“I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “The desire for revenge is a powerful motivator, and I think I can appeal to that.”

“All right, but there’s still one problem.”

“I know,” I said. “I need to find a way to get past my mother.”

Chapter 24

Tristan

I frowned at the column of rock rising up before me, then scribbled a series of calculations, pen held with an invisible hand of magic. It had taken me a bit of practice to learn to write this way, but necessity had demanded it. Even if I could manage to grip a pen with my numb fingers, my shaking would have rendered whatever I tried to write illegible. I glanced down at my hands, knowing without removing my gloves that my fingers looked grey and lifeless, the skin surrounding the spikes through my wrists black with iron rot. I was ill and exhausted, my constant use of magic draining me and leaving my body susceptible to the toxic metal.

In the heat of the moment in the throne room, I’d made my promise to Tips without considering the ramifications. And now I was suffering the consequences. To build the tree, I needed to be alive; but the darkening bonding marks on my hand spoke of the deterioration of Cécile’s strength, which, along with the spread of the iron rot in my wrists, was evidence that my days were numbered. Which drove me to work harder.

I couldn’t stop, not to eat or to sleep; and the continual drain on my power allowed the rot to worsen. Which made me work harder still. I was caught in a spiral, and unless something changed, the result was inevitable.

I might have fought the compulsion to build continually a little harder, but there was one other problem: I liked the work.

Liked wasn’t even a strong enough word – I loved it. Loved transforming the vision in my mind into something tangible. Loved that I was creating something permanent. Loved that this was a problem I was solving, unlike the others on my very long list.

I still had no notion of what Lessa had said to my father to set him off so badly. She was effectively my father’s spy in Angoulême’s home, so it might well have been some information she had discovered. Possibly something to do with my brother, the idea of which made me very nervous.

Or it could have been something Lessa had done to anger our father herself, though I couldn’t imagine why she would do that. They were allies in this, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t dispose of her if necessary. I’d avoided her like the snake she was, but I’d seen her enough in the distance to know she was alive and unharmed. Part of me wished she were dead.

“Your Highness?”

I turned to see the crew of half-bloods I was working with standing next to the massive block of stone they’d carefully cut and prepared. “Ready?”