As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Ten

The metal doorknob clinked as the queen's hand tightened. Isaiah's nerve nearly failed him. If anything was a more sensitive matter to his parents than even his marriage trepidations, it was Varna.

This was a mistake. He'd miscalculated: overestimated her willingness to search for alternative courses of action when talk of compensations didn't melt down the day before.

"What about Varna?" said his mother coolly.

The City Guard had said they were running out of options. He didn't have much sway in the palace, but he had more than they did. Isaiah fought to draw a steady breath. "I talked with the City Guard and both the Pereira and Pasternak families yesterday morning. Neither had any new leads—either on the newest disappearance, or the one before it. I understand that you and father want to address this with local talent, but there are lives on the line if that is not enough."

"And what does this have to do with Varna?"

She knew what it had to do with Varna. Already, Isaiah could hear the danger in her voice that appeared when he brought up something she disagreed with.

He continued with every nerve in his body trembling. If he could just pick his words right, this might not blow up in his face. "Varna breeds more than just messenger-crows. They train tracking-crows, too, and have handlers who—"

"How do you know all this?"

"I went searching."

"About Varna."

"Yes."

"Isaiah, by the power of the Talakova and every Talak therein, tell me you kept this a secret from any and all common people you fraternize with. I cannot believe this. A son of Calis, doing secret research on Varna—do you understand how this would look if Madeira got even the barest hint of it?"

Isaiah gritted his teeth. "I did all my research in the palace archives, mother, and yes, I understand full well how this would look."

"Then do tell me, what are you proposing after all this research?"

"An alliance with Varna."

Deathly silence suffocated the room.

When Isaiah's mother spoke again, her voice had dropped in pitch and volume. "Whatever you say next, I suggest you tread very carefully."

He was going to be sick. The temptation to bow out and apologize reached a searing point, but a fraction stronger remained the distraught voices of people in the market, backing his proposition.

They'd never backed his proposition. He'd only run it by Verde, who had worried over it, even as he'd said it was the right way. Isaiah had had Eliane scour the palace archives for every alternative. She'd come up empty-handed.

He took another breath. "I understand that our family has poor relations with Varna for a reason—"

"We have no relations with Varna for a reason."

"—And at the same time, I feel I would be failing the people of Calis if I did not explore other options." It stung not to say "we," but that was a conflagration Isaiah knew this conversation would not survive. At least his mother was still in the room now. "The Calisian wayfinders are struggling. Wayfinders in Madeira and Drevo have no more answers than we do. I do not know if Varna has also been seeing disappearances, but whether they have or not, they have a tool we have not yet tried. How would it look to Madeira if we managed to solve this? We'd be saving their citizens, too."

"Madeira's wayfinders found the hemlock wolf that attacked their fringe settlements four years ago. What we need is time, and four moons of it is scarcely any."