Scream of Stone

66

8 Kythorn, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Sisterhood of Pastorals, Innarlith

Pristoleph watched as one of the sisters helped Phyrea into a chair. Her brow narrowed and she blinked, but the grimace, the grunting, and the tears were gone. It hurt her to move, but not as bad.

“You’re looking better every time I see you,” Pristoleph said.

Phyrea glanced at him, smiled, then turned her attention to the sister, who arranged a napkin on her lap and took the pewter cover off a tray of food. The smell of the steamed vegetables and fish stew reminded Pristoleph that he hadn’t eaten himself inhow long? He couldn’t even remember. The aroma didn’t make him feel hungry, though.

“I want you to leave the city,” he said.

Phyrea had been about to dip her spoon into the bowl of stew, but she froze. She didn’t look at him, but glanced instead at the sister. The young acolyte shifted uncomfortably, trying with all her will not to look at either the ransar or his wife. Finally, the girl turned and stepped to the door.

“Unless you need anything else…?” she asked Phyrea, and the way she said it, it was as though she was begging for Phyrea to say “no.”

Phyrea obliged the sister, who stepped out and closed the door behind her.

“I want you to go to Berrywilde,” Pristoleph said before Phyrea had a chance to speak. “Wait for me there.”

“If I ask you why, will you tell me the truth?” she asked, setting her spoon down and folding her shaking hands in her lap.

“Of course I will,” he promised.

“Then I won’t ask you why,” she said. He blinked at that, but let it go. “I’m still not well.”

“Considering the extent of your injuries,” Pristoleph replied, “it’s Chauntea’s own miracle that you can walk, let alone speak and feed yourself. I’ll ask the sisters to send acolytes with you to help, and we’ll hire a new staff.”

Phyrea shook her head and stared down at her plate.

“You’re healing quickly,” he said. “And it’s been… how long?”

“Forty-six days,” Phyrea said, glancing up at him with a flash of reproach.

“Forty-six days,” he repeated.

“I know what’s been happening in the city,” Phyrea said, either looking down at her lap or sitting with her eyes closedPristoleph couldn’t tell. “The sisters have been keeping me informed. As much as anyone could be in the midst of a bloody civil war.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it that,” Pristoleph said, though that’s precisely what it was. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Are you going to kill them all?” she asked. “Marek Rymiit, Meykhati, Nyla… the whole senate? Or are they going to kill you?”

“Neither,” he said, “unfortunately.”

She looked up at him and the look in her eyes made him so profoundly sad he had to turn his back on her. A lump lodged itself in his throat.

“I don’t care if I’ve failed Innarlith,” he said with some difficulty. “I don’t even care if I’ve failed myselfthough it makes me a hypocrite of the first order to admit that. But if I thought for a moment that I’d failed you, I’d throw myself in the lake.”

“You haven’t failed me,” she told him.

Pristoleph nodded and, still not looking at her, said, “Your safe passage has been guaranteed. You will go unmolested to Berrywilde while I put an end to all this infighting and stupidity once and for all.”

“And if I don’t want to go?”

He paused for a long moment because he didn’t want to say what he knew he had to say. “I will have you restrained, or sedated, and taken there.”

He stood facing the wall, listening to her slow, steady breathing for so long it felt as though days passed with each exhale.

“You may have to do that,” she said.

“I only asked one thing of Rymiit and the senate,” he said, “and that was a guarantee of safe passage for you and Ivar Devorast. You won’t make a liar of me. I’m sorry.”

“They’ll let Ivar go?” she asked. “Not to Berrywilde…?”

Pristoleph shivered at that. Though the room was warm, he’d never felt so cold. He held his arms crossed in front of his chest and felt his lower lip quiver.

“He’ll go to Tsingtao, in Shou Lung, I think,” Pristoleph said.

“But he’ll live?” she asked. He nodded to the wall.

“Very well, then,” Phyrea said. “When do I leave for Berrywilde?”