by Caitlin Seal
Naya risked a glance at Lucia as the guards shoved them into the first carriage. Two guards flanked the necromancer, and two more held chains attached to the loops on Naya’s restraints. A fifth guard already sat in the carriage, glowering at all the rest. He had a jutting chin and a star insignia decorating the breast of his uniform. He watched Naya through narrowed eyes as the others dragged her into her seat. Lucia was pushed onto the bench across from Naya, her shoulders hunched to make room for the burly men to either side. After a moment the driver whipped the horses, and the carriage jerked forward.
Heavy shutters covered the windows, so Naya could only guess at their direction as they rattled along in silence. Her head buzzed with tension and it wasn’t long before she started wishing they would reach their destination. She’d had more than enough of waiting in a dark cell.
She sensed the gathered crowd just before the carriage stopped. Anger. Fear. Disgust. She wondered what had happened while she’d been locked up, and what stories Valn might have spread. No, don’t think about that. The people out there had come to watch her and Lucia die. But if she was careful, and smart, maybe she could put on a very different sort of show.
The doors opened, letting in the noise of the crowd. Shafts of sunlight peeked between the buildings as the sun sank toward the ocean. Naya caught a glimpse of masts silhouetted against the sunset and felt her heart wrench. She turned away. The crowd was packed into a wide square she remembered from her travels with Celia. A makeshift wooden platform rose from the center of the square. Naya’s knees locked, but the guards only pulled harder on the chains, forcing her to stumble forward.
The crowd pressed tight around the platform, rich and poor alike craning their necks to see the convicted necromancer and her creation. Naya wished she couldn’t sense their aether. She didn’t want to feel the mix of raw emotions that hung in the air like swamp gas. Two men in shackles were dragged from the second carriage by more guards. Naya didn’t recognize them, but from their hopeless expressions she guessed they must be Dalton and Elmaron, the other necromancers Valn had arrested. The guards forced them up the steps to the top of the platform. Naya’s eyes gravitated toward the objects dominating its center, and the two masked men who stood beside them. One of those men had his hands wrapped around the haft of a heavy-looking ax. A plain wood block and a wicker basket sat next to him, their intended use as obvious as it was horrifying.
The second man held a mallet and stood next to a table made of dark salma wood. There were shackles where Naya’s arms, ankles, and neck would no doubt be secured. A shudder ran from her hair to her toes as she imagined what would happen. They would strap her in. The mallet would fall, crushing her bones. The runes anchoring her soul would shatter, and then she’d vanish into the void on the other side of death.
It took all her will not to pull against her manacles. A scream strained at her throat but she clamped her teeth together. She forced one foot forward, then the other. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
The guards would have to take the manacles off to get her onto that table. She would have one chance. Valn climbed onto the platform, wearing a grim expression as carefully tailored as his suit. “People of Belavine, as many of you know, last night I was attacked while attempting to reveal the findings of my investigation. Those behind the attack were radicals who sought a return to the horrors of the Mad King’s reign. These necromancers”—he gestured at Lucia and the others—“murdered Talmiran citizens while trying to rediscover the secrets of the war runes. They did so under the direct authority of King Allence.”
Angry voices rose from among the crowd. Naya stared out at them. Several well-dressed people stood near the front. Their expressions didn’t match the cloud of fear and anger she felt. Instead they looked almost eager. Were they allies of Valn, or ordinary citizens who believed his lies? She spotted movement behind them, then her eyes widened as she recognized a familiar face. Iselia was pushing through the crowd. Naya opened her mouth, wanting to call out, but before she could, two of the guards shoved her onto her back on the salma wood table. The wood was like a block of ice underneath her. She tried to keep listening to Valn’s speech, but the cold made it hard to focus. Instead she closed her eyes and hoped the guards would think her resigned to her fate.
Cold encased her legs as they locked her ankles to the table. The urge to panic tightened like a hand around her throat, but she kept herself still. The noise of the crowd rose, and something thudded against the platform nearby.
“Liar!” someone shouted.
Valn’s voice rose to a boom as he tried to speak over the crowd. “—reinforcements under Talmiran command and with the authority of the Congress of Powers will arrive shortly to maintain order while we continue—”
Naya pushed away the distractions, waiting until…There! Warmth spread through her left wrist as the shackle on that side opened. Naya sucked in aether, taking the crowd’s fear and anger as fuel. She wrenched her wrist free of the shackle before the guard could secure it to the table. The guard’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout. Naya concentrated all the force of her enhanced bones into the palm of her hand and shoved. The guard stumbled, hitting the man behind him and knocking him off the platform. Another guard started toward her.
Naya let the aether of her arm go transparent, exposing the bones of her binding. According to Lucia, a wraith’s bones weren’t that different from other types of bindings. They could be overloaded to cause an explosion of energy. Normally it would be suicide. But the bone Jalance had carved was a duplicate to the one in Naya’s thumb, unnecessary now that the old bone had healed. Hopefully.
Her fingers wrapped around the new bone in her arm. She pulled.
The pain was white-hot. The sky went black. The shouts of the crowd became the roar of death’s tides. Then the bone, its ties to her soul already weakened by the dissonance between the new runes and the old, tore free of her arm. One of the guards reached for her, trying to pin her back against the salma wood table. Naya ducked under his arm. She concentrated, and shimmering heat pooled in the palm of her left hand. She let her arm pass through the guard’s, then slapped him hard across the face. His cheek blistered at her touch, and he shrieked as he stumbled backward.
Naya twisted, her ankles still caught in the restraints. One half of the manacles was locked around her right wrist, but, with the other half dangling free, it was more annoyance than hindrance. Valn was standing near the edge of the platform. She met his eyes and saw his mask of calm fracture. She drew in every scrap of energy she could, then forced it into the new bone, concentrating on the runes Lucia had described while they’d waited in the darkness. Naya’s head spun and the edges of her vision blurred. Just as she felt the energy overflowing, she threw the bone at Valn.
She had an instant to savor the shocked look on his face before the bone exploded. The blast hit her like a train. It caught the edge of the table, flipping it and her sideways onto the platform. Her senses dimmed, then snapped back into hazy focus. Her body rippled from the explosion’s force, and her whole arm ached. For a moment the dark tides roared in her ears, but Naya drew more aether and the sound faded.
She bent forward and was relieved to find the bindings on her ankles held shut by sturdy clasps rather than locks. She unlatched them. Blissful warmth flooded back to her toes as she rolled away from the table and got unsteadily to her feet. A few steps to her right lay Lucia, who was trying to stand up but failing. Her wrists were still shackled and there was something wrong with the shape of her right arm. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead.
Smoke rose from the far edge of the platform where Valn had been standing. One of the prisoners sat next to the headsman’s block, staring in blank horror at the ax lying embedded in the platform next to him. Naya couldn’t see the other. The executioners and the guards were recovering slowly from the blast, some showing injuries even worse than
Lucia’s. Fights broke out in the crowd near the platform as people tried to flee the chaos. Before anyone could stop her, Naya grabbed Lucia and hauled her to her feet. Lucia snarled a curse but managed to stumble after Naya as she ran to the edge of the platform.
Naya’s toes hit the edge and she froze. Anger and fear roared in the aether around her. “Naya!” a familiar voice shouted, barely audible in the chaos.
“Corten?” Naya scanned the crowd, then spotted an arm waving frantically above the sea of people, not far from where she stood.
Lucia groaned, leaning more of her weight against Naya. Naya looped one arm under the necromancer and hauled her over her shoulder. Lucia screamed as her arms bounced against Naya’s back, then fell limp. Don’t you dare die, Naya thought. She scanned the crowd again, but Corten was gone.
Unsteady footsteps creaked on the boards, and someone behind her snarled. Naya spotted an opening to her right. She jumped from the platform and pushed into the crowd. The mass of people was packed tighter than a school of cod trapped in a net, all of them trying to push their way out, but many seemingly unsure which direction out was. She heard more people fighting, the sound of fists against flesh and guards shouting behind her. Here and there she caught flashes of familiar faces, men and women she’d seen at the meeting of the Necromantic Council. Things looked a little less tight to her right, so she headed that way. Lucia’s weight pressed against her shoulder, but among the crowd the aether was so thick she almost didn’t need to breathe it in to feel the energy infusing her.
“Naya!” A hand grabbed her arm and she spun, nearly losing her grip on Lucia. It was Corten. He wore a brimmed hat pulled low to shadow his face. The shoulder of his shirt was torn, and a button had been ripped from the bottom of his red vest, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. “Is that Lucia?”
“She’s alive,” Naya replied, sagging with relief at the sight of him.
“Good. Follow me.” He grabbed her hand and they shoved through the thinner edge of the crowd. A man clawed at Naya’s shirt. Corten swung a clumsy punch and managed to catch the man on the chin. Naya twisted free, pushing toward what she hoped was the edge of the crowd. After a few steps she glanced back and was relieved to see Corten just behind her.
Members of the guard were trying to form a perimeter around the square, but the gaps in their line were wide and there were still too many people trying to force their way out. Naya and Corten passed within ten feet of a guard shouting orders over the heads of the crowd.
Corten led her through side streets, behind gardens and shops. The streets darkened as somewhere to their left the sun slipped below the horizon. When they were fairly certain none of the guards had followed them, they paused between two high garden walls, far from the light of the streetlamps. Naya eased Lucia down onto the pavement. She was still unconscious, but the cut on her forehead had stopped bleeding and her aether didn’t feel like it was fading.
Naya turned around. “We should—” Before she could finish the thought, though, Corten’s arms wrapped around her and his lips pressed against hers. The touch sent a shock through her entire body. His skin was fire on hers, burning through her like lightning through a tree. It seared away everything but the sensation of his body against hers.
“I’m sorry,” Corten gasped as he pulled away. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have. But I thought you were dead. When we realized the announcement was a trap, I thought—”
Naya pressed her mouth to his, silencing the protest. His lips felt soft and warm and so wonderfully real against her own. For a moment she lost herself in a burst of fierce joy, reveling in the fact that they both had somehow survived.
“It’s all right,” she said when she finally found the will to pull away.
“Yeah,” Corten said. He looked a little dazed. The soft smile that spread across his face made her want to kiss him all over again. But the not-so-distant sounds of the crowd reminded her they were far from safe.
“How did you get away?” she asked. Her mind was still reeling from their escape, and from the kiss. Had Corten really kissed her? Had she really kissed him back?
Corten’s expression turned serious. “Got lucky. I was near the back when Denor led the charge against Valn. As soon as we moved, another couple dozen guards jumped us from the side entrances. They had wraith eaters and pistols. It wasn’t even close to a fair fight. The crowd panicked and rushed the doors. We still aren’t sure how many made it out—a lot of people are hiding. When the morning paper announced the execution, Iselia and I got everyone we could together. After what happened at the palace, we weren’t sure what we could do, but none of us felt right standing by while Valn killed innocents.”
“Thank you,” Naya said.
Corten’s smile was tight. “I’m just glad you had your own plan. I doubt we could have gotten to you without that distraction.”
A shout came from the next street over, and both of them turned toward it. “We should move,” Naya whispered. “We need to get Lucia somewhere safe.”
Corten nodded. “I know a place. Come on.”
The address Corten led her to was only a few blocks away, but still they had to stop twice to avoid other groups fleeing the foiled execution. Their goal proved to be a small second-floor apartment on a quiet street. The floorboards creaked as Naya hauled Lucia up the narrow stairs, expecting at any moment for someone to come barreling down on them.
Corten knocked in a quick pattern. Apparently they were expected, because the door opened almost immediately. An old man with rumpled clothes and sad eyes motioned them in, then relocked the bolts as soon as they were through.
“Who is it, Granpap Fredricel?” a woman’s voice called from the next room.
“More stragglers,” the old man, Fredricel, said as he helped Naya ease Lucia down onto a couch. Two others stood in the room, a gangly boy of perhaps fifteen whose aether marked him as a wraith, and a slightly older girl with a nasty scrape along one cheek. By the similarities in their features, Naya guessed they were siblings. “I don’t suppose you stole the key to those manacles?” Fredricel asked.
“No,” Naya said. “But if you have anything I can use as a pick, I should be able to get them off.”
Fredricil nodded. “I’ll see what I can find, and we’ll need something for that broken arm.” He turned to open a small closet. “Jessin, we’ve got a patient for you to look at,” he called through an open doorway leading to what looked like a kitchen.
Footsteps came from the kitchen and a moment later Iselia walked in, followed by a balding man wearing cracked spectacles. The man, who must be Jessin, hurried over to Lucia. Iselia gave Corten and Naya a tight smile. Her clothes were torn in spots, as though she’d been fighting, but her thick curls still tumbled artfully over her shoulders. “You actually got them out.” She looked at Lucia, still lying unconscious on the couch, and her smile fell. “Did you see anyone else?”
Corten shook his head. “I think Dalton and Elmaron got away from the platform, but I lost track of them in the crowd. Velicia was leading a group toward them, I think. They were still at it when we got away. Has anyone else come by?” Naya searched her memory. She was fairly certain Alejandra had introduced her to a broad-shouldered woman named Velicia at the Council meeting.
Iselia shook her head. “Just what you see. I got here with Lestare and Marecen just a couple of minutes ago. Osvolen was near us for a while, but we got separated in the crowd and I haven’t seen him since.”
Fredricel returned from rummaging through the closet with a set of tarnished, woman’s hairpins. “Will these do?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Naya set to work, first carefully unlocking the cuffs around Lucia’s wrists, then the one that still dangled from her right arm. She let out a small sigh of relief as the icy salma wood clattered to the floor.
“Okay,” Naya said, trying to infuse the word with confidence. No
w that they were out of danger, the joy of escape was fading. “What do we do now? Does the Council have a plan?”
“What do you care?” the girl with the scraped cheek asked. She stood protectively next to the boy, her arms crossed and her aether bitter with anger and loss.
“Now, Marecen…” Iselia began.
“No!” Marecen said. “I saw her at the meeting, the same as all of you. But I still don’t see why any of you trust her. She’s Talmiran, for Creator’s sake! She’s the reason Denor and Alecia are dead.”
“Denor is dead?” Naya asked. Her voice sounded small as she struggled to recover from the onslaught of Marecen’s anger. Denor was the one who’d asked her if she thought that the Talmirans would ever see the undead as people. She’d seen sympathy in his eyes when he’d looked at her.
“We still don’t know that for certain,” Iselia said.
“I saw one of those Talmiran bastards shoot him in the chest. He’s gone.” Marecen glared at Naya. “He put all the best fighters at the front, so when your ambassador sprang his trap they were the ones who got caught. Seems pretty convenient to me that you showed up just in time to lead us all into that trap and cripple the Council.”
“Rossen was the one who sold you out, not me,” Naya said.
“And we’re supposed to believe that on your word alone?” Marecen asked.
The boy—Iselia had called him Lestare—put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “They were trying to kill her. Why do that if she was still working for them?”
“We assumed they were going to kill her,” Marecen said. “But maybe that was all an act. We’ll never know now that you fools rescued her.”
“That’s quite enough,” Fredricel said. “I know you’re all frightened, but what’s done is done. Right now we need to figure out the best way of contacting the others and protecting ourselves from what’s to come.”
