‘What’s happening? Where am I?’
‘The witches and your brother, Queen, they killed the Hounds.’
Hounds .
What day is this? In a world without days, what day is this?
‘They’re little girls now,’ her companion said.
Yan Tovis blinked up at her. A familiar face. ‘Your brother?’
The woman looked away.
‘I’m sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘I will see them soon, my queen. That’s what I look forward to now.’
‘Don’t think that way—’
‘Forgive me, Highness. I took care of them all my life, but against this, I wasn’t enough. I failed. It’s too much. From the very start, it was too much.’
Yan Tovis stared up at the woman’s face, the dry eyes, the absence of expression. She’s already gone . ‘“They await you on the Shore.”’
A brittle half-smile. ‘So we say over our dead, yes. I remember.’
Over our dead .
‘Tell the witches – if they do that to me again – if they use me like that – ever again – I will kill them both.’
The woman flinched. ‘They look ten years old, Highness.’
‘But they aren’t. They’re two old women, sour and bitter and hateful of the world. Go, give them my warning, soldier.’
With a silent nod, the young woman rose.
Yan Tovis settled her head, felt the sand grinding against the back of her skull. Empty sky. Dreams of darkness. If I had knelt to the Shore, they couldn’t touch me. Instead, they punished me .
‘But if they hadn’t,’ she whispered, ‘those Hounds would have killed hundreds more. Which of us, then, is sour and bitter? Hateful of the world?’
I will go to her. To Kharkanas. I will beg her forgiveness. Neither of us can withstand the weight of this crown. We should cast it off. We can find the strength for that. We must .
Oh, I am a fool. Yedan will not yield. The lives lost must mean something, even when they don’t. So, it seems we must all die. It seems we have no choice. Not the Shake, not the Letherii, not Sandalath Drukorlat, Queen of High House Dark .
She reached down and came up with a handful of white sand – crumbled bones. ‘It’s all here,’ she whispered. ‘Our entire history, right here. From then … to now. To what’s coming. All … here.’ And she watched, as she closed that hand into a fist, as if to crush it all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stone whispers
Patience
But we take chisel in hand
Child begs