by Halie Fewkes
My heart leapt into my throat as I realized kids all over the city were beginning to chant ten thousand, ten thousand, and Ratuan shot me a glance that said, you should never have messed with me. He was still their ring leader, and those kids soon had the entire city either chanting with them or shouting their general hatred for me.
Holy shanking life.
Sir Avery laughed behind me and said, “Sounds pretty unanimous. You can’t argue with a crowd like that.”
My heart shrank as I realized this might actually happen. I’d be better off dead than living ten thousand years of nothing. So much better off.
I looked at the edge of the stage in terror, not sure if I dared. Would they stop me?
“What do you say then?” Ratuan asked Sir Avery, his voice still carrying through the city. “We can have our execution, give the traitor the Time she deserves, and end the evening with the treasure we’ve brought back from Tekada?”
Joyful cheers rose across Glaria, echoing through the alley ways and out over the ocean, until Tarace burst onto the stage in outrage. The cheering got louder until they realized what he was saying.
“This isn’t how we do things!” he shouted, and somebody finally amplified his voice so everyone could hear. “You don’t get to destroy due process for thrills and jollies. This is not how we run trials!”
“These seem like pretty extenuating circumstances,” Sir Avery replied with a casual shrug and a grin. The crowd just grew restless now, not sure if they should be cheering, or shouting, or possibly thinking. “I’ll be the first to admit we need a leader on this continent who can make that decision though. It’s about time we declared independence from King Kelian and established our own ruler. And what better time than tonight, when we’re all gathered?”
I got the feeling that the crowd below us was just waiting for something to be said to which they could applaud, because they cheered raucously, so loud that I barely heard a violent crash on the stairs behind the stage.
A shriek was accompanied by shouted orders and the clang of metal on metal.
Sir Avery dashed back toward the stairs and disappeared, and as soon as he was gone, Ebby landed in his place, much to my horrified shock. She nearly startled Ratuan out of his skin as she walked straight up to him and set a hand on each of his shoulders, gaze dead-set on his.
“Nobody hurts my friends.”
“Ebby?” he replied, utterly breathless.
More shouting echoed from the archers above us and I felt the sudden, icy shock of magic disappearing from the air. Ebby had to be insane to have fallen for this. She was nothing without magic.
Ratuan grabbed her hands and whispered desperately to her, but I couldn’t make out his words without my Tally hearing.
Sir Avery reappeared on the staircase, and at the sight of Ebby, he jerked his eyes up to the archers in either tower and shouted, “We’ve got her! Shoot Avalask!”
I glanced up just long enough to see both archers’ arrows trained on Prince Avalask. I couldn’t let Prince Avalask die, and knowing that I’d rather be dead myself than suffer Time, my next course of action was clear.
I forced my deadened legs to propel me forward, and I tackled Prince Avalask out of the way, shrieking as one of the arrows meant for him sliced into my shoulder. It wouldn’t kill me, but death couldn’t possibly hurt like this blade tearing through my flesh, leaving a deep, bleeding stripe in its wake.
I clamped a hand over my bleeding left shoulder, seething through gritted teeth as Prince Avalask ducked back from me. “Allie!” he said, his voice hoarse with despair and his cloudy eyes tinted red. “You can’t stop them, but you can stop Ratuan. Don’t let him get his hands on Ebby!”
I looked over to see Ratuan’s face half a breath from Ebby’s, looking straight into her eyes and speaking quickly. And Ebby had frozen to absorb his every word.
“Hurry,” Prince Avalask said. “I’ll be fine.”
I understood what he wanted and agreed that it needed to be done, so I stumbled toward the kids and grabbed Ratuan around the neck and waist, using every muscle in my body to jerk him off the ground, back from Ebby.
I flung Ratuan toward the edge of the stage and he barely skidded to a panicked stop instead of falling over the side to his death. I ran straight to him and lowered a shoulder as Ebby screamed, and Ratuan grabbed me as I slammed into him without any of my usual agility or control. He used my momentum to shove me off the side, and I kept my hold on him and dragged him over with me.
Our feet left the stage and Ratuan clawed hatefully at me as I tried to push him off for the fall. Ebby’s shriek echoed across the city just before she leapt after us.
The ground was a staggering distance away, but within seconds, it was terrifyingly close and Ebby latched onto us screaming, “I can’t jump two! I can’t do two!”
Ratuan shouted, “Let her fall,” and for once in her life, Ebby didn’t listen to him and kept her hold on us both.
We were seconds from the ground, and I gripped Ebby’s hand as terror flooded through me at the thought of dying here and now.
An instinctual rush of magic filled my hands and jumped into Ebby’s, not to shock her, but to somehow give her the power for an incredible feat. And right before we slammed into the screaming crowd beneath us, the ground disappeared and was replaced with ocean waves.
The three of us plummeted straight into the harbor with all the speed of the hundred cubit fall. I screamed as the momentum tore at the gaping wound on my shoulder, ripping it apart with stinging ocean water.
I’d expelled almost all the breath in my lungs, and twisted around frantically to see that Ebby and Ratuan had vanished. All I could make out through the murky dark was the underside of a giant ship with several ropes securing it to the bottom of the ocean, like they’d dropped nearly ten anchors.
I kicked my legs to head for the surface, but shrieked again as a strong hand wrapped around my ankle. I had no breath left, and twisted violently as somebody dragged me further into the water.
My attacker had something that looked like a giant, upside down ceramic pot that she threw over my head, and I struggled harder until I realized it was full of air.
I immediately began coughing, and the Escali woman who’d grabbed me got uncomfortably close to poke her head up into the air pocket as well, wiping her eyes as I turned my head to the side to cough and cry from the sheer pain.
“Who are you?” she demanded, making me gasp as she grabbed me by the neck. She leaned even closer to smell me as I clutched weakly at her hands on my throat and avoided her dark, storm-cloud eyes. “What are you doing down here, Tally?”
“Just trying to help,” I said, gasping a manic laugh because that was all I ever tried to do. “And bleeding.”
I winced as she released my throat in concern. “Are you the one who’s supposed to be up on the ship?” she asked. “We’ve kept it from reaching shore. You weren’t our girl on the inside, were you?”
“What? No, not me,” I replied. “What’s up there?”
She shook her head, and I could see something like fear behind her menacing frown. “We just know it’s going to make the Humans stronger if it reaches shore.”
A different, smaller hand grabbed mine tightly, startling me in a gasp. I immediately dunked my head into the water to see, hoping Ebby had found me, but I only saw the dark, short outline of Vack as he pushed off from the ocean floor.
Vack and I landed on dry ground in a loud splash of water, and I crumpled into the dirt before taking in the sight of two other girls. Ebby looked like a drowned cat in her drenched white dress. The second was a dry Escali girl with braided hair, helping Ebby tug her dress off over her head.
Vack swiped a hand over his dripping arms, and every droplet of water clinging to him exploded into mist, leaving him completely dry. He did the same to his legs and torso as I watched the girls in utter confusion. They got Ebby’s dress off, leaving her in the white slip of clothing beneath, and then handed the
dress to Vack, who shook it once in another explosion of water droplets. Now that it was dry, the Escali girl started helping him put it on.
“Are you alright?” Ebby asked me. I frowned at her, then held an open palm toward Vack as he pulled the dress over his head, my question of am I hallucinating made pretty clear.
“Everybody thinks Vack’s dead,” Ebby said. “He’s going out to destroy whatever’s on that ship, but we’re making him look like me in case he’s seen.”
The Escali girl was telling Vack softly, “Ebby will be watching. All you have to do is find it, destroy it, and get out. You’re going to be fine.”
Vack gritted his teeth with his eyes staring into nothing, and his hands shook fiercely. His brave face was impressive under this much pressure.
Vack clenched his fingers tightly as Ebby moved closer to put her hands on his face. Feature by feature, she changed everything about him. His hair became long, wispy, and lighter than mine. His eyes turned blue. His face softened until it looked innocent and kind, and he looked more like Ebby than the drenched girl in front of him with her hair in a knotted mess.
“Am I ready?” he asked, sounding eerily still like himself.
Ebby nodded, and Vack took one last look at the Escali girl, who’d watched the process with joyful fascination. She grabbed Vack to hug him, put her lips next to his ear, and whispered, “Go wreck them.”
Chapter Thirty Three
Allie
Ebby sank to the ground and crossed her legs, focusing on some distant thing as Vack leapt into the air and the Escali girl settled studious, dark eyes on me.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Jalia,” she replied, nodding to my shoulder. “How bad does it hurt?”
“It’s pretty bad.” I reached to my now-gaping wound, lurching back from the sting of my own touch. Then I rolled dramatically onto my side and heaved a sigh using all the breath in my lungs. “Oh, how I wish somebody nearby had the power to heal injuries…”
Ebby snapped her eyes toward me, startled. “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing quickly at the bleeding sight. “I got distracted watching Vack. Here. I can help.”
Ebby moved to set her fingers gingerly on the cut, and I took a shuddered breath as the sharp pain subsided to a dull throb.
“Our attention needs to be on Vack,” Jalia said, sitting expectantly next to Ebby to grab her free hand.
“It’ll keep getting better,” Ebby told me with a friendly smile, using her free hand to grab mine as well.
I felt a fumble of thoughts mix with mine as I tried to lower my mental defenses in a hurry, and then Ebby allowed the three of us to watch Vack with more than just sight. She could hear what he was hearing, feel what he felt, and see everything around him.
Vack was invisible in the dim depths of a ship very different from the one on which I’d hidden last year. This one smelled like unfinished, roughly cut wood and was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes. The shape and size of each container made them look like coffins, like the whole ship was a floating graveyard.
Vack crept around the stacks, looking for anything significant, thinking back to Ebby, These are all I see.
Get one of them open, I thought loudly. Ebby winced at the enormous thought rumbling through her. Vack’s teeth rattled fearfully as two people passed by him, checking for anything amiss among the stacked rows.
Come on, we need to know what’s in them, I thought, careful to think it a little more quietly.
Vack pulled his courage together and leapt onto one of the giant stacks. He climbed up fourteen boxes to the top, barely an arm’s length from the ceiling, and studied the wooden surface in front of him.
Look at this, Vack said, peering at the Human words burned into the light wood, beneath the starred crest of Kelian.
‘A Reminder that Magic is Banned on Tekada. Long Live King Kelian.’
Apprehension prickled the hairs on my neck, and it was incredibly strange to feel the same jittery wariness cloud Vack’s ability to think.
He looked over the frame again, found four latches around the exterior, and lifted each one before pulling the wooden face off the top.
I gasped as shock flooded through Vack at the sight of a dead Human body, and he dropped the wooden top to the floor in an unforgivably loud clatter. A Reminder that Magic is Banned on Tekada. One of our murdered mages.
Every muscle in Vack’s body seized up, and I worried he might lose his grip on the stack and fall to the floor himself.
Vack? It’s ok. It can’t hurt you. I tried to calm him, but he’d frozen in utter terror. He stayed thankfully invisible as three pairs of lookouts converged around the commotion.
“What happened?”
“No idea. One of the lids fell off.”
“What the...”
Vack. You have to climb down, Jalia thought to him, remaining the calmest of us. Climb down and get away from them.
And then set everything on fire, I added quickly. Ebby glanced at me, and I explained, I don’t know why they’re bringing a ship full of the dead back, but if something about this ship is going to give Humans an advantage, then we do NOT want it reaching the shore.
I could feel an added element of fear enter Vack’s mind, imagining an army of dead rising up, and I repeated, Get away from them, and start setting things on fire.
One of the men on patrol leapt onto the same pile Vack had climbed, pulling himself to the top to investigate. Vack used the noise the man was making to mask his own steps as he climbed back down, leapt off, and retreated from the attention.
A voice carried down from above deck. “Something’s wrong. The wind is blowing, and we’re not moving.”
Vack had found an abandoned walkway between the stacks of the dead, but froze in place. Jalia thought rather firmly, Get it together, Vack. You’re wasting time on childish fears.
That, above all else, brought flame to Vack’s hands, and Jalia added for good measure, If you don’t get Sir Avery’s attention, he’s never going to leave your father’s side.
Vack shot a stream of blue flames at the nearest stack of coffins, and then he spun and threw another flame-burst at the pile behind him. Vack pulled white destruction like mine into his hands and began punching loud, explosive holes through the outer hull of the ship, reducing the planks into millions of splinters wherever his power struck.
Ebby broke her focus away from him to check on Sir Avery, and Vack’s ruckus certainly hadn’t gone unseen. The older Epic had his eyes on the harbor, but his jaw remained set in a firm line. Prince Avalask hadn’t risen from his knees, still crippled by the belief that he’d lost his world, and Sir Avery didn’t look eager to leave his side.
Vack, he’s not falling for it, Ebby thought to him.
What more do you want me to do? Vack retorted.
A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, struck the mast, and scorched several massive cracks through the ship’s wooden frame, adding sparks to the fires.
Fire! More fire! I thought to him, and Vack raised more flames from the floor, torching more columns of coffins as frantic shouting around him and above deck added to the roar.
Vack punched several holes in the floor to reveal a level of wooden boxes below, and he leapt down to land precariously on another tall pile of coffins. He set fire to the rows around him, coercing the flames to spread quickly through the lower level of the ship as the air grew heated, smoky, and difficult to breathe.
Ebby had her attention split between Vack and Sir Avery, and Sir Avery looked very pointedly behind himself at the Zhauri and said, “It’s bait. I’ll stay here. Go get her.”
Sir Avery waved an arm, and all five brothers disappeared from the sky stage.
Vack! Get off the ship! I shouted into his mind.
Vack replied I’m—
But his response was drowned by his mind’s equivalent of an earsplitting scream.
Ebby, Jalia, and I all jerked in surprise as vicious agony tore through Vack, a
nd he crumpled atop the coffins, suddenly visible to anyone who wanted to see.
“It’s Sir Avery’s daughter!”
The men on the middle deck gathered around the hole in the floor as smoke poured up through it.
“Don’t hurt her!” another sailor shouted to the Zhauri descending into the flaming mess.
“I’m not hurting her,” Iquis called back, his voice tinny and unnerving. He was a filthy liar. Ebby, Jalia, and I could feel the blinding pain ripping Vack apart, so brutally intense that he couldn’t even utter a cry of distress. He had been reduced to a pile of shudders on the stack of boxes as his mind was tortured, murdered, and brought back to life to be tortured further.
One of the crew above gathered enough courage to leap through the scorched hold in the floor and land on the same pile Vack had collapsed atop. He grabbed the little girl he thought was Ebby, pushed the hair back from her face, and said, “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”
To make everything worse, the entire ship was beginning to tip sideways.
“Which one has our weapon?” Kit shouted at the crew.
“Down below!” the man holding Vack shouted, pointing to one of the flaming stacks, coughing as smoke filled his lungs. “It’s already on fire.”
Vack’s thoughts were purely screams and cries at this point, and I couldn’t handle it. The entire ship was tipping, and the man holding Vack was beginning to panic as a row of the caskets next to them toppled over, each box weighing enough to cause them serious harm if their stack fell too.
“Ebby.” I let go of her hand. “Get me in there.”
Ebby froze in horror and her jaw fell open. “Stay invisible, drop me in behind that mind mage, and get out. I can help.”
Ebby stood with me, grabbed my hand, and jumped.
I landed with unexplainable forward momentum, crashing straight into Iquis from behind with no hint of grace. I brought lightning into my hands, dug my nails as deep into his neck as they would bite, and attempted to shock the evil right out of him — all within an arm’s length of his brothers.
