My father. Something dark and vile trickled over Aeduan’s skull.
The man laughed, a delighted sound. “I see from your face that he has not told you. Allow me to remedy that.” The man’s heels snapped together, his fist shot to his heart, and he bowed a Nubrevnan bow. “They call me the Fury. I have worked with your father for a long, long time—although I knew him as something else all those years ago. He still wears the same face.” The grin widened. “I do not.”
Incomprehensible words. They clanked around in Aeduan’s mind, useless.
“Your father sent me to find you,” the man went on, slinking a single step closer. “You were meant to check in weeks ago, Bloodwitch. He feared you dead, and yet…” The man opened his arms, thick eyebrows bouncing. “Here you are. And now it is time for us to go.”
“No.” Aeduan gave a curt head shake. “I have unfinished business in Tirla.”
“Which is?”
“How did you find me?” Aeduan countered.
“Easily.”
“And did my father tell you to destroy Tirla along the way?”
“This?” The man laughed, a throaty sound. “This is nothing, Bloodwitch. Where I travel, hurricanes reign.” He spun around, seeming to take in the destruction for the first time—and it only made him laugh louder.
The darkness spread down Aeduan’s neck. Voices were gathering, blood-scents too. As if people were stepping outside now, searching the streets for help. Some wailed, some screamed.
“Your father,” the Fury said, stopping abruptly, “will want to know what detains you. Do not make me return to him without an answer. He won’t like that. I won’t like that.”
“I will tell my father myself,” Aeduan said flatly. “Tell him that I will give him a full report when I return.”
“And when will that be?”
“Soon.”
Doors were creaking open. Footsteps splashing closer. More screams, more crying, more desperation to fill the city. Aeduan did not want to see what the Fury would do to anyone who came here.
“How many hours?” the Fury asked. “I can wait.”
“It will be days.”
Anger flashed across the man’s face now, and black lines hissed across his skin. “How many days, Bloodwitch? Stop evading my questions.”
“I do not know.”
A dry, vicious laugh, and the Fury pointed a crooked finger at Aeduan. “Then I do not know when I will return.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe next week.” He shrugged the other. “Or maybe tomorrow—and do not try to escape me, Bloodwitch. No matter where you go, I will find you. And if your business is not complete when I return, then you can be sure I will finish it for you.”
With those words, Lady Fate’s knife finally fell. A downward clunking of her will like an executioner’s blade. She was making Aeduan choose. Only one path lay before him now.
“It will be done,” he said because they were the only words he could say.
“Good,” the Fury replied. Black crisscrossed his face. Wind rushed in. Then a flash of lightning, hot and blinding, scored down. By the time Aeduan’s sight and hearing had returned, the Fury was gone.
TWENTY
Time had never moved so slowly as it did while Merik half tumbled, half ran, trying to move where Esme wanted him to go, except that he had no sense of where that might be until pain arced through him.
Mind-numbing flames meant he had gone the wrong way. Moderate bee stings meant he moved correctly.
Twilight held sway by the time the Poznin appeared before him, moonlit and shadowy against the horizon. A vast, swampy river oozed between Merik and the city’s fortified walls. Without human engineering and witches to hold back seasonal flows, the floodplain had grown and swallowed and consumed. Fifty years since the Republic’s downfall, and nature had staked its claim. Rooftops and crumbling walls thrust up from the waters.
Merik had no idea how he was going to cross the river, and the pain jangling along his spine was not helping.
There are bridges, Esme said, tone curious. Like she wondered what Merik might do.
“But,” he squeezed out, “they are all submerged.”
Then find the one that is not. And with that command, the pain reared back completely. He could think, he could breathe. He knew it wouldn’t last. He knew Esme was only playing games with him—experimenting, as she’d said.
Hell-waters, though, he welcomed the respite. And this time, he would not be so foolish as to run.
Merik picked his way along the marsh, following soft mounds of earth through sluggish waters, reeds and cattails, and though he was soaked through by the time he reached the bridge, it was better than swimming.
Marble bricks lifted from the river like a sea fox coiling from the sea, still intact even if it led to nowhere. The marble had once been white. Now it was nothing more than moonlit gray with algae and dirt clotted thick. At the center, two columns thrust up with storm hounds howling to the sky. One still had its head; the other did not.
At the end of the bridge, the marshes resumed more densely. Easier to muck through—but also more crowded with the ghosts of a fallen republic. Collapsed walls, decayed wood, stairs that led to nowhere. Historians claimed Poznin had once been a beautiful, flourishing city, but now it was nothing more than a corpse picked clean by the crows.
Merik reached the fortified outer wall and clambered over a toppled section. Beyond, more water flowed over streets and bridges. This time, though, someone had assembled crude gangways connecting marshy spits to what remained of cobbled roadways. It zigged and zagged, ascended and sagged, eventually leading to the end of the floodplain, to a hill crowned by a second fortified wall.
This wall was much older. Ancient even, judging by the weathered slouch to its bricks. Like Pin’s Keep in Lovats, it had stood the test of time. As Merik approached a crooked archway in the stones, his thighs burning from the climb, he realized for the first time that he was shivering. Now that no water caressed him, there was only wind to gust it dry—a wind he could not touch, could not command.
His teeth chattered and his toes had lost all feeling. Cold that burrowed into one’s bones as this did was new to him.
He reached the top of the hill and shambled through the gate. A new city waited, untouched by floods, but not untouched by time. Here, oaks and maples, birch and ash thrust up through rooftops, ripped through walls, and clotted roadways with their trunks.
Ancient things made new again.
Merik thought it beautiful, until he spotted figures scattered amidst the green. At first he believed them a trick of the light, of his pain-rattled mind, but the longer he stared, the more he recognized human shapes within the forest. Statues, he hoped, but his stomach knew better. And as he shuffled down the hill and into the old city, his gut hollowed out with certainty.
He reached the first person. A young man made not of stone but flesh, a tattered Cartorran army uniform hanging off skeletal shoulders. His blackened eyes stared at nothing, and lines tracked across his face—lines Merik knew because they burned inside him too. He made no move as Merik approached. He made no move as Merik passed.
Nor did the next man, older and with dirt to coat every inch of him. Nor the woman after him or the little boy after her. All of them stood sentry, one after the next.
Merik was not sure when he began running again. No one hunted him, no pain lashed through him. He just knew he had to move. He had to prove to himself he was not one of these Cleaved, he was not one of these puppets. He was not poisoned like Kullen. He could still think for himself and command his legs. All he had to do was get this collar off, then he could flee too—
Merik tripped over a root. He fell to the earth, wrists snapping in a graceless fall. It did not hurt, yet a sob choked out anyway. It rumbled up from powerless lungs, and no amount of gasping for air seemed to make it stop.
It was not until a shadow slithered over the ground before him that he finally broke off. His head snapped up to find
a little girl with blond braids and eyes black as midnight. She was dressed like a Northman in furs and colorful felt.
“Why do you stop moving, Prince?” she asked, and Merik knew it was not the girl speaking to him. He knew who really uttered those words.
“Lost,” he croaked, and the little girl smiled—an eerie, unnatural thing that stretched her lips sideways.
“Just follow the puppets.” Before she had even finished proclaiming this, bodies lumbered into view. Out of fallen buildings they stepped, and from between the trees they trundled. All ages, sizes, races assembled into a long line that snaked into the city. As far as Merik could see.
Then as one, in a chorus of voices that scraped against his skin, they sang, “Follow, Prince Merik. Follow, follow until you find your way.”
Merik saw no other choice. He dragged himself back to his feet and followed.
* * *
Vivia and her Windwitches arrived home right as the nineteenth chimes were ringing. They landed at the Southern Wharf, where the main barracks and naval academy were.
“We can fly you to the palace!” the captain had roared atop her winds. “Drop you beside the gate!”
Vivia had refused, claiming she was not the one who’d drained all her energy in the flight. The truth, though, was that she had hoped to find Stix. As awkward as things were between them, Stix was the only person Vivia had to talk to. The only person Vivia wanted to talk to.
Stix wasn’t at the school, though. Nor the barracks, nor anywhere along Hawk’s Way as Vivia and a flank of four new, freshly awake soldiers strode ever closer toward Queen’s Hill. She slowed on the street below Stix’s apartment, briefly wondering if she ought to walk up …
She decided against it. Vivia wanted to see her friend alone—not with this escort hounding her every move.
Soon, Vivia reached her bedroom in the royal wing of the palace, the familiar threadbare rugs and creaking floors so welcome after a day in that land of sandstone and white. A quarter clanging of the chimes after that, and she was down to her underclothes and sitting on the edge of her bed.
She stared at the Wordwitched paper. It had gotten flattened on the flight home, and now—as she unrolled it—six lines creased down the page.
Her words and Vaness’s still remained, as well as a new phrase at the bottom.
Did you arrive home safely?
Vivia wet her lips. Then pressed the page upon her lap and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. Her attempts failed completely, and she supposed after several minutes that she did not really care. Vaness did not need a reply.
Vivia rolled up the letter and stowed it on a low table beside her bed. Then after whispering to her lone Firewitched lamp, she settled beneath her iris blue blankets and tried to sleep.
An hour later, when sleep still eluded her, Vivia crawled from her bed. A pen and inkpot waited on her desk, and with only moonlight streaming through a warped window to light the page, Vivia once more unfurled the letter.
I made it home safely.
She paused here, wondering what more to say. Wondering why she wanted to say more. After several minutes, the perfect sentence came to mind. She scribbled it down, and this time, when Vivia crawled into bed, she fell asleep right away.
TWENTY-ONE
The half-galley skipped lightly over Lake Scarza. Spindrift misted the skin around Safi’s eyes. Nursemaid Rokesh had insisted she don an Adder shroud, and though the silk was surprisingly cool given how much it covered, it still stifled.
As did Habim’s words upon the map.
Do nothing. I have a plan.
Well, Safi had a plan too—and she wasn’t abandoning it just because Habim Fashayit had arrived. If she could actually make a Truthstone, then she could leave. No waiting necessary.
Waiting had never been one of her skills. Safi initiated; she did not complete.
And gods thrice-damn it, she was sick of being told what to do. At the very least, Habim could have given her more information. He had had an entire map with him, after all. How hard would it have been to offer details, so that she would not be—yet again—racing blindfolded into nothing?
Halfway through the return journey, the Tidewitches steering the ship changed course, aiming the half-galley for the main shore of Azmir instead of the Floating Palace. Safi had known this was coming. Unlike Habim, Vaness had actually informed her of the evening’s plan.
“A birthday procession,” the Empress had explained wearily the day before. “Very long, very tiresome. Yet I must do it every year.” This was why Safi had been given the Adder uniform and shroud: it was one thing to claim one had a Truthwitch, and quite another to parade her before hundreds of thousands of people.
The City of Eternal Flame grew on the horizon, framed by the red Kendura Hills and whitecapped Sirmayans beyond. The golden spires that spanned across the city, one for each district, shone like torches beneath the ember glow of sunset.
A crow swooped overhead, and Safi prayed it didn’t shit on her head.
“Are you ready to turn twenty-seven?” Safi asked, joining Vaness at the bulwark. “I have heard it’s much better than twenty-six.”
Vaness offered a sideways sigh—a sure sign she was un-empressed. Though she did at least say, “When I made this same trip a year ago, Safi, there were no armies at my doorstep. And though General Fashayit might blame me for starting the war, he is wrong. The end of the Truce was inevitable. War always is. Besides,” she added lightly, “by being the first to break the Truce, I can choose the terms of what comes next.”
Despite her tone, Safi knew Vaness was anything but light and flippant. Even without her magic, ferocious truth resounded off everything Vaness did. Her ideals aligned with her actions; she demanded nothing from others she would not do herself; and she put the well-being of Marstok above everything else, even her own life.
“Well,” Safi murmured eventually, “happy early birthday.” And this time, she earned a smile. True, true, true.
When at last the ship reached the main wharf of Azmir, it did not berth, but rather coasted to a stop beside an isolated dock, where waiting sailors laid out a gangplank.
Rokesh led the way, guiding them into a long, open tent mounted upon iron struts and poles. Gold canvas and green banners flapped against the breeze, while soldiers in matching gold and green stood at attention in neat rows around it. A perfect rectangle to enclose the tent.
As soon as Vaness reached the heart of the tent, she swung up her arms. The iron lifted. Then the iron—and the tent attached—followed overhead as she glided down the dock.
Safi’s fingers curled tightly into her uniform while the entire procession walked. Her calves ached to run, her knees itched to kick high. This was her first time outside the Floating Palace since reaching Azmir. This was her first glimpse of its people, its streets, its buildings old and new. Vaness had failed to mention what route they might travel through the city, and Safi hardly cared.
They could walk into a pit of vipers, and it would be perfectly acceptable. She was out, and that was all that mattered.
They passed ships, where sailors hollered and waved from the highest masts and more people whooped and whistled from belowdecks. Then the procession reached the main lakeside quay, where the roar of the crowds magnified to almost deafening. Health and joy to you! some screamed. Or the more common Marstoki greeting, May all be forgiven in the fire! Yet for every cry of devotion that swelled from the crowds, Safi heard just as many cries of rage.
She had no idea how Vaness endured it, and the longer they marched, the more it fascinated Safi. While Vaness’s beauty, her strength, her heroism at Kendura Pass might have earned her fanatic adoration, she was still the leader of an empire. Everything she did was on display, and everyone had an opinion on how she should behave. Her unwillingness to marry, to smile, to bend—Vaness herself had told Safi what sort of rumors that fed.
The Iron Bitch, they called her.
That name riffled over the crowds now, f
linging into the tent from all angles, echoing in a way that only truth could. Yet the people who uttered their disapproval felt it just as fervently as those who screamed their worship.
“The people have come from across the empire,” Rokesh informed, slinking into step beside Safi. “To see tonight’s fireworks and celebrate. Every inn within the city will be full, and every inn within twenty miles beyond.”
So many people here to see her, Safi thought, yet none who truly know her. It must be very lonely indeed to be loved and hated, yet never seen.
The procession left the wharves and entered a main avenue of beige towers with red-tile roofs. The Merchant District, Safi learned. Beyond, shops and tents and street vendors crowded beneath white awnings. Then they crossed an intersection where one of the golden spires thrust up from the earth. No doors, no windows, only the square column racing toward the sky and capped by a flame-shaped cupola.
Safi wished she could get closer. Whatever this was made of, it was not the same material as the rest of the city—not sandstone nor marble nor limestone nor granite.
Then they passed the tower and entered a new district where each building was painted a hundred different shades. “The Artist District,” Rokesh explained, before they veered east into the University District, then into the Healer District. On and on, they switched back and forth through the city, covering every area. Passing every golden spire. Until at last, the buildings and towers were replaced by a long sandstone wall. Beyond, cedar branches rustled on the breeze, and a final spire reached up, up, up. The tallest spire of them all, dark against a dusky sky.
At an iron gate, the soldiers slowed to a stop, parting enough for Vaness, Safi, and the Adders to continue through. Without a single waver in the tent or in her stride, Vaness pointed a finger at the approaching entrance, and the black bars swung wide.
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