Pleasant, polite words as she inclined her head through the few acres of untamed jungle sprawling to the left. She didn’t think herself a courtier, but she could certainly lie well enough. He supposed that as a healer, it was a skill that proved useful.
“It would be my pleasure,” Chaol said, offering his arm.
Yrene hesitated again, the portrait of modesty—peering over her shoulder at those in the pool. The royals watching. Kashin included.
He would let her choose when and how to make it clear to the prince—again—that she was not interested. Though he couldn’t avoid a faint tinge of guilt as she looped her arm through his and they stepped into the murkiness of the oasis jungle.
Kashin was a good man. Chaol doubted his words about being willing to go to war were lies. And to risk antagonizing the prince by perhaps flaunting what he had with Yrene … Chaol glanced sidelong at her, his cane digging into the roots and soft soil. She offered him a faint smile, cheeks still flushed with the sun.
To hell with worrying over antagonizing Kashin.
The oasis spring’s gurgling blended with the sighing palms overhead as they headed deeper between the fauna, picking their own way—no direction in mind. “In Anielle,” he said, “there are dozens of hot springs along the valley floor, near the Silver Lake. Kept warm by the vents in the earth. When I was a boy, we’d often soak in them after a day of training.”
She asked carefully, as if realizing that he’d indeed offered up this piece of him, “Was it that training that inspired you to join the guard?”
His voice was thick as he finally said, “Part of it. I was just … good at it. Fighting and fencing and archery and all of it. I received the training that was befitting for the heir of a lord to a mountain people who had long fended off wild men from the Fangs. But my real training began when I arrived in Rifthold and joined the royal guard.”
She slowed while he navigated around a tricky nest of roots, letting him focus on where to place his feet and the cane.
“I suppose being stubborn and bullheaded made you a good pupil for the discipline aspect.”
Chaol chuckled, nudging her with his elbow. “It did. I was the first one on the training pitch and the last one off. Even though I was walloped every single day.” His chest tightened as he remembered their faces, those men who had trained him, who had pushed and pushed him, left him limping and bleeding, and then made sure he got patched up in the barracks that night. Usually with a hearty meal and a clap on the back.
And it was in honor of those men, his brothers, that he said hoarsely, “They weren’t all bad men, Yrene. The ones I … I grew up with, whom I commanded … They were good men.”
He saw Ress’s laughing face, the blush the young guard could never hide around Aelin. His eyes burned.
Yrene stopped, the oasis humming around them, and his back and legs were more than grateful for the reprieve as she removed her arm from his. Touched his cheek. “If they are partially responsible for you being … you,” she said, rising up to brush her mouth against his, “then I believe that they are.”
“Were,” he breathed.
And there it was. That one word, swallowed by the loam and shade of the oasis, that he could barely stand. Were.
He could still retreat—retreat from this invisible precipice now before them. Yrene remained standing close, a hand resting over his heart, waiting for him to decide whether to speak.
And maybe it was only because she held her hand over his heart that he whispered, “They were tortured for weeks this spring. Then butchered and left to hang from the castle gates.”
Grief and horror guttered in her eyes. He could hardly stomach it as he managed to go on, “Not one of them broke. When the king and—others …” He could not bring himself to finish. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, to face that suspicion and likely truth. “When they questioned the guards about me. Not a single one of them broke.”
He didn’t have the words for it—that courage, that sacrifice.
Yrene’s throat bobbed, and she cupped his cheek.
And Chaol finally breathed, “It was my fault. The king—he did it to punish me. For running, for helping the rebels in Rifthold. He … it was all because of me.”
“You can’t blame yourself.” Simple, honest words.
And utterly untrue.
They snapped him back into himself, more effectively than a thrown bucket of cold water.
Chaol pushed out of her touch.
He shouldn’t have told her, shouldn’t have brought it up. On her birthday, gods above. While they were supposed to focus on finding any sort of scrap of information that might help them.
He’d brought his sword and dagger, and as he limped into the palms and ferns, leaving Yrene to follow, he checked to ensure they were both still buckled at his waist. Checked them because he had to do something with his shaking hands, his raw insides.
He folded the words, the memories back into himself. Deeper. Sealed them away as he counted his weapons, one after another.
Yrene only trailed him, saying nothing while they picked their way deeper into the jungle. The entire site was larger than many villages, and yet little of the green had been tamed—certainly no path to be found, or indication of a city of the dead beneath them.
Until fallen pale pillars began to appear between the roots and bushes. A good sign, he supposed. If there were a cave, it might be nearby—perhaps as some ancient dwelling.
But the level of architecture they climbed over and walked around, forcing him to select his steps carefully …“These weren’t some cave-dwelling people who buried their dead in holes,” he observed, cane scraping over the ancient stone.
“Hasar said it was a city of the dead.” Yrene frowned at the ornate columns and slabs of carved stone, crusted with forest life. “A sprawling necropolis, right beneath our feet.”
He studied the jungle floor. “But I thought the khagan’s people left their dead under the open sky in the heart of their home territory.”
“They do.” Yrene ran her hands over a pillar carved with animals and strange creatures. “But … this site predates the khaganate. The Torre and Antica, too. To whoever was here before.” A set of crumbling steps led to a platform where the trees had grown through the stone itself, knocking over carved columns in their wake. “Hasar claimed the tunnels are all clever traps. Either designed to keep looters out—or keep the dead inside.”
Despite the heat, the hair on his arms rose. “You’re telling me this now?”
“I assumed Nousha meant something different. That it would be a cave, and if it was connected to these ruins, she’d have mentioned it.” Yrene stepped onto the platform, and his legs protested as he followed her up. “But I don’t see any sort of rock formations here—none large enough for a cave. The only stone … it’s from this.” The sprawling gateway into the necropolis beneath, Hasar had claimed.
They surveyed the mangled complex, the enormous pillars now broken or covered in roots and vines. Silence lay as heavy as the shaded heat. As if none of the singing birds or humming insects from the oasis dared venture here.
“It’s unsettling,” she murmured.
They had twenty guards within shouting distance, and yet he found his free hand drifting toward his sword. If a city of the dead slumbered beneath their feet, perhaps Hasar was right. They should be left to sleep.
Yrene turned in place, surveying the pillars, the carvings. No caves—none at all. “Nousha knew the location, though,” she mused. “It must have been important—the site. To the Torre.”
“But its importance was forgotten over time, or warped. So that only the name, the sense of its importance remained.”
“Healers were always drawn to this realm, you know,” Yrene said distantly, running a hand over a column. “The land just … blessed them with the magic. More than any other kind. As if this were some breeding ground for healing.”
“Why?”
She traced a carving on a column longer than most ships. “Why does anything thrive? Plants grow best in certain conditions—those most advantageous to them.”