Page 96 of Heir

“What do you meanit?” he snapped. “What was that thing? What did it want with us?”

Reli and Sufiyan exchanged a glance at his rare show of temper. Loli shook her head.

“I do not know. I only felt it when it breached the barriers I’ve put near my home. It stinks of death.” Loli shuddered. “And guile.”

“You have magic, then.” Arelia leaned forward. “What is your emotion—and your element?”

“Sirsha has been instructing you, I see.” Loli’s voice was cold. “Did she not teach you that asking such a question is akin to asking the contours of your heart? Who you love? How it makes you feel?”

Arelia flushed and crossed her arms. “I’m trying to understand.”

“You seek to understand the fibers that make the world,” Loli Temba said, “but not your own pain, nor that of others. You’d be better served understanding the latter.”

With that, Loli walked swiftly to a counter beside the hearth, above which hung copper pots and pans of varying sizes, as well as bunches of dried lavender and coriander, and strings of garlic and chilies. She grabbed a wooden bowl and brought it back to Sufiyan, handing it to him as he turned away from them and retched into it.

Quil was at his side immediately, patting his friend’s back. He’d felt sick this way himself after the first time he killed a Karkaun. After he found Ilar and Ruh. “Get it out, brother,” he said. “You’ll feel better in a minute.”

“Maybe itwasthe porridge,” Sufiyan moaned.

“It wasn’t.” Loli took the bowl, waving away Sufiyan’s apologies. A pump churned in a room beyond, and Loli returned a few minutes later with a tray of water glasses.

“I suspect that the more your soul hurts,” she said, her tone kinder than it had been with any of the rest of them, “the worse you will feel when you’re around it.”

“We need help, not riddles.” Quil didn’t care that he was verging on rudeness. “Speak plainly. You must suspect what that thing could be.”

For the first time, Loli Temba appeared surprised. “This is the first time you have seen it. But Sirsha must have felt it. She did not warn you?”

“She’s been acting strange,” Arelia offered, though her mistrust of Loli was still clear. “For days.”

“She hasn’t been well,” Sufiyan said. “Yesterday I gave her Iltim powder for a headache. Do you think she knew and was hiding it from us?”

“If so,” Quil said, “maybe she had a reason. Though—” He turned to Loli. “Is the creature following us? Or her?”

Loli dug through her pantry until she found a stack of plates. “Her, I think. When she left, I told her not to return. I told her she would bring something with her.”

“Can you help her?” Quil said. “She said she came to you before. Long ago. That you healed her.”

“I did not heal her,” Loli Temba said. “I gave her time and love. Her own people offered neither. But that is her story to tell.”

“We don’t have time.” Quil stood, pacing in impatience, peering at Sirsha’s prone body through the open door. She was so still that for a moment, he thought she wasn’t breathing and his own heart almost stopped. But then he caught the slightest flutter of her eyelashes.

“She will wake,” Loli Temba said. “When she does, we will learn more of what she knew. You have more questions. Different questions. Ask.”

He’d been so worried about Sirsha that he’d forgotten the reason he’d come here. He needed to get hold of himself. He was the crown prince of a shattered Empire. His people were depending on him.

“Sirsha said you might know about the Kegari,” he said. “About their magic.”

“Long ago”—Loli set four plates on her dining table—“the Martials attacked the Scholars. Took their lands. Enslaved their people. Why did they do this?”

“They were manipulated by the Nightbringer,” Arelia said. Loli Temba’s expression soured.

“They were greedy,” Quil amended. “They wanted what the Scholars had.”

“Greedy later, yes.” Loli Temba pulled a long, dark fruit from the pantry, peeling back its thick outer skin and slicing up the soft pink innards. “But in the beginning, the Martials were simply poor and hungry. So it is with the Kegari. Their population is starving. Their leaders raid their neighbors to keep them fed. They cannot grow grain or raise livestock. So, they suffer.”

“They didn’t fly thousands of miles north to the Empire because they’re hungry,” Arelia snapped, sharper than Quil had ever heard her.

“Bah!” Loli Temba curled her lip. “Why should I tell you more about them when you do not listen? Perhaps, like the Scholars before you, you deserve to be conquered.”

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