles, cloudy skin betraying his lack of composure. I wondered if I had a similarly obvious tell. I tried to bury my fear so deep inside of me that no echoes would reach the surface, but it still felt like it screamed from my every pore.

Sweat pooled at the base of my neck, down my back, between my breasts. I tried to blame the stiff fabric of the Order of Midnight jacket that I wore — brutal in combination with the swampy heat — and not my own anxiety.

I drew my eyes up, over the rows and rows of shoulders lined up in neat streaks of color. Most were gold, denoting members of the Crown Guard, who were not wielders at all. Then there were a few columns of blue, flashes of moon insignias across their backs. And green, marked with bronze suns. As I peered over my shoulder, I noticed a few sets of eyes flicking towards us, necks craning ever so slightly. Looking at Max, no doubt. Everyone, it seemed, was surprised to see him.

The city of Tairn loomed over us, dark and silent, backlit by the rising sun. It was nestled at the apex of three rivers, built up on a rocky hill. As a result, it was notoriously inaccessible — three bridges led to the main city, which itself was all centered around one circular building topped with a single silver spire: the Savoi estate, and the central hall of Tairn.

I squinted up at it. That building, apparently, held Pathyr Savoi, the man we were here to coax out of hiding. The son of the man whose blood had soaked through my shoes.

Sammerin stood beside me, following my gaze. He, too, it turned out, had been asked (or commanded) to join the march, as a member of the Orders and a former member of the Military — though unlike me, he didn’t get a personal visit to ask him to do so, which still perplexed me.

We watched another dove fly over the wall, parchment clutched in its feet.

“Fifteen,” Sammerin remarked.

The fifteenth dove. Fifteenth letter. Fifteenth attempt at negotiation. We had been here for hours. Max had spent nearly all of that time leaning over the railing, looking into the water.

I did not ask him if he was alright — he was awful at hiding his emotions, and it was clear that he wasn’t. Instead, I crafted a little butterfly from the swampy lake below and drew it up to hover in front of our faces.

“How is it wrong?” I asked.

He hardly looked at me. “What?”

“What is wrong with it?”

Slowly, he turned. Then looked to my butterfly.

“So?” I prodded.

“Too heavy,” he grunted, at last. With each word, his voice got a little clearer. “And you got sloppy with the movement. It’s lurching like a—”

But then, there was a crash. We whirled around. I let my butterfly fall back into smelly water.

All faces snapped to attention as we watched Nura step back as the black-clad figures smashed their spears into the bottom of the gates. An orange glow crawled up the planks of wood, seeping into minuscule cracks, tearing them apart.

Max straightened, exchanging one those looks of silent communication with Sammerin. He somehow managed to look even paler.

My heartbeat quickened, but I strangled my nervousness, forcing it down my throat.

“Those soldiers without eyes… They are Wielders?” I croaked, searching for distraction.

“The Syrizen? Yes. Solarie, sort of.” His voice sounded far away. Then, he asked quietly, “Do you remember everything I showed you last night?”

I nodded. Later that evening, he had called me from my magic practice out into the garden, holding two daggers and handing me one of them. “If you’re going to agree to do something stupid,” he had said, “then you need to know how to protect yourself.” We spent the rest of the night going over various defensive maneuvers — mostly movements meant to keep me alive if I ever found myself in a tricky situation and magic failed me.

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