As always, the rare mention of the Prophet piqued her curiosity, but she was too tired to form a question. They reached a door at the end of the hallway. Simon opened it, then stood back to let her pass. It was a small but cozy room, with a low, slanted roof and a bed tucked into an alcove, away from the windows. A brazier in the corner glowed softly, and the pile of blankets at the foot of the bed beckoned to her like the arms of a lover.

She blew out a breath, smiling a little. “I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve slept in a real bed.” Then she glanced back at Simon, who waited at the door. The sight of him standing there, scanning her room with a little frown, as if he were inspecting its contents and finding them lacking, was dear in a way that frightened her.

“Do you also have your own room?” she said, simply to talk over the sound of her racing heart. But it was a terrible question and only made her heart race faster. She attempted a coy smile that felt all wrong. “In case I start to feel lonely.”

His gaze shot up to meet hers. The smile he gave her was strained and small. “I do. At the other end of the hall.”

She wanted to turn away from him but felt physically incapable of it. “And Remy and Harkan?”

“Second floor.”

“Patrik? Jessamyn?”

“First floor, second floor.”

“We’ve the whole floor to ourselves, then?”

He raised an eyebrow. “There are five other rooms between us. Some of our party, and some who were already here when we arrived.”

“Yes, of course.” She struggled to maintain her composure, which had once been an easy thing to do. “Well, then. Good night.”

“Before I go,” he said before she could shut the door, “I have to say this: I know you need rest, and I do, too, but we must begin our work tomorrow. We cannot delay.”

Our work. So here it was, the thing they had not spoken of in the past weeks of traveling—not since the moment in Karlaine when the thread had appeared at Simon’s fingertips. Eliana had been working over the nuances of it in her mind, and now, it seemed, they would have to face it.

“You mean, I must continue practicing with my castings,” she said. “And you must practice your threading. You want to send me back in time to Old Celdaria. You want me to confront my mother.”

“A confrontation may not be necessary,” Simon replied. “And that’s one of the things we’ll discuss as we work. How will you approach her? What will you say and do? What is our goal in traveling back to that age?”

“To prevent this future from happening,” Eliana answered at once, determined to keep the absolute terror she felt at the idea from showing on her face. “To change something that occurred in the past and, by doing so, prevent the rise of the Empire.”

Silence fell between them, punctuated by a soft rumble of thunder from the growing storm outside. Simon searched her face for a long, tense beat. Once again, as when she had watched him in Karlaine, his body lit by the gleam of his fading thread, she felt the urge to touch his face.

This time, she did.

He turned into her palm at once, eyes closed, and pressed his lips to her fingers. A single word itched on her tongue: stay.

But instead she stepped back from him. She needed rest, and if she asked him to stay, she would not sleep. She would kiss him until her fear of what lay ahead diminished. She would kiss him for hours, and then how would she bear to look at him after that? Already, looking at him made her feel as if the world were shifting beneath her feet.

“Where should I meet you?” she asked. “In the morning.”

“Afternoon,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “It’s already late. We’ll need a full night of sleep. After lunch, I’ll find you. I’ll ask Dani where in the gardens would be a safe, private place to work.”

He hesitated, his mouth turning down at the corners. Then he looked once more at her and said quietly, “Good night, Eliana,” and left her standing in the doorway, watching his retreating form. When he reached his room, she closed her door and leaned back against it until she had caught her breath. Then she climbed into her bed and nestled into its piles of blankets, watching the rain slide down the windows across the room.

Now that the concept of traveling back to Old Celdaria had been said aloud, her mind raced with questions she desperately did not want to ask but knew she would have to, and soon.

What if Simon sent her to the past, and then he lost his ability to thread, because his reawakened power was new and fragile, and she was left trapped there in a foreign world?

What if she found her mother, and did whatever she and Simon decided she must do, and it failed? What if she had to flee, having made some fatal mistake, and then returned to an unrecognizable future altered by her own misstep in the past?

And if everything proceeded as they hoped it would—if Eliana traveled to Old Celdaria and met her mother, if the Empire never rose, and maybe, if the Blood Queen never fell, and the world was never razed to near-destruction—what then? What would happen to the Eliana of now? To the Simon of now? And to Remy, and Harkan, and Patrik and Jessamyn, and everyone she had ever known and loved?

Would they, and she herself, cease to exist?

Sleep did not arrive for some time, and when it did, it brought troubled dreams that, blessedly, she did not remember upon waking.

35

   Rielle

“Feel the wind slide round the trees,

Listen to the waves eat at the shore,

Watch the sun climb up the sky,

See the shadows reach always for more.

Listen! The old world speaks to you.

Wait! The old magic lives in you.

Breathe, and do not be afraid!”

—“Prayer to the Old World,” traditional

With Princess Kamayin’s blade pressed against her throat, Rielle began to laugh.

“I told you not to make a sound,” Kamayin hissed.

“What are you hoping to accomplish here, Your Highness?” Rielle asked. “If I wanted to, I could burn you to ashes.”

“Not before I slit your throat. Not even you can conduct magic while bleeding out on the floor.”

It was then that Rielle noticed how Kamayin’s words trembled with tears. Quickly she clamped down on her furious instincts—Kill this girl, burn her, punish her for daring to threaten you—and smoothed the anger out of her voice.

“Why are you doing this?” She waited, listening to Kamayin’s tight, shallow breathing. “Someone’s put you up to it. Why?”

For a long moment, there was only silence and a distant rumbling—the arrival of a storm.