Page 142 of Heir

Sirsha’s jaw dropped at the revelation. “Wait—the Tel Ilessi—and Ilar—and Aiz—”

“Are the same person, yes,” Cero said. “Keep up. Aiz gave me the book to destroy at one point, but the damned thing wouldn’t burn. I think it altered her mind. The—the things she’s done—”

“The things you’ve let her get away with,” Quil growled. “Is that what you meant?”

Cero’s jaw stiffened. “Aiz said the book led her to free Mother Div, Kegar’s holiest cleric,” he went on quickly. “She says Div’s spirit gives her power. But it feeds on children for that power. She has joined with this…thing. Whatever it is. You’re a Jaduna. Can you free Aiz of the bond between them?”

“Yes.” Sirsha didn’t consider it a lie, exactly. More like an aspiration she hadn’t yet made into a reality. “I’d need to get out of here. Speak to one of my contacts in Jibaut.”

Cero huffed in frustration.

“You mean the bookseller? He read the book long before Aiz did, and is in thrall to this creature masquerading as Mother Div, like Aiz. There’s an Ankanese seer who read it as well. When I asked them about it, neither could speak of it without going pale and sick.”

You think you understand what you’re dealing with, Kade had said.But you don’t.

“Whoever wrote that book is evil. Whatever lives inside its pagesusedAiz. It wants something. I need to know what the hells it wants. Because it isn’t to help our people. All it has done is kill our young. Feed on us.”

“I’ve heard of such magic,” Sirsha said, though she had to scrape at the edges of her brain to remember. Some bleeding boring lesson that D’rudo had droned on about a decade ago. “My mother is the strongest living Inashi. She can bind it—whatever it is. But I’d need to get a message to her. Can’t do that from inside a Kegari camp.” She looked pointedly at her manacles.

Cero gave her a level stare. “If I wish to keep my heart in my chest,” he said, “then I can’t set you free. I can, however, leave the tent.” He glanced at Quil, mockery creeping into his expression. “I assume for a mighty prince of the Martials, a few seconds will be enough.”

Quil offered the barest nod. Cero stared at him a moment longer before turning and walking out. Two Kegari—the same ones who manacled Sirsha—entered the tent a second later, grinning. A woman joined the men, glanced between Sirsha and Quil, and commented. Whatever she said made the bearded guard chortle.

From across the tent, Quil watched, his expression murderous.

The beardless guard picked up Quil’s scim from a pile of weapons beside the tent entrance and pretended to pick his teeth with it. Then he said something to Quil in Kegari that Sirsha was relatively sure amounted to “My sword is bigger than yours.”

The beardless man wandered closer to Quil, spitting at him, his ridiculous grin growing wider when the globule landed on Quil’s armor.

Quil smiled back.

Then his manacles clanked to the ground. He’d picked the lock—of course he had. He grabbed the beardless Kegari with one big hand and slammed the man’s head so hard against the wooden post holding up the tent that the entire structure shook. The guard oozed to the ground.

The bearded guard was already out the door, screaming for help, while the woman called up the wind. Still bound, Sirsha lashed out with a binding, suppressing the hag’s magic so quickly that she was still staring at her hands in mystification when Quil put a throwing knife through her gut.

The prince snatched up his scim and pushed something into Sirsha’s hands as he strode past. Her hairpins.

“That’swhere they’ve been this whole time?”

“I grabbed them at the cabin,” he said. “The morning after you admitted you’ve been lusting after me since the moment you saw me.”

“I hadnotbeen lusting after you!”

“Your body said different, Jaduna.”

The alarm went up, and a group of Kegari poured into the tent. Sirsha picked the locks on her manacles, only for a soldier to knock her to the dirt floor. She kicked him in the groin, stabbed him while he squealed, then rolled to her feet.

“I want them back!” Quil called as he fought off four Kegari at once. “The pins.”

She could notbelievethey were having this conversation. She snatched up a knife and tore a rip in the eastern side of the tent. “Why are you obsessed with my pins?”

“I like how annoyed you look when you can’t find them.” He punched a Kegari coming at him, knocking him out cold. “It’s sweet.”

“Sweet?”

Quil didn’t respond, as he was busy tearing through the newest wave of Kegari coming at him. Sirsha would have thought there were toomany, but she’d seen him fight. She popped her head out into the dark, searching through the wagons and fires and shouting soldiers for an escape route along the slopes encircling the camp.

There—a path of rock and dirt that curved up the edge of the bowl thirty yards away. The earth rumbled, and a distant explosion sent a plume of dust into the sky. R’zwana, likely creating a distraction so she could escape.As most of the Kegari outside the tent turned toward the sound, Sirsha ran back to grab Quil’s blood-slick hand and drag him from the fight.

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