by Callie Bates
I rub my hands over my face. This is the last news I want to take back to Tullea. But I don’t have a choice, and we need to make a plan to save whoever’s left. So I go after my brother. Through the hole—which is as tall as I am—stairs take us up at a nearly vertical angle. We emerge into a small room behind the lower temple. I can hear voices in the main chamber.
“—don’t trust those I don’t know.” That’s Tullea, her tone hard.
“We need your help. The people in the Frourio need your help! We’re all sorcerers together, what difference does it make?”
My heart leaps. It’s Elanna’s voice. What’s she doing here—how did she take the risk to cross the bridge back to the old city? How did she get away from Madiya? I stride through to the main chamber to find Nestor and Sabina flanking Tullea, while Elanna faces them, dressed in her customary trousers this time, with Bardas at her side. How did she persuade him to bring her here? El’s gaze flickers to me, but Tullea doesn’t notice my presence at first. She’s too busy denying Bardas entry, just as I had instructed.
Madiya isn’t here. I let out a breath. But if she’s not here, where is she? And what is she doing?
“You say the walls of the prison walked,” Tullea says. “But your sorcerer friend here failed to keep them intact. And now you’ve killed people we are sworn to protect. The emperor’s men will think Jahan did it! Why should we trust someone who attempts something like that?”
Clearly the news has preceded us. I’m staring. Elanna, involved with the destruction at the Frourio? Has Madiya corrupted her mind that much?
“I didn’t do it,” El snaps. “I told you that in the first place!”
Tullea folds her arms. “Maybe not, but who did?”
Bardas intervenes. He looks exhausted, and I suspect he’s not here of his own volition, but rather to clean up someone else’s mess. “Another sorcerer. Someone who thought they could save the prisoners, and terrify the witch hunters and imperial militia into submission. But as we know, things did not go as planned. That’s why we came, so we could explain there has been a mistake. And to warn you that the emperor is planning retribution.”
I step forward, unable to suppress my horror. Tullea startles. “Jahan! Where did you come from?”
“The Frourio,” I say briefly, “by a hidden route.” I look at Bardas. “You gave Madiya back her sorcery? How?”
“It wasn’t her,” he says, wincing. “It was…someone else.”
“How many sorcerers do you know?” I demand.
He glances around at all of us and mutters, “Too many.”
Everyone is silent. Elanna looks at me and away, her mouth tight. Ashamed, I think, though this can’t have been her doing.
“You were at the Frourio?” Tullea asks me. “Did you see who did it?”
I shake my head, but Tullea’s gaze returns, accusatory, to Elanna.
“It wasn’t me!” Elanna bursts out. “You have eyes! Look at this collar around my neck! Look.” She spreads her hands. “I can do nothing. Not one thing. The witch hunters took my sorcery from me. Besides, everyone thinks I’m dead. What good or ill can I possibly do any of you?”
There are tears in her eyes—tears of rage. I take an involuntary step toward her.
Her gaze fixes on me, warning me not to come too close. She’s not angry at me, as I first thought. She’s angry with herself. “Jahan should know that I would never condone such a thing. I would never attempt it. I would think of the lives inside, first.”
“It was an accident,” Bardas says tiredly.
“An accident?” Tullea draws herself up; she seems to grow a good three inches. “Who would ever imagine that might be a good idea?”
“It was an attempt to free the prisoners within,” Bardas says. “It’s not as foolish as you make it out to be.”
“Perhaps your friend’s intentions were good, but people are dead.”
“Yes,” Bardas says. He glances around at us, the unwilling messenger of worse news yet. He clears his throat. “Not only that, but the emperor has declared that all of the remaining ‘sorcerers’—real or not—will be executed.”
The floor seems to be falling out from under me. This happened too damned fast. “All of them?”
Bardas nods.
“When?”
He clears his throat. “Tomorrow morning. In Imperial Square, so everyone can see the fate that befalls sorcerers.”
He’s grim, but the earth seems to steady under my feet. “Then we have time to get them out.”
“But how do we get in?” Nestor bursts out. “We don’t have an army.”
“Jahan can walk through walls,” Sabina points out.
I utter a hollow laugh. “That would be a lot of people to bring out through the walls.”
“If only we could…pick them up on a wind,” she says, whimsical as ever. “Breathe them out of there.”
Tullea glances at me, and I give a small shake of my head. I can move others through space, but only if I’m touching them, and I have no idea if I could move that many people at once.
“I don’t think we have the power for such a feat,” Tullea says evenly, but there’s a tick in her jaw. She’s surely thinking about Pantoleon, as I am, trapped in the fortress. “Perhaps, though, with Felix’s help, we might distract the guards enough to walk through the necessary walls…”
But we all know that this is unlikely to work. Even with Felix’s black-capped firebrands, the militia guarding the Frourio will outnumber us three to one. Not to mention that the witch hunters will negate everyone’s magic. Whoever ruined the Frourio must have such immense power that they were able to work around the stones and bells.
Nestor says what we’re all thinking. “There’s no way.”
No way—no good one, at least. But we have to at least make an attempt.
“Listen,” I say. “Let me try. No matter the personal risk—”
A heavy sigh interrupts me. “There’s no need to be so damned heroic, Jahan.” Rayka has come to stand on the fringe of our circle, his hands in his pockets. He smirks around at us, smug and disreputable. “I have a way into the Frourio, if you’re all so eager to go. I took Jahan there just now.”
Everyone steps back in confusion. “Who are you?” Tullea demands, and Elanna stares from me to my brother.
I start to say, “This is my—”
“Call me Aquilius.” Rayka smirks around at our circle, smug as a cat.
I roll my eyes. “And you accuse me of indulging in personal heroics?”
“So this is the brother who fled military school,” Elanna says knowingly, and Rayka shoots her an affronted look.
“Tell us your plan, Aquilius,” Tullea says.
Rayka’s head swings back and forth; he’s not sure whom he should glare at. But with a long-suffering sigh, he says, “The cisterns. I’ve been getting to know them. They’re connected—”
“Only some of them,” Nestor interrupts.
Rayka looks at him like he’s insane. “Yes, some of the tunnels have caved in. But you’re a sorcerer. You can figure out a way through a rock.”
“Not everyone has your facility with rudimentary matter,” I point out. My brother’s sarcasm is already earning him a nasty stare from Nestor. “And you’re forgetting that the bells bother almost everyone.”
Rayka regards me with disdain. “Then they should stay here. You and I can take care of this ourselves. Unless,” he adds, “you don’t feel up to the challenge.”
“Oh,” I say, “you know I’m up to the challenge. As long as you don’t feel the urge to blow the place up.”
Rayka’s chin comes up, but before he can retort, Elanna interrupts. “I’m coming as well.”
I bite back the urge to tell her that she should stay here. Stay safe. But the Caveadear doesn’t need me to protect her
.
“You can’t do anything,” Rayka points out.
“Perhaps not sorcery, but at least this collar mutes the bells and stones, now. I can help the prisoners out through the tunnels once you’ve freed them.” She pauses. “At least, I assume that’s your plan?”
“Yes,” Rayka says sulkily.
“We should wait for cover of darkness,” I say. “Let the furor die down.”
Rayka kicks at the dirt. “Obviously. I’m going to scout the tunnels. Make sure my misdirects are still intact.”
“Good idea.” El looks at me. “We need to talk.”
I draw in a breath, but I can hardly disagree. We do need to talk. About her magic. About me. About Madiya. And so, as Rayka slips back down into the tunnels, I lead Elanna up the stairs to the height of Solivetos Hill, into the bright-blue day.
* * *
—
ABOVE THE TEMPLE, a forested ridge overlooks the city and the gleaming lip of the sea. Here, at least, are trees I didn’t destroy when I burned Madiya out of my head. Elanna seems to soften a little, now that we’re surrounded by greenness, but I can’t release my own tension. I feel sick. We sit on either side of a flat rock, not quite touching, not quite looking at each other. Behind us, Mount Angelos looms, its snowcapped dome gleaming.
“I didn’t know who she was,” Elanna says softly. “I didn’t know she was the sorceress who raised you.”
“I know.” The words taste hollow. Bitter.
“She saved me, Jahan. She made my mind whole again. I don’t know how, but she did.”
I can’t bear to look at her. “And what did she take from you? Do you even know? Do you remember?”
“I remember you.” El pauses. “She said nothing but kind things about you. It was…odd.”
“Odd?” I want to laugh, or maybe throw up. I should have known, if she ever met Madiya, that Elanna wouldn’t believe me. Madiya would twist everything around, make El think my stories about her couldn’t possibly be true. Madiya’s got her, and she must have erased the Elanna I knew. The woman I loved. This is almost worse than thinking she was dead.
I start to get up, but El grabs my hand and drags me back down. It takes all my strength not to push her away.
“Yes, odd,” she says. “You can be quite impossible, you know. There should have been something for her to complain about.”
I stare at her. Her lips are quirked, as if she’s trying to smile but can’t quite.
“It reminded me of Loyce Eyrlai and her lover,” she says. “Sometimes they’d say something kind first, to get you to listen to them. Then they’d go in for the kill. Slaughter you, and laugh. I was waiting for Madiya to do that to you, but she had only praise.” El pauses. Her lips tighten. “I think it’s because she wants me to bring you back to her. I think that’s why she saved me in the first place, so she could pull you back in.”
I swallow down bile. “And are you going to? Bring me to her?”
“All the gods, Jahan, no!” She blinks fast, pressing a hand to her mouth. “I came here to get away from her. To be with you. I talked Bardas into bringing me here so we could warn you about the emperor’s retribution. I told him you wouldn’t trust him without me. He and his friend meant that demonstration at the Frourio to prove their worth to you, I think, but it did just the opposite, and now he feels guilty for putting you in even more danger, and for causing all those deaths. And I do, too. But I came for you.”
I can’t seem to find any words.
El bites her lip, then continues on in a rush. “I—I can’t believe I didn’t know who Madiya was. I feel horrible for thinking so well of her.”
“That’s what she’s like.” I’m softening in relief so profound I feel tears prick my eyes. “She pulls you in until you can’t get out.”
Elanna reaches over and cradles my hands in hers, and this time I don’t try to pull away. “I know. I remembered what you told me about her.”
My chin drops. I can’t quite look at her through the tears blurring my eyes. “I thought you might not believe me.”
“I love you,” she says. “I know you. Of course I believe you.”
“I should have brought you out of the Deos Deorum,” I whisper. “I left you there. I left you in Aexione—”
“It’s all right, Jahan.” She reaches up a tentative hand and brushes my hair. “It’s all right. I don’t need to be rescued. You don’t need to do that for me. But Bardas felt guilty for failing to tell you I was alive, as well as for all the rest. So I got out.”
“My brother Lathiel—I have to get him away from her.”
“You will.” She touches my chest. “We will. We’ll do it together.”
I reach out blindly and gather her against me. Her arms wrap around my neck, and the cool metal of the collar presses against the base of my throat. But she’s alive. She’s in my arms, and she believes me. She sees the truth about Madiya. There are no words to express how grateful I am.
She swallows hard, and when I pull back to look at her, I see she’s weeping, too. “You were so angry,” she says softly. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“No, El. I’m yours. Always yours.” It’s such a relief to say those words. I hold her harder, and she hugs me back, fiercely.
Her lips touch my ear. “I made you a promise, Jahan. To love you, no matter what.”
She remembers. Madiya didn’t steal this from her; maybe Madiya didn’t steal anything from her at all. Maybe Madiya’s only seen her as a tool, because until now El hasn’t resisted her. Tears blur my vision; my eyes ache. “And I promised the same.”
“I’m glad you remember,” she says, and I almost laugh at how she’s echoed my thoughts. “I’m glad you didn’t spurn me for some Idaean beauty. The empress, for instance.”
“Firmina Triciphes has nothing on you.” I kiss her neck, and taste the sourness of metal. I’ve accidentally licked her collar. I lean back to examine it. “I should get this off…”
“Madiya couldn’t. Your little brother couldn’t, either.” She’s digging at it now, leaving red streaks on her skin. “I can’t work sorcery. I can’t do anything. I can’t go home like this—I’ve failed—”
She breaks off, tears flowing, and I cup my hands around hers, tugging them gently away from the collar. She’s shaking her head, trying to say something, but all that comes out are broken words. I turn myself around and wrap my legs on either side of her, folding her up against me. She sobs into my shirt. I hug the warm, damp weight of her, cradling her body. When she finally draws a breath, I lower my forehead to hers. Our noses touch. Her tears dampen my own face. Tenderness pulls at me, so fierce I think it might consume us both. I stroke the hair back from her brow. She stares at me, eyes wide, chapped lips parted.
“What if I can’t get it off?” she whispers, tugging at the collar again. “What if I take it off and—and my power—”
“You’ll still be the Caveadear.”
“Not the Caveadear my people want. Not the one they need.” She lowers her voice. “What do I tell Sophy?”
I feel a crooked smile tug my mouth. “Tell her we’ll find a way to break this thing off your neck. And then we’ll teach a lesson to the bastards who did this.”
She rubs her fists over her eyes, and some of the strength comes back into her. “I’ve been trying to be so strong. Not let Bardas and Firmina see how much this costs me.” She leans against me with a long sigh. “I feel as if I always burst into tears around you and no one else. You’re very tolerant.”
“You endure my flaws…” And there are a good many more of those, I think, than hers. “Do the bells not trouble you now?”
“Not really. Madiya did something to them, I think. Changed them, somehow.”
My neck stiffens, but I can’t deny that, whatever Madiya did, in this instance it’s a good thing. “We need to let th
e world know you’re still alive. But you don’t need your sorcery to terrify the emperor.” I lean back, grinning at her. “You don’t need to work any magic. They just need to learn you still live. That you’re here, in Ida, ready to act.”
She eyes me, suspicious.
“You have no idea how terrifying your reputation is. Besides, it’s rather embarrassing when the sorceress you claim to have executed turns out to have slipped through your fingers. And…” I hesitate, feeling a fool, as I always do, when I confess something close to my heart. Quietly, unable to meet her eyes, I say, “It matters to me, having you here.”
She’s in front of me suddenly, her gaze fixed on me. Her breath touches my face, moist. “You’re not angry with me?”
“Angry with you? For what, being captured? For Madiya trying to trick you? I thought you were angry with me…”
“Well,” she says archly, “you do show a continual reluctance to say things you really mean.” Her fingers brush my chin. “And I’m not fond of the beard.”
I can’t stop my grin. “Shall I conjure a razor?”
She pulls my head down. “Just kiss me, you fool.”
So I do. Her lips are warm and the weight of her body intimately familiar. She twines her arms around my neck and murmurs in my ear, “Do you think anyone can see us up here?”
“Do you care if they do?” I ask drily, slipping my hands under her coat to feel the heat of her.
“Well, we don’t need all of Ida to know we’ve reunited…”
We scoot backward into the shadow of the trees, tucked in among the rocks. No one should see us from below, but just in case, I draw a curtain of persuasion around us. Nothing to see here. Her mouth finds mine again. I bring her close; she starts tugging at my clothing. I pull off my coat, cushioning the rock beneath us, and she sighs as I unbutton her shirt. I lean into her body—so warm and familiar—and I feel as if I’ve come home.
Afterward, I curl against her on the rock and she tucks herself up against me. We fall asleep like that, on the rock overlooking all of Ida, the sun beating down on us.
