by Lori M. Lee
“Some,” he admits. “But none that I couldn’t keep if I’m made king, and none that would weaken the crown. If I’m to lead them, they must know I won’t be easily controlled.”
“It’s possible some allies might only be interested in positioning themselves closer to the crown. Do you think Lord Phang wants to be king?” I recall Saengo saying that there were those within the kingdoms who tired of Ronin reining in their ambitions. With him gone, and Evewyn in upheaval, maybe Lord Phang sees his opportunity.
House Phang has always been a prominent northern family, their origins going back to the court of the first Drake Queen. While they’ve never ruled, they’ve always had close ties with Evewyn’s kings and queens.
But Prince Meilek says, “I doubt it. Lord Phang isn’t a fool. Evewyn’s people would never accept a usurper. It must be someone next in line to rule. Besides, he wouldn’t have agreed to hear me out without Saengo’s influence. He is loyal, which is a good quality in one’s allies.”
“It sounds like you’ve decided what to do,” I say. When we spoke in Luam, he hadn’t yet been certain about removing his sister from the throne.
He frowns as we push our drakes faster through open fields. It might be dark, but we’re still exposed. “Mei is … lost right now.”
I nearly scoff but restrain myself. Prince Meilek loves her. How can he not? She’s his sister, which still means something to him despite everything she’s done. Queen Meilyr isn’t lost, though. She has chosen her path, and she will walk it no matter who she has to step on.
Shortly before dawn, we pass from Lord Phang’s lands onto a neighboring reiwyn lady’s. To the west, the Coral Mountains transform with the sunrise from hulking slashes across the night sky into hazy green peaks. The orchards are past blooming, the boughs beginning to sag from heavy clusters of plums.
At the Company, I woke to the sight of those mountains each morning, and still, I am left breathless by the ragged peaks and the orchards that shroud them in clouds of vibrant color. In the spring, whole mountainsides transform into a fuchsia sea, their scent sweeping through Vos Talwyn to mingle with the salt from the bay.
We continue on, stopping only to rest and water our drakes. For once, the trees are our allies, Evewyn’s thick forests keeping us well hidden. We circle around roads and the wooded paths more commonly used by farmers.
It’s nearing sunset again, a gloom descending through the forest, when something disturbs the quiet.
“Wait,” I whisper, drawing my drake to a stop. Prince Meilek follows suit, listening. I tilt my head, closing my eyes to better focus on the sound.
“Drakes,” Prince Meilek says a moment before I do.
There are several of them, and they’re moving quickly. I jam my heels into my drake’s side, urging us into motion.
“Soldiers?” I ask Prince Meilek, but he only shakes his head. He doesn’t know either.
I lean low over my drake’s neck, letting it pick up speed. Its claws tear through the undergrowth, leaving a clear path for our pursuers to follow, but there’s no helping it. From behind comes the sound of a bowstring releasing an arrow.
“Get down!” I shout as the arrow slams into a tree trunk ahead of me.
As my drake thunders past, I glimpse the arrow shaft and fletching. My stomach flips, and I jerk on the reins. Prince Meilek shouts my name as I wheel around to face our pursuers.
Within moments, a familiar drake breaks through the trees bearing an even more familiar rider. I yank on the reins and then leap from my drake. Saengo dismounts, and then she’s there, her arms around me, squeezing me as I gasp my relief into the blunt ends of her hair.
My heart pounds. I breathe her in, turning my face into her neck. Theyen said she was safe, but only now does the ache of worry inside me finally ease. Part of me had wondered if she would leave Falcons Ridge at all—if, having returned to her family, she would choose to stay. I wouldn’t have argued. The opposite, in fact. But she’s here, and all of me leans into her embrace.
She’s stood with me for so long that I can no longer imagine looking at my side and not seeing her there.
At last, we pull away, grinning like fools. I press my forehead to hers and thank the Sisters that she’s safe.
Saengo clasps my hands, her eyes shining with every agonizing moment she’d spent wondering what had happened after we parted ways. “You’re okay,” she says.
“We’re okay,” I repeat. She’s pale, though, and her hair is thoroughly windblown.
Behind her, three soldiers in Evewynian green and silver watch in tense silence. The smile slips from my face. They’re wearing brooches with the falcon of House Phang pinned to their collars, and I also spot Prince Meilek’s Blades. To have caught up with us, they must’ve followed soon after we left and not stopped to rest. Like Saengo, they look exhausted.
“What’s happened?” Prince Meilek asks, urging his drake forward.
“It’s the queen,” Saengo says. “She’s clearing out the Valley of Cranes in the morning.”
TWENTY-THREE
“How do you know this?” Prince Meilek asks. Disbelief and anger tighten the lines of his face.
“Northern soldiers keep my father apprised of the queen’s orders regarding the camp. They have family and friends there. The queen has commanded that the prison be shut down and the prisoners …” She can’t say it, but her meaning is clear.
The atrocity is unimaginable. Is this what the Soulless had planned? The sense of dread grows into an ache behind my ribs.
“It’s likely a trap,” I say, looking between Saengo and Prince Meilek. “The queen must know that by ordering this, it will draw you out of hiding.”
He swears beneath his breath. Then he sets his jaw and turns to his Blades, his mouth compressed into a grim line. “Trap or not, I have to go to the Valley of Cranes. I have to stop her and release the shamanborn.”
Each of them nods resolutely. Kou says, “We will follow wherever you lead.”
“My father is sending more soldiers to support us. They’ll meet us on the road.” Saengo turns to mount Yandor, but I grip her wrist.
“I want to come. You know I do.” I look at Prince Meilek, the impossible decision tearing me in two. “But I can’t. This might be a trap, but it’s also a delaying tactic. The Soulless knows what I’m after, and the longer he can keep me from it, the stronger he becomes. If the Soulless leaves Spinner’s End before I have his familiar, then there’s no stopping him.”
While the queen is in Vos Talwyn is our best chance to get that talisman. Who knows when we’ll get another.
“I understand,” Prince Meilek says. “Do what you must. I’m sorry I can’t continue with you.”
“I sent a falcon ahead,” Kou says. “Yen will meet you inside and guide you to His Highness’s rooms and the passageway.”
Annoyance pinches at the nape of my neck. For Prince Meilek’s sake, I hope my suspicions are misplaced. Yen could be an important ally, but do I risk trusting her to pass quickly through the palace, or do I avoid her and linger about the grounds in search of the passageway?
“I’m coming with you,” Saengo says to me.
“You can’t.”
“You’re not going in there alone, Sirscha, and you can’t force me to stay behind. You promised that we would do this together.”
I curse myself for making that promise, but she’s right. I can’t decide for her. Reluctantly, I say, “You watch my back.”
A smile blooms on her face. “And you watch mine.”
“The talisman,” Prince Meilek says, drawing our attention. “If she isn’t sleeping with it on her person, then she will likely be keeping it in the lockbox on her bedside table. It’s silver and crusted with gems. It won’t be hard to miss. She keeps her most valuable things in there.”
Saengo addresses her father’s soldiers, ordering them to accompany and protect Prince Meilek. If he is walking into a trap, then he’ll need every extra hand. Saengo has always seemed hesit
ant of her leadership, as if taking control will prove her father right and lead her back to the ancestral lands she’s meant to manage someday.
Her success in reaching Falcons Ridge and gaining her father’s support for Prince Meilek only proves she’s meant for so much more than what I’ve saddled her with.
Prince Meilek bows without a goodbye, and I return the gesture, sending prayers to the Sisters to protect him and the others. He flicks his reins, and within seconds, he disappears into the rapidly growing shadows with his Blades following close behind.
Saengo’s soldiers pause just long enough to bow in respect. Even if she isn’t going with them, she’s still a lady leading her soldiers, as it should be—as it will be once this is all over.
“Here,” Saengo says, handing me Yandor’s reins. “He’ll be glad to have you back.”
I smile, taking his reins and leaning into his neck. My fingers trail down his cool, green scales. His warm breaths puff against my hair. “I missed you too, my friend. Thank you for keeping Saengo safe.”
“He was excellent company,” Saengo says.
Before we leave, I treat her infection. When Saengo unfastens the buttons of her high collar and tugs down the fabric, my stomach lurches. The infection has spread up her neck in vicious blue lines, nearly reaching her jaw. My gaze flies to her face, seeing her exhaustion anew. She shrugs one shoulder as if it’s nothing.
But it isn’t. The pallor of her skin, the shadows beneath her eyes, the faint tremor in her lips as she smiles—she’s clearly in pain, and yet she rode without rest for a day and night to catch up to us.
“Saengo,” I whisper.
“Don’t look so stricken,” she says softly. “I wasn’t going to let the rot stop me from reaching Falcons Ridge. Or you.”
“You are a marvel, Lady Phang.”
She snorts, and I bite back any more words. I attend to the infection, a renewed sense of urgency swirling through me. We have to get that talisman and end this.
Once we’re both mounted, we continue in the opposite direction Prince Meilek had gone.
I let the silence settle before asking, “What did you promise your father?”
Her shoulders stiffen, then slump in defeat. There’s little chance her father would’ve agreed to let her ride off to impending battle after she’d so recently returned home. Prince Meilek’s Blades could’ve delivered the news on their own, but they hadn’t. While Saengo might have escaped—I’ve learned never to underestimate her—that seems unlikely given her arrival with an escort of soldiers.
“I told him that once this is all over, if Prince Meilek sits on the throne, then I will return and become the heir he wants. At least until I can train another to replace me since …” She trails off with a light shrug.
Saengo cannot have children. Not anymore. The Soulless’s words taunt me: When the world moves on around her, her existence forgotten, she will hate you for it.
“Is that what you want?” I ask. Even if it means leaving me, as long as it’s what she wants, I would never stand in her way.
Her lips twist into a melancholy smile. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I didn’t mention the Soulless. I’m not sure we’ll even survive him.”
I consider telling her about what he said, about how there might be a way to give back her life. But I can’t speak false hopes without knowing for sure that it isn’t a lie.
Vos Talwyn is only a few hours southwest of us, so we continue through the night. After years of sneaking in and out of the city to do Kendara’s bidding, I’m familiar with where the sentinels will be at the wall and the patrol routes through the surrounding forest.
When we’re close enough to see the shining dome of the Sanctuary of the Sisters through the branches, we dismount and let loose our drakes. Yandor doesn’t object. He’s familiar with the area, and this isn’t the first time I’ve let him run around Vos Talwyn.
The forest is kept culled well away from the wall. We crouch beneath the shadowy cover of the trees, watching the distant figures of sentinels between the crenellations. The golden spears of the Grand Palace thrust skyward, rising above the walls. Out of habit, my eyes seek out Kendara’s tower.
It’s abandoned now, of course, and I can’t help feeling a stab of mourning for all of Kendara’s things. It’s stupid—they’re only objects. But like my own possessions, which the queen had likely destroyed, they are the physical collection of my time here.
Kendara’s weapons, her books, her odds and ends collected from all over Thiy—what did the queen do with them? I think it might hurt to walk through her door with its half dozen locks and find her room empty, everything I’d done there, every lesson I’d taken with her on that balcony, cleared away.
That’s the kind of sentimentality Kendara wanted to rid me of. Nothing should ever be irreplaceable, not objects, and not people. It was a necessary mindset for a Shadow, and even more so for a double agent. But it seems an awfully solitary way to live. I suddenly understand how she can repeatedly walk away from me despite claiming to love me. She’s had a lot of practice in letting go.
Somehow, the realization doesn’t make me angry with her anymore. It just makes me sad at the life she must have led. She’s always been so steady, so certain. But even Kendara must have doubted herself at times, and all at once I’m glad she left. She chose a new path, and I hope she’s happy about it, even if that path leads away from me.
We wait just long enough for Saengo to string her bow, and then we follow the tree line south.
I step slowly and quietly. Saengo is less careful, although I know she’s trying. Still, every crackle of a leaf and shifting of dirt beneath her boots makes me cringe and glance warily at the wall. The ground begins to slope downward, and the smell of the sea grows sharper.
The wall turns westward along the rocky coast, the earth dropping sharply away at its base. Saengo and I wait at the edge of the forest, watching the sentinels. The moon is high against the stars but shrouded in wisps of gray clouds. I’m prepared to be patient and wait for the right moment to step into the open when a low roar rumbles through the forest north of us. I grin. It’s Yandor, likely chasing some poor nocturnal creature through the underbrush.
The sentinels all shift away, peering northward. I glance at Saengo. “Now.”
We sprint the distance, miraculously unseen as we reach the wall. We’re out of the immediate view of the sentinels high above, but we move slowly, keeping our spines plastered to the smooth stone. Beneath our feet, the ground transforms into loose gravel and then sheer, jagged rock.
“There’s a hidden doorway at the base of the wall. We just have to reach it,” I say quietly. The rocks are dangerous even during the day. They’re slick with sea spray, and the fall alone would kill us. I don’t tell her this, though. I just grip her wrist and tell her to follow closely. “It’ll be fine. I’ve done this hundreds of times.”
I step over a well of trapped water, thick with algae. Even in the dark, muscle memory wins out. My feet know when to step. My legs know when to shift my weight, and how far from the wall to stray. Saengo keeps close, stepping precisely where I do.
“Sisters, Sirscha,” she says, her voice high and breathy. “You did this every time Kendara sent you out?”
“Not every time. Only during the late hours when the gates were closed.”
“That was almost always,” Saengo points out. “You could’ve died.”
“But I didn’t. Which was the point.”
After a moment, a hidden set of stairs comes into view. They’re not stairs in the traditional sense—they look more like broadly stacked rock slates leading downward. The rush of the sea and the wind cover up any sounds we might make, so we continue steadily for long, tense minutes.
Needle Bay is braced in the east by low mountains, but to the west is a narrow strip of land called the Thread where the queen’s ships are docked. At the tip of the Thread is the southern watchtower, which doubles as a lighthouse. I used to sneak away fr
om the Company and sit at the lip of the roof, watching ships pass beyond the bay. This is not the return to Vos Talwyn that I’d hoped for. But even so, the rhythmic sweep of the lighthouse always felt like a beacon, calling me home.
TWENTY-FOUR
The hidden door is small and cramped, and impossible to see unless you know it’s there. I usher Saengo inside first before following.
I squeeze between the rocks into the narrow space beyond. We have to crouch to keep from bashing our heads on the ceiling. This feels a bit like another wild challenge Kendara has set for me, which helps to ease my nerves.
“What is this place?” Saengo asks, her voice muffled by the rush of the sea just outside.
I nudge her forward into the dark tunnel. “Every Shadow has to create their own entrance into the city, because when the Shadow before them leaves the queen’s service, they destroy whatever secret entrances they used. At least, according to Kendara. I’m sure she has a dozen means of getting into Vos Talwyn, but this is the one she showed me.”
“Wouldn’t the queen know to keep this guarded? Or to collapse it?” she asks.
The meager moonlight quickly fades, and we’re pitched into complete darkness. Since I know where I’m going, Saengo takes my hand and lets me lead.
“I’m not sure she knows about this one,” I say. “Kendara was a double agent, and she’d been the Shadow before Queen Meilyr took the throne. She served King Senbyn for years. I imagine there are many secrets she kept to herself.”
Just as she kept so many from me.
The tunnel lets out at the back of an empty drake stall. The exit is so small that we have to crawl on our knees. I pause at the threshold, listening for any late-night stable workers, but there’s only the steady breathing of sleeping drakes. At least in this immediate area, there are no other human souls.
Once we’re out of the tunnel, we pass quickly through the stables and into the open. Shops line the street, their windows dark. Lanterns illuminate small spheres of night. We turn left at a corner bakery with a noodles stand out front where Saengo and I used to eat.
