Simon placed one hand on Remy’s head and another on his shoulder. He felt a horrible idea beginning to form. “And where is Harkan, might I ask?”
Navi met his eyes from across the room. “We haven’t been able to find him either.” Then she paused, her eyes widening. “You don’t think…”
“I don’t know what I think, but I certainly don’t like not knowing where either of them are. In fact, instead of just standing here staring at me, why don’t you send out more of your guards to fucking find them?”
King Tavik, bent over a crudely sketched map on the room’s central table, straightened with a dark look. “Right hand of the Prophet or no, if you say anything like that to my daughter again, I will have my guards toss you out of this tower.”
“I’ll help,” Navi offered dryly.
Simon ignored the king’s glare. “Tell me what happened the last time you saw her.”
“She said she needed to find Remy, which I understood,” Navi replied. “She left in the direction of the central library.”
“Damn it, Navi.” Simon turned away, dragging a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”
“And what should I have done, exactly? Ordered her not to go after her brother? Bound her in chains and forced her to come with me instead?”
“Yes,” he said at once. “That’s exactly what you should have done.”
Navi rose from her chair, leaning heavily against a broad-shouldered female guard. “Has it occurred to you that your insistence on shaping her path for her might be the very thing that keeps driving her away from you?”
Simon bristled. “I’ve been exceptionally patient with her.”
“Your definition of patience is an odd one, Captain,” said Lady Ama mildly, examining the map alongside the kings. “You’ve been hovering around that poor girl for weeks, brooding and scowling.” She raised an eyebrow, glancing up. “Did the Prophet forget to teach you manners?”
“Manners have no place in a world at war,” Simon said. “And, yes, Navi, your guards should have bodily restrained her, if necessary. Without her, we have no chance to mount any sort of resistance, or fight the Empire, or turn the tide of war. Without her, we’re nothing.”
“We’ve done a fine job on our own in Astavar for decades now,” said King Eri. “We’ve resisted the Empire’s fleets—”
“They were toying with you,” Simon interrupted. “This is all a game for the Emperor. Until he found Rielle’s daughter, his slow conquest of this world was a game, a way to pass the time. Now he’s found her, and this is no longer a game. It is a hunt. An obsession. This invasion is only the beginning. He will stop at nothing until he finds her, and when he does—”
A series of explosions shook the room. Remy’s hand tightened around Simon’s fingers.
The door to the war room burst open, admitting Hob and a servant—a young woman, perhaps a year or two older than Eliana. Her mouth was set in a thin, grim line.
Hob wiped his brow, his dark skin gleaming with sweat and dust. “Tell them what you told me, Perri.”
Perri nodded once. “I saw them. Lady Eliana and Harkan. They were talking in the corridor near Lady Eliana’s rooms. And then…”
Perri glanced at Hob, hands clasped tensely at her waist.
“It’s all right,” said Hob. “Go on.”
Perri squared her shoulders. “And then I saw Harkan grab hold of Lady Eliana and press a cloth to her face. She struggled, and then went limp. She was still a little bit awake, I think, at least enough to walk beside him. But he directed her movements, as though she wouldn’t be able to walk without his help. Her eyes were open but foggy. And Harkan, he looked terribly upset. For a moment, I thought he might be sick. Then they were gone, hurrying down the hallway. I came at once to tell someone, and I found Hob.”
Then Perri’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry I didn’t go after them. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“It’s good that you didn’t,” Navi said gently into the shocked silence, her face hard as stone. “He might have hurt you to get away.”
“I will kill him.” Simon’s anger was so complete it numbed him, reduced him to a man incapable of moving. His mind buzzed and snarled—every instinct he possessed, every lesson that had been beaten into him, flooding him with the desire to inflict violence. “I’ll find them, and I’ll kill him where he stands.”
“Please don’t,” Remy said, his voice breaking. He tugged at Simon’s hand. “We’ll find them. They can’t have gone far. Harkan was probably just afraid. He wouldn’t hurt her. Maybe she was trying to leave again, and he had to stop her.”
“She would try to flee, leaving you behind? Impossible.”
And then Simon’s path became clear to him.
He detached himself from Remy’s grip, placed both hands on the boy’s shoulders, and leaned down to look him in the eye. Navi would try to stop him from taking Remy, as would Hob, as would all of them.
They would fail.
“Do you trust me?” he asked Remy, gentling his voice. Even in his fury, it was an easy thing to do—to slip into that cunning silver world of lies in which he had been raised since landing in this future, all those years ago.
Behind Simon, the war room doors opened once more, admitting Prince Malik, Commander Haakorat, and two other soldiers, each of them spattered with mud and blood. They hurried to the table, Malik consulting in furious whispers with the kings.
Remy watched them, biting his lip. “Malik doesn’t look happy. Do you think the city will fall?”
“Answer me.” Simon turned Remy back to face him. “Do you trust me, Remy?”
“El would say I shouldn’t,” Remy replied after a moment, and then his expression flattened in a way Simon had never seen before. “Which probably means I should.”
“Good boy. If we move quickly, we can find them, catch up with her and Harkan before they slip into the wild for good. And if you’re there with me, I’ve got a better chance of either changing his mind or turning her against him.”
Remy considered him gravely. “Will you hurt me to get her back?”
Simon only paused for a moment. There was no point in lying to the boy, and telling him the truth, as harsh as it was, would perhaps further engender his trust. “I don’t want to, but if I must, I will.”
Remy glanced over Simon’s shoulder. “Navi’s watching us.”
“Answer me quickly, then.”
The boy’s bright-blue eyes locked with Simon’s own for a long moment. Then he lifted his sharp little chin, squaring his jaw in the same way Eliana so often did. “I’ll do it.”
Simon gave him a tight smile. “Hold on to me, and close your eyes. When I run, you run too.”
Then he reached into his pocket, withdrew three tiny black smokers, and flung them to the floor. They cracked open with a trio of sharp pops, filling the room with smoke. Hob’s deep voice bellowed a curse. Navi called out Simon’s name. Guards drew their weapons, coughing, the metallic scrape of their swords ringing in the swirling darkness.
Simon ran, trusting Remy to keep up. At the door, he smashed his fists into the jaws of two guards obstructing their path. Their bodies slumped to the floor. He snatched one of their swords, and a dagger from the nearest one’s belt, and thrust the latter at Remy.
The boy grabbed the weapon, and together they fled back through the war room tunnels to a castle full of shattered windows and screaming servants. The sound of nearing gunfire punctuated the air, and Simon refused to think about bullets piercing Eliana’s body, or cannon fire blasting her to bits, or how he should have taken her away from this place as soon as she had forged her castings.
Instead, his thoughts glided into the comfortable rhythm of the Prophet’s teachings, the years of training and conditioning he had endured in that frigid compound under the mountain, the long, brutal dark his life h
ad been before finding Eliana in Orline. Three soldiers pursued them from the war room. He pulled the revolver from his hip and shot them each through the skull. Remy cried out in protest, but Simon shoved him onward.
With every slam of his boots against the floor, his mind chanted one furious word—a curse, a plea, a prayer.
Eliana. Eliana. Eliana.
21
Navi
“To anyone who may read this, the last writing of my life, it must be known that I fought for my country alongside my beloved husband, Eri, and my dear friend Ama. Beside my commanders, I defended my city with all breath left in me. My kingdom may fall, but the Empire will soon burn at the hands of the Sun Queen.”
—A message from King Tavik Amaruk of Astavar, confiscated by invading imperial forces, September 6, Year 1018 of the Third Age
Navi could no longer keep quiet.
“We are cowards,” she murmured into the darkness, Ruusa’s torch the only thing illuminating their path through the tunnels below Dyrefal.
Beside her, Malik said nothing, his tense silence vibrating like the furious echo of a drum.
“You are not cowards,” Hob replied. In the torchlight, his dark skin gleamed, night-limned with gold. “You are the leaders of your people, and when the dust settles, they will look to you for guidance. They will find you, wherever you land in the days to come, and help you rebuild.”
“I should be out there fighting alongside them,” Malik bit out. “Not scurrying away through the darkness like a frightened rat.”
“And what good would it do, if you were to die?” Hob ducked beneath a low stone archway. “Two of the royal children dead, and the other three halfway across the world. No kings, no crown. A scattered people, lost and leaderless. It was right for you to leave.”
Navi leaned on Ruusa’s arm, closing her eyes. Her head rocked as if she stood on the deck of a rolling ship.
Ruusa passed her torch to another guard in their escort. “My lady, shall I carry you?”
“Not yet, Ruusa,” Navi replied. “We’ve a long way to go. Save your strength.”
“A long way to go.” Malik let out a bark of harsh laughter. “That’s one way to put it.”
Navi found Malik’s hand. “Peace, brother.”
He ripped his hand away from her. “Peace! Peace, as our people are slaughtered above us, as our parents give up their lives to allow us time to flee!”
Navi moved unsteadily toward Malik. He met her halfway, catching her arms.
“Navi, you can barely even walk,” he muttered.
“Listen to me.” She searched his face. The glittering sadness in his eyes seized her heart. “I know what you’re feeling. I feel it myself. But we cannot allow ourselves to fall prey to our own shame.”
Malik shook his head. “Navi, I can’t bear to leave them—”
“I know, but we must.” She cupped the back of his head in her hands, brought his forehead down to touch hers. “This war is not only about the fate of Astavar, and we can’t help Eliana if we are lying dead on a battlefield.”
“Eliana.” Malik spat a curse. “She brought this down upon us.”
Navi frowned. “She saved us all, that night in Karajak Bay. She sank the Empire fleet.”
“Which ended up meaning nothing.” He flung his hand toward the ceiling. “Listen to them, Navi. Listen to our people die. Listen to our kingdom fall. If she hadn’t come here—”
“If she hadn’t come here, we would have fallen weeks ago. And you won’t speak ill of her again, not in my presence. She is on a more difficult path than any of us. I can only pray that, wherever Harkan has taken her, she is able to enjoy a little bit of peace before they find her again.”
Malik gave her a sad, tight smile, but before he could speak further, dull booms thundered overhead, muffled by the dense stretches of rock above them. Malik tried to move away, dragging a hand across his face with a small sob, but Navi held him fast.
“Astavar may fall,” she said quietly, “but its people will live on, and as survivors flee and scatter, you and I will be fighting to save them, and their Venteran brothers, and their Celdarian sisters.” She drew a deep breath, her energy nearly exhausted. “Tell me what we will do.”
After a long moment, Malik managed to speak. “We will flee south, to the Vespers.”
“And then?”
“We will gather allies as we travel.”
“We will collect the lost and the homeless, as many as we can care for, as many as our ship can hold. And we will find more ships, and our numbers will grow, and then none of us will be lost or homeless any longer, for we will have made a new home of our own, a new country.”
“We will have built an army to crush the Empire,” Malik added, his voice stronger now, more assured.
Navi nodded, her heart bursting with love for him. Their fathers’ farewell kisses lingered on her brow. If she inhaled deeply enough, she could still smell Ama’s perfume on her clothes.
To honor their sacrifice, she wrestled her tears into submission. They could rise later. “The Empire’s foothold in the islands is not as strong as it once was. We may be able to unseat them, if not in Tava Koro, then on one of the smaller islands.”
“They’ll be distracted, looking for Eliana.”
“Quite likely.” She gripped Malik’s soft black hair, anchored him to her eyes. “We will rally the Vespers to our cause. We will gather ships, weapons, soldiers. And when Eliana is ready to destroy the Emperor—for she will, she will destroy him, I believe that with my every breath, my every waking hope, dear brother—when she is ready, we will be there, with our army of strays, and we will be at her side, and we will not let her fall.”
Malik closed his eyes, tears slipping down his cheeks. “We are not cowards.”
“No. I was wrong to have said that.” Navi stepped back from him and looked at each of her guards in turn. “We are the light against the darkness, and we must continue to burn brightly, so others may find their way out.”
Last of all, she met Hob’s gaze. He nodded once and then said, “May the Queen’s light guide us.”
Navi said a quick, silent prayer that she would not only live long enough to once again fight at Eliana’s side, but also to see Hob and Patrik reunited. Not once since he had left Patrik weeks ago at Crown’s Hollow had Hob complained about how this fight had separated him from his love, but Navi saw the quiet grief in every line of his face, heard it in every word he uttered.
She touched his arm and offered him a small smile, which he returned with shining eyes.
“May the Queen’s light guide us,” she agreed, and then, unsteady, refusing Ruusa’s silent offer of aid—at least for a little while, at least for a few quiet yards on her own two reborn feet—she turned away from her home for what she knew in her heart would be the last time and sent a silent prayer to whatever ravaged vestiges of the empirium remained in the world.
Find her.
Protect her.
Help her believe.
22
Eliana
“When the Sun Queen arrives, she may not look like anything you’ve imagined. She may not know who she is, and she may resent the destiny to which she was born. Be patient with her. Nourish and cherish her. And above all, do whatever you must to keep her safe, even if it earns her hatred.”
—The Word of the Prophet
Eliana observed her and Harkan’s progress through an acrid fog, her head throbbing.
She knew the drug he had used—a powerful sedative, commonly known as black lily, that she had, as the Dread, often deployed against her victims. She was so angry with him for using it on her, and with herself for not seeing it coming, that despite her muddled senses, fury lit the soles of her feet afire, grounding her useless body.
She had to lean heavily on Harkan to stay upright. His arm was firm around her
waist as they fled through the castle, down the now-familiar route toward Tameryn’s cavern, and then through a different series of tunnels that, thankfully, were not flooded and required no swimming.
At last, they emerged into the city, into the chaotic heart of Vintervok. Explosions tore the streets to pieces, debris clattered down upon the roads from rooftops shattered by cannon fire. Terrified citizens ran screaming through the streets, only as many belongings as they could easily carry haphazardly bundled onto their backs—arms full of children, books, sacks of food. There had been no time to prepare; the invasion had risen suddenly like a monster from beneath the earth, and now there was nowhere to run.
The black lily was sinking slowly into Eliana’s veins, overpowering her sight, her balance. She let herself fall into the support of Harkan’s gait and stumbled alongside him like an animal being led by its master.
Beneath the waves of the drug sloshing through her mind, her rage coiled, waiting.
• • •
They boarded a ship—the Streganna, Harkan murmured against her ear. As they were shuffled into one of the ship’s dark holds, along with so many other wailing, sobbing passengers that even in her current state, Eliana felt her skin begin to crawl, Harkan told her what he had done.
“While you were with Navi,” he said quietly, “I spent time in the city. I met a man named Arris in a tavern and paid him for passage aboard this ship. They’re bound for Meridian. I paid him a healthy sum, stolen from the kings’ treasury. I know, I shouldn’t have. But, God help me, I couldn’t bear to stay there, watching you lose yourself to Simon’s plans. Those castings… El, he wanted to fight a war with you as his primary weapon. I can’t think that’s the destiny you truly wanted for yourself.”
She listened to him until she couldn’t any longer. Her fury bubbled up, allowing her to speak.
“And Remy?” she managed, her words slow and full of effort. She estimated she had to endure another two hours of the black lily’s worst effects, and until then, she would remain inert and cottonmouthed.
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