Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) by Sarah J. Maas

“Yes,” Nesryn admitted. “For whatever good it did, considering the city is now held by them.” The words came out as bitterly as they felt.

Sartaq considered. “Most would have fled, rather than face them at all.”

She didn’t feel like confirming or denying such a statement, no doubt meant to console her. A kind effort from a man who did not need to do such things. She found herself saying, “I—I saw your mother earlier. Walking alone through a garden.”

Sartaq’s eyes shuttered. “Oh?”

A careful question.

Nesryn wondered if she perhaps should have held her tongue, but she continued, “I only mention it in case … in case it is something you might need, might want to know.”

“Was there a guard? A handmaiden with her?”

“None that I saw.”

That was indeed worry tightening his face as he leaned against the wall of the building. “Thank you for the report.”

It was not her place to ask about it—not for anyone, and certainly not for the most powerful family in the world. But Nesryn said quietly, “My mother died when I was thirteen.” She gazed up at the near-glowing Torre. “The old king … you know what he did to those with magic. To healers gifted with it. So there was no one who could save my mother from the wasting sickness that crept up on her. The healer we managed to find admitted to us that it was likely from a growth inside my mother’s breast. That she might have been able to cure her before magic vanished. Before it was forbidden.”

She had never told anyone outside of her family this story. Wasn’t sure why she was really telling him now, but she went on, “My father wanted to get her on a boat to sail here. Was desperate to. But war had broken out up and down our lands. Ships were conscripted into Adarlan’s service, and she was too sick to risk a land journey all the way down to Eyllwe to try to cross there. My father combed through every map, every trade route. By the time he found a merchant who would sail with them—just the two of them—to Antica … My mother was so sick she could not be moved. She would not have made it here, even if they’d gotten on the boat.”

Sartaq watched her, face unreadable, while she spoke.

Nesryn slid her hands into her pockets. “So she stayed. And we were all there when she … when it was over.” That old grief wrapped around her, burning her eyes. “It took me a few years to feel right again,” she said after a moment. “Two years before I started noticing things like the sun on my face, or the taste of food—started enjoying them again. My father … he held us together. My sister and I. If he mourned, he did not let us see it. He filled our house with as much joy as he could.”

She fell silent, unsure how to explain what she’d meant by starting down this road.

Sartaq said at last, “Where are they now? After the attack on Rifthold?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, blowing out a breath. “They got out, but … I don’t know where they fled, or if they will be able to make it here, with so many horrors filling the world.”

Sartaq fell quiet for a long minute, and Nesryn spent every second of it wishing she’d just kept her mouth shut. Then the prince said, “I will send word—discreetly.” He pushed off the wall. “For my spies to keep an eye out for the Faliq family, and to aid them, should they pass their way, in any form they can to safer harbors.”

Her chest tightened to the point of pain, but she managed to say, “Thank you.” It was a generous offer. More than generous.

Sartaq added, “I am sorry—for your loss. As long ago as it was. I … As a warrior, I grew up walking hand-in-hand with Death. And yet this one … It has been harder to endure than others. And my mother’s grief perhaps even harder to face than my own.” He shook his head, the moonlight dancing on his black hair, and said with forced lightness, “Why do you think I was so eager to run out after you into the night?”

Nesryn, despite herself, offered him a slight smile in return.

Sartaq lifted a brow. “Though it would help to know what, exactly, I’m supposed to be looking for.”

Nesryn debated what to tell him—debated his very presence here.

He gave a low, soft laugh when her hesitation went on a moment too long. “You think I’m the one who attacked that healer? After I was the one who told you about it this morning?”

Nesryn bowed her head. “I mean no disrespect.” Even if she’d seen another prince enslaved this spring—had fired an arrow at a queen to keep him alive. “Your spies were correct. Rifthold was … I would not wish to see Antica suffer through anything similar.”

“And you’re convinced the attack at the Torre was just the start?”

“I’m out here, aren’t I?”

Silence.

Nesryn added, “If anyone, familiar or foreign, offers you a black ring or collars, if you see anyone with something like it … Do not hesitate. Not for a heartbeat. Strike fast, and true. Beheading is the only thing that keeps them down. The person within them is gone. Don’t try to save them—or it will be you who winds up enslaved as well.”

Sartaq’s attention drifted to the sword at her side, the bow and quiver strapped to her back. He said quietly, “Tell me everything that you know.”