Kingsbane

by Claire Legrand

  “Well, we clearly need to leave,” she said, “and as quickly as possible. We’ll go west once the danger has passed, cut south toward Morsia, and avoid the army altogether. Aren’t there several Red Crown strongholds along the way? We’ll see what they need, help as we can. Perhaps by then we’ll have heard news of your Astavar friends and Hob, and can join them in the Vespers.”

  When no one responded, she glanced irritably at Patrik. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

  “If what Eliana and Simon have told me is true,” he said slowly, “it won’t matter if we run. The Empire is hunting Eliana. They’ll find us wherever we go.”

  “Then here’s where we part ways. We go our way. Eliana goes hers. They don’t care about us. They’ll be focused on finding her. It’s the perfect opportunity to do a lot of good while they’re distracted.” Jessamyn’s gaze cut to Eliana, her expression softening slightly. “I’m sorry, Eliana. But there are only so many of us left in Red Crown. We have to protect ourselves.”

  Patrik shook his head. “I think our priorities must shift.”

  Jessamyn stared at him. “You mean give up our mission. Abandon the cause and help Eliana instead.”

  “You saw what she did in Karlaine. You’ve heard who Simon and Zahra claim her to be. She is the cause.” Patrik rubbed a tired hand down his face. “If we protect her, if we help ensure she succeeds, we could save many more lives than we could ever hope to on our own.”

  “Or we could die. And with Astavar fallen, I’m not particularly keen to throw in my lot with some lost princess who may not, in fact, be a princess, and a marque who may or may not be able to travel through time.” She looked quickly at Eliana, then Simon. Her mouth thinned. “Sorry. Again.”

  Eliana gave her a half smile. “I wouldn’t want to throw in my lot with me either.”

  “But she is a princess,” Remy said, frowning. “More than that, she’s the Sun Queen. Haven’t you been listening? Don’t you know the prayers? And if the Emperor finds her before she’s ready to face him, you’ll be dead anyway. So why run?”

  Jessamyn considered him appraisingly.

  “Listen to the boy,” Zahra said, smiling. “He’s wiser than his age might suggest.”

  But Jessamyn would not relent. “You said, ‘if we ensure she succeeds.’ Succeed at what, exactly? Simon will send her back in time, if he’s in fact capable of it—and I hate myself a little for saying such a preposterous thing aloud—and then what?”

  “I bet you once thought bringing someone back from the dead was preposterous too.” Remy’s chin jutted stubbornly.

  “I’ll talk to my mother,” Eliana replied, feeling even as she said the words that they were not enough.

  Jessamyn’s mouth thinned. “Ah, yes. The Blood Queen. She was one for diplomatic conversation, was she?”

  “And how would she react,” added Dani quietly, “if some girl appeared before her, claiming to be her daughter? She might fear it a trick. She might attack you.”

  Remy, perched on the very edge of his chair, looked ready to combust. “Queen Rielle would know about marques. She would understand time travel and what they could do. She would believe El. I know she would.”

  “You didn’t know her, Remy,” said Patrik tiredly. “You can’t say that for sure.”

  Remy drew himself up, indignant. “But I’ve read—”

  “Stories,” Jessamyn snapped. “You’ve read stories, passed down over centuries through the mouths and minds of the few people who managed to survive the Fall, and their descendants, and their descendants. Hundreds of thousands of people who could have gotten any number of things wrong. No one here even knew her. No one can say what she would do.”

  “I knew her,” said Simon quietly, still facing the dark window, against which rain had begun to drum. “I knew her, and I still can’t guess what she might do. But I know we can’t afford not to try reaching across time to her.” He turned back over his shoulder, his profile cutting angry lines against the glass. “Unless you’d like to keep on running, Jessamyn, until you’re cut down fighting, after which the world will still go on in its misery. You have a chance here to help in a real way.”

  Jessamyn straightened. “Are you saying the lives I’ve saved while working for Red Crown meant nothing?”

  “No. I’m saying that staying with us, with Eliana, and helping her however you can in the days to come will mean more than whatever you could do elsewhere. We need as many fighters at our side as we can find.”

  “Forgive me for asking what is probably a silly question,” Dani said after a moment, “but how exactly will this work? If it does work. You’ll travel back in time and talk to your mother, convince her not to ally with the angels. Yes?”

  Eliana’s stomach sat in knots. “That’s right.”

  “Let’s say you succeed. All those years ago, you change something the Blood Queen did or didn’t do. You alter the course of history.” Dani paused, glancing at Simon. “What happens to all of us?”

  “Anything Eliana does in the past,” Zahra said at once, “whether she succeeds or not, will irrevocably alter this future in ways we can’t predict. Her mere presence there will change things.”

  Then Simon added quietly, “And only she and I, being the ones connected to the thread that sends her back, will be the ones to notice any differences once we return.”

  “You mean, we could end up dead,” said Remy quietly, “or somewhere else in the world, or born to different parents, and we wouldn’t know any better.”

  It was not a question, and spoken in Remy’s childish voice, his words held an eerie finality.

  “Yes,” said Simon, that unfeeling mask firmly in place.

  “Or something she does could make this future worse than it already is.” Jessamyn’s words cut the room in two. “Isn’t that right?”

  Simon inclined his head. “It’s possible.”

  An enormous pressure had been building in Eliana’s chest, clamping down hard around her lungs, and now it became so unbearable that she had to rise from her chair and walk away from the group toward the farthest window. She stood there, arms crossed, shoulders hunched as if to bolster herself against a gale.

  “So I could save us,” she said, “or doom us.”

  “And we must move quickly.” Simon’s voice brimmed with frustration. “I had hoped we would have more time to work together here, where it’s safe. But if we keep progressing at our current pace, the army could arrive before we’ve had the chance to attempt traveling.”

  He spoke as though they were the only two in the room—which, Eliana supposed, was his truth. What else mattered to him, besides her safety and his mission to protect her? Certainly not the lives of the other people gathered around them.

  Patrik blew out a long breath. “So the question, then, is this: Do we risk everything and perhaps rid the world of the Empire, even if it means rewriting the lives of everyone now living? Or do we risk less and allow the world to continue on as it will, even if that could mean victory for the Empire?”

  “Which would mean doom for this world,” Zahra added, her voice rippling like dark water, “and for all the others.”

  “I have very little room in my heart for the safety of whatever distant worlds may or may not exist,” said Jessamyn tightly, “when my own is mired in an endless war.”

  “It doesn’t have to be endless.” Dani rose from her seat, briskly smoothing out her trousers. “That’s what I’m getting from this conversation. We can end it, if we do this right. And I’ve been living two lives for all my years—a life of rebellion, and a life of false loyalty to a regime that goes against everything I believe in. It’s exhausting. If I can end that and send all the godly sparks of myself into a new form in a new, better world, then I’m happy to do it.” Dani placed her hands on her hips. “So what’s your plan, Captain? Whatever it is, my family and I
will help you and Eliana as best we can.”

  Simon’s smile was so small and tired that Eliana’s eyes grew hot. There seemed to be no end to her new capacity for crying.

  “There’s a masquerade ball,” Simon said slowly, “in five days’ time. Isn’t that right?”

  Dani nodded. “To open the Admiral’s Jubilee.”

  “What in God’s name is that?” asked Jessamyn.

  “A weeklong celebration throughout Festival to celebrate both the anniversary of Admiral Ravikant’s resurrection and the Empire’s conquest of Meridian.”

  “And the admiral himself is already here in Festival,” Dani added. “He arrived earlier this month. Lord Tabris has been feting him for days.”

  Jessamyn scowled. “Doesn’t the admiral of the Emperor’s fleet have more important things to do than attend some party?”

  Dani raised her eyebrows. “More important than attending a citywide, days-long celebration held in his honor? Not in his eyes, no.”

  “Ravikant.” Zahra’s dark form vibrated with anger. “One of the most prideful angels I have ever known. He orchestrated the fleet’s assault on Festival to coincide with his naming day.”

  “The Jubilee is notoriously decadent,” Patrik added. “Feasts and concerts and theater performances, day and night. I’ve heard stories about the midnight revels in particular.”

  “And I assure you,” said Dani, “that every story you’ve heard, no matter how extraordinary, is true.”

  “In other words, it’s not a party I’m interested in attending,” said Patrik cheerfully, “and yet I get the feeling that’s precisely what we’re going to do.”

  “The festivities would provide excellent cover for us,” mused Simon. “We’d never get to the docks otherwise.”

  “The docks?” Jessamyn frowned. “You want a ship?”

  “That would be our fastest route away from Meridian. And if we can get aboard one and leave before the army arrives…” Distant calculations turned in his gaze. “With the imperial army on the move, I want her as far away from this continent as possible as quickly as possible.”

  Eliana watched him, wishing she could speak to him alone, that he would tell her what thoughts were turning in that ravaged mind of his.

  “Where will we go?” she asked.

  He glanced at her. “I don’t know. If we do this, we’ll have five days to decide.”

  “And five days to return to Old Celdaria,” she added, “if we want to attempt that while we’re here at Willow. Secure and guarded.”

  He inclined his head. “Indeed.”

  “Unless the scouts were wrong,” Patrik added, “and the army arrives sooner than we think. Maybe even before the Jubilee. We may have to move more quickly than we think.”

  Zahra laughed. “Admiral Ravikant would never allow military action to delay his Jubilee, and he’s done so much for the Emperor that I believe he would respect that.”

  “Even if delaying his party meant capturing Eliana?” Jessamyn asked. “From what you’ve told me, I find that hard to believe.”

  And then Harkan, who had been sitting in silence, staring hard at his feet, said quietly, “You’ll need scouts stationed around the city borders, watching for the army’s arrival. And if they do arrive early, before you’ve boarded your ship, you’ll need teams to head them off and buy you some time.”

  He stood, his shoulders rigid, and his face held in such a careful, hard way that Eliana’s heart clenched. He had decided something, and she wasn’t going to like it.

  “I’d like to orchestrate that and lead the point team,” he said, and then, glancing in Zahra’s direction, he added, “With you, Zahra, if you’ll come with me. We can set bombardiers, sabotage the army when and where we can. We can’t stop them, but we can make things more difficult for them.”

  “Harkan,” Eliana managed at last. “You can’t be serious. We’re talking about thousands of imperial soldiers altogether—”

  “And a coordinated team of fighters could do some damage, if they were smart about it. And we would be.” He wouldn’t look at Eliana. “I have no power to offer and no understanding of the Old World. And I’m…” He paused, his jaw working, and Eliana ached for him, the pain of his obvious, terrible sadness lodging beneath her breastbone.

  He shook his head a little, looked at Simon instead. “I can lead such a team. I want to lead it. I know we could be helpful.”

  Simon considered him in silence. Then, nodding, he said, “Dani, would any of your people be willing to join him?”

  “I’ve already thought of a dozen off the top of my head,” Dani replied at once. “All of them would be happy for the chance, and I know we can recruit more.”

  Simon nodded. “Very well. Harkan, we’ll speak with the scouts while they eat, see what other information we can get out of them.”

  But before they could go, Eliana caught Harkan’s elbow, holding him fast. “And when we do go sailing away to God knows where,” she said fiercely, “and you’re left behind in Festival, fighting off an entire army, what then? What will become of you?”

  Harkan’s eyes shone. He gave her a soft, sad smile so familiar it tore at her. “Does it matter?”

  Furious with him for suggesting his life was somehow smaller because of her, or that anyone’s life should mean less in comparison to her own, she turned abruptly and left the room.

  39

  Rielle

  “Merovec Sauvillier (b. December 14, Year 974): the first child of Lord Dervin Sauvillier (b. 943, d. 998) and Lady Marivon Sauvillier (Gouyet; b. 947, d. 981). Elemental: metalmaster. The elder of two siblings (Ludivine Sauvillier, b. 979), Merovec demonstrated himself to possess a great talent for horsemanship and swordwork, in addition to political savvy, often patrolling the Celdaria-Borsvall border with his father. At age fifteen, he helped engineer the Treaty of the Two Rivers. His prodigious prowess on the battlefield—most notably in the Battle at Courroux (994)—earned him immense national popularity, as well as the moniker ‘the Shield of the North.’”

  —A Thorough Catalogue of the Great Celdarian Houses of the Second Age, compiled by various authors

  The night of Merovec’s arrival, after he and his party of some two dozen soldiers and advisers had been shown to their rooms, Rielle sat on Ludivine’s bed, the room lit softly by three candles. Atheria paced nervously on the terrace outside.

  On the bedside table sat a book chronicling the saints’ futile attempts to use their power to heal injuries at the height of the Angelic Wars. The number of human casualties had pushed them to desperate acts. Each disastrous attempt—a dozen in total—was chronicled in gruesome detail, followed by each saint’s assessment of what had happened and what had gone wrong, and how they had decided, after these dozen attempts and after much discussion and study, that it was simply not possible to extend an elemental’s power beyond the seven recognized elements. From water and metal to blood and bone.

  Rielle had spent every spare moment during the last three days poring over these accounts, until they had imprinted themselves on her mind.

  And now she sat with Ludivine’s arm in her lap, ready to attempt what the saints had deemed impossible.

  As she had done the last three nights, she traced her fingers up and down Ludivine’s arm, from the tips of her scarred fingers to the sharp turn of her shoulder, and then up, across her neck and jaw, and down across her ribs and chest, where the newest scar tendrils showed black and blue against her pale skin. After a lifetime of friendship with Ludivine, Rielle knew very well the lines of her body, but this scar was new and still unfamiliar. She wanted to memorize it.

  Ludivine watched her quietly, a gray blanket pooled around her hips, leaving her upper body bare for Rielle to work.

  “You won’t hurt me,” came her soft voice.

  Rielle avoided her tired, pale gaze. “I’m not worrie
d about that.”

  “I’m not so unwell that I can’t sense your feelings,” Ludivine said wryly. “Not when you’re this close to me.”

  Rielle glanced up, noticing how carefully Ludivine held herself, how the bones of her face seemed more pronounced. It was as if she had determined exactly how best to sit to avoid as much pain as possible and was afraid to even breathe too deeply.

  “I could hurt you though,” Rielle argued, looking away. “That man in Polestal. I could do that to you.”

  “You won’t.”

  “But I could.”

  “Yes. You could.” Then Ludivine lifted Rielle’s gaze to hers, one gentle finger under her chin. “But that is where you are mightier even than your power. In it lies the capacity for both destruction and creation, and only you can decide how to guide it.”

  Rielle was not entirely sure that was true. There had been times—many times, in fact—when her power seemed to easily get the better of her. The shadow trial, when she had launched the shadow-dragon at the Archon. The hills outside Styrdalleen, when only Audric’s presence had prevented her from abandoning the Borsvall capital to destruction. The villager in Polestal.

  The Obex in Mazabat.

  In those moments, she thought to Ludivine, unable to voice the terrible question aloud, was it indeed my power getting the better of me? Because I’m not strong enough yet to control it in moments of duress? Or was my power merely obeying my wishes? She swallowed. Was it aligning itself with my true nature?

  Ludivine let her hand fall. “You have so much light in you, Rielle.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “No.” Ludivine sighed. “It wasn’t.”

  Rielle pushed on, suddenly not wanting to know the answer. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing left but to try. Match your breathing to mine. It will help.”