Page 66 of Of Empires and Dust

Calen satby Ella’s bed with a towel around his neck, his hair dripping onto Faenir, who lay curled up between the chair and the bed. He’d come to Ella first thing from the Eyrie, but Elia had practically marched Calen to his room to change the moment she’d found him sitting beside Ella’s bed, his clothes saturated from boots to shirt.

“You’ll catch your death sitting in wet clothes,” Elia had said as she’d grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him from the room. “Your mother will torment my dreams for allowing it. Go change. I’ll fetch you some more of that lamb. Men – less sense than a pig’s arse.”

Calen laughed, running his hand through his soaked hair. Aneera still sat in the corner of the room, legs folded, arms resting on her knees. From what Tanner had told him, she’d barely eaten all day. He’d found the other Fenryr Angan who’d arrived in the city not long before the attack – Diango – prowling around the plateau as he’d arrived. The Angan had greeted him with a bow and a short ‘Son of the Chainbreaker’ before continuing on like a sworn guard.

A knock sounded at the door, and Calen knew it was Elia by the way she didn’t wait for him to answer before coming in.

“Here.” She handed him a bowl and a knife, the smell of rosemary and slow-cooked lamb mingling with the lavender that already tinged the air. The woman’s head twitched left, and her eyes glazed over for a moment. “If you’re still hungry, there’s more downstairs. You have a visitor.”

As Elia left, Therin moved to stand beside Calen.

The warmth of the braised lamb spread from the bowl and into Calen’s hands as the silence settled.

“A fork would have been more useful.” Therin’s expression didn’t change as he spoke, staring down at Ella.

Calen lifted the knife from the bowl, looking down at the lamb, roasted potatoes, carrots, and some green root he’d never seen before. “She’s only given me knives ever since she’s come back to herself. I don’t ask why. Easier just to eat.” Calen swallowed, his mouth growing dry. The pair had not truly spoken since Therin had lied to him about Ella’s survival. “I trusted you, Therin.”

“I know.”

“If anything had happened to Ella…”

“I know.”

“You took my choice from me.”

“I know, Calen,” Therin whispered.

Therin walked to the other side of the room and dragged a chair across, setting it beside Calen and dropping into it. “I’ve watched you grow since the day you were born. You, Ella, Haem. I’ve loved you like you were my own, but I’ve never been able to say it. That was your father’s choice, and I respected it.” Therin shook his head. “He was one of my closest friends, and yet I had to watch from a distance as an Inquisitor who wasn’t fit to lick his boots held him with threads of Air and ran a sword through his chest.”

Therin reached out and brushed a strand of Ella’s hair from her face.

“I made a promise to him that day that I would protect you with my life, you and Ella both. I’m not proud of keeping Ella’s survival from you, but if I hadn’t, you would have flown north to find her. Of that I have no doubt, because it’s exactly what your father would have done, and you two are cut from the same cloth in almost every way. And it’s likely you and your sister would both be dead, and with that, every soul in Aravell would have burned alive without you.”

Therin shifted in his seat, hands resting on his knees. He tilted his head to look into Calen’s eyes. “I swear to you that I will never keep a secret from your ears so long as you swear to me that you will heed my counsel in return. I don’t ask that you do everything I advise, only that you listen. If you give me your word, I will give you mine.”

Calen gritted his teeth and reached down to scratch Faenir’s back, once again looking to Ella, who lay motionless in the bed, her chest rising and falling steadily. He nodded. “You have my word.”

“And you have mine.”

“What happened in the Eyrie…” Therin leaned back in the chair.

“Hmmm.” Calen kept his gaze on Ella, watching as her lungs filled and she let out a slow breath.

“Chora is testing you.”

“Let her test me. I don’t care.”

“Calen, it’s not that simple. What happens when you see Farda sitting on the grass in the Eyrie? What will you do then?”

“I’ll open his throat.”

“And all Aravell will turn against you for breaking your word. And even if they don’t, Chora will use it as an excuse to kill Tivar and Avandeer.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Calen, you?—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Calen snapped his head around, his anger creeping up on him. “Please. I’m sorry. I just need a break. Can we talk about something else? Tell me about him. My dad. Not the stories, but about what he was like.”

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