Page 58 of The Truth-Teller's Bargain
Nakir had sworn to kill off that part of him. He’d vowed it a hundred times in the different bars and taverns he and Emi had haunted, at the bottom of thousands of bottles, the pledge escaping his lips in whispers of determination. But here it was:the answer to everything. The Oracle he had never known to look for. His salvation.
“Nakir.” It was a warning, a cautionary note in Balthasar’s voice, that spoke of the complexities of the path Nakir was contemplating.
“I promised them I would do everything I could to restore the Hasan family.” His face heated with shame as the words left him, reminding them both of a very different Nakir from a very different time. “And... she’sofferedher powers?—”
“You’re really considering it?”
Nakir lifted his gaze to Balthasar, but the answer lodged in his throat. Too many truths collided there—duty and want, fury and hope. The idea had already taken root, unwelcome and undeniable: Alethea’s power, wielded with care, could change everything.
He told himself it would be different. That he would never force her. That consent made all the difference.
He said nothing.
Balthasar rose.
Nakir found himself standing too, heart hammering, forced to meet the full force of the man who’d carried him through fire and blood and loss. He’d seen Balthasar angry before, but never like this—so still, so coldly focused.
“I’m going to assume this is exhaustion talking,” Balthasar said, his voice low and lethal. “Because I know how you feel about her. I know the rage that claws at you every time you remember what her mother did—what she was allowed to do—because of that gift.” His eyes did not leave Nakir’s. “And I remember,” he continued, quieter now, “what you said when you held Mika’s body.”
The name landed like a blade.
“I have stood beside you and your family for thirty years,” Balthasar said. “Through exile. Through ruin. Even when it cost me everything I had left.” He stepped closer—close enough thatNakir could feel the heat of him. “You, Nakir Hasan, made abargain.”
Balthasar closed the remaining distance, his presence filling the space between them. Anyone else would have yielded instinctively, but Nakir did not move. His jaw tightened as he met Balthasar’s gaze head-on, refusing to retreat.
“Here is my vow to you,” Balthasar said quietly. “If you choose that path, you will lose more than Alethea.” His voice did not rise. It did not need to. “You will lose the moral high ground. You will lose your honor. And you will lose your spymaster.”
The words settled, final, an ultimatum that left no room for misunderstanding.
Then, for the first time, Balthasar turned his back on Nakir and walked away.
Morning came slowly,as though the light itself was reluctant to touch what the night had left behind.
The camp was already waking.
Bedrolls were shaken free of dew. Harness buckles were tightened. Voices moved in low murmurs, pitched carefully, as though anything louder might crack the fragile quiet holding the morning together.
The sun edged up behind the low hills in a thin, bleary wash of gold. It was the kind of light that made everything look older than it was—canvas dulled to parchment, armor to tired pewter, faces to something worn and sleepless.
Alethea woke to it.
Or perhaps she hadn’t fully slept.
The Healer’s tent smelled faintly of bitterroot and old smoke. Someone had left the flap tied open to the dawn air, and the cool breeze stirred the edge of the blanket over her legs.
Her borrowed clothes waited where they’d been folded forher—Emi’s, she remembered dimly. The trousers were too long, cinched twice at the waist. The tunic hung from her shoulders like it belonged to someone sturdier, the sleeves threatening to swallow her hands if she let them. The fabric still smelled faintly of Emi. She was startled to realize she knew what Emi smelled like now.
The movement of pulling the clothes over her frame tugged at the wound in her side. A sharp flare ricocheted up her ribs, a clean, punishing reminder of what had transpired.
The bandaging beneath the tunic pulled tight as she shifted, the linen already stiff where the Healer had bound it firmly. The wound sat low along her ribs, just shy of her hip—a place that moved with every breath, every step, every attempt at standing.
She glanced around the tent. A few others remained within, all sleeping—the ones deemed lucky.
But it did not feel like luck.
It felt like fire.
Even now, as she straightened, heat flared along her side, her body curling instinctively around it before she forced herself upright again.
