by Callie Bates
Firmina blinks. For a moment, I think she’s going to disagree—drain the life from me, to get me to cooperate with her. But then her face softens. “Of course. Poor Leontius. I forgot they’ve decided to mete out the ultimate punishment to him.”
I don’t for a moment believe she forgot, but I have the sense not to question this. “He’s the rightful emperor. We need him to be the figurehead of our rebels in Ida.”
“Oh, yes! You’re so wise, Jahan.” Firmina smiles. “That will make Leontius quite the popular hero. The people will adore him as they never have before.”
This seems quite a backhanded compliment, but it will have to suffice. “Then go. We’ll be in Ida as soon as we can.”
“Is it safe to let them go alone?” Pantoleon murmurs to me as we hurry down the stairs.
I shake my head. “Firmina can take care of herself. And woe to anyone who tries to cross my aunt.”
He snorts. “True enough.”
But all the same, after what Firmina has done, I wonder if he isn’t right.
* * *
—
EVEN FROM THE Naiad Pool, we can hear the drumbeats echoing up over the palace’s roofs. My heart jerks. We’ve been strolling at a respectable speed, compressing space, but now I break into a run. Pantoleon swears and races after me. Are we too late? It didn’t take so long to free the empress. I haven’t heard the bells chime noon.
As we pass Astarea’s Grotto, I feel a stirring, a pinprick of power, similar to that of the Tirisero font. But I don’t have time to stop or investigate.
We run into the palace’s familiar corridors, though they’re less crowded than usual. Perhaps everyone has gone to see the execution—or been ordered to. It seems like something Augustus and Phaedra would do. I grab Pantoleon’s arm, compressing space. I hurl us through the halls, until at last we stumble into the Grand Court.
Here’s the crowd. People press shoulder-to-shoulder in the courtyard, filling the air with whispers and the reek of sweat. If I rise onto the balls of my feet, I can just see the scaffold, past a sea of tall hats and voluminous coiffures. A man is climbing onto it. White pure fear pulses through me, but then I realize it’s not Leontius. It’s a man dressed all in black, carrying a broadsword. The executioner.
Calls carry over the crowd. “There he is! They’re coming out!”
At first I think they mean Leontius, but their gazes are fixed upward, on a balcony almost over my head. It’s where Alakaseus used to, occasionally, make speeches. Pantoleon and I shoulder through the crowd until I can just make out a gold-trimmed sleeve above us. Augustus, of course. He’s gesturing, though I can’t quite see it.
My hands curl into fists. If I were Firmina, this would be the moment I’d act. I’d take Augustus’s sorry excuse for a heart and crush it with my hands.
But to do that, I would have to drain power from someone else. A life for a life. As Lathiel did. Even for Augustus Saranon, I’m not willing to make that sacrifice. No one deserves to die for him.
A collective gasp rustles through the crowd. “So beautiful!” Phaedra must have arrived, and the people of Aexione are proving themselves more interested in her fashionable gown than in my friend’s life.
They’re quieting now, and Augustus’s voice lifts overhead. “Gracious subjects!” Pantoleon snorts. Of course this is how Augustus addresses the people he’s assembled to witness Leontius’s death—as if he’s already been crowned. “This is a sorry occasion indeed. The revelation that my own brother conspired to murder our father—that all these years, he has been a sorcerer—has shaken us all to the core.”
I swallow against the bile rising in my throat and turn my back to Augustus. I don’t need to hear this. Augustus can pontificate all he wants, if it buys us time.
I push through the crowd, Pantoleon following me, winding a path toward the scaffold. It’s still empty, except for the executioner. I scan the palace walls. A squadron of guards and witch hunters must be waiting to bring Leontius out, but I can’t see them over the crowd.
Pantoleon, being taller, catches a glimpse. “The east wing. They’re all in position.”
“Damn,” I mutter. We might be able to stop the execution itself, but how on earth are we going to get Lees out through this crowd?
Unless…I can compress space, and use persuasion. An idea begins to come together in my mind. Pantoleon starts weaving his way through the crowd. I follow, sunk in thought. We need a distraction.
Ahead of me, Pantoleon stops short. I almost bump into him. There’s a man in front of us, reaching into the pocket of his coat. I glimpse the flash of the pistol just before Pantoleon grabs him in a stifling hug, pinning his arms to his sides. The man struggles, trying to butt Pantoleon in the chin with his head. I lunge forward and pull the man’s head down. People in the crowd move away from us, leaving a small circle.
I’m panting. Staring. “Zollus Katabares?”
He recoils, and this time his head does connect with Pantoleon’s chin. My friend grunts. Zollus is as impeccably dressed as ever, his cravat looped in precise folds, but there’s a strange, wild glint in his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he whispers.
“I could ask the same of you.” I jerk my chin at the pistol.
Zollus doesn’t answer. But his gaze flickers from me to Augustus Saranon, still holding forth on the balcony.
I nearly bite my tongue. Zollus Katabares was planning to assassinate Augustus? He couldn’t possibly guarantee he’d hit him from down here. “Isn’t that taking your duty as Companion a little far?” I say. “What are you hoping for, a medal? They’ll kill you, too, you fool.”
He stares at me, his nostrils flaring. “I’m here for Leontius. I’ve stayed by his side through everything else.”
Zollus Katabares has either lost his mind or gained a heart, or possibly both. I realize I’m just blinking at him. I feel somewhat poleaxed.
“Jahan,” Pantoleon whispers fiercely. He nods at the balcony. Augustus has finally ceased his monologue, and now Phaedra has stepped forward for “a few small words.” We don’t have much time.
“This is undoubtedly heroic, if incredibly stupid,” I whisper to Zollus, “but how about helping us save Leontius’s life?”
His mouth opens. He doesn’t answer, which I take to be a yes. Pantoleon shoves him forward, and we push through the crowd once again, aiming for the east wing. I can see the guards now, in neat uniformed ranks, their bayonets tipped over their shoulders.
“Pantoleon,” I whisper, “can you get back to the stables and snatch a carriage? I’ll meet you there.”
He eyes me doubtfully, but nods.
“Zollus, go with him.” I pause. “But give me your gun.”
He hesitates, looking me over. Maybe he reads some sincerity in my eyes. He reaches into his pocket and presses the pistol into my hand.
“Thank you.” I gesture them on. It’s my turn to be incredibly foolish, or possibly heroic, or simply, at bottom, desperate. If only we had gotten here sooner. If only Leontius had accepted my offer of help long before this. But here we are.
I cock the pistol. Slowly, giving Pantoleon and Zollus time to retreat through the palace, I lift my arm and aim well over people’s heads, toward the distant balcony. My hand is shaking but it hardly matters. This shot won’t harm anyone.
I pull the trigger.
The retort bursts through my arm. People are screaming. I swivel and compress space, diving through the crowd toward the east wing. Now people have begun to stampede, like cattle, drowning out Phaedra’s speech. I risk a glance back at the balcony. Both imperial siblings have been rushed inside.
In the east wing colonnade, it’s chaos. I glimpse Alcibiades Doukas ringing his bell. He’s looking around. I compress space just before his gaze lands on me. Someone barks orders. The guard formation retreats, dragging Leontius backward into
the palace. I can just glimpse him, a stocky figure smothered in chains, in the middle of the frantic guards.
Just another soldier, I insist, and push through the guards, letting their movement carry me into the palace and into the east wing. Orders fly back and forth. Somewhere, witch stones hum. We stop outside a room—I recognize it as the one Alcibiades used to interrogate me—and Leontius is shoved inside. The door hangs open for a moment while the guards argue over their orders, and I use the pause to slip inside.
My friend has backed up against the wall, chains wrapped around his torso and arms. He’s closed his eyes. He looks defeated. Broken.
Finally, the door is slammed shut. We’re alone. Leontius bites his lip. He tries to raise his one hand, but the irons barely permit him to move his arms. They must have wrapped him like this since Alcibiades cut off his hand. His face crumples as if he’s going to weep. His pain is so intense and private I feel almost guilty witnessing it.
“Lees,” I say softly.
His eyes fly open. He stares, shock haggard in his face, as if I am another surprise on top of so many more unbearable surprises.
“I’ll get us out.” I make quick work of his shackles, though I have to use my own energy to do it. Soon exhaustion is going to drag my whole body to the ground, but until that happens I’m not about to stop. Leontius rubs his elbows and wrists, red and raw from the irons. The stump of his arm looks ugly, as if it might break open and weep blood again. They did cauterize it, but it hasn’t had time to heal.
Voices echo outside the door. “—bring the prince back—”
I grab Leontius’s arm and drag him through the wall. We stumble into an office, empty except for stacked papers. Leontius looks dazed. Out in the hall, men are shouting. I pull him through the next wall.
Captain-General Horatius stares up at us from a chair. He’s alone and, unlike Lees, only his wrists are shackled.
No time to break the irons. I drag the general up with my free hand. “Come on!” It’s more of an effort to shove all three of us through the next wall, but I do and—
We’re falling. We’ve run through the outside wall. I hit the ground and roll before I even have the wherewithal to gasp some magic. Rosebushes stab me. The general is groaning, and Leontius has staggered to his feet. I clamber upright. Everything aches dully, but I seem to be intact.
“Are you injured?” I ask the general.
He shakes his head. “Just…stunned.”
I grin and give him a hand up. We’ve fallen no more than ten feet. “Then get your feet under you. Run!”
I lead them through the garden, toward the distant gate to the stables, working on breaking Horatius’s shackles as we go. A carriage is waiting for us, Pantoleon sitting on the box. He waves to us. We bundle Leontius and Horatius inside, where Zollus waits. Pantoleon, as the only one unlikely to be recognized, drives. He snaps the reins and the horses charge forward. The road should be clear enough for us to reach Vileia, or at least the outskirts of Ida. I sink into the seat with relief.
Leontius is looking at Zollus with wonder. “You came!”
“I…” Zollus glances at me, then down at his hands. If I wasn’t so sure Zollus doesn’t have a heart, I might think he’s suppressing tears. “I wouldn’t leave you.”
I snort. “He was going to murder your siblings for you. We dissuaded him.”
Leontius startles, looking at me sidelong. I don’t think he’s ready to speak to me quite yet. It’s unnerving that he’s more comfortable around Zollus than me.
Zollus gestures at Leontius’s missing hand. “They…did they…?”
Lees just nods, and guilt swarms through my stomach. Alcibiades wouldn’t have done it if I had cooperated—if I had given him the information he wanted. But then I would have betrayed Firmina.
“Let me look at it,” I say, leaning forward. Leontius looks at me warily, but he inches his arm toward me. I take it in both hands, suppressing a wince at the sight of the angry, red cauterized stump. Knit back together, as you were, I whisper to his flesh, but I already know it’s not going to work. I don’t have enough power—I don’t know how I would ever have enough power to re-create bone, flesh, and sinew out of nothing. This isn’t like relighting a candle, or closing a wound. His hand is irreversibly gone. I’ve succeeded only in lessening the irritation, gentling the skin into a whitened scar. Softly, I say, “I’m sorry.”
Leontius’s mouth tightens, but he reclaims his arm, cradling the stump in his whole hand.
“What happened?” Zollus demands, ignoring me.
“I don’t really remember,” Leontius says. His voice is hoarse. Quiet. “The witch stones had me in such a state of…of…”
Beside me, Captain-General Horatius goes very still. “Your Imperial Highness, do you mean to say…” He stops and coughs. “Are you, in fact, a sorcerer?”
“N…” Leontius begins. But he glances at me. His shoulders hunch, as if he expects punishment. As if he expects us to strike him down. He draws in a breath. “After the Getai, I…I could sense water in the earth.”
After the Getai? I realize I’m staring. My mouth has fallen open.
“You did something to me.” Leontius is addressing me, now.
“No,” I start to say. I halt. I took away his memories. I reached into his mind and shoved them down, deep, so he couldn’t touch them anymore. But maybe, when I pushed them down, I pulled up something else instead. Madiya told me that’s why we lost our memories, after all. That she took them accidentally, while she was manipulating our ability to do magic. Did I do the same thing, unwittingly?
Horatius has settled back in his seat, evidently relieved. “That’s not such a terrible thing.”
“Fairly useless, isn’t it?” Leontius says bitterly. “Astarea’s Grotto is always calling to me.”
I’m so bewildered I find myself asking, “Because it’s a spring?”
Leontius just stares at me. “I suppose so.” He hesitates. Doesn’t quite look at me. “You didn’t do it to me deliberately.”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
He seems to relent a bit at that. “I…I thought I heard you in the Ochuroma. Before they took my hand.”
Now I’m the one who can’t look at him. “You did.”
Across from me, Zollus stiffens. I think he’d kill me with a glare if he could.
“Pantoleon and I were also captured.” I pause. “Alcibiades Doukas was trying to use you to get information out of me. He wanted to accuse you of patricide. Turns out he didn’t need my help to do that.”
Leontius turns toward me, pressing his hand to his knee. He’s suddenly intent. “Did someone kill my father?”
“Ah…” I hesitate. The carriage seems to be closing in around me; all three of them are staring me down. Do I name the empress? Leontius may not have much loved his father, but he’s always been looking for an excuse to hate Firmina more. I find myself reaching for a lie. “That does seem to be the popular opinion.”
“You know who did it,” Leontius states flatly.
I should have realized he knows me well enough to recognize a lie. I draw in a breath. I’m not sure I trust Zollus or Horatius with this information—but we’re all here together now. What choice do I have? “Would you believe it if I told you that your stepmother was involved?”
Leontius’s eyes widen, then he snorts. “That is the easiest thing in the world to believe.”
But he’s picking at his trousers now. Zollus shoots me another hostile look, as if I’ve betrayed the entire empire. He never used to be this protective of Leontius. Something’s changed.
“Was Firmina at Aexione, too?” Leontius asks. “Today?”
I nod. “She went to Ida with my aunt Cyra.”
His chin dips; he looks pensive. Zollus is watching him, looking worried, while Horatius occupies himself staring out
the window. We’re passing over a hilltop, and the bulky shoulder of Mount Angelos rises into view, veined with snow.
“It’s odd,” Leontius says quietly. “If she was able to do away with my father, she might have come to help me.”
He’s right, I suppose. “Well, she knows you never liked her…”
The carriage makes a sudden jolt, throwing me forward. Pantoleon’s voice carries—“Whoa, there, whoa”—and we slow to a stop. I swing out the door just as the earth rumbles. The rocks under my feet shift and shiver; I almost fall. One of the horses whinnies. Pantoleon’s holding the bridle, whispering soothing words to the creatures. I peer over the treetops to Mount Angelos, but it sits placid and white-crowned in the near distance. The breeze carries a strange, sour smell.
“The mountain’s talking,” Pantoleon says when I come up beside him. He’s patting one of the horses’ noses. “This fellow doesn’t like it.”
I rub the horse’s warm cheek. “Steady on, friend.” I can’t help feeling sympathy; a tremor still runs through the ground, upsetting my own balance. “As long as no one’s trying to make a prison walk, we’ll be safe enough. Maybe Elanna’s decided to make the mountain erupt after all.”
Pantoleon gives me a look of horror. “And smother all of Ida? The Saranons would win for certain then.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t, really,” I say soothingly. The horse has calmed, the tremor ceased, though the peculiar smell lingers in the air.
“The road’s practically deserted. Ride on the box with me?”
I’ll gladly take Pantoleon’s company to the awkward conversation in the carriage. “Definitely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A mile later, another earthquake hits. Even from this distance, I think I can see rocks skittering down the slopes of Mount Angelos. The fearful horse bucks. When we slow, voices carry down the road behind us. Pantoleon and I exchange a glance. It could easily be a party of imperial guards pursuing us to Ida. He climbs back on the box and urges the team into a canter, and this time I compress space. Soon we’ve left our pursuit behind, and the sea lines the horizon with blue.
