Page 129 of The Endless War

Keris rose to his feet, meeting her glare. “No.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She led him back over the rubble to where a group of Maridrinian soldiers waited on their horses, their eyes widening in shock at the sight of him. “Say nothing of His Grace’s presence,” she ordered them, and though he could see the blame in the men’s eyes, they obeyed. Testament to their loyalty to Sarhina.

One of the soldiers sacrificed his mount to Keris, and then the group made its way through the city. On the eastern half, soldiers worked to gather bodies, loading them into carts to transport out the eastern gates.

To where the mass graves had been dug.

At the sight, Keris leaned over the side of his horse and vomited. Sarhina said nothing, only handed him a waterskin and then led the group onward to the tents in the distance. He pulled his hood up before they reached them, not wanting to be recognized.

Away from the city, the stink of ash and rot was absent, but not the marks of war. Injured soldiers rested on rows of cots, bodies bandaged, many missing limbs. Babies cried, and children, many of them likely orphaned, sat staring with blank eyes as they rode past.

A slow burn of fury filled Keris’s chest that this had been done to them, no small part of it directed at himself.

Sarhina dismounted near a tent. “Is Lestara inside?” she asked the guard standing out front, but the man shook his head.

“Just the young princess. The lady Lestara is checking on the welfare of Prince Royce.”

“Something she does with regularity, despite his wounds being well healed,” Sarhina muttered. “You go. I’ll keep watch.”

Keris entered the tent, his eyes immediately going to his little sister, who sat reading on one of the narrow cots.

Sara’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Keris! You came back! I knew she was a liar!”

He held a finger up to his lips, then crossed the room to sit on the cot next to her. “Are you all right?”

His little sister nodded. “It’s been awful.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “The Valcottans destroyed Vencia. The palace is ruined, everyone forced to live in tents or outside. And many died in the attack.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to keep you safe,” he said, wishing there was time to comfort her, but he needed answers. “Has Lestara given you anything to keep for her? Papers? A locked box?” His heart sank when she shook her head. “Has she given you anything?”

“Clothes and shoes.” Her eyes brightened. “And a book about stars.”

Keris’s stomach dropped. Even before Sara reached down to retrieve the book hidden in the folds of the blanket, he knew what volume it was.

With icy fingers, he took the familiar small book from her hand, a tremor running through him as he opened it to flip through the pages of constellations and the stories the Cardiffians believed that they told. The book she’d all but begged him to return despite having had it in her possession this entire time.

But how?

Keris wracked his mind for when he’d last seen it. Zarrah had been holding it when she’d leapt across the spillway. It had been in her hand when he’d fumbled the lock to the room in the inn. And inside, she’d set it on the table.

Where it had been abandoned.

Unbidden, Serin’s voice filled his head.I thought the whore inNerastis would yield something, but all she could tell me was that you wouldn’t touch her and that you’d disappear into the night, returning hours later smelling of lilac. She believed you were visiting a lover, and an innkeeper swore a man of your description rented one of his rooms in the company of a Valcottan woman.

The very innkeeper who would have found the book when the room had been cleaned for the next customer, later to be given as proof to Serin. Who had subsequently given it to Lestara, sowing seeds that would see to Keris’s destruction even after the Magpie was in his grave.

“Keris, are you all right?”

“No.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard, his fingers tracing over the inside of the cover, which was bulkier than he remembered. Pulling a knife from his boot, Keris cut open the stitching and extracted a piece of paper with Serin’s spidery writing.

Lady Lestara,

I wish to return to you this book, which you once gifted to His Grace as a token of great sentiment. I regret to inform you that he abandoned the tome in a Nerastis inn, where it was subsequently discovered by the owner. I was told that he had spent the night with a young Valcottan woman, though her identity has yet to be proven. His disrespect of your gift is not surprising, for it is in his nature, but I hope having it back in your care is some comfort to you.

Serin

Keris stared at the letter. Why hadn’t Serin revealed Zarrah’s identity?

---