Xara Zynthar's Arc

Chapter 8 of 16

The bell had stopped ringing a long time ago. The orb still glowed between them on the table. The prince pushed his cup aside and drew a sheet of paper toward him. He wrote a number of ships. He crossed it out. He wrote a larger one. "I can promise you this on my own," he said. "I cannot send it on my own. The council holds the grain stores and the shipwrights. If I move without them, they will stall the order until your people are gone." Xara felt the room tilt. She had told the truth and he had believed her, and it still was not enough. "How long to bring them around." "Weeks. Months. I do not have a voice at that table they trust anymore." He set the pen down. "They think I have gone quiet since my sister died. They are not wrong." She reached for the small vial in her sleeve. The moonlight water inside caught the lamp and threw silver on the paper. "Then let me sit with you and drink this. Ask me anything. If they need to know I am real, let me be real in front of them tomorrow. Not a story. A woman who cannot lie." He looked at the vial a long moment. "You would drink that for a room of strangers." "I would drink it for the children in that orb." A knock came at the inner door. Not the guard's knock. Softer. Three taps, spaced wrong. The prince's hand went to his belt. Xara stood. The door opened on its own. A small figure stepped inside as if she had been invited. White hair to the waist. Dark blue robe stitched with gold at the shoulders. She looked like a child dressed for a festival, except for her eyes, which were older than the room. "Do not stand for me," the newcomer said. "I have been standing for a long while." Xara knew the face from a story her grandmothers told to frighten greedy children. Verity Shadowgift. Judge and gift-giver. The gown. The egg. The eel now curled in its jar. All of it had come from her. "You have been watching me," Xara said. "I have been deciding." Verity looked at the orb, then at the prince, then at the vial in Xara's hand. "You were going to drink that to convince his council." "Yes." "You do not need to." Verity turned to the prince. "I will speak for her at your table. They know my name where I come from. Your scholars know it too. Bring me in the morning." The prince studied her the way he had studied Xara. Then he nodded once. Verity's eyes came back to Xara. "You passed," she said. "Do not make me regret the finding." She left the way she came. The eel turned in its jar. The paper on the table waited for a larger number.