Page 75 of Daughter of No Worlds

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Well, this is cute.”

I opened my eyes to the aggressive, blaring sun, which seemed like a personal insult to my throbbing head. I blinked again and a silhouetted form took shape, backlit to illuminate silver braids, arms crossed over her chest.

“Late night?” Nura asked.

“Just who I like to see first thing in the morning.” Max’s voice, still hoarse with sleep, came from beside me. I glanced at him only briefly as we pushed ourselves up from the ground. We hadn’t so much as touched, though we had fallen asleep inches away from each other. Still, something felt uncomfortably —- though not unpleasantly — intimate about the whole thing.

“Still? That’s flattering, Max. Maybe a little sad.” Nura watched us get up, not moving. Despite her quip, her voice was flatter than usual. Once I got to my feet and got a good look at her, it was obvious that she was exhausted. Purple shadows circled her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks. Whereas I had always thought she looked lithe and powerful, today that same body seemed thin to the point of frailty.

“Besides,” she added, eying us, “it’s actually nearly noon.”

Max grumbled something wordless.

“But then, I can’t judge you for doing whatever you have to do to get some rest after all that. You deserve it. I didn’t get the chance to tell either of you how well you did.” She looked from me, to Max, to me. “Clever idea.”

“Someone had to figure out something that didn’t involve crushing a few thousand people to death.” Max rubbed his left eye with the back of his hand, glaring at Nura with his right. “But hey. They shit in their own beds, right?”

Nura visibly flinched. “It didn’t come to that,” she said. “Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to her.” Max jerked his chin to me. “Now what can we do for you, Nura?”

“I came to speak to Tisaanah.” She looked me up and down. I crossed my arms over myself, suddenly very conscious of my cotton nightgown.

Taking that as his cue, Max grumpily excused himself. As he sauntered off to the cottage, he cast one glance over his shoulder, meeting my gaze for the first time since we woke up. There was something rawer and more honest in the look we shared.

“How has he been?”

I turned to see Nura staring after him as well, brows furrowed slightly, the corners of her mouth turned down. Her voice sounded so different in that shade of understated concern. But then, everything about her seemed so different. I almost wouldn’t have recognized her.

“Fine,” I said. Not entirely true — not all the time — but I knew it was what he would want me to say.

“A good teacher?”

“Yes.”

A brief, faint smile tightened her lips. “I knew he would be.”

Nura’s gaze flicked back to me, and something grew more distant in it. “You did very well in Tairn. Better than I even thought you would, I’ll admit. And beyond that, I owe you a personal thanks. So do the people of Tairn.”

I thought of the ruins. That stuffed dog. The devastated looks on the residents’ faces as they emerged from the basement of the tower. “Even still, they lost very much.”

“Yes,” Nura agreed, solemnly. “I’m sorry that you had to witness what you did.”

I knew instantly, even with the vague phrasing of that statement, that she was talking about herself — her vicious, brutal display in that tower. Even now, it was impossible not to look at her and remember it, a silhouette of stark white in a room of darkness, emanating terror.

“Why did you lie to Pathyr Savoi?” I asked. “Before his death?”

Nura’s face hardened. “It was only minutes away from being true. He was ready to make sacrifices that didn’t belong to him for his own personal vendetta. I have deep sympathy for his loss and his pain. But I have no patience for such terrible, dangerous selfishness.”

Right now, she looked like she had no patience left, period. Like whatever shields she had constructed between herself and the world were worn down.

“But I’m sorry,” she added, more softly, “that what I did affected you, too. No one prepared you for that.”

“No one ever does.”

A biting, humorless chuckle. It reminded me eerily of Max’s. “True.” Then, she said, “You fulfilled your end of the deal. And we’ll fulfill ours. Zeryth wanted me to give this to you.”

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