Her eyes sprang open.
Beneath the rhythm of Rhis and the wail of the wind, the incessant rattle of chains jangled. Serena was so used to hearing it, she hadn’t realised how close she was.
Garald’s waterfalls.
Serena glanced again to the barred window and the narrow ledge skirting beneath it.
If I can get to it…
She tried again, heart lurching into her mouth as she stretched over the new gap in the ledge. If she lifted her hands from the reassurance of the walls, she’d be able to lean out and grip the bars—all she had to do was let go…
Then the decision was made from her.
The first window she’d passed her flew open behind her. ‘There!’ a female Crimsoncloak called. ‘She’s there!’
The noise startled Serena. She left the embrace of the wall and kicked off with her left foot.
Knuckles white, Serena’s fingers wrapped around the cold, rusted iron bars.
The guard swore and called after her.
‘Don’t move! You trying to die, girl?’
Serena risked a glance over her shoulder—the Crimsoncloak followed Serena’s path on the exterior ledge, slinking like a cat.
Serena had to be quick—more would come.
Still clutching the bars, she inched around the perpendicular wall. To follow the ledge around, she’d have to let go.
‘Shit.’ Serena stretched as far as she could without releasing her grip—
A hinge pinged and the bars swivelled like a gate. Serena swung out over the city, one leg on the ledge and one leg floating over Rhis.
‘Stay there!’ the guard called.
Serena’s heart leapt into her throat. ‘Like I have a choice!’
Panting without breathing any air, Serena set her foot back onto the ledge. The guard whistled for backup.
Wait for the guards, or the drop? Either way, I’m dead.
At the other side of the wall, an angular gargoyle sat on its haunches. If she could get to the other side without plummeting, Serena could reach it and use it to climb to the palace’s ramparts, then head towards the royal garden’s pulleys and chains.
All she had to do was let go of the gate.
More whistles burst from the palace—then the alarm came—a shrill, escalating, distress signal.
Serena kept her back straight and let go of the bars.
‘Are you off your head?’ the guard called. ‘Don’t. Move. We can reach you!’
Guided by the path of the ledge and refusing to look down, Serena rounded the corner, towards the gargoyle perched at the other side. A small blimp floated past, so close Serena saw the pilot’s mouth hang open.
Then the ledge broke away.
‘Shit!’
Half jumping and half falling, Serena latched onto the gargoyle and climbed up to its back. It was painful, but she got to the next roof. It rose to a point, like the chancel of a church.
‘She’s here!’ A silhouette flitted between the ramparts opposite Serena, a shadow so dark it could’ve been hewn from the black stone of the palace. Then it stepped into the light.
This time it wasn’t a Crimsoncloak—it was one of Ventris’ pirates.
He raised his gun.
Serena ran up the sloping roof, towards the sound of the waterfalls. Slates exploded at her heels as bullets chased her.
When she reached the peak of the roof, she rolled and slid down the slope at the other side. Acid sloshed in her gut, but she pushed herself towards the sound of cogs and pulleys.
Bullets followed her, pinging and ricocheting. Serena leapt from the roof and grasped the edge of an ascending carriage. She clambered over and submerged herself in freezing water, hands tight against her skull as bullets thudded against it.
The carriage rocked from side to side, but she reached the safety of Garald’s gardens. She jumped out, landing on a bush of ignium-orange flowers. Their thorns tore at her clothes and ripped into her skin, but she fought them away and stumbled towards a marble fountain. She pressed her back against it and dragged air into her lungs. Shouts and cries exploded in the distance
Flicker floated past, not a care in the world.
Now to break back in and find Myriel.
She risked a look at a suspended cable car swinging above her, the bird cage one she’d sat in with Garald. Empty.
Serena raced past the fountain, her feet slapping against the ground. Spotlights swept blinding beams over the gardens.
Serena ducked behind a Mercurian clock set into a sculpture of a chimera and guided Flicker into her pocket. ‘Stay quiet for now.’
Crimsoncloaks spilled out of doorways and materialised behind windows. Some of them wielded crossbows.
Serena kept her eyes on the cable carriage; if she could use it to take her to the next platform, then she could at least draw the guards away and buy time.
She made a break for it—and the glaring light found her. Serena leapt into the cable carriage and yanked its lever. The footsteps got closer and a crossbow bolt careened past.
Voices rose around her.
‘—there!’
‘Halt! Halt!’
‘—get ’er before the Crimsoncloaks, Solassis wants her gutted!’
Serena kept pulling at the lever, but the carriage refused to budge. The guards closed the distance.
‘C’mon, c’mon… Shit!’ Another crossbow bolt arced past.
Serena hit the carriage’s floor and summoned the siren-song—she’d never used it against so many people at once, and there was no telling how much it would sap from her.
Bullets chipped stone and struck metal. Gunpowder fouled the garden’s fragrances.
Myriel needs me.
Serena closed her eyes and let the siren-song flow out of her—from her hands and fingers, from the centre of her chest. It pained her, and she struggled to control it—it was like trying to seize the sound of thunder from the sky and shove it into a bottle.
And yet silence fell. Serena sensed panic in the guards’ chests, sensed their fear and worry.
It’s okay.
The siren-song spun a harmony through all of their minds and unfurled across the expanse of the gardens.
It’s okay. You can put your weapons down. The song emanated from Serena, coalescing and expanding through the palace.
The guards stood, placid.
Shaking, Serena stepped out of the cable car and approached the nearest guard. ‘Where’s Mathildé?’
Damien flitted through the palace’s warren of ventilation ducts and hidden passages, inching closer to his father’s private study. Much had changed in his absence, but even more had stayed the same—the portraits of ancestors in their gleaming silver frames; the crimson uniforms and polished black boots of the palace guard—
The way they stand with sabres held to their breast, the point so close to their throat…
As insubstantial as a shadow, as silent as a whisper in an empty graveyard, Damien flitted between the soldiers, distracting them and luring them away.
But you won’t kill them—you’ll delay the gratification and savour it…
Damien’s blood rushed fiercer with every step towards the rosewood door that led to Arnault’s study. His father was inside; he sensed it.
I will not kill him. Let the thoughts pass, they cannot hurt you. Let the thoughts pass…
His fingers glided over a cold, silver handle set into a rosewood door. Damien eased onto one knee to pick the lock but found it disengaged. He stepped through and closed the door without a sound.
A magnificent, blackwood desk glowered in the right-hand corner, shouldering stacks of paper. A grandfather clock loomed opposite the desk, its machinery wheezing like a man with a punctured lung.
And—in the study’s left-hand corner, next to a silent, yawning fireplace—a large brass cylinder whirred and whined.
Arnault’s head protruded from one end of the contraption. His jaws drew inward, and grey skin clung tight to his skull. His cotton-white hair almost
trailed onto the floor, and the three braids of his beard hung loose over one side.
Arnault Warrior-King spends his days inside an iron lung. What would Mother think?
Damien loomed over his father. Above the iron lung, Damien’s first cutlass hung on the wall. Its sharp tip caught weak light from an ignium lamp.
It was in this room that you forced me to read combat theory.
Damien’s fingers brushed Arnault’s throat.
It was in this room that Countess Ophelia teased me for being untouched at seventeen—where she kissed me and giggled because I didn’t know how to respond… Didn’t know what she wanted from me.
Damien’s thumbs pressed down on Arnault’s throat.
It was in this room where she told me of her townhouse in Kvel… Where I learned that she and I were to be wed to secure your precious ignicite veins…
His grip tightened. Arnault’s wrinkled skin felt as delicate as crêpe paper.
Here, where she told me that she would marry not a boy, but a man.
The king’s eyes sprang open. Damien squeezed.
The steam from the hot spring clouding the world… Kvel’s moonlight glistening over her wet, naked body… The look in her eyes when the rocks collapsed and trapped her in the water… The look in her eyes when panic set in, when she pleaded with me to save her—the look in her eyes when death claimed her.
His grip tightened.
Do you remember, ‘Damien’? Do you remember standing transfixed as she drowned? How you told yourself you were too frightened to save her?
Damien kept his eyes riveted to his father’s, listened to his muted gasps, watched as the king struggled to get his arms free of the iron lung.
No… I’m here for Zofia, for the cure…
But Damien’s fingers remained wrapped around his father’s throat.
The rosewood door battered against the wall, yanking Damien from his reverie.
A young, trembling adolescent stood in the doorway. ‘Father?’
Solassis clenched Myriel’s throat and pinned her against the wall. Myriel saw her reflection in the pirate’s jittery, dilated pupils. She tried to speak.
Solassis stood back. ‘Sorry, what was that?’
Myriel’s rough fingers soothed the burning pain on her neck. ‘I said, “If you’re going to interrogate me, closing my throat is probably a stupid way to go about it”.’
Solassis struck Myriel.
‘Fine, then I’ll ask again: Where would the girl go?’
‘My dear,’ Myriel spluttered, ‘we… are in the royal palace, high above sea level. Either she sprouted wings or she’s still on the grounds.’
For a moment, Myriel was sure Solassis would hit her again, but she didn’t.
‘Now, then,’ Myriel began, ‘am I to assume that since I’ve given you what you wanted, you’re going to shoot me?’
Solassis stood back. ‘Something like that.’
‘Very well.’ Myriel went to a small table sitting by her room’s bay window. She eased herself onto a chair and sipped at the tea she’d prepared earlier. It tasted of lemon zest.
‘What in all hells are you doing?’ Solassis asked.
‘What?’ Myriel asked. ‘You expect me to plead for my life?’
‘Have it your way.’ Solassis withdrew a snuff box and snorted its contents, leaving a blue dusting on her nose. She unholstered her antique gun, the one she’d stolen from Vabrizio. ‘The Crimsoncloaks might not use guns, but I ain’t so picky.’
‘Mages’ Guildmaster.’
Solassis frowned. ‘Eh?’
‘That’s my true identity—I am Myriel An tal Lo of the Dalthea Mages’ Guild.’
Solassis’ brow knitted together. ‘Well, I’ve thought about it, but no—I don’t give a shit.’
Myriel placed the cup down and cleared her throat. ‘Miss Solassis, you clearly have wit and cunning, so I will not insult your intelligence by lying to you any longer. The Mages were an order of royal advisers—Dalthea, Idaris, Phadros—we were everywhere. But then ignicite mining opened up new avenues and technologies, and our skills were made obsolete.’
‘If I wanted a damn history lesson—’
‘Obsolete,’ Myriel interrupted, ‘but not gone.’
Solassis raised the gun.
Myriel steepled her fingers. ‘Tell me—what do you think that means?’
‘Reckon it means you’ll get a hole in your skull.’
‘Yes, yes, guns, threats, all the rest of it. But think for a moment—and do keep your gun pointed at me if it makes you feel safer—do I seem worried? Do I seem at all perturbed that a vicious pirate—whom I’ve seen murder a man—has beaten me and currently aims a gun at my head?’ Myriel let the question hang in the air. ‘No? So, what does that tell you?’
Solassis inched away. ‘You got something in here.’
‘Indeed. Think about it—I’ve lied to the king of Ryndara and inspired his wrath—do you for one moment believe that I have not taken precautions in the event I am discov—’
‘Shit on this.’ Solassis thumbed the hammer back and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The pirate scowled. ‘What…?’
Myriel leaned forward. When she spoke next, the words came in a whisper. ‘I am a Mages’ Guildmaster. I read runes carved into the foundations of the future and divine the riddles in the stars. I hold dominion over alchemy and chemistry.’ Myriel stood up and approached Solassis. ‘And I am over five hundred years old.’
Solassis’ eyes widened. She opened her mouth—but before she spoke, Myriel punched her.
‘Of course I’m not five hundred years old, you bloody idiot.’
With a crash, the door flew open. ‘Myriel!’
‘Serena.’ Myriel clutched her chest. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’
‘That might be pushing it. C’mon!’
Prince Garald screamed, and Damien’s fingers uncoiled from his father’s throat.
‘Guards! Guards!’
‘Prince Garald, you—’
The lad lunged and pounded at Damien’s chest with impotent fury.
Damien batted his hands away. ‘I will not hurt you—but nor will I let you stand in my way.’
With a hiss, the iron lung opened. Vapour coiled around it like the summoning of an ethereal creature.
‘Garald.’ Arnault’s voice rasped like a drill boring into wood.
‘Father! Are you hurt?’
Damien stood rooted to the floor, watching as Garald helped his father into a chair and fastened the breathing mask over his mouth.
‘Garald—meet your brother, Arros.’ The words thrummed through the breathing mask—cold, inhuman.
The lad froze.
Damien analysed the prince. ‘Who is his mother?’
‘A whore.’ Arnault said the word like he was ordering dessert.
Garald inched towards the king without taking his eyes from Damien. ‘Father, we should alert the guards, have Captain Thorir—’
Arnault patted Garald’s hand. ‘My time draws to a close, Garald—do not fear it.’
Damien watched them together, longing to say so much and yet keep quiet.
‘Did she succeed?’ Arnault asked.
Azima. ‘No.’
‘A pity.’
‘If you give me the cure for Musa’s Bane, I’ll let you live.’
Laughter spluttered from Arnault. ‘There is no cure.’
Damien’s fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. ‘Why the games, Father? Azima has condemned an innocent child to a life of pain, and for what?’
Arnault cocked his head. ‘For you.’
‘How did you even find her?’
‘I discovered where your mother had sent you. Not until years later, after the bloodlung took root. Delirium had set in, and many were the nights your mother believed she conversed with you. The guards stationed at her quarters informed me of the secrets she revealed.
‘The Nyr-az-Telun,’ Arnault c
ontinued. ‘I will never know how she learned of them. Only when my scouts discovered their base of operations in the Solacewood did I stop believing they were figments of your mother’s ramblings. Turns out she was more useful in death than in life.’
Damien started forward. ‘Mother was a good woman—a gentle woman. She loved you in spite of your betrayals.’
‘If she loved me, she’d have given me seven daughters.’ Arnault angled his head up, looking down his nose at Damien. ‘Your mother was barren after you clawed your way from her—you robbed the life from her.’
‘Father,’ urged Garald, ‘don’t antagonise this man.’
‘My fate is sealed, boy—let the Lost Prince do what he came here to do.’
‘Father, please.’
Damien stepped forward, his hands trembling.
Do it…
‘A beauty, your Azima,’ said Arnault. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you—you were always more interested in dissecting animals and reading medical texts.’
‘As I recall, I became quite proficient with the cutlass.’
Arnault raised his chin. ‘And how well you’ve used it since. Phadros, Mercuria, the Sanctecano Islands. A sword for hire.’ Arnault convulsed into a fit of coughing. ‘Ryndarans used to take what we wanted—and now the first-born prince whores himself out to weaker men.’
He’s taunting you, ‘Damien’. He wants you to kill him—don’t disappoint him.
Damien took another step closer.
‘Yes, yes, Azima said you like to take your time. Half-mad, that woman, but full of useful information. Convinced, she was, that Nyr whispers in your ear. If my forces had caught up with you during the Idari conflict, well—perhaps it would be you leading my army.’
‘Cleric Adravan and the Nyr-az-Telun may have perfected me as a weapon,’ said Damien, ‘but you made me the monster I am. Your lessons, your beatings, your—’
Laughter erupted from the king. ‘You were born a monster, boy—Countess Ophelia’s death stirred something that was already there.’
Damien grunted. Every instinct screamed at him to tear his father apart and revel in it.
‘The wheels are in motion, Arros. Kill me—my only regret is that I won’t watch as Dalthea is trampled into the dirt.’
Wrath of Storms Page 23
