Page 35 of Mother of Death and Dawn

I blinked, stunned. Was Brayan about to get into a fuckingfightfor me?

There was a long, awkward silence. Ice hardened Nura’s features.

“Or what, Brayan?” she said, voice deadly calm. She nodded to Brayan’s sword. “Will you use that to murder soldiers from your home country? The people you swore on your life to serve?”

Brayan’s jaw was tight. He didn’t need to reply. We all knew the answer. He was nothing if not loyal to Ara. He would never raise a blade against the people who had once been his brothers and sisters in arms.

And in this moment, I was glad for it.

Because it didn’t matter how strong of a warrior Brayan was—if he did, they would kill him. And that was something my remaining scraps of sanity couldn’t withstand.

So when Nura said to the Syrizen, “Take Maxantarius back to Ilyzath,” I let them take me without argument. Nura turned to the window and didn’t look at any of us as I was led away again, my brother staring after me.

* * *

The battle had takenits toll on Ara. The Towers still stood, but I looked back to see that more windows had been destroyed near the top of the Tower of Midnight. The field leading to the shore was littered with corpses. The Syrizen who led me away were in particularly bad moods. I hadn’t seen these two before. One of them moved oddly—in tentative, lurching movements, as if always half-afraid she’d run into something—and her eye scars were red and angry. I guessed she was maybe eighteen years old. Maybe.

She was new. I wondered how many they were forcing through training before they were ready.

Hummingbird.The word popped into my head without warning, another shard of a useless memory. Slang. They used to call Syrizen that, because they moved in blurs with their spears drawn like a hummingbird’s beak, each strike covering the front of their uniforms with blood.

As I watched this teenage girl stumble around, the nickname now seemed so fucking cruel. Hummingbirds were tiny, fragile creatures, and this one clearly couldn’t fly. She’d get crushed the next time one of those Fey monsters turned up on Ara’s shores. I felt so bad for her that I didn’t even fight her as she led me to the shore, then Stratagrammed me back to prison.

Ilyzath, as always, welcomed me with open arms. It was oddly quiet today. No hallucinations, no whispers. I lay down in the middle of the floor. All my limbs felt heavy. My wounds had been healed, but my body still protested every movement. And my head—my head was killing me, like each new invading memory was a pickaxe slamming into my skull.

I was angry for reasons I didn’t understand. Angry on behalf of all the deaths I had witnessed today. Angry at the Queen for sending me here. Angry at myself on behalf of everyone I couldn’t save—myself included. And I was even angry at Brayan for… reasons that completely evaded me.

I wasn’t sure how long I lay there before I heard the familiar sound of shifting stone.

“Hello, Max.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, not moving.

No answer. Finally, I sat up. Nura stood against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Why are you here?” I repeated.

“You were injured badly. I wanted to make sure you didn’t die on me. You’re an important asset.”

I gave her a look that told her I knew she was lying.

“You recognized Brayan,” she said.

“I did.”

“So you remember…”

“Enough.”

A lie. It wasn’t enough. But it was somewhat telling how discomfitted Nura looked at that response. There was much in our past, it seemed, that she didn’t want me to remember.

I laughed. “I see. You don’t like that I remember who you used to be.”

Her face barely moved, but I knew I was right.

“Don’t be so full of yourself,” she said. “You hate who you used to be so much that you purged it from your own mind. I look my past in the eye.”

“You aren’t even lookingmein the eye.”

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