by Caitlin Seal
It barely tickled.
Naya kept running, trying to remember the route she’d taken when Queen Lial had summoned her for tea. Corten had said Delence was meeting with the queen. If that was true, then perhaps she’d summoned him to the same garden. When Naya reached the lift, she found her hopes, and her fears, confirmed.
Two soldiers slumped at the base of the lift in pools of blood. The aether around them reeked with the fear and confusion of their final moments and the blood soaking their uniforms looked fresh. Naya heard her pursuers coming up fast behind her. She pounded the lift’s call button, but nothing happened.
“Don’t move!” someone shouted behind her.
Naya spun to see ten soldiers blocking the hall behind her. Some still had rune pistols drawn, but most had abandoned these in favor of wraith eaters. Sergeant Leln stood at their head, staring grimly at the corpses behind Naya.
Naya clenched her fists, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat, the pounding in her bones, and the sudden feeling of being trapped. “Please. Whoever did this is already upstairs!” She gestured to the bodies behind her. “Lord Delence and the queen are in danger. You have to send everyone you can up to the queen’s garden before it’s too late.”
She felt doubt flicker across their aether as they eyed the corpses. Naya met Leln’s eyes, searching for that hint of kindness she’d seen once before. “Please,” she said. “I’m on your side.”
Sergeant Leln met her gaze with a cold stare. “You four, go check the stairs,” he said to the man standing next to him. “Marn and Bek should be stationed there. And you, get me a set of salma cuffs.”
Five of the men split off down a side hall while the rest kept their weapons trained on Naya.
Minutes dragged by in tense silence while Naya stared at the soldiers, waiting. She’d backed up as far as she could toward the rune lift, but still she could feel the constant pull of the wraith eaters adding to the pain of her damaged bond. The aether here was growing thin and the edges of her vision were starting to go black. “You’re wasting time,” she said to Leln. “Ambassador Bargal still has Mel and Francisco. You should send someone to help them.”
“Quiet,” Leln said. His voice was stern. After a moment he asked, “Is it true you assaulted a scribe at the academy?”
“No,” Naya said, trying to fill the word with as much sincerity as she could muster. “I was there, but I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“Right, like you didn’t hurt poor Ralen?” another soldier asked mockingly.
“That was an accident.” Naya kept her gaze fixed on Leln as she spoke. “I’m sorry about what I did. I got scared and I panicked.”
Leln watched her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Ralen shares part of the blame. He should not have grabbed you, and I should have kept better control over my men.”
“Sir!” the other soldier said. “You don’t have to apologize to her. She’s a—”
“I know what she is,” Leln said.
One of the soldiers Leln had sent away came barreling down the stairs. There was blood on his coat and one of his arms hung limp by his side. His eyes were wide with barely contained shock.
“What’s going on?” Leln demanded.
“Sir.” The soldier snapped a wobbly salute. “Queen Lial wants the wraith brought to her at once.”
A thousand questions jumped to Naya’s mind. At least the queen was alive. She let the soldiers lead her down the hall, then to a stair that wound all the way up to the queen’s private garden. The garden looked the same as it had when Naya had last seen it. Plants spilled from delicate pots and late afternoon sunlight streamed down through the glass ceiling. But a copper tang lurked under the sweeter scents of flowers.
The soldiers led Naya down the winding path to the clearing at the center of the garden. The delicate metal table from earlier had been replaced by a more imposing expanse of polished dark wood. Queen Lial stood next to the table. The front of her dress was slashed open, revealing what looked like a chainmail corset beneath. Delence sat on the ground next to her, clutching at a wound in his leg. The bodies of two servants and five soldiers lay motionless on the floor. Two more soldiers held down a wounded young man wearing the uniform of a palace servant. The servant was bleeding from an injury Naya couldn’t see, but his lips were set in a small smile and his expression was almost eerily calm.
“Bring her here!” Queen Lial snapped.
Naya stepped forward, painfully aware of the soldiers behind her and the steady pull of wraith eaters. Her clothes were torn and bloodstained from the fight, and a quick glance down proved that despite her best efforts, her skin was fading in spots to show the pale-blue glow of aether. She could feel rage radiating off Queen Lial like heat from a furnace.
“Well,” Queen Lial said. “I have been told you drew my soldiers here. How did you know of this attack?”
Naya lowered her head. “Your Majesty, I didn’t know for certain, but I was afraid the Endrans might come after you or Lord Delence.”
“The Endrans?” Queen Lial said. “Explain.”
Naya stood a little straighter. “Your Majesty, you asked me to tell you everything I knew about Valn’s allies. When we last spoke, I truly had no useful information. I now have reason to believe an Endran group calling themselves Resurgence was funding Valn and that Ambassador Bargal was a member of that group. I think he and his allies organized Valn’s death as part of a plot to destroy the Congress alliance and cause chaos in preparation for an Endran invasion.”
Queen Lial raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. “An invasion? Tell me, Miss Garth, do you have any evidence to support these claims?”
Naya drew in aether, then winced. “That man who your soldiers have pinned is an Endran assassin.”
The queen looked down at the wounded man. “It is true that he is not one of my usual servants, and I do intend to find out exactly which incompetent allowed him and his companions up here, but I see no evidence that he is one of Bargal’s people.”
“If I might make a guess, Your Majesty,” Naya said carefully, “when he and the others attacked you, did they seem stronger and faster than ordinary men? If you check under his sleeves, I think you’ll find runes tattooed there. Not necromancy, but something else the Endrans are using to enhance their bodies.”
Queen Lial’s eyes widened slightly at this. She nodded, and one of the soldiers lifted the servant’s sleeve, exposing the tattooed runes. Naya breathed a sigh of relief when she saw them. She’d sensed the strange flow of aether around the man’s wrists, but it had been so dim as to be barely visible. Just because Bargal and his companion had those tattoos didn’t mean all the Endrans would.
Queen Lial frowned. “I thought they were reapers at first,” she said, half to herself. Her fingers drifted to a metal box sitting on the table. It was scribed in runes and seemed a match to the one Hest had used against Naya at the Academy of Magics. If it worked the same way, it might offer an explanation for how Delence and the queen had survived the attack. The runes powering the Endran magic weren’t the same as necromancy, but they seemed to rely on aether in the same way. Having that energy torn away from their runes would, she guessed, at the very least have slowed down the Endran assassins.
The queen picked the box up. For a terrifying moment, Naya feared she would activate it. Instead she tucked it into a pocket disguised by the folds of her dress. “Summon Grand Marshal Palrak,” she said to one of the soldiers after a moment.
“I told you it wasn’t us,” Delence growled, struggling to stand.
“You might have hired them,” Queen Lial said, though her tone was more thoughtful than accusatory.
Naya glanced at the queen and Delence. “Your Majesty. Last I saw, Ambassador Bargal and his allies were trying to escape near the west stables. They had Francisco Delence and Mel Jeden with them as hostages. If you send men now you might
still be able to stop them.”
“What?!” Delence said. “Why didn’t you say that from the start?”
Word was sent down to the gates and to the soldiers stationed near the stables. Delence tried to limp after them but was stopped by a soldier carrying a medic’s satchel, who all but forced him down into a chair to examine his leg. Naya longed to sit and rest herself. She was so tired of the pain in her hand and the weight of worry for Corten and Mel and Francisco. But the queen was still watching her and she could feel the soldiers standing at attention behind her.
“Well, Miss Garth, I must admit, your timing in bringing aid was fortuitous. But you should know that if I find out you’ve lied about anything, then no amount of diplomatic protections will save you.”
“I haven’t lied,” Naya said.
“And how is it you came to know so much of Ambassador Bargal’s plots?” Queen Lial asked.
“My father mentioned Resurgence in one of his logbooks. The rest I learned from Bargal and…another source. But it wasn’t until today that I put all the pieces together.”
“What other source?” the queen demanded.
Naya hesitated. “Another one of Valn’s spies. Resurgence placed her in the palace to help with their work here.”
“Does this mystery spy have a name?” the queen asked.
Naya looked away. “What will you do to her if you find her?”
“Question her,” Queen Lial answered. “Anything else will depend on how she answers.”
Naya nodded. “She told me her name was Celia. I never heard her use a last name, but she’s an older woman, just a little taller than me and with gray hair and brown eyes. She would have joined the palace staff only recently, though maybe not using that name. If you offer her a pardon for her work with Valn, I think she’ll be more than eager to tell you everything she knows about Resurgence.”
The queen pressed her lips into a thin line. “I will have someone look for her and see if she can confirm this story you tell.” She glanced at Delence. “Did the traitor Valn mention any of this in your interrogations of him? And don’t bother lying and saying you didn’t question him before the Congress.”
Delence cleared his throat. “Not exactly. We had been hunting Celia. We knew she’d fled the city, but my agents lost her trail after that. None of the individuals we questioned mentioned Resurgence, but some of the officials Valn bribed were paid in bars of precious metals rather than minted coins. We thought it odd, but that could make sense if the Endrans were smuggling wealth into the country to fund him.”
Queen Lial shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe all this about plots and wars, but I will consider what you’ve said.”
“Your Majesty,” Delence began.
Queen Lial held up a hand, silencing him. “Still, none of this explains what you were doing outside your cell, Miss Garth. Three good men were found dead in the Barrow halls. Did you kill them?”
“No!” Naya shook her head. “Ambassador Bargal came for me. He killed the guards and let me out of my cell. He told me you’d spoken together and that he didn’t approve of my imprisonment. He said his people had decided against an alliance with Talmir. He wanted me to come with him to meet his queen.” At that she felt a fresh wash of anger through Queen Lial’s aether. “Please, Your Majesty. Whatever he said, I don’t think he came for me out of any feeling of justice. He meant to use me for something.”
“Hmm.” Queen Lial tapped one finger against her dress. “And I suppose you have an explanation for the reports of your assault on the Academy of Magics as well?”
Naya bit her lip. “It wasn’t an assault,” she said, picking her words carefully. Given that the queen had one of the strange cubes, she had to know about Hest’s research. But Hest might not have reported anything about Naya taking Lucia’s journals. Doing so would have risked exposing her connections to Valn’s treason. And if the queen knew about the journals, then Naya would have expected the soldiers to search the Gallant before they’d hauled her off in chains.
What to say? She’d already admitted to Leln that she’d been at the academy. And Hest or the guards had obviously reported encountering a wraith. The last thing Naya wanted was to send the queen looking for other wraiths while Corten was still in the city. She drew in a breath of aether, then gambled on a lie that was at least marginally less damning than the truth. “I went there looking for a possible connection to Resurgence. I knew Ela Hest was Valn’s aunt. I thought she might have helped him, but I was wrong. Partway through our conversation, Hest realized what I was and called for the guards. I ran away, but I swear I didn’t hurt anyone.”
The queen was silent for a long moment. “Interesting.”
Naya glanced away at the sound of someone climbing the stairs. A moment later, Grand Marshal Palrak strode into the garden followed by a young soldier in a sweat-stained uniform. Palrak bowed to the queen, then offered a respectful nod to Delence. “Your Majesty, thank the Creator you are well.”
The queen shook her head. “I will be well when I know what is really going on here.”
Palrak nodded. “Of course. I was intercepted by a runner on the way here. Apparently there was some sort of conflict at the stables.” He gestured for the young soldier to come forward.
Delence tried to stand again, only to be pushed down by the medic. “What about my son? Where is he?”
The soldier flinched, then bowed low and gave Palrak an uncertain glance.
“Speak,” Palrak said.
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. “Your Majesty, there was a fight outside the west stables, like the Grand Marshal said. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened, but a carriage left through the gate before the orders to seal it reached the guards there. We don’t know for certain yet, but the men there said they think Ambassador Bargal might have been inside. We’ve found no other sign of him yet, or of Ambassador Noreth, or anyone else from their party. And it seems their rooms have been cleared out.”
“What about Francisco and Mel?” Naya asked.
“They weren’t in the yard,” the soldier said. “It’s possible they fled somewhere else.”
“So find them!” Delence snarled.
The chaos and confusion only grew as more soldiers and advisers arrived. The gates were sealed and a search begun, and it wasn’t long before a stable boy was found who claimed to have seen Ambassador Bargal forcing Mel and Francisco into a black carriage. The stable boy also mentioned a young man matching Corten’s description who’d come out just after the ambassador fled, but he apparently didn’t know where the young man had gone after that. Naya’s heart plummeted at the news of Mel and Francisco’s captivity. This was her fault. She shouldn’t have left them alone with Bargal. She was the one he’d wanted. Neither one of them would have been there if not for her.
“You have to send out a search party!” Delence said. He was standing now, his leg bandaged and the irritated medic hovering behind him.
Palrak frowned at Delence. “Sir, I understand your distress, but I shouldn’t need to tell you that you are here as a guest to Her Majesty. You will conduct yourself accordingly or you will be asked to retire to your rooms at once.”
Delence was nearly sputtering with rage. “My son was a guest here as well and look where that got him. I will hold you people accountable if anything more happens to him.”
“Rest assured,” Queen Lial interjected, “notice has been sent out to every guard and soldier in the city. The gates are being monitored. We will find them.” She turned back to Naya. “Now, I suppose I have to decide what to do with you.”
Naya paced back and forth across her cabin on the Gallant. Two days had passed since Ambassador Bargal and his companions had fled the palace. And for most of that time, she’d been trapped here on the ship, watched. Queen Lial had kept her at the palace long enough to interrogate her about Bargal. A
fter that she’d faced questioning by the heads of the other delegations. Delence had taken her aside and demanded answers about exactly where and when she’d met with Celia. The Banians had expressed skepticism at the idea of an Endran attack, while the Silmaran representatives had mostly seemed frustrated that their northern allies had nearly allowed themselves to be baited into a useless conflict. Arguments, theories, and blame had flowed freely. Round and round they’d gone, with Mel’s mother and Delence being the only ones arguing for immediate action.
Eventually Naya had been dismissed. Celia was nowhere to be found, and Delence and others speculated that she might have left with the Endrans. No decisions had been made regarding Naya’s fate, but the information she’d given up had apparently convinced the queen to let her stay aboard the Gallant rather than in a Barrow cell. With three Talmiran galleons watching the ship, and Talmiran soldiers stationed outside her cabin door, she was nearly as helpless as she would have been in the prison. But the fact that she’d been allowed to remain in relative comfort hopefully meant the queen believed Naya’s good intentions.
Corten sat at the desk nearby, sketching runes in a fresh journal and speaking softly with Lucia. They’d been that way for hours now, trying to sort through the strange memories Corten had received from one of the shadow men. By some small miracle, Corten had avoided exposing himself as a wraith during the chaos of Bargal’s flight. Naya had spoken to Delence, and he’d grudgingly helped escort Corten out of the palace and back to the Gallant.
A knock came at the door and Naya rushed to open it. On the other side, she found Delence standing between two grim-faced Talmiran soldiers. “Is there any news?” Naya asked, her chest tight.
“Inside,” Delence said. He brushed past her, then cast a dark look at Lucia and Corten, who’d stowed their work hastily.
