“They say that it was a Papyrian widow who performed that assassination. A woman with a forked scar on her face.”
Jolan and Willem glanced at each other.
“She dead as well?” Willem asked.
“By all accounts.”
“And Carlyle? His wardens?”
“Some were killed. Others escaped the city and made it back to the Dainwood.”
“So who rules Floodhaven now?” Jolan asked. “Who’s left?”
“That is unclear. Some say it is the Balarians, but I believe that is simply a result of one skyship continuing to fly over the city. The others have since departed. I do not know where they went, but I believe all of this is information that Empress Okinu would value.” Frula sharpened his voice. “Some of the skyships headed north.”
“I see,” Jolan said. Whoever controlled the skyships would be seeking retribution for the assassination. “I need a quill,” Jolan said. “To make some additions to our message.”
* * *
Jolan wrote the note to the empress of Okinu with a careful script, doing his best to control the shaking of his hand.
“Is it Everlasting Empress?” he muttered.
“Eternal,” Frula corrected from his spot in the corner of the apothecary.
“Eternal,” Jolan said, going back to the paper. “Right.”
“Who cares about the titles?” Willem took a pull of mead, which Frula had opened early for him. Apparently, the alchemist had decided that sacrificing a little flavor was better than having the warden blind himself from continuing to drink the pure potato liquor.
“Titles are important to the highborn,” Jolan said.
Willem shrugged. Looked out the window at the white apiaries.
“Don’t you get stung all the time?” he asked Frula. Now that he was drunk, he wasn’t sulking quite as much as he had on their way to the research station.
“They are accustomed to my presence,” the alchemist responded. “These days, I can feel them start humming with anticipation if I am late with my harvests. They miss me.”
“Huh,” Willem said. “You alchemists are a weird bunch, I will say that.”
Jolan finished the letter. Blew on the ink with a few steady breaths so it dried. Rolled it up and sealed it with a bee-shaped wax stamp.
When that was done, he took the pigeon out of its cage and attached the missive to its foot. They all went outside together.
Jolan swallowed. Summoned his courage. And lifted the bird into the sky.
There was a flutter of wings. A few fallen, errant feathers. And then the bird was beating across the sky, heading north over the forest. They all watched its flight—Jolan suddenly worried that a Blackjack would snatch it from the canopy, until he remembered that Blackjacks migrate to the Balarian warrens along with the Verduns, Greezels, and Nomads.
The pigeon turned into a small black dot. Then disappeared entirely.
“Our little messenger made it to the horizon safely, at least,” Willem said.
“Yeah.” Jolan looked down at his ink-stained hands. Then back at the sky. He tried his best not to think of Cumberland. Of Oromir. Failed. “What do we do now?”
“Don’t know about you, but I’m not done with this fight. And opening the western coast for the Papyrians cost more than I wanted to spend.” Willem shrugged. “Let’s at least go meet the fuckers we cleared a path for.”
58
BERSHAD
Realm of Terra, the Soul Sea
“How much longer to Himeja?” Felgor asked.
“We’re close,” Kerrigan responded without looking up from her chart.
“Got to admit, a few weeks on that terrible island have gotten me excited by the prospect of some civilization,” Felgor said. Paused. “Even if it’s one where I’ve got a death sentence.”
Bershad gave him a look. “You have a death sentence everywhere, Felgor.”
“Not Almira. Royal pardon, remember? Courtesy of Ashlyn Malgrave herself.” He looked out at the sea. “I’ve only been to Himeja once, but they got a pretty decent castle in the middle. White Stag or Red Bird or something.”
“White Crane,” Ashlyn corrected.
“Yeah. What did I say?”
“Not that,” Ashlyn said. She looked up from the equations she’d been writing on a scrap of paper. “I’m excited to see it, too. Papyrian architecture is nothing like Almiran work, which relies on granite blocks for everything. I used to pester my father every time an envoy was departing to allow me to go with them to see the stacked castles.”
Bershad watched the coast of the Papyrian islands, frowning. Something didn’t feel right. Even with their ship sailing three hundred strides off the shore, he could sense something strange in the forest, like every creature from bear to shrew was hunched down and afraid.
“You’re sure that you’ve got enough pull to vouch for us?” Kerrigan asked. She’d been content with Ashlyn’s promise for most of their time at sea, but now that they were within a few leagues, she seemed less confident. That was the third time she’d asked since they made landfall.
“I’m sure.”
Kerrigan narrowed her eyes. Didn’t look convinced.
“Dunno why you’re so nervous, Kerri,” said Simeon. “It’s me who did all the killing.”
Nobody had known exactly what to do with the murderous Skojit pirate they captured. Bershad wanted to kill him. Kerrigan wanted to extract some private form of penitence through long conversations. And Ashlyn wanted to study his armor.
They’d settled for leaving Simeon chained to the mast of the frigate for the entire journey back to Papyria. He didn’t seem to mind much, despite the shit weather they’d endured. All he’d asked was to have one hand free and a bucket of snails to eat each day. Presently, he popped a fresh one into his mouth. Chewed loudly.
“Killers are as common as mushrooms,” Kerrigan said. “But I’ve spent the last decade destabilizing Papyria’s economy for my own profit,” she continued. “Okinu isn’t going to be rushing to turn over a private island to me.”
“Please, nobody say mushrooms for at least a month,” Felgor muttered.
“I think you can all stow your concerns for the time being,” Bershad said as they came around a bluff and an acrid smell filled his nostrils.
“Why’s that?”
He pointed ahead. They cleared a protruding boulder along the coast, and Himeja came into view behind it. The city was built along a great crescent harbor, but instead of seeing a big sprawl of cedar buildings with slate roofs and the famously elegant White Crane Castle of Himeja, all they saw was ruination.
Strange fires burned everywhere. Blue and smokeless.
“More sorcery,” Goll muttered, surveying the scene.
There were dozens of blast marks—each one had turned a whole city block to splinters and rubble, with flickering blue flames in the middle that seemed to have almost splashed across whatever they were incinerating.
“The skyships came north while we were on the island,” Ashlyn said.
The water of the harbor was black and filled with burning flotsam. Thousands of dead fish floated among the wreckage—the scent of their spoilage rising off the surface like a sickness.
The White Crane Castle was destroyed. Once, it had been supported by eleven or twelve long flying buttresses, but all except two had been broken—their beams falling into the buildings below and incinerating everything. The stacked tower was crippled and sagging—leaned up against the two remaining buttresses like a fallen tree that had caught in a tangle of vines before slamming into the earth.
The people of Naga Rock were flooding the deck. Looking at the scene. Muttering to each other. Cursing.
“Well, isn’t this a proper goatfuck,” Simeon muttered, grabbing another handful of snails.
“Is anyone alive?” Ashlyn asked Bershad.
He scanned the shoreline for a long time. The Nomad ran a few circles around the castle and city.
“Not man
y,” he said. “Forty-three. And that number’s decreasing with a purpose.”
He turned to the south, where a lone pigeon was winging across the sea. It soared over the wreckage of the city and slipped into the castle’s dovecote, which stood crooked and precarious atop one of the castle towers that was still standing.
“That’s one of my birds,” Ashlyn said.
Bershad nodded. “There’s someone alive in the dovecote. Just barely, but their heart’s beating.”
Ashlyn scanned the ruined city. Jaw tensing and untensing.
“We need to bring as many survivors as we can back to this ship,” Ashlyn said. “But the air is polluted with chemicals. Nobody should go ashore except for you, Silas.” She turned to Simeon. “And you, if you’re willing to help.”
Simeon frowned. “Why me?”
“Because that armor has been poisoning your body for years. I’m not worried about incurring a little extra damage if it saves innocent lives. But if you’d rather save your strength and whatever time you have left for the next violent act, go right ahead.”
Simeon glared at her. “I’ll go.”
“What are you going to do?” Bershad asked while Goll unchained Simeon from the mast.
“Head to the dovecote. I need to know what that pigeon brought back from Almira.”
“What about the chemicals?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll be fine.”
59
ASHLYN
Papyria, City of Himeja, White Crane Castle
Ashlyn had to navigate the wreckage of the castle to reach the dovecote.
She moved through the broken passageways and scorched rooms. The paintings on the walls were singed and burned. The lacquered furniture was sagging and melted. Corpses were everywhere. Skin and bone still sizzling. She looked for Hayden and Okinu.
She found them both in the dovecote.
Hayden was already dead. Ashlyn couldn’t bring herself to look at what had happened to her body. Okinu was leaning against the far wall of the dovecote, half her face burned and bubbled. Only one eye was working—the other was clouded over with red and white film that reminded Ashlyn of blood mixed with milk.
Without moving anything except her good eye, Okinu appraised Ashlyn. “You’re late.”
Ashlyn bent down in front of her. Studied the scene. There were two other dead widows, and one corpse clothed in the gray robes of an alchemist. There was also a broken vial next to Okinu’s hip—the remnants of a blue fluid dripping off the shattered glass.
“The alchemist gave you something to counteract the chemicals?”
“Some mineral-oil concoction. Makes my lungs feel like meat shanks. And all it did was delay the inevitable.”
“Mineral oil and what else?” Ashlyn asked. She was exposed to the chemicals, too.
Okinu smiled, realizing why Ashlyn had asked. “Pragmatic as always, my dear niece. Good.” Okinu swallowed, wincing and touching her throat in pain. “Mineral-oil base. Three parts nitrate of sodium, two parts calcium alabaster mixed over an open flame.”
Ashlyn nodded. The materials were expensive but not as uncommon as Gods Moss. Kerrigan should have some back on the ship.
“Did you find what you were looking for on the island?” Okinu asked.
“No. I found something else.”
Ashlyn showed Okinu the metal implants in her arm. The charred black line of dragon thread that sank beneath her skin and was spreading along her bones.
“That can destroy the skyships?”
“Not yet. But with some improvements and some time—”
“There is no more time, Ashlyn. Ward controls the skyship armada now.”
“What about Ganon? My sister?”
“Your sister murdered her new husband and fled Balaria. For weeks, nobody knew where she was. Then she turned up in Floodhaven with Osyrus Ward at her side. Together, they called the Balarian fleet to Almira and took control over it.”
“Kira ordered this attack on Himeja?”
“No.” Okinu swallowed. “For the last thirty years, I have given all of my widows a standing order when I set them loose upon Terra—a mission that supersedes all others.”
Ashlyn remembered the final letter that Okinu had shown to her, back in Nulsine.
“To kill Osyrus Ward.”
“Yes. I suspect that’s part of the reason that he hid for so long behind Balaria’s impenetrable borders. But now that his plans are in motion, he was forced to expose himself.”
Osyrus had never mentioned being afraid of anything in his notes, especially Okinu. But Ashlyn saw no reason to mention that.
“Shoshone has been operating in Almira for months. She learned that Osyrus Ward was in Floodhaven, and she did as I ordered. At least, she tried.”
“Tried,” Ashlyn repeated. “What happened?”
Okinu held up a pigeon missive, sealed with the bee crest of Frula, the apiary specialist she’d hired to study the insect’s ability to make collective decisions. “This is why you came up here, isn’t it?”
Ashlyn opened the note. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but whoever had written the message was well informed about the last few months of events in Almira. Ashlyn read the news once, then again because she didn’t believe it.
“To have caused the death of my own kin,” Okinu said softly. “An unforgivable act. I deserve what’s come for me. And all because as a young woman, I wanted a fleet of dragon-bone ships. Funny.”
Ashlyn ignored her aunt’s philosophical ramblings. They didn’t serve a purpose. Instead, she read this Jolan’s letter again. He wrote that the western coast was temporarily unguarded, and asked for the Papyrian navy to come to Almira’s aid as soon as possible. But the Papyrian fleet was boiling in the chemical slurry that Himeja harbor had become.
“Promise me that you’ll stop him,” Okinu whispered, voice filled with wrath. “Promise me that you’ll kill him.”
In the last two months, Osyrus Ward had taken control of the most powerful empire in Terra and used its resources to conquer Almira and destroy Papyria. She had no idea if she could stop him. No idea if it was even possible.
“I promise.”
* * *
“This stuff tastes like a monkey’s asshole,” Simeon said, glaring at the half-drunk flask of the mineral-oil concoction. Ashlyn had brewed enough for herself and him. Silas didn’t need any. Just some moss.
“I’ve eaten monkey asshole actually,” said Felgor. “It’s a delicacy in Clockwork City. Not bad, but not worth the coin in my opinion.”
“Fine. Monkey shit, then. You eaten that, too?”
“No.”
“I don’t care if you drink it or not,” Ashlyn said, staring out at the wreckage of Himeja off their stern. “But if you don’t, you’ll start shitting blood in a few hours, and you’ll be dead in a few days. Your choice.”
Simeon drank the rest of his portion without protest.
“Avoiding the bloody shits today is all well and good,” Kerrigan said. “But I’ve got nine hundred and sixty-three souls in this fleet. Where are we going to go?”
“The western coast of Almira is open to ships for the time being. That gives us a clear path into the Dainwood jungle, which is the only place in Terra those skyships can’t reach.”
“Fuck Terra, then,” Kerrigan said. “We’ll cross the Big Empty.”
“Only one in a hundred carracks comes back from that journey,” Ashlyn said.
“Who said anything about coming back?”
“Still poor odds.”
“If it’s between the ocean and a fleet of flying ships carrying bombs, I will take my chances with the Big Empty.”
Kerrigan crossed her arms.
Ashlyn shrugged. “Then take them. Just leave me your weakest ship and anyone who doesn’t want to die of dehydration four weeks from now.”
Kerrigan chewed on that. Turned to Bershad. “You’re going with her?”
“The Dainwood is my home,” he said. Left i
t at that.
Ashlyn turned to Simeon. “Even if Kerrigan runs across the Big Empty, we could use you in Almira.”
“More rescue missions and good deeds?” he asked.
“No,” Ashlyn said. “Killing Ghalamarians. A lot of Ghalamarians.”
He ran a hand through his slimy-red hair. “How’s that?”
“Osyrus will consolidate power as quickly as possible in Almira and the Balarian Empire. But the skyships can’t penetrate the Dainwood canopy, especially not when the dragons return in a few months. If Osyrus Ward wants Almira, he’ll have no choice but to send soldiers into the jungle on foot. But the Balarian army has become fractured trying to quell the Lysterian revolt. That makes Ghalamar the only part of the empire with healthy, loyal soldiers. Osyrus will send them into the Dainwood, I’m sure of it. And that’s where we’re going.”
Simeon’s face split into a dirty grin. “Then I go with you.”
Everyone turned back to Kerrigan, who still didn’t look convinced.
“You can promise me the western coast of Almira is open?”
“I can’t promise you anything,” Ashlyn said. “But if we still have warm blood in our veins when Osyrus Ward is stopped, I will do everything in my power to make sure that you turn the memory of Naga Rock into a rich and prosperous country. One where you write all the laws.”
Kerrigan took a long time thinking, then turned to one of her men.
“Raise the sails. We go south.”
60
CASTOR
Realm of Terra, the Soul Sea
“What’s the matter, Castor, you don’t like the view?”
“Not especially, no.”
“Castor,” Vergun pressed. “My second-in-command is not of much value to me if he does not have his eyes open.”
With great effort, Castor opened his eyes. Tried to focus on something close. The gray-skinned men working levers and cranks. The glass of wine on the table to Vergun’s left, which was shimmering from the skyship’s engine vibration.
“It’s not natural, being up in the clouds like this,” he said, glancing over the gunwale, where there was nothing but open sky. The Soul Sea was hundreds of strides below.
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