Kingdoms on Fire

6. Kiria

6

Kiria

There was no time to mourn. The five people in the safe house had pulled the upholstered seats into a rough circle. One guard stood by them. Three others had stood by the door after Kiria voiced her fear that Firian might try to find her. Candrae and Vayci sat back as though abashed to sit in such company, but Kiria and Chetana sat forward. Jori lounged, listless. Half the time he seemed not to be listening or following their train of thought.

“So no one knows whether Kader made it out of the palace?” Kiria looked at the guard nearest to her, the blond one who held seniority over the others, but got no answers. That had to be their first priority, to make sure the three Lines were safe. “How can we find out?”

“I’m sure the Tanyu will announce which leaders they eliminated,” Chetana said bitterly.

“We can’t wait that long, if there’s a way to find out sooner,” Kiria replied. Besides, the idea of waiting for such a horrible report turned her stomach. “We should try to find him now. The Tanyu will be looking for him if we aren’t.”

“And us,” said the soldier with the face tattoo.

The big blond guard, old enough to be the younger one’s father, shut him up with a look.

What they needed was more information. God knew Kiria didn’t want any more bad news, but if the heir to the First Line was alive, then they needed to make sure he stayed that way. If they knew what the Tanyu did, they could make better decisions. With her sanity hanging by the thinnest thread, she needed all the help she could get.

Firian would know all about the attack. Kiria wrung her hands, running her thumbnail along the length of her fingers. She didn’t want to see him, not when he was probably the engineer of all this horror, despite being seen with Bard. What if he made more demands? What if he found her even as they were talking?

“I don’t think I should contact Firian directly. It could just draw him here. We need a plan first.” Her muscles tensed at the thought. She didn’t need to explain further. The rumor of her relationship with Firian had run through all the palace personnel.

“I don’t think he’s in charge,” Jori struck in.

“He’s the Tanyuin Head,” Kiria said drily, surprised that Chetana hadn’t replied first, considering the Amir’s hatred of him. Instead, Chetana’s expression implied that she agreed with Jori. Kiria raised a brow at her.

“Yeah, but I saw him carrying Bard out of the palace,” Jori said. “Why would he do that?”

“He was carrying Bard?” It would be hard to direct an attack and save someone at the same time—someone the Tanyu harmed in the first place.

“And he didn’t harm you. Did he?” Chetana asked.

Jori shook his head, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

Kiria’s mind whirled. It felt like betraying the memories of those she lost to consider that Firian might have kept his word after all. What did it matter now anyway? “But he must have ordered the attack. Who else could have started something like that?”

“I know who it was,” Chetana said. She had that faraway look she often got, as though she were about to prophesy. Even the serving girls stared at her, hanging on her next slow word. “Belik.” The sounds of the name rolled in her mouth as though she’d already tried every variation, tasted and spat each syllable.

Master Belik was Chetana’s katah, Daelon’s father? The one who had incapacitated Bard outside her room?

Kiria knew that name.

Firian trusted him. Belik had been his teacher when he first arrived at the Academy. He had taught Firian about the Unreal. Did that mean he knew more about it than Firian did?

“Master Belik?” she echoed. “He and Firian are close. Are you sure they aren’t working together?” The idea made her shudder. Anyone who could frighten Chetana was truly dangerous.

“I don’t know. They could be, but Belik killed our family.” She meant multiple things by those words. “He is… treacherous. He is capable of turning on the Tanyuin Head, of taking power for himself. I am surprised he didn’t do it sooner.”

“Maybe he couldn’t.”

“Oh, he could have.”

The others watched their faces in rapt attention, bouncing from the Keeper to the Amir and back. The room felt airless, as though everyone held their breath for fear of missing a crucial word.

Jori swiped a hand over his face. “How do you know him?” he asked Chetana, who ignored the question.

“Something’s gone wrong with his plan,” she said stiffly, with almost a twinge of fear in her voice.

Jori looked at Kiria next, who didn’t supply an answer either. If Chetana didn’t want everyone to know about her katah with the enemy, she would respect that desire. She knew it all too well.

“Do you know what his plan is? His next move?” Kiria asked instead.

“I think he has a few objectives,” Chetana replied curtly. “The most obvious is taking control of the city. That’s what we need to focus on.”

“So, there’s a new Tanyuin Head?” asked the tattooed guard. This time, the blond one didn’t shush him.

“For our purposes,” Chetana said, “we’ll act as though there are two.”

Reluctantly, Kiria cast her a look. Chetana seemed to divine its meaning at once before Kiria even asked the question. “Could you find out more about his plan?”

Chetana’s dark eyes hardened. “I can’t gather information from Belik. He’ll know where we are immediately. It would just draw him here.”

So there it was. The truth. Anyone in the room who knew about katahs would understand now. Jori straightened a little out of his slouch.

Belik had been the one outside Kiria’s room during the brunt of the attack, the one Bard had confronted to give Kiria a chance to escape, the one who had made Chetana so afraid. Firian, on the other hand, had saved Bard, left Jori alone… Certainty solidified within her.

She dropped her voice and her eyes. “So Firian didn’t order the attack.” Something stirred in her, writhing and alive. The emotion was strong but unnamable.

Firian was still at large, his allegiances unknown, she reminded herself. Based on their last intense but confusing meeting, he could go either way. And still had the means to find her if he wanted to. When.

Jori shrugged a shoulder.

The female guard wasn’t so nonchalant. “If he didn’t order the attack, does that mean he’s on our side? If this Belik has turned on him, wouldn’t he want some kind of revenge, if not justice?”

Kiria heard the real question: Could he be our ally? She’d hung onto that possibility so many times and the rope hadn’t held her in the end. If she could avoid another disastrous alliance, she would. Yes, Firian was powerful, but with so much at stake, she couldn’t take the chance. “It’s too soon to tell,” she evaded.

Chetana mirrored Kiria’s meaningful look from before.

“Once we get farther away from here, then we can discuss the possibility,” she added, to end any more prying. Calling on Firian, now, would break the fragile hold she had on rational thought, the ability to plan and mobilize those under her command. As it was, horror and sorrow and rage and exhaustion pressed in around her like stifling blankets, kept at bay only by the jabs of her forward motion, her planning.

Chetana’s dark eyes fell to the floor as though she were searching for something. Her full lips wrinkled with a sneer that touched the bottom of her septum ring.

“We could leave the city.” The voice sounded small and far away. Kiria smiled. Vayci never gave her opinion, but if there were ever a time, this was it.

Chetana looked kindly at her. Vayci looked down to avoid her gaze. “If the people find out the Keeper has left, they could lose hope. That cannot be our first resort.”

“But it’s not a bad idea,” Kiria added, though she agreed with Chetana.

“Belik will try to set Tanyu at all the exit points of the city,” Chetana continued. Her expression was bitter and knowing. “Until we know the danger, we should not run toward it. Our duty is to Brithnem, in Brithnem.” She looked at Kiria for confirmation.

She nodded back.

“We have to stay here?” Jori stretched backward on the seat, craning his neck to see the room upside-down. Clearly, the idea didn’t appeal to him.

“Yes,” Chetana snapped, “at least we’ve chosen a more secure location.”

“Yeah, this one’s not the most secure,” he admitted, scratching his ear.

Kiria cast a nervous glance at the outer door. It had been relocked, but it still felt like flimsy protection.

“Are there any other ways out of here?” she asked Jori. She didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Jori gestured toward the tunnel. “No. Just those two.”

“Will you be able to hide me when we move?” Kiria asked the guards. The only other time she’d been in hiding was with Firian, and she’d been far away from potential enemies most of the time.

“Both of you,” Chetana corrected.

Kiria knit her brows. The insistent words were slow to register.

“Both of you need to be protected. The Kepron is the heir.”

Kiria felt faint, each realization disorienting. Even after Atty had been crowned, she hadn’t given the idea much thought. That Jori could become a Keeper of Brithnem was beyond imagining. Yet here they were. Atty was dead. His dream of having a family to succeed him had died also. The only clear option for the Third Line was Jori. Kiria was the Second Line. Where’s Kader? she wondered again. Has he been killed too?

Jori rocked forward, running a hand through his hair. He shook his head a few times as though shaking his words loose. “No,” he said simply.

Chetana was businesslike. “It is not your—”

“No!” Jori leapt aggressively to his feet.

Kiria sat back, away from him. The longer she watched his strained face and flashing gray eyes, the more she softened with understanding. In his place, if Atty were her brother, she would probably act the same way. Her heart contracted with shared pain. “We don’t need to worry about that yet,” she said. “You need to stay safe one way or the other.” She laid a hand on his arm. “I need you.”

He jerked away. Slumping back in the chair, he inhaled a few shaky breaths.

Candrae was on her feet, ready to serve. The girls weren’t used to sitting by while others needed anything. Jori needed more than a cup of water this time, and Kiria wasn’t sure that anyone could get it for him. “A pillow,” she said, just to give Candrae something to do.

One of the guards—a round-faced man with pink skin and dark hair—stepped forward respectfully. “My Keeper, I could go and investigate Kader Calthwaite’s location.”

Kiria drew her hand into a fist, considering. They had few guards as it was, but Kader’s safety had to be a priority. That way, at least, there would still be one person alive from each of the three Lines. She cleared her throat. “Go. Once he’s safe, we’ll have a clearer path to regain power.” If he’s safe.

She looked sidelong at Jori. His hair tumbled over one eye, and he didn’t meet her gaze.