by Cara Witter
Gasps and cries sounded from behind her, along with the quick scuffle of boots on tile, and she whirled around just in time to see Kenton lunging toward the queen, who was now standing, both her and her guards’ attention completely on Daniella and the godstone.
In one swift motion, Kenton grabbed the queen, a knife at her throat. The guards—all of them—had their blades out almost as quickly, but it was too late. The queen struggled, twisting her body to loosen his grip, but Kenton bent her arms behind her, incapacitating her.
The queen might have training, but Kenton was stronger and better prepared.
“Tell them to drop their weapons, Rakal,” Kenton growled. The queen hissed something in Tirostaari Daniella couldn’t catch, choked off by Kenton putting more pressure on her arms.
Rakal opened his mouth, but no sound came out as he stared at Kenton in stunned horror.
Kenton caught Daniella’s eye, only for the barest of seconds, and smiled.
Forty-eight
Kenton held his blade to the throat of the queen of Tirostaar, pressed into her skin but not quite breaking it.
Rakal—the queen’s Mortichean-speaking sycophant—stared at Kenton, his expression torn between shock and fury.
Kenton shook his head. “Don’t be a fool, Rakal. Not with her life.” He tilted the blade toward the soft flesh under her jaw.
Rakal barked out the order for the guards to lay down their weapons, which they did. There were five of them, and Kenton wasn’t going to to discount them because of their gender. He hoped he wouldn’t find out how well they could fight.
He’d accomplish that by hanging on to his collateral.
“The daggers in their boots, too,” Kenton said. “And the one to the right of the door has knives hidden under her sleeves.”
Rakal glared, but ordered those weapons surrendered as well.
Near the stone, Daniella slumped against the railing. Kenton had to admit that her speech had been better than he’d expected, and from the stricken look on her face, he gathered it had been more stressful for her than she’d let on. She’d played her part perfectly. At the bottom of the dais, Perchaya, too, looked shaken.
And rightfully so. Beneath his grip, the queen’s body was tense, and every bit as wiry as her guards. Saara had told him the Tirostaari royalty trained in combat, and Saara had skills to back up the claim.
“I don’t know if I believe that whole Haven story, your Majesty,” Kenton said, the knife pushing lightly against her dark skin. “But if you behave, you might live to find out Nerendal’s true wishes.”
He tossed his head in the direction of a door at the back of the throne room—one that led by hallway through an adjacent staging room, where food would be prepped on occasions when it was served here before the queen. Perchaya stepped to the door and opened it. As Saara had said, there were no guards stationed on the other side.
“It’s clear,” Kenton called, loud enough that he’d be heard in the staging room, but not so loud as to be heard elsewhere through the thick stone walls.
Then Kenton heard the encouraging sound of metal scraping on stone, as a sewer grate, already unbolted, slid slowly across the smooth stone floor.
As Saara waited behind Jaeme in the castle sewer, she knew something was wrong. Her gut felt unsettled, and not just from the fumes she’d endured overnight. She and Jaeme had slept on the cold stone beneath the laundry, where they’d at least had the assurance that no one was going to defecate in the shaft above them and then wash it down onto their heads with a bucketful of water.
Still, the smell of ammonia had been powerful enough.
But this wrongness, it resonated in her bones. It was the opposite of the feeling that had driven her toward Ithale, the opposite of the rightness that had led her to travel with Nikaenor and Jaeme in the first place.
What is it? she thought in Nerendal’s direction.
But if the god knew, he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—respond.
Figures.
Jaeme finished with the grate and pressed himself to the side of the tunnel so Saara could slide by him. “Good luck,” he said as she squeezed through. “Ask that god of yours to get us all out of this alive.”
Saara reached up and grabbed the stone on either side of the hole where the grate had been and pulled herself up. This grate emerged beneath a sturdy table. Across the room, Saara could see the door to the throne room standing open, and beyond it, a startled-looking guard staring at her.
Her cousin Aliana.
Saara might have smiled, if it hadn’t been for the uneasy feeling, which grew stronger as she hoisted her knees onto the floor, crawled over the grate and out from under the table, and rose to her feet.
Wrong, the feeling said. She paused and her stomach turned. You’re going the wrong way.
Saara heard shifting in the room ahead. Until she got closer to the door she wouldn’t be able to see Kenton, who was probably standing on the dais with the queen.
She couldn’t be going the wrong way. If the stone wasn’t in the throne room, Kenton would have aborted the plan and found some way to get word to her and Jaeme. They could have reworked, tried again. Everything was going exactly as they’d hoped it would.
Whatever the damn god was up to, she wasn’t going to abandon her companions. She stalked toward the door and stepped into the throne room.
The sick feeling was squelched considerably by the look on her aunt’s face. Saara would have been happy never to see Queen Aiyen’s face again, but since she did, she was glad Kenton’s dagger was poised less than an inch below it.
“You,” her aunt said.
Saara smiled and looked in turn at Kenton, then Perchaya, who stood at the bottom of the dais, and then past Perchaya at Daniella.
Who stood against the railing, mere feet from the godstone.
“Me,” Saara said. And while she wanted to shout at her aunt, to explicate the many and varied ways she wanted the woman to die for setting the guard on Saara, she knew that no words could serve as revenge as well as what she was about to do. So instead Saara strode across the chamber, giving a wide berth to Rakal, a diplomat Saara had never particularly cared for and who was now practically shooting daggers out of his eyes.
Saara stepped up to Daniella, reached past her across the iron railing, and pressed her palm against her god.
As Saara reached for the jewel, Kenton realized both he and the queen were holding their breath. Kenton brought the blade up under the queen’s chin, barely grazing the soft flesh there. He didn’t want to cut her—if she died, he’d be giving permission for every guard in the palace to descend on them. He just needed to hold onto her long enough to get them all safely out. Then Aiyen could live or die, the bearers would have their first jewel, and Saara could sort the rest out later after Diamis was dead.
As Saara’s hand touched the smooth surface of the jewel, she leaned so close to it that Kenton saw the flame reflected in her eyes. The guards stared on in confusion, but didn’t try to stop her—no doubt they’d been briefed that Saara was a traitor, and if the traitor wanted to take care of herself by handling the god, so be it. But Saara lifted Nerendal from his iron stand, turning him in her hand. She showed no signs of pain, no burning, no harm.
Kenton smiled. Beneath his grip, Queen Aiyen was tense, as if she was waiting for something. Across the room, Rakal spoke in a low voice. “I don’t know what manner of trickery this is, but for Nerendal’s sake, put Him down.”
Behind Saara, Perchaya and Daniella looked on in awe, like perhaps they hadn’t really expected their mission to work. With that, Kenton could empathize.
Saara still stared into the jewel, the light from the flame inside reflecting from her dark eyes. Her face showed none of the relief Kenton felt. One of his chosen stood before him, holding her godstone in her very hand.
But she looked . . . worri
ed.
“Gladly,” Saara said, and she turned to Rakal, gripping the stone in her hand. “Catch.”
Saara tossed the stone, and it flew through the air toward Rakal. The man’s face stretched in abject horror, and he dodged to the side.
Someone shrieked, though Kenton couldn’t be sure if it was Perchaya or Daniella. The god struck the wall behind him and shattered into a hundred tiny pieces. Perchaya stepped back, avoiding the fragments as they scattered across the floor. As she did, something landed near her shoe. Kenton couldn’t see it clearly, but it looked like a small metal—
Oh, gods.
The queen winced, causing Kenton’s blade to scratch the barest sliver against her throat. A single drop of blood ran down his fingers onto his wrist.
One of the guards gasped, and Rakal gaped. “What have you done?” he cried.
“Hirsetti charm,” Saara said. “Clever fake. I suppose you were expecting me.”
Kenton grimaced, tightening his grip on her wrists. The charm had been embedded in a spun glass stone, exact enough to replicate the effect of Nerendal’s light. She’d known that Saara was the bearer of Nerendal. She’d known Saara would be coming back.
Where in all hells was Nerendal?
Rakal’s expression of shock turned to anger, and he glared at Kenton. Kenton stared back. His hold on the queen was the only thing keeping the man—and the guards—from charging Saara and taking her away to be executed. Kenton spoke low in the queen’s ear. “Tell us where the real rock is, or I will gut you right here on your pretty throne.”
“You won’t,” the queen said. “Kill me and you’re all dead.”
She was right, of course, but Kenton had hoped to inspire a little more fear. Still, there were ways. Carefully, he scratched another line, this time beneath the queen’s jaw.
“Stop!” Rakal shouted, apparently unfazed by the knowledge that the god he worshiped had been replaced by a fake. Or at least, less fazed by that than by a knife at the queen’s throat.
“Stay where you are,” Kenton said to the room. The guards remained still, no doubt waiting for commands from the queen, or Rakal. “I may not kill her just yet, but I can cut on her. Small cuts hurt the most, Majesty. I can keep you alive for a long time.”
Saara’s arms were folded across her chest, her eyes narrowed at the mess of glass shards on the tile. “I knew something was wrong,” she said.
Of course she had. If he’d known, he would have encouraged her to listen to that feeling. “You should be able to find him,” Kenton said. “Even if she’ll tell us nothing, you should be able to—”
Saara held up a hand for Kenton to stop. She closed her eyes, and Kenton hoped to the gods that she was focusing, listening. Searching for the call of the godstone.
Saara opened her eyes.
“You know where it is?” Kenton asked.
Saara’s face hardened, and she looked over at the queen. “I’d listen to him if I were you, Auntie,” she said. “He won’t have any more mercy than you had on me.” She strode back across the room, fragments of glass crunching under her boots as she went through the doorway she’d come through.
Perchaya and Daniella exchanged worried glances. “Saara,” Perchaya called, tugging on her thumb nervously. “Where are you going?”
Only Saara’s voice came back to them. “To get my gods-damned stone.”
A moment later, Kenton heard the scraping of the sewer grate back into place, and Saara was gone.
“So, Lord Jaemeson,” the queen said. “What are we going to do now?”
Kenton looked to Perchaya, who stared back at him, eyes wide. He was calling the shots. He’d tell her what to do.
Just as soon as he figured it out himself.
Forty-nine
Jaeme hadn’t been able to hear every word of what went on in the throne room, and if he hadn’t previously agreed to stay safely out of sight, he would have crawled up out of the grate and hidden near the doorway to hear better. He did hear a loud shattering sound and angry voices, but it was what he didn’t hear that worried him.
He supposed it was a good thing he couldn’t make out Daniella’s voice. She wasn’t supposed to be part of the fighting.
But still, he would have liked an assurance that she was all right.
What Jaeme did hear clearly, however, was Saara’s last pronouncement. Her voice echoed through the staging room: “I’m going to get my gods-damned stone.” Then she dropped through the hole so quickly that Jaeme nearly slipped down the smooth stone shaft trying to get out of her way.
Saara reached above her and pulled the grate back over her head. Then she turned and scowled at Jaeme. “Fix that back in place, will you?”
Jaeme stared at her. “What? We can’t just leave them there. Where’s the stone?”
Saara waved her hand nebulously down the shaft. “That way,” she said. “I think.”
That fell considerably short of inspiring confidence. “If it wasn’t there—”
“It was a fake,” Saara snapped. “A very well-made fake. And yes, I should have known before I went out there. But Kenton has my aunt at knifepoint, so if you don’t mind, let’s get moving.” She took a meaningful step toward Jaeme, and he pressed himself to the side, letting her pass.
He looked back up at the grate. He could fix the bolts back into place—he was getting quite good at manipulating them now, loosening and tightening by softening the most minimal amount of stone around them. He wished he had Daniella or Nikaenor or Perchaya down here with him—anyone who might appreciate how quick he was getting at it.
Saara certainly didn’t. Even now he could hear her making her way down to the main tunnel, where they would have to dodge bucketfuls of drain water washing refuse and waste down to the main canal beneath the palace. She wouldn’t make it far without him. The grates were spaced throughout the palace, to keep people from doing precisely what they were doing.
But he didn’t like the idea of leaving the others without options. Kenton would play for time, but if things went wrong, they’d be trapped in there. And if something happened to Kenton—
At least if Jaeme left the grates open, Daniella and Perchaya could flee in the direction he and Saara had gone.
Jaeme turned and slid down the dry tunnel, wincing as his boots hit the muck of the main sewer channel. His nose had adjusted to the unfortunate smell, but the close press of the stone walls—while not as terrifying as the vast space below him on the cliff or in the kite—still felt more than a little suffocating.
His boots squished through moss as he hurried to catch up with Saara. The tunnel wasn’t big enough to stand in, so he had to move crouched over, an angry knot complaining at the base of his neck. He turned a corner—narrowly missing a slosh of water rushing down from above and then traveling down the incline of the shaft behind him—and found Saara waiting in front of a grate, glaring at him, no doubt for holding her up.
“This way,” she said. “It feels right, and my aunt’s bedroom is in this area. If she wanted to keep him close, she’ll have stashed the stone there.” Saara stepped aside.
Jaeme approached the grate. It was heavier than the others, and he could tell by the size of the bolts that they were laid more securely into the stone. All of the bolts had been fused in place using some kind of Vorgalian—or Hirsetti, Jaeme supposed—adhesive epoxy. Instead of dissolving it, Jaeme softened the stone around it, so bolt and adhesive alike pulled free.
He set to work on these bolts, ignoring Saara’s impatient huffs. He didn’t want to leave the others hanging any more than she did, but he could only work so fast, only mold so much stone at a time, and these bolts were set deep.
Finally, the grate lifted free, and Saara shuffled ahead of him without so much as a thank you. “Here,” she whispered. “My aunt’s bath chamber should be somewhere—there!” She crawled up a drain
shaft and pointed to another grate.
This one was set into the floor of the room above, like the one near the throne room, and was equally well fortified. It had taken Jaeme the better part of an hour to loosen the one by the throne room, because the bolts had been inserted from the top of the floor, rather than from below, making them harder to access. After quite a bit of trial and error, he’d figured out their placement pattern and been able to come at them from the side.
Saara scrambled back to allow Jaeme to crawl up in front of her to access the grate. “If you don’t get me in there soon,” Saara said, “I’m going to have to burn my way out.”
“An idle threat,” Jaeme said, removing the first pin, and quite a bit faster than he had on the throne room grate. Not that Saara noticed. “The only thing that’ll burn down here is methane, and the ones who would suffer from that would be us. And anyone unlucky enough to be sitting on a commode at the time.”
Saara glared at him again, though Jaeme hadn’t so much as paused his work to make the comment.
“Besides,” Jaeme said, working out the second bolt, “if your god is so powerful, shouldn’t he have been able to tell you that we were moving toward the wrong stone?”
“Apparently not,” Saara said with a sigh. “I don’t think he can communicate very clearly. Or at least, not in many words and not very often.”
“Some god that is.”
“They sacrificed themselves,” Saara said. “To seal away Maldorath. Their spirits migrated to the jewels, but their power went into the seal. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
Jaeme shrugged, finishing the third pin and moving on to the fourth and last. “I guess so. I’ve never been much for theology.”
Saara smirked at him. “I think the more relevant question, then, is why your god picked you.”
