Page 18 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“Good,” she muttered. “Here. Drink.”

I struggled to push myself to my elbows and tried very hard not to vomit. She held out a cup that I pointedly did not take.

She rolled her eyes. “What? You think it’s poisoned? It isn’t.”

“I’m perplexed by your sudden concern for my well-being.”

“You’re too valuable to let die. Drink the damned water.” She shoved the glass into my hands, whirling around to give Vardir a withering look. “That was unacceptable.”

“It was a theory,” Vardir said.

“It was a failure, and you nearly killed him.”

He looked annoyed. “It was almost a success, and it wasn’tmyfault that it wasn’t.”

“Oh? Whose fault is it, then?”

Vardir gave me a bone-chilling smile. Ascended above, Ihatedthat man. “Maxantarius’s, of course.”

The Queen scoffed.

“So much within him has been locked away,” he went on. “We cannot access what he can’t even access himself.”

I looked down at my arms—at the tattoos covering them. I had to admit, a part of me would have found it darkly funny if they had sabotaged their own efforts.

The Queen followed my stare.

“We need our precautions,” she said, “when dealing with a dangerous criminal.”

Dangerous criminal. She made me sound so vicious.

Vardir laughed. “No, no, I am not talking about the Stratagram tattoos. I’m talking about something deeper. His magic is built upon his past. And now, his mind is not—”

“Enough.” The Queen spoke too quickly, glancing at me and then immediately looking away, as if she hadn’t intended to.

I let out a raspy laugh. “What, do you want me to leave so you can talk about me in private?”

The Queen didn’t dignify this with an answer. She stood and turned away. “Vardir, you and I will have a discussion later about your failures. Syrizen, take Maxantarius back to Ilyzath.”

* * *

Whatever Vardir had doneto me didn’t wear off right away. It took effort to stand up straight, at first. My wrists and ankles were bound, and I was again led out of the Towers. It was late afternoon now, and much colder and greyer. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. Maybe longer than I’d thought.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had seen.

Most of what I saw during Vardir’s experiments faded quickly, like dreams that dissolved upon waking. But whatever I had seen—had felt—when I tried to reach for control stuck with me. That sense of familiarity… It was so intangible and yet… it was the only real thing I had experienced in a very long time.

I wasn’t even sure I cared that it had disrupted my plan. There would be another experiment. Another chance. I would try again. I carefully ignored the nagging question that triggered:Then what?

We were halfway to the docks when Vivian, one of my two Syrizen guards, stopped short, her face to the horizon.

“What?” the other said.

“Do you feel that, Merah?”

Merah frowned and shook her head. “No.”

But the hair prickled at the back of my neck. Something shivered in the air, like the suspended tension before a lightning strike.

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