The Cartorran nobility is the same, Safi thought. Vicious, cutthroat, lying. While a man like Merik might feel duty-bound to his land and his people, Safi had never suffered that loyalty. The Hasstrel people had never wanted her, nor had her fellow doms and domnas. And as Uncle Eron had so succinctly put it, Safi wasn’t exactly cut out for leadership.
Evrane set aside the dirty bandages and reached for her jar of salve. “Politics is a world of lies, and the Nubrevnan court is no different. Yet, when my brother became King…” She frowned and opened the jar. “When Serafin became King and Admiral of the Royal Navy, he became the worst snake of them all. He puts vizer against vizer, son against daughter—even his own.
“I stayed a few years after the family moved to Lovats,” Evrane went on, “but eventually I gave up. I wanted to help people, and I could not do so in the capital.” Evrane replaced the tub in her kit and then waved her Witchmark in Safi’s direction. “It is part of being blessed with Waterwitch healing, I suppose. I need to help and when I am idle, I am unhappy. So years before the Truce began, I gave up my title and traveled to the Sirmayan Mountains to take my Carawen vows. The Wells have always called to me, and I knew that I could help others with a white robe upon my back. Where do you come from, Domna?”
Safi sucked in tiredly; her chains shook with the movement. “I’m from the Orhin Mountains—in central Cartorra. It was cold and wet and I hated it.”
“And Iseult is from the Midenzi settlement?” Evrane laid the new linen over Iseult’s arm and, with almost painful slowness, eased it around her bicep. “I remember it now.”
Safi’s lungs compressed. Silver hair. A healer monk. “You,” Safi exhaled. “You were the monk who found her.”
“Hye,” Evrane answered simply, “and that is a very significant thing.” Evrane angled a grim look Safi’s way. “Do you know why it is significant?”
Safi wagged her head slowly. “It’s … an incredible coincidence?”
“Not coincidence, Domna, but Lady Fate at work. Do you know ‘Eridysi’s Lament’?”
“You mean the song that drunken sailors sing?”
Evrane chuckled softly. “That is the one, though it is actually part of a much longer poem. An epic, really, that the Carawen monks believe to be…” She paused, her gaze unfocusing as if she searched for the right word. “A foretelling,” she finally said with a nod, “for Eridysi was a Sightwitch, you see, and many of her visions eventually came to pass.
“Ever since I joined the Monastery, I have felt, Domna, that I was part of that Lament.”
Safi turned a skeptical eye on Evrane. From what she knew of the song’s lyrics, it was all about betrayel, death, and eternal loss. Hardly the sort of thing one would want to be real—much less a prophecy of one’s own personal path.
Yet when Evrane spoke again, it was not of Lady Fate or foretellings, and her attention had returned to Iseult’s delicate face. “Iseult is very sick,” she murmured, “but I swear by the Origin Wells that she will not die. I will die before I let that happen.”
Those words shook through Safi, resonating with such intense truth that Safi could only nod in return. For she would do the same for Iseult, just as she knew Iseult would always do for her.
* * *
Merik stared at the table of charts before him—at the Aetherwitched miniature Vivia had procured. Kullen leaned against the wall nearby, stiff and expressionless. The cold in the air was the only sign of his anxiety.
Sunlight peeked through the clouds, and the Jana dipped and rose with the ocean’s roll. On the map, the miniature Jana cruised smoothly onward … But not the Dalmotti trade ship. It had slowed significantly and would soon reach the exact place Merik had told Vivia it would be—and it would arrive at the exact moment he’d told her as well.
Merik’s lies were becoming truth right before his eyes.
He supposed he could try to stop his sister with some new tale about the trade ship abruptly changing course … But he doubted she would believe him. In all likelihood, she was already in position, waiting for her unsuspecting prey to sail past.
“I have dug us a deep grave,” Merik said, voice rough.
“But you’ll dig us back out again.” Kullen spread his hands. “You always do.”
Merik tugged at his collar. “I was careless. Blinded by my excitement over a thrice-damned contract, and now…” He exhaled sharply and turned to Kullen. “Now I need to know if you can do what needs doing.”
“If you mean,” Kullen said impatiently, “how are my lungs? Then they are perfectly fine.” The temperature dropped further; snow flickered around Kullen’s head. “I’ve had no issues in weeks. So I promise”—Kullen placed a fist over his heart—“that I can fly to Vivia’s ship and keep her from piracy. At least until you arrive.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” Kullen shook his head. “It is sheer luck that we are here and not in Veñaza City. If we were still on the other side of the sea, then we wouldn’t be able to intervene at all.” A pause. Then the air warmed slightly. “There is something else we should discuss before I go.”
Merik didn’t like the sound of that.
“The ’Matsi girl belowdecks,” Kullen went on. “Do you have a plan for her?”