The Fiery Crown

by Jeffe Kennedy

  General Kara glanced to Con for permission, then continued. “We need advice on that. Your Highness knows this island better than any of us.”

  I restrained a sarcastic reply. So good of them to notice. “Do tell.” Oops, my sarcasm slipped out anyway.

  Kara hesitated, having caught the bite in my tone. Con still stood back in all his caged-wolf wariness.

  “When Anure comes here,” Kara continued, “if he’s determined to retrieve Your Highness, would he come to the palace?”

  “That’s where I live,” I explained patiently, and Percy laughed.

  “Lia.” Con’s voice held reproach, and I threw up my hands in exasperation.

  “Yes. The palace is where the emperor would expect Me to be.”

  “Her Highness is always in residence,” Dearsley put in. “As is right and good.”

  “Always?” Con asked me, ignoring Dearsley. “You’ve never once left the palace? How do you even know what other parts of the island are like?”

  “I saw them all on my initial tour of Calanthe when I ascended to the throne, and I have—”

  “So you’re not always here,” he interrupted, pouncing on the point.

  Only by locking down my eyeballs did I manage not to roll them—and then only because we had an audience. “For the last ten years, I’ve been on the palace grounds. As these people can confirm, it’s safest here.”

  “And comfy,” Percy put in.

  “Safest why?” Con pursued the topic like a hound on the hunt.

  I sighed mentally. I’d have to show them Calanthe’s strengths—and Her weaknesses. Her weaknesses were mine, and it went against the grain to put those vulnerabilities on display.

  Con blew out a breath in exasperation just as I opened my mouth. “Look, Lia,” he burst out in his wolf’s snarl, “we face overwhelming odds. The emperor has at least a hundred times more ships than we do, maybe a thousand. Tens of thousands of fighters. If they land on Calanthe, even knowing their objective is extracting you intact, we’ll still have to find a way to keep from being overrun. We need a place that will be an effective, and immediate, trap. We can’t just lounge around in the gardens and wait for them to feel sleepy or whatever.”

  “Don’t you dare condescend to Me,” I said softly. I regretted now, breaking down like that in the folly. I knew better. Never reveal weakness before wolves. They don’t forget, and—when it suits their purpose—they exploit it.

  Con visibly dragged his snapping temper back and tried for a more rational tone of voice. “We’re in this fight together—and we can’t win if you won’t trust us with the knowledge we need to plan strategy. You agreed to this plan. Help me to help you.”

  “Oh, are we trusting each other again? I lost track when you were accusing Me of lying and lecturing Me on the defense of Calanthe.”

  He opened his mouth. Shut it again.

  “Better. Now I had been about to explain why the palace is the safest place on Calanthe. I can and will show you. Come with Me.”

  5

  “Where are we going?” Sondra asked in her hoarse whisper. I slid her a quelling look in reply. Lia glided up the winding stairs, back ramrod-straight, coolly paying no attention to any of us. We couldn’t even follow too closely, because the train of her gown trailed several steps behind her. Not daring to step on it, we became ducklings following in their mama’s wake.

  Knowing perfectly well that Lia never did anything by accident, I resigned myself to being put in my place—firmly behind the Queen of Calanthe. I’d challenged her in front of my commanders and, worse, her advisers. I’d pushed her into admitting she’d have to face bloodshed on the precious soil of her island, so I’d do my penance. At least she’d agreed to a plan and was giving us something useful to work with. I hoped.

  “We are climbing to the top of a tower,” Ambrose replied to Sondra in my stead. He gestured to the staircase that wound in a graceful spiral up the inside of a tower, a solid wall of stone beside us and open-air windows on the outside, showing the palace grounds spread out below.

  “Thank you,” Sondra replied sourly.

  “Of course, child,” Ambrose answered with every appearance of sincerity. “My knowledge is yours.”

  Sondra growled deep in her throat, but everyone ignored her. I kept my eyes on Lia’s slim back, enjoying the sway of her hips, and pondering how such a small frame could contain so much stubborn pride. And how I could burn to pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless in the middle of an argument. Our truces flared into battles with so little warning, I couldn’t seem to stick to a solid strategy with her.

  The others hadn’t come along, though Dearsley had watched me with overt disapproval as he conducted a whispered consultation with Lia. She’d dismissed him, along with Brenda, Percy, and Agatha, cryptically observing that where we were going was nothing new to anyone else.

  Sunlight poured in from above and Lia rose through an unguarded opening in the ceiling. I followed behind as fast as I could. She might complain about my hypervigilance, but she went too far in the opposite direction. Everyone on Calanthe seemed to be that way. They claimed they understood the dangers of the world beyond, admitted that their previous defenses no longer worked, and yet they wandered around their isolated paradise as if nothing could ever arrive to give them trouble.

  Edging past Lia and quickly scanning the room—one big circle at the top of the tower, open to the air, no furniture, and only a dome of a ceiling—I saw no movement, no immediate threat. A balustrade of the same white stone they built everything from here circled a balcony outside the arches. I stepped out, verifying that no one lurked there, either. The tower enjoyed a view in every direction of Calanthe, with nothing obstructing the line of sight, so I could see how that could be useful. But, by the time we spotted Anure’s navy approaching, we’d be already fucked.

  Lia didn’t come out to the balcony, though, so it must not be the view she wanted to show me. Still, I made the full circuit before I stepped back inside, Lia giving me a cool and remote look that nevertheless communicated her disdain for my precautions. Or her general displeasure with me, hard to say which. It can be both. Her words echoed in my head, but she’d said them on such a sensual gasp, her lithe body hot against me, that I had to look away, making a business of hitching my bagiroca back onto my belt. “Pretty view. Why are we here?”

  Wordlessly she pointed down. I realized that Kara and Sondra stood at different corners of the room, staring at the floor while Merle hopped around on it. Ambrose had gone out to the railing, looking into the distance. Willing to play along, I also studied the glittering mosaic tiles laid in intricate patterns. The floor was pretty, too. Lots of shades of blue where I stood, then a central mass of browns and greens, studded in places with white shapes. I refocused my eyes. Not just a fancy pattern, but a map—one so large it spanned the entire room.

  A map of Calanthe, rendered in precise and exquisite detail. Excitement pricked at me. I strode from the ocean I stood in to the cluster of white buildings that must be the palace. Orienting myself, I sighted out an open arch to a series of hills in the distance. Sure enough, they were on the map. I followed that line, walking out to the balcony again, and discovered an arrow etched into the flat stone rail. Words were also carved there, but in Calanthean, which I couldn’t read at all.

  Moving next to the view of the harbor below the palace, I sighted it, then worked backward to the map. Not satisfied with what I could see from that angle, I got down on hands and knees, peering at the detail in the harbor, then scrutinizing the patterns of blues in the water, tracing them with my finger outward. Jumping up again, I ran to the rail, surveying the patterns of waves and currents, then went back to the floor map.

  It had been made perfectly to scale. I knelt again in the deep-water harbor, then traced the wavy lines outward. “This is a barrier reef,” I declared in wonder, stabbing at it with my finger and looking around for Lia. “A huge one.”

  To my surprise, she stood
close nearby, a slight smile on her mouth. Something amused her. Probably my being slow on the uptake. I didn’t care. At least she’d let go of some of her anger at me, and the wealth of information in this map had my head spinning with possibilities.

  “Why, yes it is,” she replied, her voice far less icy.

  I sat back on my heels, taking it in. “This was created by a master. It shows everything, doesn’t it? The currents, the altitude of those hills, and it’s exactly to scale.”

  “A team of masters,” Lia corrected, but her smile had deepened. She loved this place, and she revealed that in a warmth she rarely showed. “There’s a guild of artists whose sole focus is this map. They keep it constantly updated, and yes—it contains many layers of information.”

  “Should we be walking on it?” Sondra asked, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain.

  Lia gave her a smile, too. A real one that had Sondra glancing behind her. “It’s meant to be walked on. The glaze is very tough, and regularly renewed. It always surprises Me how many people who come here stand in the sea on the map, not the land, as if they don’t trod on Calanthe as soon as they leave the tower.”

  “The floor is a major work of art, Your Highness.” Sondra had a sound of awe in her voice.

  “Thank you,” Lia replied. “It’s a great source of pride, besides being useful for knowing all about My island.” She slid a narrow look at me.

  Kara grunted, eyeing the ocean. “A barrier reef, you say, Your Highness?”

  “Yes. It protects the harbor and, depending on the tides, makes entrance to it impossible, which is part of why the palace is the safest place on Calanthe.”

  Kara frowned at her. “We encountered no issues when we sailed our ships in.”

  Lia spread her hands with a mischievous look in her eyes. “You had help.”

  “You don’t say.” He considered her. “Can your defensive enchantments make the tides uncooperative?”

  I hadn’t thought that far yet, and waited with Kara for the answer.

  “To an extent, yes. Calanthe’s influence reaches out all around Her, and that includes how the seas move, how the storms pass by.”

  And she was part of that. I began to get a glimmer of what being an elemental truly meant. No wonder Lia’s palace didn’t need walls, if she could keep the worst storms away. “You control the weather and the tides?” My turn to sound awed, and Sondra snorted.

  Lia waved that away. “Yes and no. And I’d rather not discuss it in detail.” She raised her brows, reminding me of our agreement that she could decline to explain rather than misdirect. Fine. I’d get more out of her later. That wasn’t against the rules.

  “That’s how you drew the ship in.” Kara smacked his fist against his palm. “I knew that wasn’t natural.” He strode out to the balustrade. Sondra, clearly still uncomfortable walking on the mosaicked floor, followed him out. They stared out at where the reef lay hidden underwater, finding the markers on the balustrade as I had, discussing both. Ambrose moved over to join them, pointing his staff at something.

  “Thank you, Lia,” I said, hearing the gruffness of my own awkwardness. “This map is amazingly useful.”

  Lia crouched beside me, her beaded skirts tinkling on the glassy surface. “This place is open to all citizens of Calanthe, of which you are now one. I have to remember that I granted you and your people asylum here, the same as for Percy and the others.” She trailed her black-tipped nails over a section of coastline rendered in sparkling silver. A beach, with calm light-green water, probably good for swimming. “Teachers bring the schoolchildren here, and sometimes I come to talk with them. The children, they crawl on their hands and knees, like you are, putting their eyes up as close as they can, and talking to Her, like you were.”

  I had a habit of muttering to myself when I was thinking. Sondra liked to tease me about it. Lia likely thought me crazed and undignified, ill mannered as a child—and she wouldn’t be wrong. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She met my gaze, our faces close. Something shimmered between us, like heat rising off the sands outside Keiost. “I like it. I love seeing the children roll around on this map of their home, the land that gave them birth or sanctuary, finding their villages and favorite places. It’s a … celebration, and I always feel Calanthe loves the attention. I wish everyone would do it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I admitted, turning my attention back to the mosaic, and firmly away from the sudden and savage fantasy of kissing those glossy black lips, of dragging her down and having her on this map. Some celebration that would be. I cleared my throat. “I’ve been in a lot of palaces, estates, castles, fancy houses with fancy things. Of course, most of them were in ruins, stripped of anything valuable. But I never saw anything like this, even in the ones the Imperial Toad spared and gave to his cronies and the cowards who caved instead of fighting—” I broke off, realizing what I’d said.

  “Like Calanthe did,” Lia filled in. Her nails clicked over the tiles, and then she stood with a sigh. “I know how little you think of us, Conrí. Of My people, and of Me. It’s disingenuous of you to mince words now.”

  She walked out to join the others on the balcony, beaded skirts hissing across the floor, her steps quiet—and I realized that, despite her earlier statement and her aching feet, she walked up on her toes so her sharp heels wouldn’t touch the tiles. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone so fast from trying to show her appreciation to pissing her off again, except that it seemed to be my particular talent and failing.

  I returned my scrutiny to the map—something I could handle—learning how they depicted the depths of water and the landscape beneath. Lia could show Kara and Sondra where the actual barrier reef lay. The critical information about it had been woven into these intricate tiles. And not in words, but in images that even I, a barely educated ex-prisoner from a foreign land, could understand. Did the makers intend that? What a thing it would be if they could make a map of all the world. I didn’t know what kind of room could hold it, but it would be something to see. On a map like that, Oriel could still exist—and persist for all time, instead of growing tattered and faded in my memories and Sondra’s.

  Yes, in the past, we’d called King Gul and the kingdom of Calanthe weak-willed puppets of the emperor, but I’d learned better. Gul, and Lia after him, had preserved things like this and like all that art in the portrait gallery. And all those people Lia had drawn to her court, people like Brenda, a poet and warrior, Agatha, a brilliant weaver, and Percy—whatever he did—with knowledge and skills saved from oblivion because Calanthe existed.

  For the first time, I understood something of how Lia saw the world. I lived for revenge, to destroy Anure utterly and forever. Lia … she lived to preserve all this. I bet she stayed in the palace not only because she felt safe, but because all the most precious things were here.

  Precious things Anure would destroy without taking a second breath. Standing, I looked out to sea again. Lia was right: Vurgsten changed everything. Even if we held off Anure’s forces beyond the reef, vurgsten could be lobbed from that far, and would take out this tower and its treasure in a moment.

  I needed to think. Anure would come after Lia, and he’d expect her to be here, in the palace. Where she lives, as she so sardonically pointed out. She had her layers of enchantments. Anure had wizards to break them. I could throttle Ambrose for not telling us that.

  Focus. Lia had relied upon the reef to protect them, but that could be exploded, too. That’s what I’d do faced with this scenario: Sail a few ships up to the reef, maybe at night. Blow the reef and the harbor wide open. Then have the rest of the navy ready to sweep in, maybe as the tide came in, to add velocity.

  Then I’d send in a crack team, maybe several teams, to take Lia prisoner. If Tertulyn was a spy and had gone to him—who was I kidding? No “ifs” about it. Lia’s doubts had infected me—then he’d know Lia’s habits, where to find her and when.

  Once he had her, maybe back on hi
s flagship in the harbor so he could make her watch, he could pound the city and palace with vurgsten.

  Though, if it were me and I wanted to hedge my bets, I’d sneak in first—same approach with several small, highly specialized teams. Take the queen hostage, get her out of the palace to a place well away and safe, then blow the reef and bring in the ships. He’d still want her in a place where she’d have to watch the destruction, I bet, knowing Anure’s methods, but the harbor still made sense. Most of the resistance—as much as the Calantheans could muster any kind of fight—would be centered here. And with its exposure to the sea on three sides, we couldn’t possibly defend it.

  But what if Lia wasn’t in the palace?

  We had an entire island to consider. I crawled over it, marking the larger towns, the roads between them. Rural, very rural, with most of the population centers all along the coast and then again in the hills. What were these shapes? I went back to the palace complex, found the tower we’d been imprisoned in, which Ambrose had taken for his own, and the tower I was in at that moment.

  The artists had rendered the land and sea flat, as if a bird looked down on them, but the towers and buildings were depicted at an angle. I supposed otherwise they’d look like squares and circles, seen from above. The map tower had been foreshortened, but the design faithfully depicted the open arches, a glint of the map within. With an odd sensation of being two places at once, I almost expected to see a tiny version of myself, crouched on the floor.

  I traced the garden path Lia and I had walked … Oh, look at that: Lia’s private courtyard wasn’t there. So some things were secret from the big map. Near as I could tell, every other building in the palace complex and the city beyond was accurately included. Counting under my breath, I crawled from town to town, keeping a mental tally of buildings, not sure what I was looking for, but certain I’d know it when I saw it.

  “You might as well leave Conrí and send food, Your Highness,” I became aware of Sondra saying. “He’ll be like that for hours until he’s satisfied.”