Page 63 of While the Dark Remains

Kallias leans over and brushes his thumb over the silk eye patch. Ballast goes gray and still, not even blinking. Kallias smiles that satisfied-cat smile before drawing his hand away.

After that, Ballast doesn’t eat anything, just stares at his plate, fingers clenched tight around the handle of his table knife, that feverish glint in his eye grown worse.

I can’t pin down my thoughts, can’t convince my heart to stop its mad racing. It can’t be, itcan’tbe that Kallias put out Ballast’s eye as some twisted test of loyalty.

But Bronze God. I know that itis.

All the rest of that interminable dinner, I will Ballast to look at me. But he doesn’t. He’s the first to leave the table, and I’m trapped with Kallias awhile longer, able to make my escape only after I swear to him I’ll attend the treaty talks in the morning.

By the time I slip out into the corridor, Ballast is long gone.

“He’s a problem,” says Vil for the hundredth time, pacing the width of his receiving room. Vil and Saga have reached a tentative peace in light of Ballast’s sudden reappearance, and she’s crouched stonily on the footstool, knees pulled up to her chin.

“He knows who you are, Brynja,” Vil goes on. “He knows Saga’s not dead. I’m sure he can guess the rest.”

“Aelia knows who I am, too,” I point out.

“She has no reason to reveal you to Kallias,” Vil replies. “Ballastdoes.”

Every cell in my body is screaming at me to go and find Ballast, to speak with him, to understand what he’s doing here, to beg him to tell me he’s not back playing his father’s games. To ask him why—

I shove the thought away with an inward curse. “Ballast wouldn’t be back here, wouldn’t have put himself back under his father’s control, unless—”

“Unlesswhat, Bryn?” Saga snaps. She pulls at a loose thread on the footstool, pulls and pulls until there’s a ragged spot on the cushion. Her face has a haggard look, and I think of the dirt on her hem, the things she’s not telling me.

I don’t remind her that she owes her life to Ballast. That we both do. She’s thinking of Hilf, seeing that last awful moment of his life played out over and over.

“He’s Kallias’s son,” she says after a breath. “And that’s theonlything that he is. I agree with Vil. He’s a problem.”

Vil flicks her a grateful smile. “Keep a close eye on him, Brynja. Track his movements, his meetings, especially with his father. We need to know how close he is in Kallias’s confidences, and if Kallias is likely to choose him as his heir—we need to know if Ballast means to reveal us.”

I clench my jaw. I have no intention of spying on Ballast. How could I? After everything we went through together—I jerk up from my seat, but Vil grabs my wrist and holds me back.

I pull my hand from his. “Ballast would never betray me. He hates Kallias too much for that.” That’s what I thought before tonight, anyway, but I’m not about to admit my uncertainty to Vil and Saga.

A muscle twitches in Vil’s face, and I wish Saga hadn’t told him everything about what happened in the tunnels. With Ballast. With me.

“While we’re here in Tenebris,” says Vil, low and tight, “you have agreed to be under my command. Find out everything you can about Ballast. That’s an order.”

I stare at Vil, hurt pulsing through me. Ever since we left Staltoria City, I’ve seen a different side of him, one I don’t at all like. He claims he wants to protect me, and yet he pushed me to come on this mission to Daeros. He ordered Indridi’s execution and was ready to see it through. He’s been petty toward Ballast and concealed his knowledge about the weapon in the mountain. The man I thought Vil was is unraveling before my eyes, and I’m beginning to wonder if that man even exists, or if I just wanted him to.

“As you command, then,” I say brusquely.

“Brynja—”

But I stalk back to my and Saga’s room without another word, fighting to conceal my hurt. Saga follows on my heels, her anger pulsing off her like Indridi’s fire.

She doesn’t speak to me until the lights are out and we’re in bed, blankets pulled up to our chins, heat curling into the room. “Youknowyou can’t trust Ballast.”

I screw my eyes shut tight; I feel every pulse of my heart, and I remember the taste of his magic.

“What happened in the caves, what you thought he was to you there—it was nothing. It meantnothing. He’s amurderer, Brynja, and the son of one. Please tell me you know that.”

I dig my nails into my palms, press hard enough to make tears prick. “Have you ever killed anyone, Saga?” It’s not what I want to ask her, but I sense she’s in no mood to be telling me her secrets.

She’s quiet for a long while. I wonder if she’s angry at me for not answering her question, or for asking her that one.

“Yes,” she says at last. “I fought in the skirmish. I foughtwell. But the Daerosians overwhelmed us. And then Njala was killed in my place, and Hilf was captured, and I—I—”

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