Eleiba clears her throat and turns to me. “His Royal Highness King Irmand thanks you for your warning, Laia, and wishes to assure you that he does not take lightly the interference of the fey creatures in his domain. He accepts Darin of Serra’s offer for weapons and vows that he will provide shelter for the Scholars in the city until more permanent accommodations can be made. And he wishes you to have this.” Eleiba places in my hand a silver signet ring emblazoned with a trident. “Show it to any Mariner, and they are honor bound to aid you.”

Musa smiles. “I knew you’d get to him.”

“But, the crown princess, she—”

“King Irmand has been ruler in Marinn for sixty years,” Eleiba says. “Princess Nikla . . . was not always as she is now. The king has no other heir, and he does not wish to undermine her by disagreeing with her outright. But he knows what is best for his people.”

All I can manage is a nod. “Good luck, Laia of Serra,” Eleiba says quietly. “Perhaps we will meet again.”

“Prepare your city.” I say it before I lose my courage. Eleiba raises perfectly arched brows, and I rush on, feeling like an idiot for giving advice to a woman twenty years older and far wiser than I am. “You’re the captain of the guard. You have power. Please do what you can. And if you have friends elsewhere in the Free Lands who can do the same, tell them.”

When she is long gone, Musa answers my unspoken question. “Nikla and I eloped ten years ago,” he says. “We were only a little older than you, but much more foolish. She had an older brother who was supposed to be king. But he died, she was named crown princess, and we grew apart.”

I wince at the perfunctory nature of his recitation, a decade of history in four sentences.

“I didn’t mention it before because there was no point. We’ve been separated for years. She took my lands, my titles, my fortune—”

“Your heart.”

Musa’s harsh laugh echoes off the hard stone of the buildings on either side of us.

“That too,” he says. “You should change and get your things. Say goodbye to Darin. I’ll meet you at the east gate with supplies and information about my contact.”

He must see that I’m about to try to offer him a word of comfort, for he melts into the dark quickly. A half hour later, I’ve gathered my hair in a fat plait and returned the dress to Musa’s quarters at the forge. Darin sits with Taure and Zella in the courtyard, stoking a low fire while the two women pack clay onto the edges of a sword.

He glances up when I appear and, spotting my packed bag, excuses himself.

“I’ll be ready in an hour,” he says after I tell him of my audience with the king. “Best tell Musa to make it two horses.”

“The Scholars need you, Darin. And now the Mariners need you too.”

Darin’s shoulders stiffen. “I agreed to make weapons for the Mariners before I realized you’d be leaving so soon. They can wait. I won’t stay behind.”

“You have to,” I say. “I must try to stop the Nightbringer. But if I fail, our people need to be able to fight. What is the point of all you suffered—all we suffered—if we don’t even give our people a chance in battle?”

“Where you go, I go,” Darin says quietly. “That was the promise we made.”

“Is that promise worth more than the future of our people?”

“You sound like Mother.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is a bad thing. She put the Resistance—her people—ahead of everything: her husband, her children, herself. If you knew—”

My neck prickles. “If I knew what—”

He sighs. “Nothing.”

“No,” I say. “You’ve done this before. I know Mother wasn’t perfect. And I heard . . . rumors when I was out in the city. But she wasn’t what Princess Nikla made her out to be. She wasn’t a monster.”

Darin tosses his apron on an anvil and begins throwing tools in a sack, stubbornly refusing to talk about Mother. “You’ll need someone to watch your back, Laia. Afya isn’t there to do it and neither is Elias. Who better than your brother?”

“You heard Musa. He has someone who will help me.”

“Do you know who? Has he given you a name? How do you know you can trust that person?”

“I don’t, but I trust Musa.”

“Why? You barely know him, like you barely knew Keenan—excuse me, the Nightbringer. Like you barely knew Mazen—”

“I was wrong about them.” My ire rises, but I quash it; he is angry because he is scared, and I know that feeling well. “But I don’t think I’m wrong about Musa. He’s frustrating, and he gets on my nerves, but he’s been honest. And he—we both—we have the magic, Darin. There’s no one else I can even talk to about it.”

“You could talk to me.”

“After Kauf, I was barely able to talk to you about breakfast, let alone magic.” I hate this. I hate fighting with him. Part of me wants to give in. Let him join me. I will be less lonely, I will feel less afraid.

Your fear doesn’t matter, Laia, nor your loneliness. The Scholars’ survival is what matters.

“If something happens to me,” I say, “who will speak for the Scholars? Who knows the truth about the Nightbringer’s plan? Who will ensure that the Mariners prepare, no matter the consequence?”