Page 243 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“Staying in the city was an excellent call.” The joke fell flat. My voice was wan and strained.

He nodded, speechless, and we stood there together for a few stolen seconds before he rose, picked up his healer’s bag, and got to work. He and Willa set up a makeshift hospital in the wreckage. So, so many people needed help.

Iya arrived shortly after the explosion, summoned by the commotion. His decision to relinquish his apartment to us, it turned out, had saved his life. When he saw what had become of the Towers, he covered his mouth and was still as a statue for a long, long time. “How?” he said.

Tisaanah and I explained what we saw. It still seemed strange to recount it. That face, like the living dead. That note.

How could Nura have done this? I was no longer under any illusions about the goodness of her heart, but I had truly believed that in her own, strange way, she loved Ara.

Now, I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. I didn’t see how this could possibly be love, even to a mind as twisted as hers.

Iya’s Valtain-pale face still managed to grow even more wan. “Then we have very little time. The other members of the Council…” He cleared his throat. “The surviving members of the Council should reach the Capital by nightfall.”

The thought paralyzed me. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go ahead with this now. It seemed ridiculous to think about something as arbitrary as a title under these circumstances.

I said as much to Tisaanah after Iya left.

“It is more important than ever now,” she replied. “Your people have never been more in need of someone to believe in.”

“The mere idea of that someone being me makes me a little ill.”

“It may seem unkind to say this, Max, but the way it makes youfeelis perhaps the least important thing right now.”

A petulant part of me wanted to argue with her. But she gave me a deadpan stare that cut off my unspoken retort with,I escaped slavery, killed my master, forced a foreign country to take me seriously, traded away my autonomy, led a revolution, overthrew an empire, and then followed you back to your stupid broken country to support you only for you to whine about how you don’t “feel”like you can do this?

So I swallowed my protests and instead said, “Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“Thatlook.”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “Do you want to know a secret?”

“What?”

“I wish the world held itself to the standards that you do.”

* * *

The Council had weakenedover the years. It was now just a handful of aging Wielders. They called me into the Palace in the obvious absence of the Towers. I hadn’t been here since it had been inhabited by Zeryth—since, in fact, we killed him there. It seemed odd to conduct yet another assassination here.

This half of the city hadn’t been damaged by the explosion at the Towers, but it was still chaotic. The streets swarmed with displaced people escaping the wreckage, hastily raised healing stations, soldiers milling about certain thatsomethingimportant needed doing but unsure exactly what it was. The interior of the Palace was, by contrast, eerily quiet.

We gathered in the throne room, just beyond the balcony that looked out over the city. When I looked at the five robed figures before me, each donning their crimson sash, it seemed almost laughable that this handful of people would decide the fate of an entire country—and that such a fate might rest on me. I was covered in blood and dirt. When I was a stupid, idealistic teenager dreaming of being handed this title, I thought I would do it in spotless regalia, not in bloody rags. This, somehow, seemed so much more fitting.

I sat in a chair before the five of them. Tisaanah watched from the doorway, staying out of the way. Selfishly, I was glad to have her in the room, even as a silent observer. I didn’t expect to be so nervous.

“Let us begin,” Iya said. He turned to the four other councilors. “We gather, councilors, in a state of emergency. The unexpected absence of Nura Qan, Arch Commandant of the Orders and Queen of Ara, as already cause for deep concern. But I think we can all agree the situation has now become… much more dire.”

A murmur of agreement across the Council.

“We have learned of darker news,” he went on. “Nura has lodged an attack on her own people. She is responsible for the destruction of the Towers.”

The councilors gasped.

“What?”

“Surely you can’t be implying—”

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