Trinity of Bones

by Caitlin Seal

  Naya imagined she could feel the walls closing in around her. The cell they’d locked her in was so small that she couldn’t even sit or lie down comfortably. The floor was bare salma wood and the chill of it radiated up her legs, adding to the discomfort of the shackles around her wrists, ankles, and neck. There was no light, no sound, nothing to distract her from her pain and growing panic. In the dark it was so easy to imagine the press of death’s tides against her legs. What if her return to the ship had only been another illusion? What if Lucia’s portal had closed and all this time she’d really been trapped in death?

  Naya forced that thought away. None of the visions she’d seen on the other side had felt real in the way the Gallant had. Surely she would know if she was still dead. She reached out and pressed her hand against the icy wood of the door. Its touch was uncomfortable but reassuringly solid. How long did they intend to keep her here? It felt like hours had passed already, but that couldn’t be right. Delence would have heard of her arrest. He would remind the others that she was still a member of the delegation. He wouldn’t leave her to rot in this place without even a trial to determine her guilt.

  Will he really risk his own position to speak on your behalf? Even if he does, the queen and the other delegates might not listen.

  Naya sank into a crouch, trying to make herself small. She thought she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and jerked to one side, crying out as her shoulder bumped into the wall. Nothing. Her mind was just playing tricks on her. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached with numb fingers to clasp her mother’s pendant. She reminded herself that Corten and Lucia were both free and safe. She would survive this. And when the guards came for her again, she would find a way out of whatever charges they threw at her.

  She didn’t know how long she huddled in the dark before a noise caused her to look up. At first she thought it had only been in her head. Then the sound came again, a soft scraping like metal on metal. A crack of light appeared around the edge of the door and Naya lunged toward it before she had time to question the impulse. They could try to kill her if they wanted, but they would have to do it outside this cursed cell. Her shoulder connected with the door and it swung open a little farther, eliciting a grunt of surprise from the other side.

  The chain between Naya’s ankles went taut and she sprawled onto the stone outside the cell. She rolled over, readying herself for blows from salma wood clubs or the draining touch of a wraith eater. No attack came.

  Naya blinked, staring at the man who stood holding the door to her cell open. He was tall and dressed in strange clothes. His copper hair was tied back in a tail, and he carried a bloody knife in one gloved hand. She recognized him with a start. “Ambassador Bargal?”

  The Endran ambassador flashed her a smile that was all white teeth, then bowed in the formal Talmiran fashion. “Miss Garth, a pleasure to see you again. I do wish the circumstances were better.”

  “What are you doing here?” Naya asked. She forced herself to her feet. Her cell was set in a short hallway lined with five salma wood doors on each side. Two more doors of the same material guarded the ends. One was slightly ajar, and Naya thought she saw dark liquid seeping around its edges.

  Bargal pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped his knife clean, then snapped it into a sheath hidden somewhere in his sleeve. “I was dining with the queen when she told me of your capture. She was eager to brag of it. She seemed to think her circumstantial evidence and your unique nature are adequate justification for your rough treatment.” He paused, his lip curling briefly in a look of disgust. “I disagreed.”

  There was something chilling about his casual tone—and that knife. “So you came down here to find me?” Naya asked, stunned. “That doesn’t make any sense. There would have been guards. If the queen finds out, you’ll have no hope of an alliance with Talmir.”

  Bargal smiled again, then pulled the key out of the keyhole on her cell door. It was attached to a heavy ring along with a dozen or so other keys. Bargal hefted the ring thoughtfully, making the keys clink. “After many meetings, my partner and I have decided this Talmiran queen is not suitable as an ally. We’ve chosen to pursue other options. Since we were leaving anyway, I thought I ought to give you the option of coming with us. I think you’d find our lands far more welcoming to one such as you.”

  Naya remembered the long descent through the Barrow. Salma wood and despair made it hard to focus, but she thought they’d passed at least three checkpoints, all guarded and locked. She drew in aether and examined the strange way the energy flowed around Bargal, concentrating at his wrists and blocking her from reading his emotions. She’d seen something like that before, hadn’t she? “How did you get down here?”

  Bargal shook his head. “An explanation for another day. Now my companions and I have a schedule to keep, and it will not go well if we tarry. I will unlock your shackles. Will you come with me?”

  “What happens if I don’t?” Naya asked.

  “Ah,” Bargal said, tilting his head to one side as though he found the question odd. “Where else would you go?”

  “I…” Where indeed. If she fled, she’d be giving up any chance to claim her innocence. Queen Lial would use her disappearance against Delence. If she was very lucky, she might find her way out of the Barrow and back to the Gallant, but then she’d be stuck hiding on the ship until they could figure out how to get out of port. The prospect of returning to the palace and throwing herself on the will of the Congress was hardly more appealing. That left her with either accepting the ambassador’s offer or refusing and letting him lock her back in the cell.

  Naya glanced at the dark coffin-like space and shuddered. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Good. Before we go, was the necromancer brought here as well?” Bargal asked.

  “No.” Naya’s throat tightened with fear. “She’s still on the Gallant. At least I think she is. Did the queen say something about her?”

  Bargal’s expression shifted briefly to annoyance and he said something in his own language that sounded like a curse. “I’d hoped they would take her with you. If she’s still on the ship, then we’ll have no time to retrieve her.”

  “Why do you need Lucia?” Naya asked.

  Bargal smiled again. “I’ll explain everything later. For now we must go.”

  It took him four tries to find which among the heavy ring of keys fit the locks on Naya’s shackles. When they finally fell away, Naya gasped in relief. Warmth flooded into her limbs, and when she drew in a deep breath of aether, some of the ever-present ache in her hand faded. Bargal motioned for her to follow him toward the partially open door.

  On the other side of the door, a solider lay dead in a pool of blood, his throat slit. Bargal stepped over the corpse as if he were dodging a puddle on a muddy street. Naya paused. “You killed him?”

  “He got in my way,” Bargal said. “Please keep walking, Miss Garth. We are in a hurry.”

  Fresh unease tightened around Naya’s chest as she followed Bargal through a series of halls and up a short set of stairs. They passed by more cells. Some, like the one she’d left, looked like they’d been designed to hold wraiths. Others were more ordinary. The aether here felt thin, as though even the cells intended to house living prisoners were unoccupied. Despite that, the hall was clear of dust and lit by the pale glow of aether lamps.

  Bargal finally stopped at a heavy iron door. He opened it cautiously, revealing two more dead soldiers lying in a low, dark tunnel. “Ah, good,” Bargal said. “We should have a few minutes before the guard changes and these are discovered.”

  Naya stared at the bodies. Bargal barely seemed to notice them. He’d killed these men to get to her. They were Talmiran soldiers and no doubt scorned her very existence. But seeing their bodies left behind like garbage made her feel sick.

  Bargal turned to look at her. His expression was calm, but there was something in
tense in his pale-gray eyes. “Tell me,” he said, “is it true your kind can change the way they look?”

  Naya wanted to run from his calculating stare. “If I have to,” she answered cautiously. Something was very wrong here.

  “Good, do so. From here on we’ll risk running into others, and it won’t do for you to be recognized.”

  Naya drew in aether. There wasn’t much of it down here, which only made the strange pattern in Bargal’s aether stand out even more. With a shock, she finally realized where she’d felt it before—in the assassin who’d tried to kill her in the palace.

  When she’d first opened the door a few nights ago, she’d noticed the oddness in the assassin’s aether. In all the confusion, she’d dismissed it as an effect of the wraith eater the woman had wielded. But Naya had sensed the pattern before the woman had activated the runes on her knife, hadn’t she?

  Naya closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her face, hoping to hide the realization behind shifting features. She imagined Blue’s face, feeling her skin grow soft as it shifted to take on the new shape. With a cracked bone, the familiar features would be easier to hold on to. She didn’t think anyone in the palace would recognize her. Besides, wearing Blue’s face had always made her feel braver and more daring, and right now she could use as much courage as she could find. When she opened her eyes, she saw Bargal staring at her with that same look of uncomfortable intensity.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Let’s hurry now.”

  “Where are we going?” Naya whispered.

  “The palace,” Bargal said. “This tunnel will take us to one of the basement levels. Once inside, we will meet my companions at the stables, where we will take a carriage out of the city.”

  Naya had never heard of a tunnel connecting the prison to the palace. It made sense though. Anyone whose crimes required a ruling from the throne would see their trial carried out in the palace. The tunnel offered a discreet way for prisoners to be moved. But how would Bargal have known about it, much less known how to find it and when the guards would change?

  “What happens when we get out of the city?” Naya asked, trying to sound eager rather than horrified.

  “Back to Endra,” Bargal said. “You don’t have to worry about the details.”

  A chill ran down Naya’s back. “Oh, of course,” she said. Her smile felt more like a grimace, but Bargal seemed to accept it, turning and leading her down the tunnel.

  She followed him, her thoughts racing. She didn’t know what was causing the pattern in the aether, but she couldn’t ignore the link between Bargal and the assassin. On top of that, Valn had been killed on his way to the palace for trial. This tunnel seemed the most likely route the soldiers would have used to take him there. Bargal’s knowledge of the tunnel and the guard rotations was too much for coincidence. But what reason could the Endran ambassador have for being involved in Valn’s murder? Why try to kill her, then rescue her from prison a few days later? It didn’t make any sense.

  Was Bargal part of Resurgence? Naya thought through everything Celia had said. Resurgence had funded Valn’s efforts, then had him killed after he’d failed to spark a war between Talmir and Ceramor. They’d pulled Celia from Ceramor and snuck her into the palace among the glut of extra servants hired for the Congress. She’d said that she thought Resurgence was working to disrupt the Congress. What could the Endrans gain from all that?

  Something Ambassador Bargal had said when they’d spoken at the Banian salon echoed through her memory, the words taking on new context. Her Majesty is not one to be denied. What else could we do but bow to her will and set aside our differences? He’d been talking of the new Endran queen. Naya had assumed the Endrans were exaggerating when they claimed their queen had united the warring city-states.

  There were supposedly dozens of independent cities spread across Endra. It would take a potent mix of ambition and skill to convince the cities to abandon their independence and unite under a common ruler. If this Endran queen had made all the city-states bow before her, perhaps she hoped to do the same in the west. The woman Naya had met in death had warned her about an eastern queen who was tampering with dangerous old magic. Could they have been talking about the same person? It was a terrifying prospect, but the more Naya thought about it, the more she feared it was true.

  After nearly an hour’s wait, the soldiers finally let Corten and Francisco ride the lift to the city proper. The streets above were busy, Talmirans hurrying between rows of oddly uniform shops and houses. Corten wasn’t given the chance to see more as he and Francisco were escorted into a waiting carriage. The interior was plush, the seats covered in red velvet and the walls carved artistically in a way even Corten’s wealthy parents would have approved of.

  Corten stared out the window as the carriage started forward, trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up in a place like this. After a minute he let the curtains fall closed. He’d heard the ache in Naya’s voice when she’d spoken about never being able to return home. There had to be something good out there, something worth missing. But right now he couldn’t see it.

  Glancing over, Corten saw Francisco staring at him. “What?” he asked.

  Francisco shook his head. “Just wondering. Do you even know how much she risked bringing you back?”

  Corten tensed. “She walked back into death. I know what that must have cost.”

  “No,” Francisco said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I can’t pretend to understand whatever magic Lucia uncovered to make this possible. But I know politics. We came here with a real chance at forging a strong peace. Naya knew that, and despite the risks she’s taken, I think she really did want to see a better future for Ceramor and the undead.” Francisco paused. “She’s not stupid. She knew that if she got caught, she might be throwing all that away.”

  Francisco’s words sent an uncomfortable shiver down Corten’s back, followed quickly by anger. “What’s your point?”

  Francisco hesitated. “She didn’t have the right to risk all those lives and plans. But she did it anyway. I can’t tell if I’m furious at her or just incredibly jealous. Not many people would go so far, even for someone they care about.”

  “Everyone has a right to make their own choices,” Corten said.

  “Not everyone,” Francisco said forcefully. “Naya came here as part of the delegation, and she used the power and access that gave her for her own selfish reasons. Having power means taking responsibility for more than just yourself. It means sacrificing your own goals for the greater good. My father taught me that. And now all the sacrifices that I—that we all made might be for nothing just because Naya decided to put your life before the safety of an entire country.”

  Corten felt his hands curling into fists. “If you’re asking me to feel guilty for being alive, I won’t.”

  Francisco slumped back in his seat. “That’s not what I meant,” he muttered. “My father—no. Never mind.”

  There was a bitter undercurrent to Francisco’s words. Corten let the matter drop. This whole business with the Congress made him uneasy. Naya had spoken of the Congress of Powers and their treaties as though they were the only thing holding the world together. But those bonds she and Francisco so admired had always looked more like chains to him. True, the Congress alliance technically promised to defend Ceramor’s borders. But they wouldn’t need that protection if not for all the restrictions the treaty imposed. It didn’t seem fair that everyone in Ceramor should have to keep suffering because the Mad King had been a monster and the Dawning keepers in Talmir were too scared to accept necromancy.

  They rode on in silence until the carriage reached the palace gates. Corten didn’t need to be able to sense Francisco’s aether to tell he was growing more nervous as they approached the looming Talmiran palace. Corten felt his own body tensing as well. He didn’t see any crowds or execution platforms at least. In fact, th
e limited view from the window suggested the grounds were all but deserted. There weren’t even any gardeners moving among the flower beds, though it must have taken an army of them to maintain the expanse of perfectly trimmed lawns and hedges surrounding the palace.

  Francisco’s face looked pale by the time the carriage finally stopped. His expression was tight with pain, and he needed Corten’s help to manage the step down from the carriage. At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the palace’s massive front doors, they were met by a squad of Talmiran soldiers and a tall, thin man wearing clothes that looked something between a formal suit and a servant’s uniform.

  The man in the suit greeted Francisco in Talmiran and the two launched into a rapid conversation in the same language. Corten looked back and forth between them as they spoke. Neither one had raised their voice or altered their polite tones, but he could sense the animosity simmering in the air around the man in the suit and the soldiers. The man said something and gestured at Corten. Francisco dismissed the comment with a casual wave and then responded with what was obviously an order.

  Finally, the man in the suit bowed stiffly and stepped aside. Francisco leaned on Corten’s arm to steady himself as he climbed the stairs. “Translation?” Corten asked under his breath, trying not to let his frustration show. He’d never had reason to learn to speak anything other than Ceramoran. Now he badly wished he had Naya’s easy talent for languages.

  “Apparently my father is in a meeting with the queen and nobody knows when they’ll be done. Steward Neln insisted I should go back to the ships to wait, for my own health, of course.” The scorn in Francisco’s voice was obvious. “Like every other Talmiran here, he’d rather not have me in the palace if he can avoid it. I told him my health was none of his business and that we would go to my father’s rooms and wait for him there.”