Cold. Was that the key? The Abyssi was a creature of shadow and flame. It devoured heat.
Of course, Naples too was a creature of fire. He had always used hot magic. Cold magic couldn’t even see the Abyssi, just as Naples’ magic had been blind to the Numini that guarded the palace doors. No, if the Abyssi could be hurt by the cold, then the Numini should be sensitive to heat. Naples’ hot magic attack the day he had been trapped in the palace would have damaged the Numini there.
A mortal can’t fight the Numini, the Abyssi had said.
He froze as the thought struck him.
A mortal had, hadn’t he? Celadon had breached the palace doors.
Henna’s theory had been that Celadon could get past the shields because they had been designed to hold back hot power. Naples knew those guards hadn’t been put in place by the Terre at all, but by a creature of the cold, either guarding the Terre or trying to contain him.
It made no sense that a shield made of cold power would be blind to its own kind, which meant it had either allowed Celadon inside, or the preacher had forced it to let him in. Celadon wouldn’t have known the difference.
Or would he?
Naples frowned, his gaze still on the shelves, but his mind no longer seeing the tools.
Did the preacher know more than he let on?
A theory entered Naples’ mind. He left the temple. Earlier he had been horrified to come home and find the Quin in the kitchen, but now he prayed Celadon was still nearby.
There was one person aside from Celadon that Naples knew who had recently demonstrated a shocking increase in power, and that was Naples himself. He knew exactly what he had done to gain that strength. The question was, what had Celadon done?
Naples checked the kitchen first, but it was empty. As the scent of food struck him, his mouth watered and his stomach clenched, reminding him of the blood he had lost and the energy he had spent since Argent’s rabbit stew. He took a generous slice of sweet apple bread. It didn’t look appetizing, but he could eat it quickly. He reached for the jar of honey, but regarding its contents made his stomach do a slow, nauseated roll.
He left the kitchen, doggedly shoveling the bread—dirt—into his mouth as he continued his search.
He spotted Celadon, still beside Dahlia, in the front hall. Unfortunately, fifty or so other people had joined them, mobbing the preacher and the country woman as if they were celebrities.
Naples gawked at the crowd. He recognized austere Quin mingling with not only other members of the Order of Napthol but also foreigners, men and women Naples knew for a fact were A’hknet prostitutes, and peddlers, tradesmen, and sailors. What were they all doing here?
Henna had said some groups held “meetings” in the Cobalt Hall these days, but Naples had pictured small, carefully supervised units that came when summoned and left when instructed to do so. These people seemed to have been loitering and chatting.
Naples wanted to scream at them to leave, to go, to clear out of this space that was supposed to be his home and sanctuary. In that moment, the fact he had planned to leave for an apprenticeship with the Terra was irrelevant. This was like moving back to one’s childhood home to discover squatters using old photos for kindling and throwing refuse on the floor.
He had turned to flee the chaos when someone hesitantly called, “Naples?”
His spine went rigid and he turned as if braced for battle, lifting his chin to peer through the crowd. It took too many moments to recognize Cyan’s face in the group.
The naked joy and relief in the sailor’s expression were a balm against the crowd’s invasion. Naples felt an answering smile on his own face.
Henna said the docks had been destroyed, and no one had sailed the morning after the Apple Blossom Festival, or in the weeks since. It hadn’t occurred to Naples that Cyan would, of course, have been among those trapped. He searched for something more gracious to say than, “It’s been a while, or so I hear. I don’t remember most of it, since I was busy being seduced by a demon and getting into a fight with a door that left me in a three-day coma, but I’ve got a room upstairs if you’re interested.”
He had a few moments to decide, since Cyan needed to shoulder past several people to reach him. Once the sailor was close enough, Naples settled on saying, “I’m glad to see you’re safe, but I’m sorry you’re stuck here.”
“Sorry, are you?” Cyan asked, with a raised brow and a strange shadow of doubt in his expression.
“I was being polite,” Naples admitted. “I’m happy to see you.”
Cyan chuckled, but the sound had a forced edge to it. Tone weighty with relief, he added more seriously, “You say you’re glad to see me safe. I was half-convinced you were dead. I kept asking about you and being put off. No one would tell me where you were. I decided . . . I hoped . . . you just didn’t want to see me anymore, but I feared worse every time I saw your mother’s face.”
“I was out of town,” Naples said vaguely. He didn’t want Cyan to think he had been avoiding him, but also didn’t want to tell him the truth. “I didn’t think you would look for me, so I didn’t think to tell anyone it was okay to let you know where I was. My Order guards its members’ privacy.” He looked around the room. “Or, it used to.”
The excuse didn’t explain his mother’s anxiety, but he could brush that off as being related to other recent events. These hadn’t been easy times for anyone.
Cyan laughed again, and this time the sound was more sincere. “They still do. We’re allowed in a few of these front rooms, but I know people who’ve been sternly and painfully reprimanded for straying beyond the bounds of our fences.”
What about Dahlia and Celadon in the kitchen, then? Naples dared to hope that had been an anomaly. He still didn’t like it, but he could grudgingly accept that unusual times called for unusual bending of the rules.
He was debating whether he should try the line about the room upstairs when Cyan said, “I have a question about your art, if you have a few minutes.”
“Oh?”
Cyan had always idly acknowledged Naples’ connection to the Order of Napthol and the magic it implied without seeming overly impressed by it, and he rarely asked questions. Now he held up his left hand, where he was wearing the anti-Osei ring.
“I haven’t had a chance to test this yet—I’m not complaining about that—but having it has made me think: Could you create a charm like this on a bigger scale?”
“How much bigger?”
“A ship.” The interjection came from another sailor waiting a few paces behind Cyan, who had apparently taken the conversational turn as a cue to intrude. “Or better yet, a weapon.”
Cyan gave Naples an amused smirk and said under his breath, “I had planned to wine-and-dine you a little before springing the whole plan on you.”
“I’ll happily agree to wining and dining another time,” Naples assured him. He looked briefly across the hall to where Celadon and Dahlia were still surrounded by their adoring masses. He wouldn’t be able to catch the preacher alone any time soon. In fact, given Celadon’s dislike and distrust of him—both admittedly deserved—Naples would probably have to be a bit crafty to pin him down. “Tell me more about your plan.”
“It isn’t a firm plan,” Cyan said, “just an idea. We came to talk to members of the Order about it, but no one seems to know how you made the Osei charm. Do you want to come with us down to the docks? I’ll show you what we’ve been working on, and you can tell us if there’s any chance of mixing magic with our designs.”
“I still hold that trying to bring magic into this is asking for trouble,” a third Silmari, a man Naples didn’t know whose clothes and poise suggested an aristocrat more than a sailor, interjected. “We don’t need—”
“So says the man sleeping with Indathrone,” someone else interrupted. “I for one would like to get home someday.”
“And speaking for those of us from here,” a Kavet native added, “we’d like to get the trade routes open befo
re we starve this winter.”
How had Naples’ tête-à-tête with Cyan become the center of a raised-voices argument? He tried to back up, only to realize the crowd had closed behind him.
“Isn’t magic part of what got us into this trouble in the first place?” the first objector asked. “Dahlia is working on an agreement to—”
“No,” the Kavet native interrupted, “the Silmari are what got us into this trouble in the first place, by attacking the Osei.”
Now that he had been referred to as Dahlia’s lover, Naples knew who the Silmari aristocrat was—Jade. Henna had mentioned him, and the fact that she didn’t think he and Dahlia were sleeping together, despite what rumors said. He was nominally the leader of the Silmari, but given the argument Naples was witnessing, his authority was not absolute.
Cyan caught Naples’ arm and pulled him in the direction of the door, using his wider frame to muscle others aside as necessary. “They can argue for hours,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They escaped the press of arguing bodies and found their way to the docks. Once there, Cyan continued to explain. “We’ve been told the Silmari back home took down an Osei prince. Supposedly they had been working on some large weapon they could mount on towers on the shore, but even Jade can’t imagine what madness prompted them to actually use it. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to try to repeat that kind of violence, given the consequences of success. I’d rather find a way to make them avoid us, or just not notice us as we sail, so we don’t need to try to fight.” He shrugged. “But I don’t know a damn thing about magic, so it’s hard to figure what’s possible.”
“I know as little about ships,” Naples admitted. He had spent plenty of time here at the docks or even onboard a variety of vessels, but he hadn’t been paying attention to the ships themselves. “Show me around so I can see what I have to work with.”
“We’ve only got the one functioning ship in the water so far,” Jade said. “It’s taken all our time and most of our supplies to get her outfitted. We’re hoping if we get one vessel to do a run and spread the word that the danger is past and the docks are open again, we’ll get Kavet-native ships and merchants from other countries to return.”
He strode proudly onto the decks and Naples followed at a slower pace, considering the materials he saw around him.
Wood and rope and cloth were worse than useless unless he planned to set them on fire. There was metal on the ship, but the proportion was low, of course. A ship made of metal couldn’t float.
Cold magic could sometimes be imbued in something like fabric or rope, but even if Naples could use that kind of power or help someone else work the aversion charm, cold magic was sensitive to material value, use, and respect. It would fray in the face of a rough sea voyage.
It might be possible to mount something on the top of the masts, or weave something more compatible with his power into the sails. He looked up at the sailors scampering about the rigging. As he considered the height of the masts against the blue sky, his stomach and mouth tried to change positions. He put his head down, fighting vertigo. On second thought, no power in the three realms would convince him to climb up to look more closely.
“Are you all right?” Cyan asked.
Naples nodded, taking a deep breath. “How in the Abyss do people go up there?” he asked weakly.
“Mmm, there goes my fantasy of having you in the crow’s nest,” Cyan murmured, and Naples’ stomach flipped again, for entirely different reasons. “Do you need to get up there?”
Naples shook his head vigorously. Maybe, instead of tying the spell to the ship, he could attach it to a person. “Who’s the captain?”
“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Cyan answered. “She was put together with salvage from three different ships. I was first mate of one of the vessels, and I’m on the list of candidates now.” He paused a moment, but it was a heartbeat too long before Naples realized he was probably expecting a congratulatory or impressed reply. “Jade’s in the running, too. Some people are trying to argue that she should have a native captain, since she was built here, but she’s mostly made of Silmari materials. Most Kavetan ships either spend winter in more tropical waters and return to Kavet in late spring, or overwinter here and leave as soon as the harbor’s clear of ice, so there weren’t many in port when the attack happened.”
“Would it help if I said I can do more if you captain her than if a stranger does?”
“It might help with the vote—can you believe they’re voting on the position?” Cyan interrupted himself. “How is that the way to choose the captain of a respectable vessel? It’s what pirates do.” He shook his head. “But—the ship and her safety are most important to me, so yes, it probably would help with the vote, but it only matters to me if it’s true.”
“It’s true,” Naples said. “It’s even more true if one of the possible captains is opposed to the idea of magic in the first place. Magic is responsive to will. No matter how strongly I tie my intention into it, if the man in charge of this ship disagrees with its presence, that will influence the spell’s effect.” What he didn’t add was that, since his magic was tied to sex, it would be easier to make a powerful link with someone he had bedded. And hopefully would bed again.
Cyan nodded. “Then I’ll put that word out.” He paused, his gaze skimming the ship. “Do you want to continue the tour? We can conclude with the captain’s quarters. They’re not particularly lavish, but there’s a bunk. And a door. And a lock.”
Finally.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter 34
Henna
Henna froze in the middle of the sickroom, resisting the impulse to recoil from the . . . Was it an odor? No, not quite. The miasma, like a lingering stench on a breeze or a discordant song in the distance, wasn’t perceived by any of her natural senses.
Then, just like a fleeting smell or a sound, it was gone from her awareness before she could grasp it.
She closed her eyes to try to identify the repulsive magical taint, but couldn’t find it again. It might not have been in the room at all; perhaps it had drifted from faulty spellwork upstairs. Or maybe it really had been a lingering smell, perhaps the remnants of some healing ointment, so subtle now it seemed like a magical afterimage.
Maybe she had been smelling her own fear. While her eyes were closed like this, she didn’t need to look at the form on the bed and see what ruin might be left of the beautiful, vivacious man she loved.
But closing her eyes was dangerous, too. Behind her lids, Helio’s body appeared. Then Naples, torn apart, his blood splashed across the room.
Henna opened her eyes and crossed stiffly to the bed. Between the wounds on her flesh and the pulled muscles from her desperate ride to retrieve Naples, every fiber of her being ached—but none of it was as bad as the feeling in her heart when she saw her beautiful prince, who now lay as still as a corpse.
She tried to hearten herself by considering that, in some ways, Verte looked more alive than Naples had. There might be wounds hidden by the sleep-shirt and loose cotton trousers someone had dressed Verte in, but what she could see of his body was whole. His skin was pale, stripped of any tan by his weeks away from the sun, but his mother’s Ilbanese blood made the fairness like porcelain instead of the rotten mushroom color many Kavetans turned when they spent too much time inside.
There was no blood, and no scars to indicate where the blood had once been. Bones must have broken when he struck the cobbles, but the planes of his face and body were flawless now. Such was the work his father had done to heal him.
But where is his soul?
Mikva’s accusations rose unwelcome to Henna’s mind. Many seagoing Tamari believed a boucan’s soul was eternally tied to the waves, so if one stepped onto land as Henna had done, the body would become a savage husk while the spirit lingered as a vengeful ghost. If that were so, Henna’s ghost haunted the shores of the Ninth House of the Osei.
Was Vert
e’s ghost somewhere? His spirit wasn’t in his body. Looking at him, sensing the wrongness in him, she was sure of that much.
A scuff behind her made her jump, twisting, heart in her throat—but it was only Dove.
What did you expect, you silly goose? Henna chastised herself. That figure on the bed had put her in mind of wraiths and fiends.
“I’m sorry,” Dove said, hesitating in the doorway. “I didn’t realize you were in here. I can come back later if you want to be alone.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” Henna said hastily. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “He isn’t really alive, is he?”
Dove hesitated. “He isn’t really dead, either. I’ve been able to glimpse his spirit, but I’m not strong enough to grasp it or communicate with it. My hope is that, if we can tend to his body so it regains its strength, his spirit will be drawn back of its own accord.”
Hope. Henna held tight to that word, though it felt hollow in her heart.
She moved out of the way as Dove touched Verte’s brow and his cheek, and sent her magic through his body to examine him. Henna couldn’t follow the nuance of the mostly old magic work, but she could tell part of Dove’s efforts involved funneling raw power into Verte to strengthen him.
“Is that safe for you?” Henna asked, concerned, when Dove pulled back.
The other woman nodded absently. “I know my limits,” she said. “By this afternoon, we should be able to get some broth into him. Food will speed up the healing if we can get him to take it.” She rubbed her eyes and blinked, betraying the fatigue she usually tried to conceal. “Have you seen anything in your—no, you haven’t had a chance to scry since getting home, have you?”
“Not yet.”
“There are things we should probably know,” Dove said softly. “We believe Terre Jaune died of power exhaustion, but we don’t fully understand what killed the Terra, or even what happened to her body. We don’t know why the king set those shields around the palace, what he was trying to contain, or what breaking them may have released. The answer isn’t in the realm of the dead, but might be available to your sight.”
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