Page 21 of Daughter of No Worlds

“I received this letter from him last week, actually.” The woman lifted her hand, and suddenly, a piece of parchment appeared between her fingers. She held it up, reading. “‘As planned, I stopped at the home of Esmaris Mikov only to find out that he was, in fact, dead. He had been murdered mere weeks before I arrived. His city, needless to say, had fallen into turmoil.”

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Do you need me to translate that for you?”

Translate — as if to imply that she knew Thereni and chose not to speak it. I knew a power play when I saw one. Besides, I understood enough — enough for my mouth to turn to ash at the word “turmoil.” I knew that word. I had read it in the books Zeryth had given me, in descriptions of war and brutality.

“I understand.”

“Do you also understand why it might seem slightly suspicious that a Threllian girl with a whipped back collapsed at our doorstep just after Esmaris Mikov was killed?”

I bristled. “I left because I purchased my freedom,” I said. “Fair.”

The truth, if an extremely partial one.

“It’s not my place to care whether you killed him or not. I saw what your back looked like. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. However.” She dropped the letter, which disappeared into a lazy spiral of smoke, then crossed her arms over her chest. Strangely enough, she reminded me of Esmaris — those same commanding, uncompromising movements. “The Orders are politically neutral. If the Threllians find out that we have knowingly harbored a wanted woman, we might ruin our relationship with them. Or worse, start a war.”

Noo-trul. Har-boor-ing.

I filed the words away, along with my murky understanding of their meaning.

“We need to send you back to Threll,” the woman said, slowly, as if she saw me struggling.

My fingers curled at my sides.

I went through all this,draggedmyself here, and she was trying to tell me that they were going to send me back there? She saw what that place did to me, and she wanted to send meback?

No. That was not how this worked.

“I am not Threllian,” I said.

The Valtain woman opened her mouth to respond, but I cut her off.

“I am not Threllian. I am Nyzrenese. My nation was destroyed by Threllian Lords when I was very small, my people killed and enslaved. And eight years ago, they caught me, too. They murdered my family and took me. I was beaten. Whipped. Raped. Others had worse. I nearlydiedto come to here.”

I had prepared for this moment. I had specifically learned the Aran terms for all of those awful things — condensed my life into little, terrible words — because I knew I would need them.

I opened my palms and sent a stream of silver butterflies rising to the ceiling.

“If you send me back,” I said, “you send me to death. Zeryth said me that I could join the Orders, even though I am Fragmented.”

I turned the butterflies to glass. They fell, shattering against the marble floor. The woman didn’t flinch. “Nice,” she said, flatly, eying the shards on the ground.

“This is why I come. Because my people need me. And for helping them, I need the Orders.”

The woman and I stared at each other, her expression shuttered.

“I mentioned your arrival in my last letter to Zeryth,” she said, at last. Then she opened her palm and produced another letter, reading aloud. “‘I have met the Fragmented girl many times. She is intelligent and driven. She may be ill-trained and inexperienced, but she has undeniable potential, and it would be a deep shame to see that wasted.’”

She glanced at me. “I assure you that Zeryth doesn’t always provide such praise to young women who collapse at our door mumbling his name.”

A warm satisfaction unfurled in my chest. I may not have needed Zeryth’s help to cross the sea, but I had needed it in this room. Silently, I thanked him for it.

“I will give everything I have to the Orders,” I said. “I would be best Wielder it has seen.”

I opened my fingers and whispered to the shards of glass, calling them to me. They slid across the floor and rose to my hands, where I closed them in my fists. When I opened them again, the glass had become a frosted, mottled circle.

The moon.

For the first time since our conversation began, a real expression crossed the woman’s face — a bemused smirk clinging to the corners of her mouth. “That’s a tall commitment from someone Fragmented, but I can appreciate the sentiment.”

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