Page 132 of Between Fear and Favor

I knew it wouldn’t be safe to drag me along, but I had supposed I’d have at least one more night with him before he went frigid. But that had been wishful thinking at best, arrogance at worst. Why would I be the one to cause him to change the way he viewed the world?

In my darkest of moments, I’d convinced myself that all he saw in me was conquest. The novice, unsullied by the touch of anyone but him, could feel like quite a prize. Though I’d managed to find sense, knowing that at the very least, he did care in his own way, the idea that I wasn’t enough for him lingered and soured in my stomach. As I rushed through the empty street, I rehearsed what I would say to him. My feelings on the matter were coarse distress, but even as I walked into the fortress behind a trickle of others seeking refuge, not a single unkind word came to mind.

I missed you. Did you miss me?

By the time I rapped on his door, I hadn’t been able to entirely dismiss such tenderhearted thoughts, but they soon left me. Moments passed, and I realized he was avoiding me. As I waited for him to answer, impatience heated my blood, bathing my bones in something wicked.

“Is it customary to not answer your door in a timely manner when you become a general?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I knocked harder. “Or is it just easier to avoid complicated conversations?” Though I didn’t hear him, a shadow moved beneath the door, confirming his presence and his unwillingness to see me. Perhaps he was gathering his nerve to tell me I’d gotten the wrong idea about things, and that he would be ending whatever nonsense I convinced myself was more than it was. Saski’s words came to me, her insistence that fear ruled Dewalt’s actions, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. I was not worth such fraught decision-making.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply. I would not allow myself to be made a fool, heartsick over the inattention of a man who had never given love freely. I deserved a boundless love, after everything I’d been through, and it was clear Dewalt couldn’t give me that. Not yet, anyway. But that wasn’t his fault.

“I have to stop by the armory and change someone’s bandages, but after that, I’ll be in my room. Whenever you want to talk, come find me,” I said, pressing my forehead to the door. Sighing, I spoke low enough I wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear me. “You really hurt my feelings, Walt.” I couldn’t afford to lose another person in my life, and so I would let Dewalt slip between my fingers. Forgiveness would choke my anger at the root as long as I could keep him near.

As I made my way into the courtyard, turning toward the armory, Marella called out from behind me. “Katherine’s waters broke!” she said, gesturing inside.

“Oh, skies,” I whispered, remembering that Katherine had many weeks left in her pregnancy. I murmured a prayer to Rhia, pleading for the safety of the babe. Since I’d left Astana, I’d grown more confident in my relationship with the goddess, and found myself seeking her comfort as I once had. I was learning it didn’t have to be all or nothing like I’d been taught my entire life.

With confidence and peace to define my own relationship with the gods, I’d found something that worked, and there was no small satisfaction in it for me. “Rhia, please show them mercy,” I murmured, grateful to serve her in a way which felt more true than anything I’d done under the Myriad.

Chapter 59

EMMELINE

Irses roared,and all I could do was stare at the massive dragon who had followed us to Lamera. Despite my commands and pleading before we left, the headstrong creature had found us anyway.

The child in my arms stirred as a panicking horse thundered past. Everything was on fire, and people and soldiers alike were running frantically through the streets.

“Novice, come with me!” one of the many soldiers shouted at me from across the street. His golden armor glinted in the firelight, and I hoped it would melt against his flesh. There was no reason for such excess. Gold was malleable—useless against most weapons—and susceptible to the elements. The Myriad had been allowed unchecked wealth and power for far too long. I shook my head, defying his order.

“Come, now!” he yelled, dark brows knitting. His mouth was a red slash of irritation as he tore a path through those who fled, and by the time he reached the patch of grass I stood in, near the novice’s hidden door, I knew he would not let me go. Perhaps he’d seen me rift, and wanted to use my gifts to evacuate the city. Regardless of his intentions, I didn’t plan on going with him.

“The Supreme will hear—” he began. A shadow burst from me, and I let it burrow down his throat. Clutching at his neck, he collapsed within seconds. If only he’d been closer to the street, I would have been able to watch his golden armor crumple beneath the weight of the fleeing masses. The little one in my arms began to whimper, and I remembered how little time I had left before the Supreme was alerted of the chaos.

After opening a rift into Veda’s home and shoving the toddler into her arms, I searched for Rain. I only allowed myself a moment, and though I grasped at the golden bond between us, I found no response.

But I couldn’t waste any more time.

That dark cavern where the font trickled below the earth was waiting for me. The Supreme, ready to raise Iemis from his obsidian grave, required my attention.

It only took one try.

Called by the font or led by a greater power, it didn’t matter. The moment I walked into the cavern, stepping over a lit candle, I sensed which way I needed to turn. A thundering of footsteps alerted me to a guard running down the staircase Rain and I had taken on our last visit. He was ready to inform the Supreme of the chaos above. Whether the Supreme would decide to rush along his plans with Iemis or intervene in some other fashion, I couldn’t let that happen.

As the guard tripped down the bottom step, his age took me by surprise. With only a patchy mustache, he probably wasn’t even old enough to be served at a tavern. Regardless, I couldn’t let him get past me.

I took no pleasure in stealing his breath, though I tried to stop before it killed him. His heartbeat slowed, and I hoped that was enough. Using my shadows to move him back to the staircase he’d just descended, I gritted my teeth in preparation. Calling upon Rain’s divinity to move the earth was hard enough, but the stone beneath me was nearly immovable. Still, though, I managed to seal the staircase shut. No one else would be able to come down and warn the man.

But I didn’t have time to seal the one I’d taken as a novice in disguise.

The stone door behind me opened, the grinding of age-old rock sending a shiver up my spine.

“I thought that was you,” the Supreme said, still standing within the stone doorway.

I didn’t turn around, merely summoning divine fire into my hands. But before I whirled and sent a blast of deathly heat toward the man, he stepped behind the obsidian wall, farther into Iemis’s tomb. My divinity dispersed, absorbed by the lava rock.

“You’ve always smelled of lilacs and lavender, Emmeline. Did you think pretty flowers could cover the darkness within you?”

“Worry about your own stench,” I countered, pulling out the dagger strapped to my ankle. It was clear he intended to stay within the safety the obsidian afforded him.

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