The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Without the necessary exhaustion, my body rebelled against sleep in a strange place. I circled my room, opening drawers and laying out my gown for the Banquet. The night grew deeper, and still, sleep evaded me. I exchanged my bedgown for loose linen pants and a neat tunic. If I wanted any hope of sleeping tonight, I needed to walk.

Ren startled when I pulled open the door. He looked over my clothing

and frowned. “No.”

“I need the washroom,” I said.

“I will accompany you.”

“That hardly seems appropriate.”

Bending Ren to my will was easier than I anticipated. His antipathy for me was the boring kind—not as powerful as Vaun’s, nor as malleable as Wes’s. After a few minutes of arguing how insulting Vaida would find it if I felt unsafe enough to take a guard to the bathroom, Ren stepped aside, his unhappiness clear in the rigid lines of his shoulders. “Make haste.”

In the hush of darkness, the eyes of the Ivory Palace followed me as I walked across the hall. Usr Jasad had also been large, with separate wings and plenty of unexplored rooms to tantalize a bored child. But it had always been a home first, a palace second. Menace and magnificence beat as one in the Ivory Palace. Sultana Vaida’s palace reflected a clear message: beware beauty’s embrace, for its guts are greedy and its teeth are sharp.

Then again, perhaps Usr Jasad had represented the same. The only common ground I had unearthed between Nizahlans and Jasadis was their hatred for my grandparents.

I rounded the bend and paused at a tapestry of Baira. The Lukub Awala lounged in her throne, a scantily clad human male kneeling at her feet.

Dozens of Ruby Hounds surrounded her. Baira had her hand on a snarling hound’s head, her fingers luminescent with magic against its bloodred coat.

I shuddered at the look of sheer desperation in the kneeling man’s eyes. To

be a mortal in the time of the Awaleen—I could not imagine a greater curse.

The scene unraveled along the hall. My footfalls were silent against the rug. The man kneeling at Baira’s feet stood, shifting across the tapestry. He clutched his head, mouth falling open in a scream as a weeping woman reached for him. Their hands connected. The colors in the tapestry shifted as the man fell to the ground, dead, and the weeping woman dissipated in the air. An illusion.

The hall curved again, and this side revealed an ambush. Baira had her arms wrapped around Rovial’s chest, restraining him. Dania drew runes on his forehead while Kapastra raised glowing palms in his direction. They stood on Sirauk Bridge. Clouds roiled beneath the bridge, reacting to the magic pouring from the Awaleen. Their power had collapsed the very sky.

“The entombment,” came a dulcet voice. I whirled, reaching for a dagger I didn’t have. Sultana Vaida raised her arms in a soothing gesture.

“There, there. Did I startle you?”

It was a stupid question, so I gave a stupider answer. “No.”

“Are you worried about Felix? The Omal contingent sleeps in the north wing.” At my deadpan gaze, Vaida touched one of the red crystals dangling from her ears. She winked. “News travels quickly, darling. Drat Felix and his foul temper. Such a terrible fate he dealt that little girl.”

“The entombment?” I repeated, electing not to satisfy her curiosity. I motioned toward the tapestry. An enormous amount of detail had gone into weaving Sirauk. The cursed bridge plunged into white mist behind the struggling siblings. Rovial’s eyes were wide and wild. Magic-mad.

Vaida ran her fingertips over Baira’s face. “All the Awaleen went willingly to their eternal sleep except for Rovial. Subduing the Jasad Awal made them weak enough to fall from Sirauk and into the waiting tombs below.”

Hearing my kingdom’s name from Vaida’s mouth shocked me back to awareness. With Arin present, she had been a terror. I had no wish to discover where she would draw her limits in his absence.

“I apologize for disturbing you, Sultana.” I started to move around her.

A delicate press on my shoulder held me in place.

Sultana Vaida’s eyes gleamed as dark as mine. Kitmer eyes, Niphran used to call them. We stood nose to nose; a fact I found unduly vexatious, having grown accustomed to being the tallest woman in a room. “My palace

boasts much more than this tapestry. Let me show you.” She dropped her hold on my shoulder, a dazzling smile belying the hardness of her gaze. “I insist.”

She started walking without waiting for an answer. I toyed with the temptation to ignore her and jog directly to my room. I was not her subject, and she had no rights over me.

Arin’s caution stalled my step. Do not challenge her or distinguish yourself in any way.

Vaida had already rounded the bend. Swearing under my breath, I hurried to follow. Lukub’s Sultana strode to the east wing of the Ivory Palace. A row of Ruby Hounds’ heads pushed out from the wall to our right.

In place of their teeth were flickering candles, casting long shadows over the hall. Vaida’s jewel-encrusted cerise gown cast patterns in its wake, its lace sleeves trailing behind her.

She turned right, and I nearly tripped over my feet. Dozens of guards lined each side of the corridor. They did not react to my appearance, their attention fixed straight ahead.

I stopped at the head of the hall. “The Heir’s guards will worry at my absence.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Do they fault the security of my palace?

The efficacy of my guards?”

“Of course not, but—”

“Then they should have no reason to worry.”

Without turning around, she curled her fingers, beckoning me after her.

By Sirauk’s doomed depths, was I about to allow this woman to kill me out of a sense of decorum?

She might have information. Hanim’s presence startled me. She hates Nizahl. It might be useful.

I grimaced. Why couldn’t I have just asked Ren for a sleeping draught?

As soon as I crossed the threshold into the Sultana’s private chambers, the doors closed with a mournful groan. Where Arin’s chambers were an exercise in austerity, Vaida crowded hers with every color in the kingdoms.

One wall was a vibrant indigo, another a demure emerald. Lanterns in every shape and size hung from the peaked ceiling, casting the massive room in a warm glow. Her bed stretched wider than Rory’s shop, and quilts of various design and thickness were piled high at the foot. The bizarre blend of chaos

and style I’d come to associate with Lukub’s Sultana.

“Why am I here?” I asked, foregoing propriety. The vivacity of Vaida’s chambers was unsettling, more so than if I had entered a room with bloodred drapes and rusted weapons.

“When I heard Arin had chosen an Omalian orphan from a lower village, I did not share in everyone’s surprise,” Vaida said. She picked up a glass doll, adjusting its limbs before setting it back on her bedside table. She tapped its nose with a polished nail. “Arin… he sees through people.

Calculates potential and risk the way an architect evaluates promising land.

He sees worth where others might see waste. Successfully, too—the Nizahl Champion has succeeded in the last three Alcalahs.”

I pursed my lips, trying to figure out if I had just been insulted or praised.

From the bottom drawer of her bedside table, Vaida withdrew an ornate ring. She cupped it briefly, closing her eyes. “But you, Sylvia. There’s more to why he selected you as Champion.”

My voice could cut steel. “If you are implying I have some sort of amorous arrangement with His Highness—”

Vaida snorted. Her royal airs temporarily vanished, leaving a young woman only a few years my senior. “My dear, if Arin of Nizahl loves you, you can be sure the Alcalah is the least of your worries. Arin is not the kind of man who puts his heart before his head. His enemies are many, and he conceives of every way they can attack him. I’m sure you have seen how still he holds himself, how strong a hand he wields over his temperament.

Even if he were capable of caring for someone else, I cannot imagine he would ever be so selfish as to let himself fall in love. He knows his own nature and all the dark places love could steer him.”

The thought bothered me for reasons I couldn’t explain. She had essentially described Arin as a beast with the capacity to become feral at any moment.

“He said you know him well. Clearly, he misspoke.” It came out waspish. “He isn’t… broken. He would love the same as any man.”

“Oh, my sweet Sylvia.” Vaida’s smile was all teeth. “The way most men love is so boring. It is frequent and fickle and altogether unextraordinary.

Arin would love to obsession. To madness. But do you want to know the real reason he would never allow himself to love another?” Vaida stepped

close, her floral scent tickling my nose. “Arin is consumed by what he loves. If asked, he would get on his knees and let it kill him. He withholds his heart out of self-preservation.”

The image rose before I could prevent it. Arin on his knees, steadfast and resolute. Chin tilted forward to accept the fate he would be dealt. Or maybe he would be wild for the first and last time in his life, eyes desperate and seeking. I bit the inside of my bottom lip until I tasted blood. I should have never followed her here and given her the chance to fill my head with her poison.

“Enough about the Heir. I have something to show you.” Vaida slid the ring onto her finger and pressed it into the emerald wall. A hiss of released air blew dust into my nose as the center of the wall swung inward, revealing a stairwell leading into a void. I skidded away, my world ricocheting off its axis, searching for an item I could turn into a weapon.

“That was magic!”

“Not mine. Baira’s magic still manipulates parts of the palace.” She held up the ring. A Ruby Hound snarled on its surface. “Come along. You are safe with me.”

She did not wait for my answer, stepping into the hole and descending into darkness. I yanked at the doors to her chambers. They were fastened shut. I braced my foot on the door and heaved. Nothing.

She is not going to kill Nizahl’s Champion in her own palace, Hanim murmured. Go. See what the Sultana has to show you.

Cursing doors, guards, and royals, I gingerly stepped into the opening.

The drifting scent of mold only grew stronger the lower I climbed into the void. I trailed my fingers across the damp wall, listening for Vaida. What if she killed me and sealed the evidence?

Your neck is thicker than both her arms. If she manages to best you, you deserve to die, Hanim said. I frowned, resisting the urge to check the circumference of my neck.

The stairs flattened into a small landing. A light flickered to life, revealing Vaida holding a candle. I could only see a few feet in either direction. The darkness at the edges roiled. Alive. Hungry. My skin crawled. I felt like an intruder, violating the sanctity of a space only meant to be occupied by the woman in front of me.

“This hideaway belonged to Baira. Every Sultana after her inherits this

chamber, and the darkness shapes itself to the will of its new owner. If you think it’s daunting now, you should have seen it when my mother commanded it.” She raised the candle higher, and my attention fixed on her ring. A ring that essentially doubled as a key to the Sultana’s most private hideaway. The seed of an idea took root in the back of my mind.

“Why am I here?”

The lights flickered over her smiling mouth. Behind her head, strips of parchment were stuck to the wall, dozens and dozens of them, names scrawled across each one with black ink.

“I need a favor from you, Sylvia.” She spoke my name with a familiarity reserved for lifetime friendships. “You have to lose the Alcalah.”

I paused. She lured me into a dungeon teeming with malice to ask if I would forfeit the Alcalah? I picked through possible replies, searching for the most respectful version of “I would rather choke on a muddy sandal.”

“Can you read?” Vaida asked abruptly. She held the candle toward the wall, sending shadows over the pinned names.

I was fluent in every kingdom’s native language, even the ones rarely used anymore. A skill Arin had discovered by tricking me into reading the scroll on his table. Our languages blended into uniformity a century ago, and only a few villages spoke anything else.

“No.” A village orphan would have traded literacy for labor.

She glanced over her shoulder, assessing me for dishonesty. Apparently, it was only Arin whom my stoicism could not fool, because she turned back without arguing. “These are names. Members of Sultana Bisai’s council.

Palace staff. Everyone who played a role in murdering my mother is on this wall.”

Sultana Vaida moved to the left, illuminating an entirely new set of names. “These are suspected Nizahl spies in Lukub. There are many I cannot locate. Spies sent under Supreme Munqual’s reign have been in Lukub for decades. Supreme Rawain instituted a practice early in his power where Nizahl orphans were trained and sent into foreign kingdoms. They could grow older there, become part of the community. Supreme Rawain planted children in our kingdoms to spy on us, left those insidious seeds to take root and drain our resources.”

The light shifted for an instant, outlining rows and rows of different names before Vaida spun around. “Do you think I killed my mother?” She

sounded vaguely entertained, like a child asking their parent to guess a number.

“I saw the wells in Essam Woods,” I said. “The people you left to rot within them. If you are asking me whether I believe you are capable of killing your mother, I am afraid you will not relish my response.”

Vaida trilled a laugh. It echoed, bouncing off the cavernous borders.

“Oh, but I see why Arin likes you. You have the boiling hate of a peasant, and the tongue of a royal.”

The darkness crooned, crowding closer. The candle in Vaida’s palm was the only barrier keeping the shadows from wrapping their fingers around us.

I wanted to beat a speedy retreat, but even the stairs had been swallowed into gloom.

“I cannot lose the Alcalah, Sultana. I apologize if Nizahl has caused you trouble, but I owe a duty.”

Sultana Vaida stepped closer. The cupped candle pressed between us, and in the emptiness behind her, rows upon rows of women materialized, the jeweled Lukub crown glinting on each head. They were gone between one heartbeat and the next, but the darkness teemed with their presence.

Lukub’s Sultanas. The will of Vaida manifested in Baira’s dungeon.

“You owe Nizahl no fidelity. If you lose, Nizahl will forsake you. Felix’s ego has deprived you of a haven in Omal. You won’t be safe in Orban, either. Orban’s trade relationship with Omal allows Felix the right to whisk any Omalian citizen back to their rightful kingdom for a tribunal. Or in your case, an execution.”

The angular lines of Vaida’s face sharpened in the dim light. Her chest swelled, pressing the candle between us.

“I can give you a home, Sylvia. Point at any building in Lukub, and I will make it yours. Felix’s patrol can’t touch you within my kingdom’s borders. Any leadership position in my army will open to you before anyone else.”

The casual treachery in her offer intrigued me. She would go against her fellow rulers, earn the ire of Omal and Nizahl combined, all for the sake of winning the Alcalah?

The darkness closed in around us, and I couldn’t tell which danger to assess: the one at my back or the one smiling at me. I circled my wrists with thumb and finger, reassuring myself with the chilled metal of my cuffs.

“Why ask this of me? I could lose on my own, without any incentive.”

Vaida flipped her wrist, brushing aside the question. “The three Champions Arin has chosen over the last nine years have emerged the Victor. Nizahl has not lost an Alcalah since Arin was a child. I am confident he has chosen another winner.”

My breathing grew labored, fighting against the press of night on all sides. The darkness smelled like fruit forgotten in the heat, sweet and rotten.

I pushed my knuckles against my mouth, suppressing a gag.

“Yes, Baira’s chambers are inhospitable to those who don’t possess the ring. I suffered the same reaction when my mother brought me here.” The candle burned low, the wick reduced to a nub. We had moments until the light vanished. “Think carefully on your course of action, my darling. Think of your little chemist, hobbling around in his shop. That ramshackle keep and its disheveled orphans. The chatty girl and her chairs. If you become the Alcalah’s Victor, I cannot harm you. But Arin is not the only one capable of visiting destruction on his enemies. Felix owes me a debt; he can be persuaded to forget a few tragic accidents in a lower village.”

My cuffs warmed. Some of the darkness receded as my magic surged, responding to her threat. Grief. Rage. Fear.

“What benefit do you gain if I lose? Are you so determined to see your Champion triumph?”

The shadows skittered away, the hum of my magic ringing in the hollows. “Do not fret over my gain. Busy yourself with the thought of what you stand to lose. Consider your loved ones.” Vaida stepped away, putting her back to the opposite wall. A chilling determination glinted in her gaze.

She took another step backward. “Above all, consider yourself.” One last step, and the dying candle cast its light over the wall behind her. Dozens of faces, mouths opened in soundless screams, protruded from the wall. Their skin was stretched and mottled, eyes a gaping hole in their bleached skulls.

In front of them, Vaida smiled, and the shadows extinguished the light.

I walked straight to Arin’s room.

For all Vaida’s threats, she had sprinted headfirst into the one error Arin had never made with me: she vastly overestimated my willingness to gamble.

What I stood to gain by accepting her offer was substantial. She had packaged her proposal with the right balance of persuasion, temptation, and coercion. Lose the Alcalah and you can call Lukub home. Lose the Alcalah or lose your village.

Unfortunately, I had no interest in redrawing the lines of my prison to match Lukub’s borders. Assuming, of course, that Vaida did not sell me to the highest bidder as soon as Felix and Arin asserted their sincerest wishes to mount my head on their palace gates. Arin had won my trust—albeit after throwing several daggers into my limbs—and trust was not a resource I carried in duplicate.

Locating his room was laughably easy. It was the only one besides my own with its own set of guards.

Wes and Jeru did not look pleased to see me.

“Ren came by to tell us he couldn’t find you,” Wes said.

“I took a bath.”

“Your hair is dry.”

“I didn’t wash it. Let me pass. I have a matter of urgency to discuss with the Heir.”

Jeru glanced at Wes with a shrug. “He told us she could enter as she

pleased.”

My brows lifted. He did?

Wes knocked on the door twice. “Sire?”

“Enter,” came Arin’s distracted voice. Wes sighed and swung the door open for me. Arin didn’t glance up when I slid inside. Wes closed the door with a resentful thud.

The Nizahl Heir had his back to me. He wore a pair of loose sleep pants, tied low at his waist, and nothing else. A dinner tray sat abandoned on the bed. Arin bent over a table, hip cocked to the side as he scribbled on some parchment. I studied the strong slope of his shoulders, the notches of his spine. I vaguely wondered if his back would be harder to break than the soldier’s.

“Your room is bigger than mine,” I remarked.

The muscles in Arin’s back locked. I dropped to the bed, flicking around

the items on his tray. I dipped a piece of his bread into the dark green molokhia. It had long since gone cold, and the skin on top stuck to my bread.

Arin turned. He sat back, bracing his hands on the table. “Do you want to trade?”

I swallowed the bite in my mouth with difficulty. My gaze lingered on his chest. The evidence of our encounter with the Ruby Hound hadn’t fully healed. The bandage looked much cleaner than the sleeves I had

haphazardly wrapped around it.

“No. Mine is closer to the stairs.”

Dania’s sacred skirt, but he was so pale. As though someone stretched a thin sheet of parchment over him and named it skin. On another, I’d call it sickly, but Arin’s torso was long and lean. His body carried the kind of power gained from years of relentless combat. The elegance of his beauty shone in the sharp cut of his hips, the hollows of his collarbones.

Arin arched a brow, altogether too entertained for my taste. “Is anything the matter, Sylvia? You’ve grown pale.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course he wasn’t ignorant of his effect on others.

His appeal was another weapon in his arsenal, honed to deadly perfection.

“My natural complexion, I assure you.” The echo of an exchange uttered a lifetime ago.

I carried the tray over to the table, giving him his privacy. Arin swiped a tunic from the wardrobe and tugged it over his head. I exhaled when he was clothed again, pressing my knuckles to overwarm cheeks. May Vaida be damned to the tombs.

It was strange. I had spent my formative years without more than a passing interest in the men of Mahair. Even if I could bear to be touched by them, I lacked the skills needed for true intimacy. A hand too near my throat, any sudden pressure—I was more likely to hurl a lover into the wall than wrap them close.

The Alcalah was not the time to entertain such absurdities. I snuck a glance as Arin deftly laced his vest and I immediately regretted it. If Arin’s mind was a finely sharpened dagger, then his body was its armor. I couldn’t imagine how anyone touched him and remained whole. Being with him would be honeyed annihilation, too much for a flesh-and-bone body to bear.

Enough. I rolled my shoulders. Too little sleep and too much near-death

was my problem.

The Heir arranged himself on a wooden chair. “Is there a purpose to this late-night sojourn, or did you just want my dinner?”

“I would like to strike a bargain.”

Arin settled back, gloved hands weaving over his stomach.

I told him everything. How Vaida lured me to her wing of the palace, the ring she pressed into the wall to unseal Baira’s hideaway. Describing the sentient darkness proved harder, and I shied away from recounting the fear that slashed through me when the candle died. I had tripped over the stairs in my rush and fled past the stoic guards.

“There are names of people she’s killed. Names of Nizahlan spies living in Lukub. Faces… cut-off faces that may belong to those same spies.”

Arin’s expression didn’t flicker until I talked about Vaida’s threat. The offer she proposed if I lost the Alcalah.

“And you are telling me this with full knowledge I cannot stop you from acting on Vaida’s offer, nor can I prevent her from sheltering you in Lukub.

Not unless I expose you as a Jasadi, which would ruin me, stall the Alcalah, and give the Mufsids and Urabi an opportunity to target a new victim.”

Arin’s eyes gleamed with approval. “Impressive.”

I fluttered my hand in an imitation bow. “I have acquired quite the array of skills under your tutelage. After considering the benefits of Vaida’s offer, I have decided they do not outweigh its hazards. Namely, living in a second kingdom torn apart by war with Nizahl.”

At this, Arin broke out into a grin. My heart, which had done an excellent job of beating for my nearly twenty-one years of life, stuttered at the sight. The wonders of tonight would never cease.

“You were so concerned the royals would lay invisible traps for you.

Here you are, seeing right through them.”

Not as quickly as him, Hanim said. He figured out Vaida’s plan while you were still speaking.

I raked lines into the chair’s padded arm. I couldn’t appreciate the compliment; I had hoped to be wrong. Had Vaida gone mad? “If she violates the Zinish peace accords, Lukub will be ravaged. Omal and Orban will join forces with Nizahl to uphold the treaty.”

Arin lifted a shoulder. “Not if Nizahl violates the treaty first. After the Lukub Champion becomes the Victor, I imagine she will bribe a Nizahl

soldier or struggling Nizahlan council person to murder him. The act of killing a kingdom’s Victor is its own declaration of war, and Vaida’s ready armies will move on Nizahl.”

The insidious cruelty of Vaida’s plan sent revulsion shivering through me. She would set in motion a devastating war… for what?

Arin remained unmoved. He had already witnessed Nizahl obliterate one kingdom out of existence. “She will never win a war with Nizahl,” I said.

“Not if she spends three lifetimes preparing.”

“Something has convinced her she can.”

“But why? Why risk it?”

“Perhaps she blames the Citadel for her mother’s death. Perhaps she doesn’t care if her soldiers die in droves. It matters little. The wisdom of Vaida’s actions is not at issue.” Arin tilted his head. “The wisdom of yours, on the other hand… What have you come to bargain for, Suraira?”

I had ruminated over this inevitable question the whole journey from Vaida’s wing. There was only one answer. I had given a promise, and I intended to see it through.

“Marek and Sefa’s release,” I said promptly. “If you grant them leave to return to Omal after the second trial, I will stay our course.”

Unlike Arin, my disposition did not lend well to long periods of stillness. I fidgeted with the tasseled cushion and tried to consider what he could be thinking.

When I was seven years old, one of my tutors fell ill. Soraya had attempted to lift my spirits by constructing a maze out of Niyar’s thickest books. We sprinkled rice in the winding tunnels and folded bits of discarded fabric to create dead ends. After we finished, Soraya gathered crickets to race through our maze. Of the nearly two dozen competing, only one succeeded. It leapt to the top of the books and peered around, studying our haphazard creation. Instead of descending into the mass of sparring crickets below, it hopped on the books’ spines, cutting straight through the maze.

“He cheated!” I had cried, cupping it in my skirt.

“Maybe so.” Soraya picked up the cricket and balanced it on her finger.

“To win a game, you must consider it from every angle, amari. Otherwise, you cannot rise above the commotion and secure victory.”

Arin finally spoke. “I will suffer a forfeiture and gain nothing in return.

Your duties are unchanged, regardless of your options.”

Dread skittered along my bones. “Speak plainly. What do you want?”

“Kill the Lukub Champion during the first trial,” Arin said. “If he dies, you eliminate the possibility Vaida will use him to instigate war.”

He is a worthy adversary, Hanim said, reluctantly pleased. An efficient conclusion to a potential problem.

Efficient. Always efficient. I pushed from the chair, rounding to the window overlooking the courtyard. From this height, I could see past the bounds of the Ivory Palace, beyond the noble towns clustered around it.

Snowcapped mountains studded the horizon like crooked teeth.

“If the Lukub Champion loses the first trial naturally, he will not become Victor. Why kill him and upset Vaida further?”

“Vaida will not know you killed him. No one enters Ayume except the Champions. The first three Champions to cross the forest and climb the bluff advance. The Lukub Champion will simply never reach the bluff.

Tragic, but hardly unprecedented in the Alcalah.” Arin appeared beside me, gazing out at Lukub. “Vaida will not have chosen a weak Champion.

Without your interference, he will almost certainly advance. If you merely sabotage the Lukub Champion, he will inform Vaida upon arrival.”

From the density of political pandemonium, Arin of Nizahl rose. He mapped every visible path to the finish, and he secured his victory.

I swallowed past the knot in my throat. “If I do this, Sefa and Marek will be assigned soldiers to escort them to Mahair.”

“Plenty,” Arin confirmed. I could sense his gaze on the side of my face.

“The soldiers will be tasked with protecting Mahair in case Vaida seeks retribution.”

I traced shapes into the fogged window. Lukubis did not have the constitution to be viciously exiled from their land, nor the magic to weave themselves into strange societies.

“Only you are capable of painting murder as the logical choice.”

Arin’s breath brushed the top of my head. If I turned around, I had a notion we’d be no more than a hairsbreadth apart. “Are we agreed?”

I tore my gaze from the glittering kingdom.

“We are.”

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