by Callie Bates
They mutter among themselves. Their hands are up, the bells no longer ringing. The word Korakos carries over the field. My nickname, for the raven crest of my family. I’ve been recognized. They don’t know, of course, that the name really belongs to the great sorcerer I’m descended from.
My palms are sweating. It’s strange to be looking at my own people down the length of a musket. Even if they are witch hunters.
One takes a hesitant step forward. “Stop,” I shout, “or we’ll shoot!”
He halts. The other two are looking at Elanna—of course it’s her they’re here for. They’ve crossed the border to capture her, to drag her back to Paladis with a sack over her head, so they can send her mad in the Ochuroma and execute her before the entire empire. Because that is what my people, the guardians of civilization, do.
Well, not this time. I’m not letting them take El any more than I let them take my brothers when I was a boy. No matter the consequences.
“You’re on the wrong side of this war, Korakos!” the witch hunter calls.
I studiously aim the musket at him. The damned thing is growing heavy in my arms, and I don’t know if I can actually shoot a fellow Paladisan, even a witch hunter. I’d certainly never be welcome back in Ida again if I did. But he shuts his mouth.
The earth trembles. Maybe it’s the silenced bells, but Elanna is working around the witch hunters somehow. Within the forest, a tree stretches. It pulls one root, then another, ponderously from the ground. A man cries out, high-pitched. Another tree is moving, and another. The witch hunters swing around to stare. One rings his bell frantically.
Elanna fires at him. The shot goes wide, but my ears whine and the witch hunter throws down the bell as if it’s burned him. I feel myself grin. The trees are advancing now, their roots kneading the earth. In the forest, the soldiers have already dissolved into chaos. You’re terrified, I tell them, insisting with all my might. You’ve never seen anything so frightening. Run! Splashes echo as they scramble down the slope to the river.
One witch hunter, the one who threw down his bell, turns and races into the forest. The other two hesitate.
I sigh. It’s so damned tempting to fire at them. So I do.
I aim wide but magnify the sound. The witch hunters turn tail and run. The trees sway after them, menacing.
Elanna glances at me. The trickle of blood has reached her jaw, and my body starts instinctually toward her to see if she’s all right. But I force myself to wait, listening to the distant sounds of men crashing through the river, their shouts barely audible now. Elanna’s staring at the corpse of our coach boy, crumpled on the grass a little distance from us.
“Jahan,” she says quietly. Her nostrils are flared. “How are we going to stop them?”
I crack a grin, though performing so much sorcery leaves me feeling hollowed out. Thin. “We’ll make the emperor legalize sorcery and recognize you as steward of the land.”
Of course she doesn’t return the smile, and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. But the truth is that the emperor won’t stop sending the witch hunters until El’s dead, or he is. She knows this as well as I do. The Paladisan emperors built their empire on the subjugation of sorcerers; they’re not going to stop just because we’ve asked nicely. Soon they’ll send the black ships to bully us into surrendering. Even with Elanna’s magic, even with mine, I don’t know how we’ll defeat a navy that’s famously invincible.
Unless…The idea hits me squarely in the chest and I have to catch my breath. “El,” I begin, but she’s walking in tight strides to the coach boy, kneeling beside him to whisper the Caerisian benediction to the dead. Her hand trembles as she pushes his eyelids shut.
I follow. A whisper worms into my mind—Madiya’s voice. Jahan.
Not now.
I shove her aside and kneel beside Elanna, touching her jaw lightly so she faces me. Unshed tears gather, luminous, in her eyes. Tugging out my handkerchief, I blot away the blood that stains her cheek. There doesn’t seem to be a larger wound—one of the shots must have just grazed her.
“We won,” she’s saying, her voice a furious whisper. “We defeated the Eyrlais. We claimed Eren and Caeris. But our people are still dying.”
I swallow hard. My own eyes itch. It’s impossible not to think of Finn, dead on the floor of that bakery. The prince, my friend, who brought me here in the first place. The one who was supposed to be king, even though he never wanted it. The revolution was his way of proving himself to his father, his way of saying, I am the son you want me to be. I came along for the magic, for the whispers about the legendary Caveadear, the steward of the land. I wanted such a person to exist. I wanted her to do what I couldn’t: wield such an unimaginable magic that it would render an entire land untouchable by the witch hunters who believe sorcery to be anathema.
But even though I found her, even though she kneels beside me, even though she woke the land, the witch hunters are still coming for us. Eren isn’t untouchable. It’s vulnerable, and isolated. We defeated the Eyrlais, but now we’re open to a far more dangerous foe: the empire of Paladis itself. Not to mention all of Eren’s neighbors, especially Baedon and Tinan, which have already descended on us like eager dogs.
And now another boy lies dead on the ground. For nothing.
Elanna rubs her cheeks. She shifts closer, and her forehead bumps my jaw. I look down at her, her face shadowed between our bodies. She looks both angry and soft, with her hair curling out from beneath her cap, her chin set, the stain of blood lingering on her cheek. The privations of this winter have created hollows in her cheeks I want to fill, and tension in her strong, slender frame that I can’t loosen. Her love is such an uncomplicated thing—a fact that she holds up as irrefutable, that she’s unafraid to show. While I cringe when people see us touching; while I hide our relationship from the world. Because if anyone sees how much Elanna matters to me, she will be taken from me, just as my mother was. I know this in my bones, even though it jars against all logic.
But I won’t let Emperor Alakaseus take her. It’s that simple. And I know what I need to do. Even if she doesn’t like it.
She’s leaning back, wiping her eyes. “We should go find the coach. See where the horses went…”
“I have—” I begin.
But El’s head snaps up, her gaze moving behind me. “Someone’s coming!”
“—an idea,” I finish, unheard. She’s already on her feet. I suppose it’ll wait—and I’m not ready for her disappointment. Not yet.
I won’t leave her until I have to.
I scramble to my feet to see who’s come to find us.
CHAPTER TWO
A party of riders on horseback are barreling down the road, past the shoots of new wheat. The soldiers’ uniforms still bear the colors of the deposed Eyrlai monarchs, but a woman in a red coat rides at the head of the line, her yellow hair bare and bright under the clouded sky.
“Sophy?” Elanna calls out. She bursts into a run. I force myself to a trot after her, though I still don’t feel quite myself. The hollowed-out feeling takes a long time to pass. But at least it no longer leaves me completely crippled, the way it did after I escaped Madiya.
She’s whispering again at the back of my mind. Jahan.
No, I think at her, even though a treacherous part of me begins to answer. What if Lathiel needs me? What if I’m failing him, again?
Ahead, the riders rein in. Sophy Dunbarron, the queen of Eren and Caeris, flings herself off her horse, her pale cheeks bright red from the cold. She runs toward us and grips Elanna’s arms. “El, what happened? The villagers said they heard gunshots—”
“A party from Tinan. Witch hunters. We stopped them.”
“You heard it from the villagers?” I ask Sophy. Curious that they didn’t send help. I glance at Elanna, who gives her head a quick shake. She’s not going to risk incurring anyon
e’s wrath by accusing the villagers or their friends of letting witch hunters across the border. I suppose the Paladisans might have found the ford with Tinani help. But still, I don’t like it.
El shakes Sophy’s arms. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone north, to the Butcher!”
“That’s what I had planned to do.” Sophy wets her lips and fumbles a small bundle of papers from her pocket. She can’t seem to look at either of us. She seems, suddenly, terribly young and overburdened. She thrusts one of the letters at me. “This came for you, Jahan.”
A letter for me? I glance at the script. Clear, elegant letters spell out my full name. It’s Aunt Cyra’s handwriting. I move instinctively to break the seal, a kind of hopeless dread tightening my chest. It must be news about Lathiel. Our lawyers must have failed, again, to prevail on my father to hand over guardianship of my youngest brother. We always knew that, when he finally agreed to send Rayka, Father didn’t consider it a concession but a trade. We could have Rayka, but he’d keep Lathiel. At least, until Madiya tired of him. Which, so far, she hasn’t. My gut already twists, ugly with sickness.
Maybe I should answer Madiya’s summons. For Lathiel’s sake.
Sophy bursts through my thoughts. “Our contact in Ida sent news. The fleet the emperor has been assembling—he’s announced plans to send it. Here. To our shores.”
I stare at her. She’s looking into the distance between Elanna and me, her mouth tight, the paper crumpled between her hands. Even though we knew it was coming, this can’t be the future Sophy longed for, any more than El did. She must have hoped that once she’d won, all the conflict would end. That she would be queen, and that would be that. But it’s so far from reality that it’s almost laughable.
Her throat works. “Ad—Admiral Moreau says we have less than half the forces Paladis is assembling. Especially if they combine their navy with Baedon.”
“We have magic,” Elanna begins. She falters. “The land…”
She doesn’t say what we’re all thinking. That she’s exhausting her power, and in order to grow strong again she needs rest, but cannot afford it. That the Tinani on the land border have persisted despite floods and wandering forests. And even if she were at full strength, her magic still might not be enough against the might of the Paladisan fleet, the sheer number of men and weapons and vessels they can throw against us. They conquered Eren once before without magic. If the black ships land on Ereni soil, we are in danger of losing everything we’ve fought for. Our own lives are the least of it.
I look at Sophy. “How much time do we have? Before the black ships set sail?”
She gives me a blank stare, but rustles the paper. “A week, maybe two. The seas are a bit rough yet. That’s the only thing delaying them.”
A week is enough. I can work with that.
“I have a plan,” I say. “I can go to Ida. I’ll treat with the emperor for peace.”
“What?” El says. “No, Jahan—”
I shake my head. Sophy’s listening, her breath held in. “We’re on the brink of war. But I can try to persuade His Imperial Majesty that fighting Eren isn’t in his interests. I could try to procure an alliance.”
“But they know you’re a sorcerer!” Elanna exclaims. “You just summoned muskets through the air against witch hunters.”
“They won’t be sure what happened. It was fast. It might have been me, or you, or someone they didn’t see.” I pause. El’s eyes are large, angry; she twists the seal ring furiously on her finger. But Sophy is staring at me as if I’ve offered her water in the desert. “Look. I know everyone at court, and everyone knows me.” Unlike the Ereni, who see only a distrustful foreigner. “I stand a better chance of persuading the emperor than anyone else in Eren. It may not succeed, but I can try.”
“It makes sense,” Sophy says, too fast. Elanna glares at her.
“El,” I say. Maybe I’m making a hash of this. I’m terrible at love, or whatever I’m supposed to call what’s between us. I meet her eyes, willing her to see my thoughts. “Please, let me do this for you.”
Her nostrils flare. “It’s too dangerous. If you stay here, we can fight together.”
“But if I go to Paladis, I can fight for you.” And if there’s anything I know, if there’s any place I truly belong, it’s at the imperial court in Aexione. She has to understand that. Even if Prince Leontius hasn’t sent me a single letter since I left, I know him. He’ll help us. “I can use my friendship with Leontius, my reputation—everything—to save us. And even if some rumor about my magic follows me back…” I glance between them, hesitant to share this secret. But El won’t believe me if I don’t. “I can persuade people that I’m not a sorcerer.”
“But it’s a lie, Jahan,” Elanna bursts out. “Don’t you—how can you—” She shakes her head.
I grin at her. “It’s the perfect trick, don’t you see? Using magic to save magic, secretly—” I throw up my hands. “You hid your magic for years! So did I.”
“But we fought so that we don’t have to hide it anymore. The refugees are coming here so they don’t have to hide it! And yet you are returning to Ida on the pretense that you have nothing to hide. If they find out…”
I start toward her. I want to put my hands on her shoulders, fit my thumbs into the grooves of her collarbone. But Sophy is here, and unlike Elanna I can’t bear for anyone else to see us touch. I don’t want anyone to see where I put my heart, not even Sophy Dunbarron. So I cough and pull myself up. “They’re not going to find out.”
“Aren’t you tired of holding on to secrets?”
I blink. No, I think. My secrets are as comfortable to me as a second skin. But that’s not the way it is for Elanna, who holds up truth like a banner. She won’t understand, even if I try to explain. So I say quietly, “For you, I’ll hold on to them a little longer.”
Her eyes brighten, but then she presses her lips together. “I don’t need you to hold on to any secrets. I don’t need you to go to Ida. You could stay right here. With me.”
I look at her, slim and quivering in her old greatcoat, her chestnut hair tumbling over her collar, and my throat tightens. She’s right. I can’t go, not with her looking at me like this. Not if it means losing her.
And yet…It’s not as if she needs me here. It’s not as if my small magics do any good, especially against her great land magic. She has to see that, and if she doesn’t now, she will one day. One day she’ll realize she’s given her heart to a damaged sorcerer who’s little more than a charlatan, who’s such a coward he’s never been able to tell her the whole truth about himself.
Sophy utters a sigh. “Listen, El, this isn’t about you! He’s offering to save our nation. Our people. We have to let him try.” She turns back to the riders and beckons a soldier for pen and ink. “I’ll write you papers, Jahan, authorizing you as ambassador royal under my name and seal.”
“Ambassador royal?” I almost laugh; it’s not as if I’ve pledged fealty to Sophy. “What will Ida’s wits say? I left Idaean and am coming back Ereni.”
Sophy, busy negotiating with her inkwell, doesn’t answer. Elanna strides away into the wheat, her shoulders hunched. I hesitate, but though it feels safer to linger beside Sophy, I follow El.
Some distance out into the field, she stops. The clouds are clearing; we stand alone in a patch of sunshine, boots sinking into the sodden ground. Alone, for the moment.
“I’m coming back to you,” I say to her back. “You know that.”
She turns, and I see tears have left marks down her cheeks. “No, Jahan, I don’t know that. You don’t tell me everything. You go off into your head, and something different comes out of your mouth. You keep telling me this is for the good of Eren and Caeris. So maybe you won’t come back, if that’s ‘for the good of Eren and Caeris,’ too. Maybe you think you’re better off without me.”
�
��No, I—” I offer a weak laugh. “You’re probably better off without me.”
She folds her arms, looking at me. I want to distract her with a joke or a kiss. I don’t want to be seen like this, so open-eyed. But instead I return her look. The trace of freckles around her nose, a shade darker than her tawny skin; the golden brown of her irises. The way she studies me like she’s trying to see the framework of my being. How strands of her hair are always falling out of their practical knot. Her fierceness; her determined courage. She’s open where I hide, and brave when I’m merely charming. The scent of earth and growing things rises off her skin; there’s a wildness about her. A vastness. This woman holds all of Eren and Caeris in herself. She’s the land and the land is her.
And I am the one Madiya damaged. The weakest of the three brothers. The one who charmed his way into a position of power when he didn’t merely trick people with sorcery. I’m no match, not truly, for Elanna Valtai.
She sighs. “Jahan…”
But even as she says it, another voice repeats my name at the same moment.
Jahan!
It’s not Madiya’s voice. It’s young, and male, and desperate.
Rayka.
“What’s wrong?” El’s saying, but I can’t find the breath to answer. I’m digging in my pockets for something, anything, that might reflect my face. Cold metal hits my fingers. A coin. I hold it up. It’s recently minted—with the late Antoine Eyrlai’s profile on it—and my reflection is nothing more than a dim smudge. But it should still work.
“Rayka?” I say. “Rayka!”
I can’t see whether my reflection transforms into his. But his voice echoes into my head. Did she find you?
Cold white terror washes up my legs. I can hardly speak. No. Madiya can’t have Rayka again, not after everything I did to free him from her. I fumble for words. “Does she have you? I’m fine. I’m in Eren. Where’s Lathiel? Do you have news? Rayka?”
But he doesn’t answer. His connection’s been cut.
