Page 476 of Kingdoms of Night

“You won’t have to if I succeed at ridding the world of him, then neither us nor the moonlight will be held hostage any longer.”

“Ridding the world of him is the problem.”

No part of this situation made any sense so far. I had to blink firmly and shake my head to reset my mind. “Suzianna, I don’t understand anything.”

“Clearly.” She tapped my arm, urging me to drink. I obliged, tasting a stronger tang of spiced coffee. “You’re here with some ulterior motive, yes?”

Sighing, I threw back the remainder of my drink. “To return the moonlight to our nights, by any means necessary.”

“And you think stabbing him is going to shift the phase we’ve been stuck seeing for years?”

I spluttered, at a loss. “That’s what the king told me to do!”

Now that I’d said that out loud, I heard how ridiculous this whole plan sounded. It didn’t matter that the dagger reportedly belonged to a divine ancestor of the royal family. Tamuz would no doubt stop me before I could strike.

“Which idiot told you assassinating the Prince of the Phases was going to undo the darkness?”

“We didn’t know who he was and…Nabonassar.”

It took her a minute to recognize the name. “Oh! What part of Beinahrein are you from?”

“Bab-Elani.”

Fascination danced in her eyes, as if reflecting candle flames. “Oh, I’ve heard so much about your capital, with the huge structures and chariot races. I hear your temples can touch the sky like they do here.”

“You can’t call it‘The Gate of the Gods’for no good reason,” I attempted to joke, tension melting from my shoulders. “Are you from a city-state within the empire?”

It was almost comical how quickly her enthusiasm had been snuffed out. “I’m from Magistan, in the east.”

Magistan, as far as I was aware, was a kingdom ruled by fire-worshippers and the source of our best craftwork. Some of the greatest smiths had been sent to apprentice or were imported from there. “You must miss it terribly.”

“Not terribly, no.” Her clipped response told me not to probe. “Unlike yours, my king believed that giving the Shadow King a life, rather than taking it, was the solution.”

“Did you…did he?” I couldn’t finish the thought, unable to imagine what hid under those smokey shadows, and how the taloned hands would feel. “What did he do to you?”

Suzianna shrugged. “Aside from scaring my soul out of my body a few times? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” I wasn’t convinced, prodding her again for any signs of harm, the bruises on my arms awakening under the phantom pressure of my father’s hands. “How is collecting us going to break his curse?”

“That is something your husband is going to have to explain to you.”

“Don’t you mean ‘our’ husband?”

“No,” she sighed wistfully, looking to the door. “He was never mine, just as I was never his. No point in maintaining terms that can’t bind you.”

The way she said it, not quite with disappointment, but misaimed longing. If it weren’t for the home she had been plucked from, then what?

Clearing her throat, she headed for the tub carved purely from milky quartz. “Let’s get you ready for bed, you must have had quite the tiring day and I know just what’ll help.”

Knowing when to let sleeping dogs lie, I indulged her for the rest of the day that seemed to drag on for too long.

After a thorough bath, changing into a nightgown of pearlescent silk, and a plate of curious snacks that I could barely keep down, I listened to her ramble as she tended to my unruly hair.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, with her rubbing beeswax and castor oil into my curls and scalp, I became lost in thought.

What was I meant to do now that my mission had grown ridiculous in hindsight? We had believed him to be a peripheral god who had taken Mahala hostage, or caused her harm. At least that would have explained the silence my father got plenty of. King Nabonassar had sent me off with his holy heirloom, believing I would be taken to some mountaintop palace and mounted by dawn. Only then could I plunge the blade into the beast’s heart and rid us all of his curse.

Instead, I was swept up into the stars, to the world we had thought lost to us. Even worse, I’d discovered that our great enemy was none other than the moon-goddess’s own grandson. The one who had, until seven years ago, been behind the shifting shapes that helped us mark the months.

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