Page 45 of Mother of Death and Dawn

He gave me a long, piercing look. “I may seem old and inhuman to you,” he said. “But I understand why you are doing this, and I understand that it has nothing to do with the war. I know what it is to mourn someone. But—”

I didn’t want to havethisconversation again.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, tightly. “Where did you go?”

“That is irrelevant.”

“Did you go to see your son?”

A single muscle twitched in Ishqa’s throat, the only movement in a marble-still expression. “No.”

I rose, stepped closer to him—close enough to see all the little imperfections in his face that distance and the darkness had shrouded. A faint wrinkle at the corner of his eyes, a scar at the angle of his chin, a few strands of that sleek golden hair that whispered silver. How easy it was for his kind to hide the painful markers of a life of mistakes, the wounds of the past carefully stitched up and tucked away beneath layers of elegant stillness. Humans just bled our pain all over everything, denying it with our last breath while crimson seeped between our fingers.

That’s how I’d felt, these last few months. Like I was bleeding out.

“These people have given you their trust, Ishqa,” I said. “And they don’t trust easily. You’ve earned it. We’re grateful for all that you’ve done for us. But…”

The “but” escaped my lips without my permission, my voice trailing off. I still felt something, whenever I looked at Ishqa—something with a razored edge.

Ishqa said, quietly, “But there are still pieces of her hatred for me in you.”

Her.It. Reshaye. Aefe.

I didn’t answer.

“It was my greatest mistake,” he said. “I can say this a million times over, and it would not be enough. Perhaps the loss of my son is punishment for what I did then.”

A single crack in his calm expression revealed a hint of pain. Such a human, recognizable thing.

He spoke as if his son was dead. He wasn’t—though he had been close to it, in Nura’s captivity. He had been rescued by the Fey king’s forces and remained loyal to King Caduan. Ishqa rarely spoke of it. Only now did I glimpse what he must be feeling, knowing that his son probably thought he was a traitor. To him, his son was just as unreachable as Max was in Ilyzath.

Pity knotted in my chest.

“Perhaps our attachments are inconvenient,” I said, quietly, “but what are we doing any of this for, if not for them?”

Ishqa looked as if he would respond, and then thought better of it. He put out his hand.

“Show me.”

I obeyed. He cradled my palm, frowning down at the swirls of gold. They looked even more otherworldly now, with the lantern light streaking the metal bands like little rivers of fire over my skin. The burning had dulled to a faint ache. Otherwise, they didn’t feel like much of anything.

“Tell me again what happened,” he said.

I did, describing the orb that Farimov had presented to the Fey, and what it had done when I tried to touch it.

Ishqa was silent. My palm tingled as his magic reached for mine, as if testing the thing on my skin.

Then suddenly, he dropped my hand and straightened. His eyes leapt to mine, and I saw something very strange on Ishqa’s face—panic.

“We need to leave,” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “What did you—”

That was when the screaming started.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

MAX

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