Page 58 of These Divided Shores
Lu didn’t react. Vex frowned.
“You all right?” he whispered to her, touching the fabric of her sleeve.
The meeting was happening around Lu, her mind ebbing and spiraling.
Vex had said he’d found a room full of Tuncian spices in the Port Camden prison.
Lu remembered Teo’s face. His look of betrayal when she’d seen him in the sanctuary—
Focus—Elazar had Tuncian spices? No—Tomhad Tuncian spices.
Tuncian spices. In the Port Camden prison, surrounded by stones that Emerdian architects had infused with Bright Mint. A few levels above Gunnar, whom Elazar had kept alive for his connection to Ben—and his knowledge of Eye of the Sun.
Teo hated her. He hated her as much as these people hated each other, fraught with distrust and pain. Teo’s mother had died of Shaking Sickness, and his sister, Annalisa, not a year later, of the same illness. Then Lu had been snatched away in a war of her own making.
Lu looked out the window, at the clouded sky blurred gray white.
Tuncian spices. Emerdian stonework. Mecht Eye of the Sun.
Was the secret to permanent magic in there? Had Tom figured it out on his own—impossibly, before Lu or Ben?
Emerdian stonework changed the effects of Bright Mint—the prison was proof of that. Mechts had used or done something unique to them that made Eye of the Sun permanent—Visjorn bear blood, Lu knew. But Tuncian spices? Why—
Lu had crouched in a shack with Fatemah and Cansu in this sanctuary over a bubbling pot of dissolved BudwigBeans. The memory was what had led her to mention the Tuncians to Tom, the contradiction between Tom believing in her ability and Fatemah questioning her ability.
But there was more to her memory. The shack had smelled herbal, of bitter dried plants and magic hanging from the rafters—but it had smelled spiced too, a zest Lu had attributed to Fatemah herself. Kari always smelled of Tuncian spices. What else would it have been?
Had Tuncian spices beeninthe Budwig mixture? Had that enhanced the magic and let Cansu hear through every bean on the island?
Kari had talked of Tuncian spices throughout Lu’s childhood. On special occasions, Tom had bought small bags of rich, buttery powders. Kari had kissed him, and laughed, and the three of them had feasted on Tuncian-spiced food “blessed by the gods.”
At the edge of her mind, Lu heard Vex ask her something. She turned to him.
“The Budwig mixture,” she whispered. She included Nayeli with a look. “That Cansu and Fatemah made. Do they put spices into it?”
Vex squinted, but it was Nayeli who said, “They put spices in everything. It’s a Tuncian thing—certain spices bring good luck, some ward off evil, and so on. Why?”
Lu went dizzy. Tom had figured it out. How skilled in magic was he? He had lied to her. He had misled her.Again.
And now Elazar would bring his coming light to PortMesi-Teab. If Lu and Ben weren’t instrumental to whatever that was, and if he still planned to carry it out, was Tom involved?
Fear wrapped unrelenting hands around Lu’s throat and squeezed.
“Lu?” Vex touched her chin, trying to drag her attention up to him.
Lu had left Teo. And, worse, she had caused him that pain because of her own mistakes. She had seen the extent of her failure in Teo’s wide, hate-filled eyes.
She would not fail anymore. She would not let Elazar win.
The room was still in tight discussion. Fatemah was trying to give a definitive list of requirements for all the “outsiders” staying in her sanctuary. Kari countered with calm reminders that the sanctuary was only a part of the larger conflict. Nate and Pierce begrudgingly deferred to both Fatemah and Kari, having no actual bargaining power beyond the few dozen raiders at their command. And Rosalia had her hands on her hips, defiance embodied.
“Fatemah doesn’t want us here,” Rosalia snapped, eyeing Kari as if judging whether she could take her down. “Why not retake Port Fausta and use my city?”
“We are fighting forGrace Loray,” Kari clarified. “That is the goal: the entirety of the island, free from Argrid and ruled by raidersandthe Council, as it always should have been. We have a base to fortify and prepare—that is the first step. The next step is to determine our best moveagainst Elazar that will both rescue your people and break his hold on Grace Loray. An outright attack? An assassination attempt? We need to—”
A heavy presence tugged at Lu’s side. Ben. He looked at Vex and dropped his voice.
“Tell her—on the way in, my boat heard criers in the city,” Ben said in Grace Lorayan. “Saying that my father’s light would come here in a matter of days. And defensors were unloading cargo into Fort Chastity—”
