Tenger and I sat on one side of Sir Henry’s desk. He offered her a seat, but she shook her head, insisting that she could better defend herself on her feet.
“Then by all means, do so,” Tenger said.
“I will be vindicated in the end,” Loelle said. “For years, I listened in on the Corack plans, all of them ambitious and well-intentioned, but not one with much chance of succeeding. Finally, we found Kestra, an Infidante with access to Dominion strongholds, and uniquely qualified to unite all of Antora. We might’ve used her to her full potential, until Simon fell in love with her. Then every consideration had to be worked around that, and we were failing again. We all know that.”
“If you wanted a change of plans, you should have taken them through me,” Tenger said.
“And how would you have answered, if I explained I needed to isolate Kestra in All Spirits Forest for weeks, using her magic to rebuild my own people?”
“I’d have said no,” Tenger said.
“We needed the half-lives to get this far, and we will need them until the end. Your decision would have been wrong.”
“That is irrelevant. Even if I had been wrong, that still does not mean what you did was right.”
“I can accept that,” Loelle said. “But it’s been done and I believe my actions will be the key to Endrick’s undoing. If you disagree, then you must determine my punishment.”
Tenger looked at me. “What do you think?”
I leaned forward. “You will return to the service of the Coracks, Loelle, as before, healing anyone you can. In every spare second otherwise, you will work on a solution to help Kestra.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you think I’ve been trying? Simon, the guilt I feel for what has happened to Kestra overwhelms me. I will not work for a solution because of a punishment. I will keep trying because I owe that to her. But I must be clear. Nothing I have tried gives me any hope of helping her without killing her. And I fear the corruption is spreading to the boy who travels with her, Joth. My son.”
Joth had already explained this, but the tenderness in Loelle’s voice was unmistakable. I said, “Get yourself something to eat, and set up a medical station in this home. You must find a solution, Loelle. Please find it.”
She had only barely left when Imri Stout came in with another report on the activity nearer to Endrick’s palace. The Brill had begun patrolling areas around the palace at the closest possible position of safety. It was clear from their reports that Endrick sensed an attack was coming. As far as we could tell, he was drawing all Ironhearts in from every region of Antora, gathering them around the palace like a living fortress.
“If we succeed in getting past so many soldiers, it will come at a high price,” Imri informed me. “There must be another way.”
There wasn’t, not that I had yet figured out. Because it wasn’t only the Ironhearts that concerned me.
He had oropods and carnoxen on the ground and giant condors in the air, searching for any signs of danger. Interestingly, their riders paid us little attention as we patrolled. We suspected their only orders were to search for Kestra.
When the time came, I would use Rawk to fight the condors, but even as powerful as the dragon was, we would be only one against twenty or more.
The Halderian cavalry would be the best matched against the oropods, but the speed and ferocity of an oropod was almost double that of our horses. Even if we won in the end—and that was far from certain—with the number of losses we would endure, it would feel like a defeat.
“You need to get Kestra to talk to us,” Tenger had told me more than once.
We knew where she was. She and Joth had stationed themselves on the upper floor of a tall building that had been abandoned for as long as I could remember. The plaster was crumbling and the wood had begun to rot, but the fact that it was so visibly unsafe likely made it an ideal hiding place, and its height would give them a good view of the palace—perfect for making their own plans to attack.
The Coracks kept a steady watch on the building as we did our patrols, yet the same magic we had encountered before held us back here too. It was possible that Kestra didn’
t even know we were trying to contact her. Or if she did, after our last attack on her, she likely had no interest in speaking with us. With me.
“Then we’ll continue watching,” Tenger said. “When she and Joth attack the palace, we must be there.”
“Whether she wants to admit it or not, she will need our help,” Imri said.
“They don’t seem to believe that,” I said. “And your idea of help might be different from theirs.”
Before Imri could make yet another objection, Trina rushed into the library where we had been meeting. “Simon, your cavalry is here.”
I stood and straightened my tunic. “Tell Harlyn.”
I’d barely seen her over the past two days, and in the few times I did, we were always among so many people that we’d scarcely said three words to each other. I’d begun to think that she was avoiding me.
I walked from the library to the entry hall of Woodcourt. Gabe was there, staring out the front window. “You’re their king?” Gabe said. “Those riders are twice your age.”