The Soul of Power

by Callie Bates

  Felicité casts a glance around the table, but we all wait for her to answer. “We temple novices could bring it back. The barge would be light enough to pole back upstream, once it’s empty.”

  “A neat solution.” Granpier nods.

  “And,” she adds, sinking self-consciously toward the table, “with my magic, I could—”

  A shout interrupts her. One of the other novices bursts into the kitchen. “Father Granpier! Rambaud’s people—they’ve got one of the refugees—they—”

  They have a refugee? We’re all on our feet in a moment, Demetra’s hand pressed to her lips, while the boy stutters an explanation. “They’re bringing him through the street—they said he tried to kill Rambaud—”

  My heart thumps, and Rhia catches my eye. Her nostrils are flared. She’s guessed the same as I have.

  Somehow, they have captured Ciril. And he tried to kill Rambaud—but why? How?

  Demetra has already bolted out. I hurry after her through the temple corridors, Rhia on our heels. Felicité comes running behind—“Here!”—and throws three blue robes at us. We wrestle into the long, plain wool robes, and the round hats that accompany them—a safer disguise than the usual fillets. My robe is inches too short and squeezes me tightly under the armpits, but I’ll just hope no one looks at me too closely.

  From the front steps of the temple, a crowd is roaring. A bell clings, and my hackles rise. A witch hunter?

  People fill the open square in front of the temple, crowding the street. The steps afford us a view, and I can make out a procession moving slowly down the street—a collection of horses and carriages and soldiers. If the sorcerer’s there, he’s lost in the crowd.

  “Come on,” Rhia says. I follow her down the steps, dodging the spectators who have gathered, Demetra on my heels. People talk among themselves, leaning up on tiptoe for a glimpse of the procession.

  Then I hear it—toward the front of the crowd. Several men are running along ahead of the procession, calling out, “End sorcery! End sorcery!” Some shopkeepers in the crowd obediently take up the shouts, while most others just stare. They’re not here in protest, I realize—or at least most of them aren’t. They seem bewildered and tired, and more than a little frightened. They’ve come out not to scream Rambaud’s bywords, but to find out what’s happened to their city, to see who’s claimed it this time.

  It makes me unspeakably weary.

  Close to the street, Rhia slows and grabs my arm. She has to rear up on tiptoe, but I’m tall enough to see why she stopped moving. So is Demetra. Both her hands are pressed to her mouth now. Between the ranks of guards, a man is stumbling forward. Iron shackles bind his hands and ankles, and his face is grimed with dirt beyond his ragged beard. He can’t walk so much as shuffle, and keeps falling to his knees and struggling to rise again. The two men leading him just drag on his chains. Several people in the crowd jeer. Ciril stumbles back onto his feet, only to fall again a few steps later.

  It’s hard to imagine this man attempted to kill Rambaud—and I can’t imagine he even knows who Rambaud is—yet this is the person who brought down the lightning that murdered a palace guard. I don’t know what he wants, or even what he’s really capable of, yet my heart is shattering to see him like this. Rhia’s gripping my arm—or perhaps I’m gripping hers. The bell peals out again, and Ciril grunts as if he’s been stabbed. But no witch hunter appears in a blue coat. I finally spot the owner of the bell: Rambaud himself, seated on a horse, following Ciril.

  “We have to do something,” Rhia whispers. “They’re going to kill him.”

  Demetra stares at us, but I just shake my head. Maybe they’re going to kill him, but they’re going to send him mad first, the way witch hunters famously do in Ida. More than that—they’re going to make an example of him.

  They’ll do the same to Demetra if they catch her. And—it hits me with a painful impact—me. The sound of the bells clangs like teeth into my head, and I shudder. But the sound doesn’t stop; it ripples on and on, now fading, now growing stronger, growing taut. No wonder they invented this torment to undo sorcerers. It makes me want to bolt—not just for the temple, but for Barrody. I want to get as far away from here as I can. Yet we can’t simply leave Ciril and the others. Can we?

  The crowd’s pressing around us, blocking our retreat. So though the throbbing in my head propels me to leave, I’m forced to stay. To watch, and pretend I feel nothing. To squint through my watering eyes. And so I see them.

  The carriages, first: gilded and worked with filigree designs. Flanking them, men in fine coats on horseback. Women occupy the carriages—women in silk gowns, their hair elaborately dressed. They look out over the crowd with cold, satisfied faces, though a few seem frightened. Maybe they think we’ll rise up and overthrow them.

  “It’s the nobles come back from the country,” someone says to my right—a café owner, to judge by her stained apron and odor of coffee. “Don’t you recognize them from the gossip papers? Soon Countess Veronique Manceau will be back from Tinan, along with Duchess Hermine Rambaud.”

  “What about Loyce Eyrlai?” the woman’s companion asks with disgust. “Will we have to see her again as well?”

  The first woman laughs. “She won’t be back. She never wanted to be queen.”

  “Well, if she comes back to Eren, I’m moving to bloody Tinan.”

  Behind us, several people shift and break away. The carriages have passed by, and there are mutters of, “Damned nobles back from a country holiday. You’d think the Caerisians could have held the throne longer.”

  “My money was always on the Rambauds.”

  “Mine, too, but my hope was on Sophy Dunbarron. She meant well, anyway.”

  “Nonsense. If she had her way, we’d be at war with the entire world. I value my head, thanks.”

  My teeth clench, and the bells echo in my head. Rhia hangs on to my arm. It takes all my strength not to bolt—or face them and declare that if they didn’t like what I did, they could have told me so to my face.

  Though in a way, I suppose they did. No one is exactly protesting Rambaud’s coup.

  It’s Demetra who breaks away first, her mouth grim. We cross slowly back through the square, and I touch her arm. “I’m so terribly sorry. You don’t know if he really would have attacked Rambaud, do you?”

  She’s shaking her head. “Whatever happened to him in his native country—Tinan—was so horrible he wouldn’t speak of it, not even to those of us who also had horrible stories. I suspect…” She swallows hard. “I suspect his children died, and he vowed vengeance on whoever killed them. He wasn’t a gentle man or even a kind one, but he’s one of us. Just to see him go like that…”

  “We might still be able to free him,” Rhia begins.

  Demetra cuts her a glance. “If it’s a choice between Ciril and my children, and all the others…” She draws in a breath. “I have to choose my children.”

  I squeeze her arm. My heart feels so impossibly heavy. “Perhaps once we’re gone, High Priest Granpier can argue for mercy. Granpier knows Rambaud. The duke might listen to him.” Or more likely, Rambaud will arrest Granpier, too, as a sympathizer. It’s what the old king of Eren would have done.

  “It would be good simply to know he’ll try,” Demetra says. “At least Ciril will know he wasn’t forgotten.”

  I look over at Rhia, but she doesn’t say anything. I suppose there is nothing more to say, though I want to protest, demand that there be a better answer. But there isn’t. None of us speaks as we climb the temple steps.

  High Priest Granpier is waiting for us at the door. There’s an actual smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

  “They’re dragging a man through the streets,” I begin angrily.

  He interrupts me. “You need to go in and see who’s just arrived. Rhia and Demetra can fill me in on the details.”


  Rhia and I exchange a glance. Then I hurry through the doors, past the statue of Aera, and back down the hall to the kitchen. The door stands open. A man is seated at the long table, clutching a bowl of porridge in both hands.

  I stop short. “Alistar!”

  He turns. His hair is matted and dirty, his clothing rent. A long red scratch angles across his cheek. “Sophy!” He rises, shunting his chair backward, then checks himself. Glances at my stomach.

  Heat burns into my cheeks. His gaze moves back to meet mine. He doesn’t need to say anything; I know what I’ve done. I told the world I was with child. And by telling them the way I did, I told them the father didn’t matter.

  “You’re alive,” he says at last, then adds, “But then you’ve got Knoll there with you. I should’ve known.”

  “Where have you been?” Rhia demands, having followed me despite Granpier’s injunction to remain with him. I can’t seem to form words myself.

  “Tracking Ciril.” He nods toward the street and procession we just witnessed—and toward Demetra, who’s come in with Granpier, her arms folded. “I have to admit I haven’t done a very good job of it. I would have given up days ago, except I was outside Laon, in a village Rambaud was passing through, and I saw Ciril. He was in the crowd of Rambaud’s followers. Watching Rambaud, the way a hawk watches a snake. He didn’t even realize I was watching him.”

  “But why would he have pursued Rambaud?” I ask. “How would he even know who Rambaud is?”

  “I can only tell you what I saw,” Alistar says.

  “Did you talk to him?” Rhia asks. “Ask him what he was doing?”

  “I ran after him, but he disappeared in the crowd. But it gave me a hunch.” He pauses. “I decided to follow Rambaud instead of Ciril—which is, if possible, even harder.” He glances at me. “I didn’t get to Montclair until it was too late.”

  “We were all too late,” I say softly.

  Alistar nods. “Ciril was there, too. He attacked Rambaud last night.”

  So Ciril really did attempt to kill Rambaud. I shake my head. “You were there?” All the gods, we might have been together, had I known. “But I still don’t understand why Ciril would have gone after Rambaud.”

  Demetra draws in a breath. “The Butcher mentioned Rambaud to both of us. I remember now. He was talking of Eren’s defenses, and he said that the greatest threat wasn’t from outside, but from within. From Aristide Rambaud, who had just returned to Eren.”

  Coldness walks up my spine. “You think he did it on Lord Gilbert’s orders?”

  “No. We hadn’t been given any order. It was simply part of the conversation; I didn’t think anything of it until now.”

  “Rambaud’s been in Tinan,” Rhia points out. “Perhaps Ciril met him there.”

  “Ciril is from Darchon, the capital,” I say, remembering, but then I shake my head. They may both have been in the same country, perhaps even in the same city, but it’s hard to imagine Ciril’s rough path crossing with Rambaud’s cold and deliberate one.

  “Perhaps Ciril simply understood the politics better than I did,” Demetra says, “because he lived here. Maybe he understood the threat when the Butcher mentioned it, and decided to take matters into his own hands. Ciril was rude to the rest of us, but he was kind to the children. Perhaps he did it for them, because he had lost his own family. Maybe he thought it would keep them safe.”

  Wordlessly, High Priest Granpier takes her hand. Demetra’s head is bowed, her lips tight.

  I say nothing. Even if Ciril knew Rambaud’s name, it doesn’t seem enough to prompt a single-handed manhunt—especially without telling any of us what he was doing. There has to be something more at work here. But the only way of discovering it will be to speak with Ciril himself—which is currently not an option. I bite my lip, thinking of the shackles that bound him, and the obvious pain he was suffering.

  “Well,” Alistar says at last, “they’re calling it an assassination attempt. They’re blaming all of us—especially you, Sophy.”

  “Naturally,” I say with some bitterness. As if Rambaud needs further ammunition against us. I almost wish Ciril hadn’t even tried—though I can’t pretend I’d have been sorry had he succeeded.

  “There’s another thing.” Alistar hesitates. “I—I didn’t try to stop Ciril. I saw him come into the town square, and instead of going after him, or any of them, I hid. I’ve never…hidden before. But I hid, and I watched. Ciril summoned lightning, just the way he did when he killed Thierry. It should have killed Rambaud. But…It didn’t. It…erupted. Sprayed away into nothing. It was as if Rambaud was protected by an invisible shield. Ciril tried again, and the same thing happened. By that time the other men had surrounded him. They beat him down and tied him up. And Rambaud…he acted as if nothing had happened.”

  My skin is prickling. “You think Rambaud’s a sorcerer?”

  “Maybe. No.” Alistar shakes his head. “I don’t believe it was him, or he couldn’t handle the witch hunter bell he’s got. I don’t know who it is…or what. But, Sophy—he’s thrown you out, and he’s denouncing magic, all while he’s using sorcery himself. I just need to find out how—or who’s doing it.”

  I nod slowly. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me as much as it should. Then I catch Alistar’s last words. “You mean you’re going to spy on him again?”

  “I’ll help here first, but I have to figure out who it is. If we know, we can take them down. We can defeat Rambaud.”

  I press my hands over my eyes.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” Alistar says. He looks around at all of us, alarmed. “Don’t you want to smash the bastard back into the hole he crawled out of?”

  “I have no throne,” I say quietly. “I have no palace, no guard, no army. The people are exhausted by this tussling over the crown. Who is going to support us? Who wants us back in power?”

  He just looks at me, dogged. Trusting. “We can fight them, Soph. Elanna will be back soon. We’ll have more power than Rambaud can even imagine.”

  I shake my head. There’s no point in claiming power if no one wants us to have it, but Alistar doesn’t seem to hear me say that.

  So I simply square my shoulders. “There may not be much we can do now,” I say to the room at large, “but we can go to the meeting of the Laon underground. Then we’ll go north. We’ll leave Eren. In Caeris, we can make sure the refugees are safe, and we can meet with our people and make a plan. And then…” I stop. And then the gods alone know how I will help my kingdom. Especially if Rambaud’s true king really is Euan Dromahair, whom Ruadan once touted as the savior of all Caeris—the man whom Caerisians have spent decades waiting to claim his throne.

  The thought isn’t particularly comforting.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Night falls. Victoire arrives at the temple, dressed entirely in black, her silence speaking volumes of her despair and worry. I try to speak to her, but she doesn’t seem to even hear.

  We slip from the house, taking the back alleys down to the warehouses that bulk up along the river. The city curls around us like a creature sleeping with one eye open. We take narrow steps down between two buildings and emerge onto the riverfront. The Sasralie rushes nearby, softly gleaming. I feel it like a whisper in my own body. The nighttime dreams of all the people around us, thick with hope and love and fear, press close, a twining symphony of color and sound. I touch my stomach.

  We approach the warehouses; a narrow door leads us into a cavernous, hushed space. Victoire pauses to light a candle, which she places into a lantern. Then we edge past barrels and crates stamped with an Ereni merchant company’s logo—THE EREN TRADING CO.—and deep into the underbelly of the warehouse. It’s cool, the floor slightly damp on account of the river’s nearness; all the barrels and crates sit on wooden pallets to keep dry. Finally we approach a long, rolling door.

  I
touch Victoire’s arm. “Why this place?”

  “The Ereni rebels used to meet in this spot,” she says, her voice distant. “I spoke here myself once during the rebellion.”

  The Ereni underground. I know their leaders, of course, for these are the people who made our victory in Eren possible. But until now, they never gave me any of their secrets; none of them told me that there might be a way to find the secret lines of resistance, still alive in the time after my victory. Of course, I didn’t dream it would be necessary.

  Victoire rolls the door back, and light pours over our feet. Several people rise from their seats on the wooden crates and barrels. I’m startled by the sight of Juleane Brazeur and her friend Lord Faure. She acknowledges me with a cool dip of her chin. “Sophy.”

  I hide a wince. Clearly we’ve dispensed with the honorifics. If I needed a more potent reminder that I’m no longer the queen of Eren and Caeris, this curt greeting is it. I don’t know whether she’s angry with me or the situation itself.

  Victoire looks around the circle. “Are we all here?”

  Brazeur nods. “Josie couldn’t make it tonight. This is all of us.”

  “Why are we meeting?” one of the men asks. He’s a stocky fellow, wearing a plain black jacket.

  I start to speak, but High Priest Granpier puts a hand on my forearm and shakes his head. I fall silent. Clearly this isn’t my meeting. Most of them haven’t even acknowledged that I’m here. I swallow hard.

  “There is some rather upsetting news,” Juleane Brazeur says drily. “Our old friends are back in power.”

  “Yes,” the man in the black jacket says with some impatience, “but they’re bringing in the king they fought for.” He flaps his hand at Rhia and me.

  Brazeur and Victoire exchange a glance. Coldness unfurls down my spine. “What do you mean?” Juleane says, glancing at me.

  “Euan Dromahair,” Black Jacket says. “They’re bringing him in from Ida, along with some ‘very powerful’ supporters.” He snorts.