by Callie Bates
But as I compress space for a final time, we round a corner straight into a group of imperial militia. They stand across the road, blocking it.
Pantoleon reins in the team. Before either of us can react, a man’s come forward to grasp the horses, while several more run up, surrounding the carriage. “You can’t get into Ida today, fellows!” an officer calls to us. “Go back to Aexione!”
“We’re here on the crown’s business,” I say. “We have special dispensation to go through.”
The officer blinks at me. “The crown’s closed the roads. No one in. It’s too dangerous.”
“Of course it’s dangerous,” Pantoleon says. “It’s Ida.”
The officer’s eyes narrow, and several of his cohorts reach for their weapons. “We’re blockading the city against the Witch of Eren. She’s made all the trees—”
The ground rumbles, interrupting him, and our frightened horse bucks. The officer holding him stumbles back. Pantoleon jumps down to soothe the horse. I hop down, too. There’s more than one way to get into Ida. The earth is quivering under my feet, and the strange odor makes the air foul. I open the carriage door and lean in. Leontius and Zollus have both pressed back in their seats, while Horatius is looking around, impatient.
“We’ve been stopped by a military blockade,” I say. “Maybe one of you could persuade them to let us through?”
It takes a moment for my suggestion to sink in. Horatius’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t speak.
Leontius frowns; he knows me too well. “This has been your plan all along, hasn’t it?”
I wink. “Only for the last few minutes.”
Zollus is sputtering. “To force us to help you, as if Lees is your puppet—”
“It’s all right,” Leontius says, putting one hand to Zollus’s knee, and Zollus stops dead, as if the contact has shocked the words out of him.
Horatius sighs. “I can speak with the men—”
“General, if you don’t mind.” Leontius sits forward, making to get out. A strength is coming into him. “I’ll speak to the men. If you would back me up, it would be much appreciated.”
The captain-general looks at my friend, and for a moment I think he’s going to smile. Then he simply puts his hand to his heart. “Your Imperial Majesty.”
Leontius blinks a little; even now, he doesn’t expect such deference. But he nods and clambers out. I back up to give him room. In the late-afternoon light, he looks tired but somehow capable, cradling his empty wrist in his whole hand. He pauses beside me and mutters, “I hope to all the gods you know what you’re doing, Jahan.”
I just grin and execute a bow. “Your Imperial Majesty knows better than I.”
“Hmph.” But his mouth twitches as if he’s suppressing a smile, and for a moment I almost feel we’re friends again. Only maybe, this time, our friendship will be better than it used to be. More honest.
He steps past me. The officer has approached, saying, “I insist you gentlemen turn around—the crown’s orders—”
“The crown orders you to let us through,” Leontius says. His voice is mild, and the interruption gentle. But the officer halts all the same, looking Lees up and down, as if he knows he should recognize him. “Make way for us into Ida.”
The officer begins to bluster again. “I need to see written orders—”
“Sir,” I interrupt, “you have the honor of addressing the emperor himself. You might not want to contradict him.”
The officer stares.
Behind us, Horatius is getting out of the carriage. “Titus!” he barks. “I thought I knew your voice. Are you talking back to His Imperial Majesty?”
Completely bewildered now, the officer stares among all of us. “Captain-General Horatius, sir? Emperor…Leontius? But they said you were to be ex—”
Horatius coughs loudly.
The officer swallows the rest of his words and throws himself onto his knees. “Your Imperial Majesty! I beg pardon. I didn’t recognize you.”
“Under all this dirt, I hardly recognize myself,” Leontius replies. He’s actually smiling. “Now let us through.”
“But with all due respect, Your Imperial Majesty, the Witch and her sorcerers have taken over most of the city. We’re holding on to Vileia by our fingertips. We’ve blockaded the bridges, but it’s only a matter of time.”
Leontius glances at me. “We quite appreciate the danger, Officer Titus. But we’ve come to parley with the witch and her sorcerers.”
Titus gapes.
“You heard His Imperial Majesty,” Horatius says gruffly. “Pass along the orders to let us through, now.”
Titus gulps and bows. His gaze darts to me, and I know I’ve been recognized. I grin at him. “The world is changing, Titus. Instead of interrogating sorcerers, we converse with them! It’s positively revolutionary.”
“There’s no need to terrify Titus, Jahan,” Leontius says, but he’s still smiling and again, despite all the months of silence and anger between us, I’m beginning to think he might actually forgive me. He nods at the officer. “Thank you for your service.”
Lees climbs back into the carriage, while Horatius paces forward to have a few words with Titus. I hear the officer whispering frantically, “Sir, what about Prince Augustus and Princess Phaedra?” But the captain-general simply hushes him.
I hop back on the box beside Pantoleon. We’ll be in trouble if pursuit catches us—but who will the officers believe if not Captain-General Horatius, who has stood by the emperor’s side for more than two decades? Horatius is, I hope, warning Titus that Augustus and Phaedra will doubtless send more troops to wrest power back from us.
The ground trembles again. “The gods are speaking a great deal,” Pantoleon remarks, but we both cast doubtful looks toward the mountain. We both know the gods don’t usually speak quite this much. I find myself thinking of Mantius’s font and Elanna. Maybe she has harnessed its power to terrify the imperial army into withdrawing from most of Ida; the earth often trembled when she woke the land in Eren and Caeris. Yet something about this worries the back of my mind. According to the reports, El has made trees move, not mountains. She hasn’t rerouted the entire Channel. The earth shouldn’t be shaking this much.
But Horatius is coming back to us now. He gives me a nod, then swings into the carriage. Pantoleon flicks the reins. We roll forward, over the tremoring earth, toward Ida and Elanna.
* * *
—
OUR CARRIAGE MAKES its slow way through Vileia, edging around knots of soldiers hauling furniture out of the mansions to create blockades. Word carries as we pass, telling the militia to cease building walls against the rebels, and the men stare up at the carriage, their faces dirty and their mouths open, belatedly remembering to salute the new emperor.
I shift on the box, even as I smile and wave at the soldiers. Augustus and Phaedra must have figured out our plan by now. We have to secure Ida—and use Horatius’s influence to bring the military over to our side—before they catch up to us.
The street curves, and the Great Bridge comes into view. Pantoleon gasps. Even I feel a thud of astonishment in my heart at the sight of what Elanna’s done.
Trees have sprouted on the bridge, their roots curling over the stone sides. Dozens of them. Hundreds. They move slowly—far more slowly than they did in Caeris and Eren—each root curling ponderously forward to pull the tree itself along. But they’ve had the desired effect of terrifying Paladis’s militia into retreat. The Great Bridge is now a forest and in the distance, where Solivetos Hill should be wooded, only bare rock gleams.
I’m grinning. El’s magic is working again. On the far bank, more trees shift through the streets, flashes of green softening the stone. An impossible number of them. How did she recover so quickly?
We’re halted at the base of the bridge. Horatius gets out to argue with the
lieutenant on duty, and I hop down.
“No need to let us through,” I say gamely. “We’d never make it through this woods in the carriage. Give me a white flag, and I’ll walk over.”
The lieutenant eyes me, skeptical, but a white flag is produced. I stride out onto the bridge just as another tremor shakes the earth, rattling the loose stones the trees have carried with them. Instinctively, I glance toward Mount Angelos. A dusty plume rises from its flank. Smoke, or the impact of falling rocks?
The trembling intensifies, juddering through the bridge beneath me. I break into a trot, leaping over the tree roots, toward the distant end. The bridge shakes again; I stagger into a tree. It feels as if the whole damned thing is going to collapse. I straighten and stumble forward again. To my right, the Channel sloshes wildly where it meets the sea. On the far end of the bridge, people move. They’ve seen me. They’re shading their eyes.
“Elanna!” I shout. “Tullea!”
A tree sways in front of me and tumbles over. I scramble across it and break into a run. I’ve got to get there before Elanna destroys this entire bridge. It has to be her doing; she’s going to make the mountain erupt in earnest. She probably thinks I’m dead.
A figure breaks loose from the ranks at the end of the bridge. “Jahan?”
It’s El, her brown curls loose and wild. Relief pounds through my veins even though I was almost certain I’d find her. Another tremor throws me forward, but I regain my footing and race to her. “It’s all right!” I’m shouting. “I’ve got Leontius! You can stop this!”
But she just grabs my arm. “Stop what?”
I gesture at the stones trembling below us, at Mount Angelos’s shivering snow-crowned head. “The mountain!”
“I’m not doing it!” she says. “I’m not doing any of it. But it’s not natural, either.”
I stare behind her, looking for Rayka, but he’s not there. Tullea’s approaching, with Lucius Argyros at her shoulder. And—Madiya. She has her shoulders back, authoritative. I pretend I don’t see her. The earth rumbles again beneath our feet. El and I both stagger, balancing against each other.
“My brothers…” I begin.
“None of us are causing the earthquakes,” Elanna insists, divining my meaning. “We’re trying to figure out a way to stop them.” She’s still gripping my arm. “What’s happened? You saved Leontius?”
“Yes.” I look at Tullea. “He and Pantoleon are on the other side.”
Tullea’s hand comes up to her mouth, but she’s too strong to crumple. “He’s alive?”
“I found him in the Ochuroma.” I have to shout now over the creaking of the bridge. “I need some of you to come with me to the other side! We need a public alliance with Leontius. And we need to make a plan, arrange the military in Vileia to protect the bridges, before Augustus and Phaedra get here.”
Madiya looks at me. With her hair swept up in a knot and her sleeves rolled to the elbow, she looks the way she did when she tormented me all my childhood. “Where’s Alcibiades?”
“I have no idea.” I put my back to her. “El, you should come. And Tullea—”
“I’m going.” Tullea’s already marching away from us, jumping over tree roots, nimble despite the shaking stones. I grasp Elanna’s hand, and then we’re running after her, back out onto the shaking bridge.
“Did Firmina find you?” I call over the noise.
“Firmina?” El looks surprised. “No.”
Firmina isn’t here—and neither is Aunt Cyra? Perhaps El simply hasn’t been in contact with them…But my footing demands my attention. The water beneath us is quivering, too, now. The whole world seems to be trembling. I push myself forward by force of will, refusing to let go of Elanna’s hand. A chunk of bridge falls into the Channel in front of us, leaving a tree suspended in midair by its roots. We edge carefully around the other side and then race for the far side of the bridge.
Leontius and Horatius stand beside the blockade, waiting for us. It looks like Pantoleon and Tullea have already found each other; they’re locked in a tight, silent embrace, and I look away from their reunion, giving them what privacy I can.
“Gentlemen!” I call. “Has anyone worked out what the gods are saying yet?”
Behind me, there’s a crash as another chunk of bridge falls into the Channel. The engineering must not have been quite as good as the Paladisans claim. Middle Bridge, visible in the distance, is still holding, even though it’s older. If not Elanna, then who’s doing this? Firmina? I don’t know why she would try to destroy Ida.
“They’re probably cursing your name,” Leontius retorts, and I feel a grin burst across my face. He’s joking with me again. Maybe he has finally forgiven me—or at least begun to.
“Lees,” I say, “Horatius, I’ve brought our leaders. Over there with Pantoleon is Tullea Domitros. This is the Caveadear of Eren and Caeris, Elanna Valtai.”
“A pleasure, despite the circumstances,” El says, sweeping a curtsy in her trousers.
Even though he really shouldn’t, after today’s events, Horatius looks shocked. But Leontius steps forward, interest in his eyes. “Lady Caveadear, it is a pleasure. I’m Leontius Saranon.”
“I would have guessed,” El says guilelessly. “You look like an emperor.”
Leontius blinks, nonplussed but pleased. And El is right—there is a new confidence in my friend’s shoulders, a power in his stance. It’s as if the desperation of our circumstances has given him the strength he never had before.
Horatius breaks in, though his gaze flickers behind me. “We should get His Imperial Majesty to safety. We’ve sent orders out through Vileia, but there doubtless will be confusion when Prince Augustus and Princess Phaedra’s people get here.”
A deafening crack sounds behind us, and I hear huge chunks of stone and plaster crash into the Channel. “Middle Bridge, perhaps?” I suggest.
Leontius looks at Elanna. “This is your doing, I assume?”
“No.” El’s voice is decisive. “It’s not me.”
“Then who? Unless the gods are speaking…”
A woman clears her throat behind us. I turn, and stare. Madiya has followed us across the bridge, and Lathiel has followed her. My little brother hangs back a few feet, watching her warily, as if he might spring on her at any moment—or she on him.
Rage burns up through me. Why won’t she ever leave us alone? “Get away from us—”
“The gods aren’t speaking,” she interrupts. “Unless Alcibiades Doukas can channel their voices.”
I huff with impatience. “Alcibiades? But he—”
“He’s a sorcerer.” Now, at last, Madiya has the decency to look discomfited. “I should know—I taught him.”
I’m staring, my mouth falling open. How is this possible?
Elanna gestures at the quaking ground. “He has this kind of power?”
“Oh,” Madiya says, “if he found one of the wells, he has a good deal more than th—”
An earsplitting roar interrupts her, bellowing through the air, deafening me. Elanna cries out, pointing. We all turn. The world is shaking, and so is Mount Angelos. And as we watch, the whole mountainside shifts. It seems, impossibly, to melt. A black cloud bursts from its crown, and the mountain slope rolls like a river.
Toward the city. Toward us, and our holdout against the Saranons.
CHAPTER THIRTY
People start shouting. Screaming. I’m standing, numb with shock, holding Elanna’s hand. Tremors are ravaging the earth, more and more of them now. More chunks of the Great Bridge plunge into the Channel. Enormous plumes of smoke stack from the mountain into the sky. Ash is already beginning to fall. Soon we won’t be able to see the mountain at all, or even the flashes of red fire from the spraying lava. We’ll just feel the lava, instead, when it reaches Ida. If we can’t stop it, we’ll be subsumed by the fires.
By the ash. By the surging water. Our whole rebellion will be extinguished, along with our lives.
But, I realize now, Alcibiades isn’t only aiming to destroy us and Ida. He’ll blame Elanna for what happened, because the magic looks like hers. Any survivors will think the Caveadear betrayed them all, though there’s no logic behind it. But Alcibiades doesn’t need logic: He just needs to frame her and convince the world to believe it. Then Augustus and Phaedra’s grasp of power will be complete. No one will mourn us if they believe we destroyed this great city, and they will crack down even harder on the witch hunts. Sophy and the others in Eren won’t stand a chance.
“There must be a way to stop it…” I begin. But how?
Madiya interrupts. “We need to stop him.”
I stare at her. Of course, she thinks she knows best.
“No.” Elanna’s voice is flat. Certain. “We need to stop the eruption first, or it’ll destroy the entire city.”
Madiya shrugs, and I feel a stab of hatred. She looks so damned calm. Leontius is staring back and forth from El to me. He might be the emperor, but as far as sorcery goes, he’s as educated as a small child.
“Can you do it?” I ask Elanna.
She draws in a breath. Her hands are fisted tight. “With the power of Mantius’s font—perhaps.” She looks at me. “And with your help.”
I nod, even though I don’t know how I can help her. I’m no steward of the land. But we have to try, so the Middle Bridge it is. We take off through the streets, leaving Horatius and Leontius, along with Tullea and Pantoleon, to get the militia to shelter—though if we can’t stop the eruption, they’ll suffocate to death no matter what happens.
Madiya follows us, my little brother trailing her. I swing back to face her. “We don’t need your help. Leave Lathiel with me and go back.”
