Page 64 of The Cruel Dawn
“Helping the great city of Gasho in their recovery,” I say instead.
“Ah,” Philia says, lips curling. “I know about Gasho. You’re content to just laze about where they worship you like you’re some god—”
“Iamsome god,” I snap.
A crack of thunder booms outside, rumbling against the walls of the inn and down into this room. Upstairs, the Renrians gasp and the startled ravens caw. Somewhere, metal pails clatter to the ground and glass breaks.
“Everything okay down there?” Separi calls out.
To Separi, I say, “No.” To Philia, I say, “Are we really about to go down this road right now? Shall I take back the healing hug I just gave you? Those rheumy lungs and sore belly and failing heart—you want all of that back? I can do that. Or do you want me to do something more extraordinary than that?
“I could burn down this town, and then travel to the next town and burn that down, too. Shall I write a primer to remind you who you’re talking soflippantlyto?”
I smile without humor, and my nostrils flare as my hair scrapes the ceiling of this room. “‘Laze about’? Beloved, you don’t want me to ‘laze about.’ I haven’t set out to willfully destroy shit in a very long time. That would be my version of ‘lazing about.’ Not giving a fuck and just…setting everything on fire without a care for who’s in that house or in that inn and then turning over in bed and falling asleep in the arms of a big, sexy god who builds me tubs and writes me songs. That’s my ‘laze about.’ Do you want me to show you aworkinggod? An ambitious, overachieving, transcendent, and finicky Lady of the Verdant Realm?”
I’ve watched friends die. I’ve seen whole towns destroyed. I don’t need this shit from her. Not today, not now.
In fiery, stony silence, I flop down gracelessly in the only chair in this small room and cover my face with my hands. I’m so tired. I take a deep breath, roll my head from one side to the other. The tightness in my chest and the headache that has spread to my entire body only grows worse.
“I thought youat leastcared more about Jadon,” Philia says, quieter now. “The way you both looked at each other…”
“Just stop, Philia,” I say, blood draining from my face. “I don’t have and you won’t get the answers you want. The big storybook that Olivia stole. You have it. I need it.Now. Please.”
“You broke your promise,” Philia says.
I cock my head. “What promise?”
“To rescue Olivia,” she claims.
I scan my memory.I’ll wring that bitch’s neck. I’ll crush all ten of her sticky fingers.I remember saying those things. Idon’tremember ever saying, “I’ll rescue Olivia,” not once.
Philia’s eyes fill with defiance, and her face hardens with resolve. “Then I won’t give you the book,” she says, chin lifted. “It’s taken you forever to come back to Caburh for me. And then, when youdoshow up, you don’t even have Olivia with you. And now you expect me to give you something that belongs to her—?”
“That bookdoes notbelong to her,” I say, my patience growing as thin as the walls of this room. I scan the area, and the air glitters around a chest hidden behind a screen. There’s an enchantment in that space, and it isn’t coming from the Renrians or from me.
Philia’s gaze follows mine, and her skin flushes. She nods, acknowledging the tension now filling this cramped room. “I’m guarding it,” she says, her voice low and steady.
“From what and for whom?” My gaze darts from the shimmering patch of air to Philia’s face. “You plan to give the book back to Olivia?”
Philia’s lips press into a thin line. “Umhmm.”
I pause, the weight of what I must do pressing against my chest. “You have no idea what’s at stake right now,” I say. “If you did, you would give me the book.”
She thinks about that and scrambles to the screen, opens the chest, and grabs the book. She clutches it to her chest like those out in the town square had clutched their swords.
I stay seated and prop my chin up on my fist. “You know…I can take that book from you right now without any effort.”
Her mouth pops into anO, but anger turns her eyes into jade shards. “Do it, then. Kill me and be the one everyone says you are.”
My ears hiss with her words. “And who am I?”
She swallows her words but still thinks them.
Evil. Devil. Maelstrom.
“Maelstrom?”I whisper.
That’s what Danar Rrivae said.
