“No,” Maia said, shaking her head.
He sighed and then sat on a camp chair, the kystrel still dangling from his fingers. He rubbed his eyes. “I should have seized you in Roc-Adamour,” he grumbled. “I nearly did, but I enjoyed the hunt too much. And dancing the Volta with you . . . I meant what I said. It is a memory I will cherish forever. The look on your face!” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “This is not about treachery and murder, Maia. I wish to speak plainly, for I see you as my equal.”
“Your equal?” Maia interrupted, holding up her wrists and showing him her bonds.
He waved her implication aside. “In rank and station,” he said. “We were plight trothed when we were infants! Did you not, for many years, consider yourself to be training for the day when you would be Queen of Dahomey? You speak the language remarkably well. You are a little shy about our customs, but truly you are a charming girl. You are beautiful, which I had not fully appreciated until we met. You are caught in a spider’s web, spun up in silk, and your blood is being sipped by creatures in your father’s court. I have known this, Lady Maia. My spies are well paid. I desire to invade your father’s kingdom, but not just to accumulate power. I have pitied you many years.”
“So now I am the wretched and not you?” she replied evenly. “My father did not send me here for the purpose you suggest.”
“Then why did he send you? I will humor you for a moment by listening to your lies.”
She wanted to box him on the side of his head. It took all of her self-control to salvage her dignity and pride and stare him down. “When my father expelled the Dochte Mandar from the realm, we were immediately afflicted by the Myriad Ones.”
“Naturally,” he said with a shrug. “Why do you think I keep two Leerings posted at the entrance to my tent? You can hardly sleep in a rough camp like this one without drawing thousands of them. Why do you think we scavenge the broken abbeys for them?”
She gave him an angry stare.
“I interrupted you. Forgive me.” He fell quiet, though he seemed to be chafing with impatience. He swung the kystrel back and forth, back and forth.
“As soon as the Dochte Mandar left, the Myriad Ones invaded our realm. We have mastons, but they were not strong enough—or plentiful enough—to withstand the tide. Our kingdom is fracturing from within.”
He looked about to say something, but he clenched his jaw tight and did not.
“I was sent by my father to seek the lost abbey to learn from the rites of the dark pool how we could overcome the dangers we face and keep the kingdom united. I visited the hetaera’s Leering. It was hidden away behind a stone door. There were dead Dochte Mandar all around it. Skeletons. None of them were allowed to leave.”
Collier leaned forward, listening intently.
“I learned that the answers I seek—the solution for saving my people—can be found in Naess. There are records that were taken there, and only the High Seer—a woman—can show me where they are. That is where my fate binds me. I must go to Naess.”
“You thought I was mad,” he muttered under his breath. “You . . . are going there, my pretty dove?”
“I must,” she said softly. “I will likely not survive the journey. But I must try. My people are murdering each other.”
He leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking as he shifted. He sniffed once and then shook his head in disbelief. “You are very good, Maia,” he said at last. “Your sincerity rings so true, I almost believe you. You are Gifted with lying. Well done.”
She bristled with fury. “I speak the truth!”
“What is truth?” he countered flippantly. “I think your father sent you to the lost abbey to brand you a hetaera. If he can prove you are one, he will be able to claim your mother is as well. Then even the mastons will sanction his divorce, giving him what he has desired all along. A corrupt kingdom where he can practice his depredations without interference.”
“Is that not what you desire?” she said angrily. It made her blister with fury to consider her father may have sent her to Dahomey for an entirely selfish purpose. But no matter what his motives were, she had to do this thing. She had to save her people.
Collier looked amused and batted away her comment as if it were a tiresome fly. “The Dochte Mandar. The mastons. They are all the same in my mind. I know a group of heretics in the hinterlands who believe that trees can speak in women’s voices. It is all a game of power, my dear. I excel at it. My ancestor managed to unite all the kingdoms under one ruler through the force of his will. I seek to do the same.”