Page 135 of Heir

Quil didn’t sit. He pretended to sit—and then he hurled a throwing knife from his sleeve straight into the Tel Ilessi’s shoulder.

The man gasped as the blade sank into his skin, and he staggered back.

Quil closed the distance between them in an instant, short daggers in hand. He took advantage of the Tel Ilessi’s surprise to sweep his legs out from under him. The bastard would have died then. Died with his throat slit open and his blood soaking the rugs in this accursed tent.

But the wind came for Quil, and this time it threw him against the hard boulder at the back of the tent. Pain tore through his spine, his vision doubled, and his knees nearly gave out. He caught himself on a table, trying to keep upright.

“Enough, Cero. Do not toy with him.”

Quil froze, not because of the wind, but because of the voice. He looked up at the armored figure stepping through the front of the tent. Small-boned. Short brown hair. Pale skin and light eyes.

“Hello, Idaka.”

“No—” His mind couldn’t comprehend this, because the last time he’d seen her alive, she’d been speaking to Elias in the middle of a sandstorm. The last time he’d seen her at all, she’d been in pieces, scattered across a cavern in one of the most haunted places in the Empire. He’d found a book he’d seen her looking at sometimes—completely blank. The ring she was never without. Her pack.

And Ruh.

But now he understood what thisthingstanding in front of him was. Not the girl he’d threatened with a scim the first time he saw her, only to find he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not the girl he’d kissed beneath the desert stars. Not the first girl he’d ever loved, her eyes full of secrets he relished discovering. Not Ilo.

“You monster,” Quil hissed. “Where’s Sirsha?”

The creature stepped forward. Skies, she looked just like the real Ilar. The killer had done this to Sirsha when she took the form of her mother.

I knew it was the monster from the eyes. She didn’t have my mother’s eyes.

Quil stared, expecting to see a glimmer of malice. But the false Ilar’s eyes were only tired and sad and achingly familiar. Quil’s magic stirred.Use me. Look inside her.

“Where is Sirsha?” he demanded again, ignoring the pull of his power.

The false Ilar looked away. “The Jaduna you’ve been traveling with?”

Quil strained against the wind holding him, veins popping from his neck and arms as he pushed against it. “Damn you, whereisshe?”

“I don’t have her, Idaka,” false Ilar said. “She’s probably with Mother Div. If she’s as clever as Div thinks she is, she might even survive.”

“Who the hells is Div?”

“Sit down, Idaka—”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Please. Quil. I have wanted to speak to you for so long. To—to explain.” She turned to the tall man. “Why didn’t you call me when he appeared?”

The man—Cero—shrugged and then winced as he pressed a cloth to his bloody wound. “I wanted to see what kind of man captured your heart.”

The creature sighed and called out, “Tvho Ina!”

Two guards appeared at the entrance to the gate, but unlike with Cero, they bowed their heads in deference, and thumped their hearts thrice with their fists.

“Rue la ba Tel Ilessi!”

Quil stared at them—they were treating this simulacrum of Ilar as if she were the Tel Ilessi. When she gave them orders, they complied immediately, escorting Cero away.

Quil pushed experimentally against the wind; it held him as tightly as before.

“You knew me as Ilar,” the creature said. “The only name I ever chose for myself. The name I was born with was Aiz bet-Dafra. And the name my people have given me is Tel Ilessi. I beg you, if you loved the girl I was, if you cared about me at all, listen to what I have to say.”

Whatever this creature was, she believed herself, at least. The prince nodded once. Quil could pretend to listen—and strike when she least expected it.

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