Godfire

by Cara Witter

  “Trust me,” Jaeme said. “No one wonders that more than me.”

  Jaeme’s arms ached from holding them over his head to manipulate the stone, still sore from the long battle with the staging room grate early in the morning.

  “There,” he said, pushing the last bolt free. He slid backward through the drain shaft, motioning to Saara magnanimously. “After you, my lady.”

  Saara grumbled something in Tirostaari, but she shimmied up the shaft and pushed the grate out of the way as slowly and quietly as possible. Saara climbed up through the grate and Jaeme followed her through. He’d had enough of crawling around like a sewer rat.

  They were, indeed, in a bath chamber. To the side, the limestone had been carved away to form an enormous tub, with Hirsetti heat charms already hanging over the edge, waiting for water. The chamberpot itself was gilded; Jaeme had seen the like in the houses of some of the nobility in Mortiche and had always wondered if they expected the excess to change the scent of their own excrement.

  Saara opened the door a crack, and Jaeme could see the top of a green silk canopy over a lushly pillowed bed. Saara slid the door the rest of the way open and took one step out.

  An arm grabbed her and jerked her the rest of the way into the room.

  Jaeme had his daggers out of their sheaths before she could scream. He whipped around the doorway, hoping to take Saara’s attacker by surprise, but stumbled in pain as a sharp blow took him in the back of the head. Jaeme’s vision went white and he blinked, struggling to maintain consciousness. His arms were wrenched behind him, and he felt a knee in his back, forcing him to the ground.

  Jaeme fought to look up as his vision cleared. In front of him, one guard had Saara pinned, her hands behind her back—and not, Jaeme noticed, within burning range of the guard’s clothing or skin. The guard behind him was—Jaeme couldn’t help but think—strong for a woman. He still felt disoriented from the blow to the back of the head, and he didn’t know where his daggers had gone. He managed to struggle against her grip, but the guard held firm.

  Across the room, hidden in the shadows, Jaeme could see one final guard sitting on a plain-looking wood and bronze chest. She was holding a sword across her lap in a posture that was calculatingly casual, and she said something to Saara in Tirostaari that sounded smug even to Jaeme’s untrained ears.

  “It’s there,” Saara said in Sevairnese. “Under her.”

  But before they could do anything about it, the guards hauled them both out of the bedchamber and into the hallway beyond.

  As Saara’s cousin Viri pushed her down the hall, Saara fought against her hold. Her other cousin Rila had a hold of Jaeme, pushing him down the corridor. Ahead of them, a third cousin—Laani—led the way, though she kept glancing back at Saara with a smug smile.

  Saara hadn’t been particularly close to any of her cousins, save for Talia. But there had never been any love lost between her and these three. Viri, Rila, and Laani were all excellent fighters—among the best in the order of Daughters—and they all had egos to match.

  At this moment, Saara wanted to punch each one of them. All three were part of her aunt’s personal forces, the ones who acted as her bodyguards in circumstances where it would be easy to overhear important information. Her aunt picked her favorites among Saara’s cousins for this elite position—and since the line of the queens had to be preserved, there were always many to choose from.

  Aiyen clearly trusted these three enough to tell them what to expect, because Viri held Saara with her arms twisted behind her back but wouldn’t let Saara’s hands get within inches of the folds of silk beneath her leather jerkin.

  She’d give her aunt this: she was prepared.

  As Viri pushed her down the hallway, Saara twisted and fought, trying to get her hands in a position to burn. But Viri deftly maneuvered her using pressure on her forearms and elbows, leveraging Saara without allowing Saara to get close enough to her body to touch.

  Saara looked over at Jaeme, who walked with his head down. He was a better fighter than she was, but she wasn’t sure how the Knights of Mortiche would compare to the personal guard of the queen.

  They were going to have to find out. Saara felt a visceral tug from behind her, as if someone had grabbed onto her innards and was hauling them back toward the bedroom.

  Take me, the god said.

  In her mind, Saara grumbled back. I’m trying, damn it. Help would be appreciated. But she guessed that what she’d said to Jaeme was correct—the gods had given up almost all of their influence along with their physical forms. It was enough to make Saara think she’d had it right. No providence was correctly attributed to them; it was all just happenstance and wishful thinking.

  Saara loosened her muscles, trying to appear as if she had given up the fight. They were moving farther and farther from her aunt’s bedroom—farther and farther from the stone. Saara gave it a few more paces, then launched herself backward, igniting a flame in her palm.

  But Viri was ready for her, lifting up on Saara’s arms with a sharp jerk and propelling her downward again. Saara shouted as jolts of pain shot up her arms and down her back. She tossed a look at Jaeme, about to complain at him to help her, when she noticed the way he was leaning ever so slightly to the right, leading Rila slowly over to the side of the corridor. Ahead, Laani looked back at them.

  “Come on,” she called back in Tirostaari, smirking at Saara again. “You don’t want to delay the family reunion.”

  Saara was about to retort when Jaeme veered suddenly right, running face first into the wall. Rila twisted his arms, trying to bring him back on course, but Jaeme was stronger, and heavier, too. He pulled her along with him, ramming Rila into the wall beside him.

  And reaching the stone wall with his hands.

  He couldn’t have gotten more a fragment of rock in his fingers, but apparently that was enough. Jaime whipped around, escaping from the Rila’s grip and catching her in the shoulder with the sharp fragment.

  Laani charged at Jaeme, drawing her sword. Viri pulled Saara away from the group, but she was just distracted enough not to notice when her long braid swung forward.

  Right into Saara’s waiting hands.

  A horrible stench filled the corridor, and Viri screamed and called Saara a vile name. She threw Saara to the ground and beat the end of her braid with her leather arm guard, snuffing the flame.

  That was the opening Saara needed. She rolled to her feet, drawing her dagger, and plunged it into Viri’s gut, right below her jerkin. Red blood mixed with green silk, turning the cloth a muddy brown color. When Saara twisted back, she saw Jaeme standing over the still-breathing body of Rila, who he had apparently knocked unconscious in the struggle.

  And she saw Laani, turning the corner out of sight.

  Saara looked down at Viri’s body as her cousin breathed her last gurgling breath. She’d killed other guards in her escape, insurgents during her one and only military tour, as well as soldiers of Diamis back on the mainland.

  But never one of her cousins. If Saara hadn’t already been guilty of treason, here was the evidence before her. She sure as all hells was guilty of it now.

  And much as she’d disliked Viri, she’d never wanted her own cousin dead by her hand.

  But hells. Laani. She’d alert others, and the whole of the guard would come down on them. Saara swore, and ran a few paces down the hallway, but Jaeme grabbed her by the arm. “You’ll never catch her,” he said. “There could be a whole regiment waiting down that corridor. We have no way to know what we’re running toward.”

  Saara, however, knew exactly what Laani was running for. “The—”

  She was cut off as the echoing sound of the gong pulsed through the corridor. The entire palace was connected by a series of acoustic tunnels—too small to travel through, but perfect for channeling the sound.

  Everyone would hear the al
arm. Every guard would be at the ready. They had only the amount of time for word of mouth to travel, and then they would all be on top of them.

  Saara could only hope Kenton could use that to his advantage, but it was all useless if she didn’t get back to the stone. She shrugged Jaeme off, stepped over Viri’s body, and started jogging up the corridor in the direction they’d come.

  Fifty

  As she and Nikaenor were led through the winding tunnels of the palace of Tir Neren, Sayvil couldn’t help but hope they were going to run into Kenton and the others on their way out. Judging by the time on the water clock they’d passed near the entrance, the meeting with the queen should be well underway. Saara should already have her jewel, and that meant it was time for them all to escape.

  What she and Nikaenor were doing now, however, was the opposite. Two guards in full Tirostaari regalia—leather armor laid over bright silk robes in green and gold—held them with their arms twisted behind their backs, using a pressure hold to propel them forward. And while Sayvil didn’t have extensive experience being arrested, they didn’t seem any weaker for being women.

  Nikaenor kept casting terrified glances at Sayvil and whispering furtive questions about whether or not they were going to be executed. Sayvil had answered the questions only with a shake of her head. They couldn’t afford to be locked up in a dungeon, much less remain in custody long enough for that.

  What they needed was to get away from these guards and find the others. She’d expected the palace would be in chaos by now, yet servants milled about the halls, carrying fresh linens and buckets of water for baths and the flushing of refuse. Sayvil even caught sight of a few girls who—judging by their lacquered nails and beaded silks—must have been some of Saara’s relatives, the women called Daughters of Nerendal.

  Life went on in the palace as if this was a normal day, oblivious to the fact that, in all likelihood, somewhere nearby their queen was being held at knife point.

  Sayvil glanced down at her open belt pouch. The guards had taken away her dagger, of course, though she used that more for chopping herbs than for combat. Nikaenor hadn’t even been carrying a weapon for them to take. The guards had opened her pouch and rifled through it, and Sayvil had cringed as they tore the edges of the envelopes and then stuffed them back in, causing cross contamination.

  But they hadn’t known what they were looking at, because if they had, they never would have let her keep it.

  “Where are you taking us?” Sayvil asked. She’d already asked this question once before, and been told they were going to the palace, to be dealt with by the queen at her convenience. Sayvil had tried to suggest that the queen needn’t be bothered, but Sayvil and Nikaenor were, ostensibly, diplomatic guests. Anything that smelled like an international incident would of course be addressed by the queen herself.

  “Queen is busy now,” one of the guards said in heavily accented Sevairnese.

  More than you know, Sayvil thought.

  She peered down a few hallways, trying to figure out which ones led to the throne room. Kenton and Saara had worked out two plans for escape. The first was that they would keep the queen as a hostage and bring her with them, sneaking out of the castle by way of an upper balcony and using Jaeme’s footholds to climb to the cliff top where they would meet Sayvil and Nikaenor.

  With the kites they very much did not have.

  Sayvil sighed. The backup plan was that they would all go down by way of the sewer, but instead of exiting by the main river outlet or through one of the grates in the palace, they’d follow the canal beneath the sewer channels upstream, and emerge on the mountainside above the palace, thereby able to make it onto the plateau above.

  And if that plan went wrong, they would fight and do what they had to do to survive.

  If things had gone wrong in the throne room, the others might be in the sewers even now, fighting their way against the current, expecting Sayvil and Nikaenor to be on the other side. The idea that they might emerge to find no practical means of escape, and possibly guards waiting for them besides . . .

  Sayvil had to do something to get word to Kenton or Saara. “The queen is meeting with my lord,” Sayvil said. “I’m sure they would be happy to sort this out.”

  The guard looked askance at her, but she suspected that was because she hadn’t understood all the words she’d spoken. “My lord,” Sayvil repeated. “With the queen. Take us to him?”

  The guard scowled and shook her head. She opened her mouth and words came out, but they were drowned out by a deafening, reverberating sound Sayvil could feel deep in her sternum, a single, low note sounding three more times in quick succession, such that Sayvil’s ears rang.

  The gong. The gods-damned alarm.

  Saara and the others were almost certainly in trouble—whether the kind they’d planned for or the kind they hadn’t was anyone’s guess. What Sayvil knew was that she and Nikaenor had to get topside to meet them, and fast. And once they were there, with Arkista’s blessing, they had to find some gods-damned kites.

  Sayvil wished for some sleeping powder, but she’d expended hers back in Peldenar and hadn’t been able to procure any more. Still, she had other, more messy things that might help.

  As the sound of the gong faded away, the guards pushed them faster down the corridor, making Sayvil’s arms ache. The guards spoke rapidly to each other in Tirostaari, and Sayvil wished Daniella had been assigned to their task, instead of the throne room. Whatever had happened, they were obviously in a hurry to get Sayvil and Nikaenor contained and get to helping the other guards with whatever in the gods’ names had gone wrong.

  We’re not exactly under your light, here, Sayvil thought of Arkista. But help me, would you?

  And with her next step, she let her knees buckle beneath her and tumbled to the ground.

  The guards shouted behind her, though Sayvil didn’t understand a word. She hadn’t landed as well as she’d hoped, a sharp pain shooting up her left knee, but she rolled against the grip of the guard who’d been holding her and managed to get herself tangled in Nikaenor’s feet. He shouted as well, and all three of the others toppled over Sayvil in a heap.

  Rather than struggle immediately to her feet, Sayvil thrust her hand into her belt pouch and pulled out her envelopes. Crumbled dill weed filtered through her fingers and scattered all over the floor. Sayvil let that envelope fall—she wouldn’t have an urgent need to season fish in the near future.

  Between her fingers she held a greater prize—her pepper powder. She dumped the entire envelope into her hand and tightened it into a fist, then let the empty parchment fall to the floor with the dill. Sayvil rolled from beneath the guards, who seemed to be entirely entangled in Nikaenor’s gawky limbs. Sayvil said a silent thanks for the awkwardness of teenage boys, then grabbed one of the guards by her long braid, jerked her head upright, and blew part of the handful of pepper dust directly into her face.

  The gong sounded again, covering the woman’s screams. Sayvil threw her off Nikaenor just as the other guard disentangled herself and grabbed Sayvil by the wrist. Sayvil twisted her arm and opened her fist, then she blew the rest of the powder into the second guard’s face. The guard closed her eyes and dodged back, but immediately doubled over coughing. Sayvil held her breath as the remaining dust settled to the floor.

  Right on top of Nikaenor. He looked up at an unfortunate moment and fell back to the floor again, holding his eyes. “What in the name of—” His words trailed off into a pitiful wail.

  That was not covered by the gong. Sayvil grabbed Nikaenor by the forearms and hauled him to his feet. Tears streamed down his face, but he did seem to be able to breathe. “Come on,” she said, slinging an arm over his shoulder so she could lead him forward while the guards still moaned on the floor behind them. They wouldn’t be incapacitated forever.

  And while Sayvil still had a few useful items in her belt po
uch, she couldn’t take on the whole of the queen’s guard with her herb stores alone.

  Which meant she and Nikaenor needed to find the others—fast.

  Kenton stood on the dais of the throne room, every second seeming to stretch on for hours. Daniella and Perchaya moved about the throne room and the adjoining chambers, doing their best to secure it, moving a table against the servant’s entrance to the staging room. Beneath his blade, the queen was growing increasingly smug, while Rakal waxed angry and the guards twitched.

  Kenton remembered that feeling from his days as a soldier. Waiting before a confrontation, knowing danger was present but being unable to act. Unsure of what the outcome would be or even if he would live.

  Left that way for too long, he and his fellow soldiers would begin to snipe at each other. To keep fights from breaking out, they’d plot ways to push the tensions, to bring about the combat sooner rather than later. Not for tactical advantage, but to calm their own nerves, to just be fighting already.

  These minutes would feel just as long to these guards as they did to Kenton—maybe longer. Every moment they spent waiting, they risked one of them doing something foolish. Something dangerous.

  Kenton’s mind raced for a plan—one that would allow them to leave with the jewel and all of his companions. He had no idea where Saara had gone, but he could only hope she’d been able to sense the stone and was heading for it, and that Jaeme was helping her. Nikaenor and Sayvil should already be in place with the kites for their escape, and the longer they waited, the greater chance they’d be apprehended.

  Think.

  Kenton could take the queen through the palace, threatening the guards at every exit. Saara had briefed him on the paths out of the palace, but she would still know better than he did which to take, and every moment in the open was a moment they could be overwhelmed. They could take the queen through the sewer, but without Jaeme they’d have less freedom of movement, and they’d be in tight quarters when the guards rained all the hells down upon them.