Storm from the East

by Joanna Hathaway

  “I will,” I say to him, to save him from it.

  Tears are freezing on my cheeks.

  When did I start crying?

  “Good,” he replies, and he looks like he might be sad. His green eyes are very large and fragile in the light, an entire sea hidden away. The quick gleam of a wave before it turns over into the grey again.

  For some reason I smile, because it’s not just him. It’s all of us.

  Bright pieces turning over into the grey.

  He looks confused at my strange smile, stepping away. He nods. Perhaps it’s the only way he knows how to say goodbye, so I nod as well, to say yes, I see you. I understand. I’m going mad in the head, but don’t ever forget me, please.

  You’re the best of them.

  He disappears through the door, and I stand there in the spotless snow, realizing at once that I have nothing—nothing at all—except a letter from my mother, frozen tears, and a faraway home to reach.

  XII

  THE HORIZON

  59

  AURELIA

  The world drifts beyond the train’s window as a smudge of dull grey—snow and concrete and stone, the steady rattle taking me farther from Mother, farther from her body lying alone on the wooden floor, hour after hour, deeper into the Elsandrin countryside, heading south.

  To the sea.

  My spirit weeps as I stare out the glass, not really seeing anything beyond. I feel I’ve left her behind, abandoned her there, and I can’t bear to imagine what they’ll do. They’ll say all the wrong things about her. Wild. Weak. Strong. Tragic. She’ll be labeled too many words that aren’t right. They won’t see that she was a mountain they could never pass—full of love.

  “O my enemy, my beloved.”

  “I offer myself.”

  I sift through my coat pockets again as the train clatters onwards. There was money in Mother’s letter which gave me the ticket. I have Athan’s necklace buried beneath a blue scarf and turquoise stones in my ears. I have a wool coat and gloves. That’s all. That and Mother’s words in my hand.

  Havis will be waiting by the sea. Mother anticipated my escape, and she’s done her best to whisk me away from whatever comes next. But when the Black appears beyond the window at last, grey as iron, empty as my heart, I feel my fragile courage giving way to despair.

  It’s all so very cold.

  Alone.

  * * *

  A small crowd has gathered at the village wharf, murmuring together on the slushy docks—families, workers, tired-looking sailors—and evening fog hovers on the horizon. I stand there, my toes beginning to numb in my shoes, staring at the fishing boats in the harbour. There’s no sign of Havis, and the grand star of this sleepy town is a small steamer with fresh paint.

  I wait.

  Mother wouldn’t send me all the way to a tiny harbour only to have no one waiting.

  Havis is here—somewhere.

  I need to get home to Reni.

  Minutes creak by, the sky turning violet, the little herd round me busy saying their private goodbyes, hiding tears as some venture up the ramps and onto the steamer. As the crowd thins, a familiar figure appears on the far side of the dock—solitary and hunched to the cold, shaved head exposed to the breeze. Cigarette lit.

  Damir!

  I push through the throng of hugs and farewells, desperate to get to him. If Havis has sent him to retrieve me, then perhaps he has news of Tirza. She’s safe. She’s waiting for me in Resya, and that’s enough to give me some flare of hope.

  Not alone.

  Together.

  But when Damir turns abruptly, his expression destroys that.

  It’s emotionless. Distant.

  “Are you ready to go, Princess?” he asks, shuffling side to side, cheeks tinged pink by cold.

  I’m suddenly scared to move. If Tirza were here, then some good would return to me. A goodness I’m greedy for. But Damir is still mostly a stranger, and what if Havis didn’t send him? Is he even part of the plan?

  “Where’s Tirza?” I ask finally. “Please tell me she’s safe. I need to—”

  “She was arrested.”

  For a snowy breath, I think my heart ceases to beat. My grief pulses ever deeper, searing into my already worn heart as the ship engines shudder to life nearby. Above, night descends. A thousand stars in the darkening sky.

  All of them strung together like stories unseen.

  Damir shrugs a leather bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go. We’re headed to Havenspur.”

  “Etania.”

  He sighs. “We need to keep you safe, Princess. Do you want to march straight into the Safire again? Because they’ll be headed for your home next.”

  He might be right. He might not be, and every word has come as if pulled between his teeth. He doesn’t like me right now. Perhaps he blames me for Tirza’s arrest. Perhaps he thinks I talked her into staying in the palace, right beneath the nose of the Safire. I don’t know. I simply need to get away. I need the sun and the warmth and for none of this to be true, all of it buried in the earth, beside my mother, a piece of me dead and gone forever.

  Damir holds out a steamer ticket.

  I look at it, weighing the choice before me. I could run now on my own, return to Etania, to Reni. He’ll be holding the kingdom together by a tenuous string. Always one mistake away from a truth that would destroy everything. Surely the Safire are breathing at his neck, waiting for a single blunder.

  But my mother’s sacrifice has bought us time. She was Dakar’s enemy—not Reni—and without her in the picture, what point is there in chasing a cooperative Etanian prince? A prince who plays smoothly with both the Northern kingdoms and the Safire alike?

  Perhaps I underestimated Reni.

  He knows how this works.

  And as I look at Damir, there’s a sudden and profound tug within me to get on that boat, the realization that I have a far larger game to play than my brother. And only I can go chase it. Only I can honour my mother’s heart beating fiercely in my chest.

  She wanted more for me.

  I take the ticket.

  60

  ATHAN

  Glorihall, Elsandra

  It takes just three days. Three days for the world to forget, to move on, to become even worse.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  The cover-up for Sinora’s suicide is quick and efficient. As formal as everything else these royals do. The film is destroyed. The evidence erased. Everyone who witnessed it is stricken with guilt, saying that, yes, she died, admitting at least that much to the papers, but nothing else. No one reveals the last thing we all saw—a queen with a bullet in her head, bleeding on the floor of the Royal League.

  I feel the danger of it.

  Something’s been lost, something my father was gambling on.

  In this void, the disappearance of Ali demands my action. I tried to get to her on that League floor, but Kalt ordered me to stay. He was wiser than me in that moment. The last thing I need is Father’s suspicious rage like a tracer on my back. Kalt had to be the one. But even Kalt couldn’t keep her here, and he tells his story over and over, how he felt bad for her and left her in her room. And then she disappeared. She’s gone.

  Everyone assumes it’s a temporary misplacement of a princess, a grieving girl too scared to show her face, but no one here knows Sinora’s hidden past, her old enmity with Seath. Arrin said Seath would try to make Ali a target in Resya, a valuable pawn, and Father has always insisted Seath’s quarrel with Sinora goes back longer than his own.

  I’m terrified of what that means.

  While I pace restlessly, soldiers roam the halls alongside me, Landorian and Savien and beyond. The League’s gone from unofficial trial to military parley, a pack of finely uniformed animals drawn to the scent of blood. Their hushed whispers are loud in the silence. Questions. Concerns. Accusations. I just want to know where Ali is. If she’s alive, safe, better off. I promised Sinora.

  I turn
a corner, ready to beg Kalt for the details one more time, to make sure I didn’t miss anything important, and run right into a brooding huddle of Landorian naval uniforms. Rich blue with golden epaulets, the peaked caps of high admiralty. I halt in my tracks. It’s the Rear Admiral of the Northern Star and the Commodore of its sister ship, the Princess Everlasting.

  Only one uniform is Safire.

  “My brother has a habit of shooting first and asking questions later,” a familiar voice shares conversationally, “and my father often forgets he’s no longer on the frontlines of a revolution. But I assure you, they’ll be cowed after this unfortunate show.”

  I know I should say something. Speak up. Intervene. Maybe this is just Kalt being Kalt. This is what he does—quietly working to dull Arrin’s glory, to make it look less alluring away from the light. He’s been doing this for years, muttering critical opinions that aren’t quite treasonous. But not with the Landorian Admiral of the Northern Star. Not outside our own ranks.

  And not when Arrin really is on dangerously thin ice.

  “You’re a good man,” the Admiral says, clapping Kalt’s shoulder. “And fine work in Hady.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kalt replies, deferential.

  Respectful.

  It’s nothing, I tell myself. Kalt’s only doing what he can. We’ve taken a misstep—a very big misstep before the entire League—even though no one’s said it aloud yet, the truth left to cower in the corner of every conversation. Kalt’s just working his crowd with his usual vague charm, throwing them off the trail. And if he can shoulder his way past Arrin in the process, even better.

  It’s nothing.

  On the fourth morning after Sinora’s death, the silence ends.

  “There’s no sign of the princess anywhere,” Gawain declares to us in a small office. “She’s certainly been scared into hiding, what with that horrific show. Truly, what a tragic family. First the father murdered. Now this.”

  “It’s regrettable,” Father agrees, still clinging to the act, “but Sinora proved her guilt with this.”

  Gawain doesn’t nod. He only taps his cigar with thick fingers. “Perhaps.” He draws on the cigar. “Or perhaps you drove a fragile woman to her death.”

  “She admitted murder, Your Majesty. The murder of my own wife.”

  “But why? She clearly wasn’t in a well state. She was afraid of you.”

  “And that’s now an excuse for murder?”

  “Not if you tell me her whole story. Why she would do this to you.”

  They don’t know the final Savien conversation that took place—between Arrin’s pistol and Sinora—and Father’s hand is in a fist. Gawain is clearly smarter than he looks, because Father can’t explain this. You pull one of Father’s threads, the entire thing collapses. His brilliant cunning has also left him standing on an empire of quicksand. Especially now that Seath has betrayed us. One rumour about his dealings in the South and …

  I shake away the thought. I don’t even want to go there. Father will give in and talk his way out of this, somehow, whatever he needs to satisfy the Landorians. He’s simply frustrated right now because even after confessing to murder, even after killing herself to destroy him, Sinora’s found a way to remain a question mark. She’s still sowing her confusion in the ranks of the enemy.

  “I think she was simply mad with grief,” Gawain finishes, and I actually wince at the condescending verdict. Maybe he’s not so smart. “Your personal history has never been your strongest point, General, and I think it’s best we forget what happened in that room.”

  “Agreed,” Father replies swiftly.

  Convenient.

  Now we can all pretend a queen didn’t kill herself, that Gawain didn’t allow the perfect storm for it to happen, and that those dead kids Ali exposed never even existed.

  “Though, General,” Gawain adds, “while I admire your dedication to helping us deal with the Nahir problem, the facts do remain the same. Two royals are now dead under your watch, one who didn’t even get a trial.” The King stands. “That’s an unflattering record.”

  I glance at Arrin’s tense face, and I know he sees the same thing as me.

  It’s not good.

  But Arrin really is cowed, as Kalt said in the hall, because he can’t say anything here right now without inviting glowers. Only General Windom seems to still be on his side.

  The rest look at him and see his pistol.

  “I think for now,” Gawain continues, “it would be best if my army occupies Resya. They are a royal kingdom, our brethren, and I’d prefer we settle the discord there ourselves.”

  I brace for Father’s anger, since he’s just been kicked out of the territory he won. I wait for his scathing critique, something like “Oh? As effectively as you’ve settled the discord in Thurn?”

  But he only nods. “Of course. As you see best.” Then he pauses, and I wait for the catch. Too easy. “The princess Jali mentioned Masrah, Your Majesty. What do you know of it?”

  Shit.

  Beside me, Arrin groans quietly as Gawain turns back to Father, brow cocked. “What’s to know? They keep to themselves, isolationists, though they certainly aid the Nahir when they feel like it.” His frown seems to sense the direction Father is headed. There’s a reason Jali Furswana is still around. “Masrah is a dark void, General. We don’t know their capabilities. We can only assume where they’re at militarily—and that’s not an assumption anyone should test lightly, not even if Seath is hiding there.”

  “I don’t take anything lightly, I assure you,” Father replies.

  “And I’m not sure I’d trust the word of any Southerner either.”

  “Then perhaps that’s been your trouble all along.”

  Hearing Father defend the South to this spoiled king almost redeems the plot brewing three feet from me. Almost. Jali’s given Father a fresh opportunity. A new and greater chance at victory, in a place hiding both Seath and unknown glory. It isn’t a kingdom connected to the North, like Resya. It isn’t a territory the North has already claimed, like Thurn. It’s something wealthy and untapped, something that might be ready for change. An old royal returned after twenty years in exile.

  And with Seath now trying to kill us—we need a bigger friend in the South.

  Sinora, what the hell am I supposed to do? You left us and now he has no one to hate!

  It’s like taking a huge weight off a scale. The balance has tipped too far, and my father can’t survive without a goal, a sacrifice to make. He’s going to do whatever he can to feel the cold precision of duty.

  Gawain taps his cigar, watching Father carefully.

  “Your Majesty,” Father promises, a smile on his lips—the dangerous kind. “There are many riches waiting in Masrah and I assure you we will be eager to share the benefits with our greatest ally.”

  Dear God, the fact that this might work terrifies me.

  Gawain finally appears intrigued—the promise of someone else fighting a war he’ll get the rewards from, no strings attached—and I glance at Arrin again, trying to figure out if he knew anything about this. He’s watching Father and Gawain discuss logistics for the Safire exit from Resya, the passing off of occupation duties, something like alarm on his face.

  He didn’t know.

  He wanted Resya to be his last war.

  “Is this bad?” I whisper at him in Savien.

  He pauses. “You know in a game, when you have a card that can change everything, and you hope it’ll give you a shortcut to the end?”

  I wait.

  “You play it, but then everyone keeps staring at you, and you realize it was worthless, like you never played it at all.” He swallows. “Sinora was that card for us. And Father just played it.”

  “Are you saying we’ve lost?”

  I don’t like the sound of that. Not from Arrin of all people.

  “No. But I’m saying you need to play now like you mean to win. You play the next fifteen moves like your life depends on it.” He ja
bs his elbow into my ribs, pretending to stretch. “No more idiot maneuvers.”

  “Don’t worry, I know how to keep my gun in its damn holster,” I reply.

  That works.

  He’s effectively silenced, and the power feels good.

  I don’t tell him I’ve already made my choice. I’m here, for better or for worse, and if I ever make another traitorous move again, it will be when it counts. When I can save lives and change worlds. Nothing just for me anymore.

  I rub my sore rib as Father departs Gawain’s presence with a clipped bow. He doesn’t say a word to us. He’s already marching down the hall, to devise whatever comes next, and hope leaves with him. He won’t come back with anything I’ll like.

  Kalt sweeps from the room last, but he’s not quite quick enough to avoid Arrin’s hook. “Better get your fishing boat ready, Captain,” Arrin snipes. “This smells like war.”

  Kalt doesn’t look at him. “Believe me, Commander, it’s already armed.”

  Then he’s gone. Swimming off without a sound.

  “Was that a threat?” Arrin asks me, astounded.

  “You know it’s never a good idea to read into Kalt,” I say.

  “True,” Arrin replies.

  But he doesn’t look convinced.

  It’s nothing.

  61

  AURELIA

  Havenspur, Thurn

  My days at sea are listless. I’m bunked beside a boy who couldn’t care less whether I slapped him on the face or cried myself to sleep every night. He sits like a stone in our tiny cabin, his lonely thoughts far from mine, both of us shifting with the endless swells, drinking watery tea that tastes mostly like milk.

  Damir doesn’t know we’re closer than we ever were before. That perhaps I, too, now have this shining anger like a weapon—I’m simply too sad to pull the bitter strength up from the grave of my heart.