“Very amusing,” Po said. Then he backhanded Felgor in the face with an armored glove, sending him to the deck.
Bershad was about to jerk forward, but the large number of crossbows aimed in his direction stopped him. He relaxed.
“Captain,” Ashlyn called from her spot on the ship. “I warned you.”
“Harm’s one thing,” Po said. “Roughing up an asshole a little is another.”
He smiled at Felgor.
“Welcome to Papyria.”
9
ASHLYN
Papyria, Port City of Nulsine
“Your widow will remain on the ship,” Captain Po said when they docked. The city beyond was sparse and plain, only a few dozen buildings made from cedar huts and slate roofs.
“No,” Hayden said simply. “I will not.”
For the first time since they’d met him, Po seemed uncertain.
“But you may hold my weapons if I make you so nervous,” Hayden offered, pulling her short sword and slings off her body and handing them over.
Po eyed them as if they might be snakes, but eventually took them. He handed them off to another soldier, grunted, and waved for them to follow him into the city. They headed for a medium-sized hut that smelled of chaff and had obviously been cleared of people just several minutes earlier. The signs of interrupted work were everywhere. Bundles of wheat and packets of peat lay half wrapped and packaged.
“Please wait here, Queen,” Po said, giving the room a once-over.
“For what?”
Po didn’t respond. He was gone again without a word.
For a long time, Ashlyn and Hayden sat in silence.
“I never thank you for the things that you do,” Ashlyn said eventually.
“My queen?”
“You’ve spent more than half your life in service to me,” Ashlyn said. “Helping me chase dragons. Standing in corners while I spent hours stooped over an alchemical station. Attending the endless bureaucratic meetings. And then after my father died … fighting in all of those battles. You’ve saved my life so many times, and I’ve never thanked you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m a widow. Protecting you is my job.”
“Not for much longer.”
Hayden frowned. “I don’t understand. Have I disappointed you?”
“The opposite. You have been the best bodyguard … the best friend that I could have wished for. But whatever I do next, I won’t do it as a queen. I don’t deserve your help anymore.”
“Being queen never brought my help. It was your blood. As long as it is warm in your veins, I am yours to command.”
“No, Hayden. I won’t. I can’t. Against all odds, you’ve returned safely to your homeland after a lifetime of dangerous service. Now, I want you to enjoy a life of your own.”
Hayden seemed to think that over. “I appreciate what you’re offering, Ashlyn. I do. But while you can release me from your service, I will always be a widow. And the widows without a charge have their own work to do for the empire.”
“Like Shoshone?”
“Yes.”
Ashlyn shook her head. “No. Not you. My blood has to earn me some kind of sway over Okinu. And I will use it to grant you the life of peace that you deserve.”
Hayden opened her mouth so respond, but stopped short. Looked around. “She’s here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re surrounded.”
A score of widows melted out of the shadows without a sound. The door to the hut opened, and the Eternal Empress Okinu came through the other side.
She wore a dress made from a layered series of black and red silks that blossomed around her small frame. Her face was coated with white powder. Eyebrows and lips defined by precisely drawn black makeup. Her black hair wound around her forehead like a serpent, then poured down her back. A widow stood to her left and right.
“Empress,” Ashlyn said, bowing low. Hayden did the same.
Okinu stared at Ashlyn in silence for a full minute. With the makeup on, it was difficult to read her age, although Ashlyn knew that the empress had seen seventy-three summers.
“Black skies. I bet one of my widows two gold pieces you were a charlatan.” Her voice reminded Ashlyn of old paper rubbed against rough river stones. “But you have your mother’s nose. Your father’s eyes. And from what Captain Po tells me, a singular knowledge of cures for the bloody runs. It seems I have accrued a debt today, my niece.”
Ashlyn dipped her head again. “Thank you for providing me with shelter, Empress. I bring urgent news. Something happened on our voyage that is—”
“Is it true that your old lover assassinated Mercer Domitian in Balaria?”
“He did as I ordered.”
Okinu’s face darkened.
“You should have consulted with me before taking such drastic action.”
Ashlyn swallowed. She knew what Okinu was doing. Putting Ashlyn on her back foot quickly so she would have the upper hand in whatever negotiations needed to occur before she granted them sanctuary in Papyria. She refused to be pushed around.
“I did what was necessary. Mercer Domitian would have upended the world.”
“Mercer Domitian was predictable. That is no longer true of Balarian leadership. Actus Thorn. Your younger sister. And most of all, Osyrus Ward.”
Ashlyn frowned. “You know Osyrus Ward? How?”
Okinu ignored the question.
“Along with your lover’s stint of murder in the Clockwork City, there are also quite a few stories about you, my dear niece, and the alleged demoncraft you unleashed before leaving Floodhaven.” She motioned to Ashlyn’s wrist. “Show it to me.”
Ashlyn hesitated. She’d hoped to bring up the dragon thread after a deal was made, but if the empress already knew, there was no way to avoid it. Ashlyn rolled up her black sleeve so that Empress Okinu could see the charred cord wrapped around her wrist.
“What is it?”
“Spinal tissue from a Ghost Moth dragon,” Ashlyn said.
“So,” Okinu said softly. “You found one, too.”
That was not the response that Ashlyn expected.
Okinu read the surprise on Ashlyn’s face and smiled. “Did you think you were the only one who was aware of the secrets hidden inside the dragons of Terra?”
Ashlyn licked her lips. “How do you know about them?”
“We’ll get to that. First, I want to see you use it.”
The widow to Okinu’s left cleared her throat.
“Spare me the passive-aggressive throat noises, Chiya.” She motioned to Ashlyn. “Well? Do you need to murmur an incantation or something? Get on with it.”
“The stories you heard about what I did at Floodhaven are true. But we were attacked several times during our voyage north, and I was forced to use the thread, which is what I was trying to tell you,” Ashlyn said. “It was damaged.”
“Define damaged.”
“You seem to know what these threads can do. Call it a biological phenomenon augmented by alchemical properties. Call it demoncraft. Call it what you like. But I overloaded the thread’s capacity and changed its reactive properties. It no longer activates from the catalysts I have available.”
“What does it react to?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.”
“Well, that’s a shame.”
“That is not the only problem we have. I damaged the thread while destroying a flying ship made from dragon bones and steel.”
“Hm. One less to worry about, at least.”
Ashlyn frowned. She expected more of a reaction to the mention of the ship. There was only one explanation for Okinu’s lack of surprise.
“You already knew about the ships.”
“Of course. They tend to attract attention, and I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Tell me what’s happened.”
“Here is the thing, Ashlyn. When your lover killed Mercer Domitian, all he did was replace one problem with a more brut
al one. Balaria is now ruled by a general named Actus Thorn. Your sister and her husband are nothing more than figureheads—it’s a military dictatorship, and one on the cusp of disaster due to famine. Mercer planned to solve the problem with trade agreements and a global monopoly on dragon oil. But Actus Thorn is a soldier to his core. Tell me, if you were Thorn, and your country had no food, but they did have a fleet of skyships, what would you do with them?”
Ashlyn thought about that. “Oh, no.”
“Yes.” Okinu pulled a series of rolled pigeon missives from a pocket. Squeezed them.
“These are reports from the widows who survived Floodhaven. There are not many of them left, but no eyes in the realm of Terra could be more reliable. And they all say the same thing. While you were sailing north along the Broken Peninsula, Linkon Pommol’s entire fleet was turned to flotsam. After that, a flying ship made from steel and dragon bones appeared above every city in Almira with a decent-sized Clear Sky market. Balarian soldiers dropped from the ships and stole the harvests. Then the skyships firebombed the cities and disappeared. Almiran casualties were very high.”
“Why just take the food and leave? If they have that many ships, they can conquer the whole of Almira with them.”
“No. They can conquer the whole of Terra,” Okinu corrected. “But Lysteria is in full revolt, so for the time being, Actus Thorn and his armies are occupied. But that will not last forever. When Thorn has dealt with the pale-skinned barbarians, what do you think he will do next?”
Ashlyn knew Actus Thorn by reputation. He was a brutal man who had committed terrible atrocities in every province of the Balarian Empire that he had ruled. Now that he had the skyships, she had to assume he would use them to spread his cruelty to the entire realm of Terra.
“I need to go back to Almira.”
“With a charred, useless thread on your arm and an emperor-killing exile at your side? No, I think not.” Okinu grimaced. “You need to look at the bigger picture. Actus Thorn is certainly a concern. But he is not the root of the problem.”
“Who is?”
“The man who built his armada. Osyrus Ward.”
Ashlyn frowned. “How do you know that Osyrus built it?”
“Because fifty years ago, that is what I hired him to do. Although I didn’t ask him to make them fly.”
Ashlyn was unable to hide her surprise. “That is going to require an explanation.”
“Yes.” Okinu waved at the table in the middle of the dusty room. “I am old. My ankles are swollen and sore. We’ll sit.”
They moved to the table. Okinu took a moment to gather herself back into a stiff, regal posture. “I heard that you once contracted an alchemist for a full decade to go up to some hill in the jungle and study bees. Is that true?”
Ashlyn shrugged. The alchemist was named Frula. And as far as she knew, he was still up on that hill.
“Aunt. In the last moon’s turn, I have sailed hundreds of leagues and I have ended thousands of lives. Just tell me what passed between you and Osyrus Ward.”
Okinu smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Ashlyn. You cut through the dragonshit. But I am not obfuscating my actions. I asked, because hiring crotchety old scholars is certainly one way to make use of the gray-robes. But when I was a young empress—younger than you are now, in fact—I elected to obtain something more practical out of them.”
“Define practical.”
“I wanted ships and soldiers armored in dragon bones. My logic being that the only thing better than the largest navy in the world was an indestructible one. And while historically, there have never been many preserved dragon bones in Terra, the ones that do exist are impossible to damage. If some of these things existed, it stood to reason there was a method for mass production. I wanted to find it.”
Ashlyn narrowed her eyes. Okinu was speaking plainly, but there was a lot of obscure knowledge wrapped into those words. “How did you come by the information to make these leaps of logic?”
“I stole it from the Alchemist Order’s archives in Pargos.”
“You what?”
“Imagine for a moment that when you took the Almiran throne, instead of inheriting a mud pit devoid of functioning roads and full of backstabbing, drunken warlords, you’d acquired two thousand highly trained bodyguards, assassins, and infiltrators. What would you have done with them?”
That was a fair point.
“So, your widows stole the method for preserving dragon bones?”
“Not exactly. Despite the layers of secrecy that shroud the Alchemists, most of the documents contained nothing more than theories and speculation. The only actionable intelligence was a location where the mystery could be solved.” She paused. “Ghost Moth Island.”
“You’re joking.”
Ghost Moth Island was a myth. A children’s story. Some hidden place full of dragons and demons and treasure.
“Oh, I thought it was ridiculous, too. But I assure you the island is quite real. It’s located far to the north, deep in the Big Empty. The gray-robes have known its exact location for three hundred years. They’ve just kept it a secret, buried deep in their vault of records.”
“Why?”
“Because they think it holds the secret to immortality.” She snorted. “Such a childish venture. But they have been pursuing it for centuries. The reports that I acquired detailed a number of research stations on the island. The last alchemist they’d sent up there was a botanist named Kasamir. Apparently there was some unique mushroom growing there that he had ideas about. Fucking alchemists. They were sitting on a treasure trove of docile dragons, and instead of attempting to make use of them, they decided to play with mushrooms.”
“Docile dragons. What do you mean?”
“Kasamir reported an uncommon number of Ghost Moth dragons that began roosting on the northern rim of the island several years into his project. That caught my attention. Given their notoriously meek behavior, I thought this the perfect place to send my own agent, task in hand. I couldn’t hire an alchemist, seeing as I was using stolen information, so I did the next best thing: hired someone who had been expelled from their order.”
“Osyrus Ward.”
“Yes.”
“Why did they expel him?”
“He told me it was because of a violent curiosity. That struck me as an oversimplification, but I didn’t care.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the perfect mixture of young, ambitious, intelligent, and completely devoid of moral blockades. He was not unlike you, Ashlyn. Minus that last part, of course. Osyrus will push every limit that he encounters—collateral damage does not even register. These were all valuable attributes given my objective. But they came with a rather large cost down the line. It is costing me still.”
Ashlyn remembered what Bershad had told her about his time as Ward’s prisoner. The amputations. And the clinical way in which he carried them out. Imagining that man having influence over Balaria’s skyships made her stomach burn.
“What did he do on Ghost Moth Island?”
Okinu pushed a sheaf of documents across the table.
“Best you read it firsthand. When Osyrus Ward departed, we agreed that I would send a supply ship every six months to keep an open line of communication. This was the message he sent back on the ship that delivered him.”
13 Noctar—210
To the Eternal Empress Okinu,
I have found the island. Currently, I write to you on the outskirts of a thick and untamed wilderness unlike anything I have previously studied in the realm of Terra. As your intelligence promised, Draconis wisp somniums are as common as rabbits and as docile as newborn deer. In addition to their inexplicable population density, there are countless novel species of flora and fauna. A remarkable type of Cordata mushroom grows from the ground in great sizes—some are taller than aspen trees. From a single day of exploration, I have also identified fifteen new beetle species, three mantises of incredible color, and the tracks of
an ursine mammal that are so large, I can only assume they belong to an undocumented species as well. Certain areas of the island—when explored—throw my compass and instruments into a flurry of confusion. It stands to reason there is a powerful magnetism to portions of the bedrock, which can potentially be mined and crafted into lodestones.
Your instincts were correct in sending me here. The alchemists have left all manner of tools and research stations around the island over the years. I am positive that I will be able to discover a preservation process and use it to build Papyria an armada that will make the nations of Terra quiver. The only uncertainty is time. I can make no predictions without setting baselines, which will take one year.
Incidentally, I have made contact with the lone alchemist on the island. The botanist. Kasamir. He has discovered some interesting properties of the Cordata mushrooms during his search for eternal life. But he has no sense of scope. I will still keep him around for a time. His work might lead to more practical applications in the future.
Do not worry about him. Your orders were clear.
—Osyrus Ward
“What orders is he referring to?” Ashlyn asked.
“Ward’s work was to be kept secret. From Terra, and more importantly, from the Alchemist Order.”
“I see.”
Ashlyn turned to the next report, which was scribbled in a hasty, angry hand. There was no address, date, or signature.
Stop sending your peons into the island’s interior. They disrupt my work. When I have something to report, I will leave it for them on the beach.
But if you require an update so badly, here:
– Ninety-seven Draconis wisp somniums (Ghost Moths) dissected.
– Anomalous nerve tissue found on the spines of four specimens. Tissue is preserved without treatment, but electrostatic charge is lost. Further study required.
– Skin preservation method successful. A tanning tonic derived from Specimen 01 can be diluted and produced at scale.
– Bone preservation requires a higher concentration of fluid. Designing the apparatus now.
Sorcery of a Queen Page 12
