“I believe him, Vincent,” Katya said.
He cast another look toward the nursery door, past Reinholt, this glance full of love.
“The sooner we finish this business, the sooner you can come back,” Katya said.
After a tiny sigh, he bowed. “Highness, my sword is yours.”
*
Redtrue arrived with a host of people in tow. Even Leafclever walked beside her. Katya cocked an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be in council with Dayscout?”
Leafclever shrugged. “Dayscout knows my mind. This seemed more important.”
“Thank you.” But now that they’d arrived, Katya couldn’t get her feet to move.
Maia touched her elbow. “We should hurry.”
Katya cleared her throat. “Anything different with the capstone?”
The adsnazi focused, some of them with eyes closed. “It’s odd,” Redtrue said. “I can barely sense the capstone’s energy. Perhaps she’s shielding it somehow.”
Katya shifted her weight from foot to foot. They stared at her, waiting. If she kept them long enough, she wondered if they’d start wandering off.
“Basement is probably better than the passageways,” Brutal said.
“Definitely less cramped,” Hugo added.
Their tone screamed, “Normal conversation.” Katya had to smile. “Let’s go.”
They trooped into the bowels of the palace again, scaring whatever servants they happened upon. Katya assured everyone that they were on official business of the crown, but she knew her movements would get back to her father. News would travel on the wings of gossip, as Dawnmother said.
That enticed her to hurry; she didn’t want her father and the Guard involved. She couldn’t take the chance that some overzealous guard might seize the opportunity to stab Starbride in the back, thinking that might be his way to glory.
When they passed into the stone of the caverns, the crushing feelings descended on her. She could do this, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she done it already? When she’d taken the secret passageways with Starbride, she’d barely registered her surroundings. This was no different.
The thought almost made her laugh. Venturing into the caverns to see if Starbride would try to kill her, if she’d be forced to do the same was anything but normal.
Katya drew her rapier, thinking of corpses or wild Fiends. At her side, Brutal drew his mace, and the others readied weapons, the adsnazi drawing their pyramids, scanning the way for traps.
Déjà vu hit Katya hard. This was searching for Roland all over again. She wondered when the barrage of pyramids would start and clenched her teeth around a scream. No, that wouldn’t happen. Starbride wouldn’t want to kill her, couldn’t—
“This doesn’t feel right,” Brutal said.
Katya glanced at him.
“I agree,” Freddie said. “Starbride’s smart. She wouldn’t be down here alone. We should have encountered resistance by now.”
“Traps. Fiends. Something,” Hugo said.
“You’re right.” Katya didn’t hear any noise coming from the adjoining tunnels, the places where the adsnazi had burrowed through the rock. The place should have been crawling with knowledge monks and Allusian scholars.
Redtrue cursed. “She couldn’t have hidden the capstone’s energy so well. It feels like nothing’s there.”
Katya broke into a run, not caring if it was reckless. She stumbled through what had been the cavern door into a well of complete blackness. Her heart hammered in her ears, and that clawing, suffocating feeling came back. It was the dead city all over again, tons of rock pressing down on her, killing her.
Light blossomed around her, pushing back panic. The top of the green-fletched pyramid poked out of the stone, and Katya breathed a sigh of relief that the capstone was still there, but even she sensed the difference. No light emanated from it, no feelings of restless energy. It was as dull and lifeless as a giant paperweight, all of its magic gone.
Chapter Thirty-four
Starbride
Starbride clutched the pyramid that now held Yanchasa’s remaining essence. Behind her, Roland and Bea planted traps in the tunnels that the adsnazi had burrowed through the rock. It wouldn’t slow Redtrue down for long, but once Starbride got to the room detailing how to summon the council of five, she wouldn’t need long.
Would that chamber look like the rest, she wondered? Walls the same uniform grayish brown with hints of colors long faded? As she moved, she glanced into what had once been buildings, homes or shops, their purposes lost to time. Piles of detritus had been cordoned off and showed signs that the knowledge monks had pawed through it. Dusty cloth that shredded upon touch, ruins of wood or clay, what did they hope to do with it? Study it, she supposed, for all the good it would do them. Well, hadn’t the monks’ forays done her some good in the end? Hadn’t they found the very power she needed to finally make her feel—
What? Safe? Loved? Accepted at last? Starbride took a deep breath of dusty air and used flesh magic to cleanse it once it was inside her. Maybe after she had the wisdom of the combined council members, she’d know exactly what it was she wanted.
A lantern came toward her down the hall, yet another knowledge monk wandering the corridors of the dead city. They were everywhere, dividing their teams into shifts to work day and night. This one opened his mouth in what was probably a greeting. She put him to sleep, and he sagged at the bottom of the wall.
“You have to show me how you do that so quickly,” Bea said, awe in her voice. “No one can ever make you do anything you don’t want.”
After Bea’s ordeal with Roland, the ability to not be pushed around seemed a goal close to her heart. “Did you enjoy it, then? The mind-warping you did?”
Bea was silent a few moments. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“I won’t judge you.”
“None of us can judge one another,” Roland said. Starbride glanced back at him, surprised to see him shift the monk’s lantern far enough away that the man’s robe wouldn’t catch fire. When Roland straightened, he didn’t look at her but stared at Bea. He’d done so ever since the three of them had joined forces.
Bea had glared and leapt for his throat. Starbride had expected her to demand the return of her family, but she’d just punched him with her small fists, making cries of inarticulate rage. She’d agreed to work by his side only after Starbride commanded her to. It had helped when Starbride whispered in her ear that after their trials were over, he’d be hers to kill.
“Once we summon the council, you won’t need either of them, daughter,” Yanchasa said.
Starbride shrugged and continued down the hall. Five of the children trailed them, their comforting cold sliding over Starbride’s skin. Bea and Roland were probably chilled by the children’s presence, but they’d have to take care of themselves. Yanchasa walked just ahead of the children as if leading them.
Ever since Katya’s betrayal, Yanchasa had been ever-present, in mind if not in sight. While Starbride focused on pyramid work, Yanchasa guided her body, the height of convenience. Funny, but she seemed to recall it had bothered her not that long ago. Or had it been days since she’d thought about it?
“Well, after all this is sorted out…” She didn’t know how to finish. After what was sorted out? The betrayal by her friends and family? By Dawnmother and Katya?
“Once we take care of the adsnazi, you can make them see the truth, daughter. It seems the only way.”
Acid bubbled up Starbride’s chest, and it took her a few seconds to cleanse it. “You mean mind-warping them.”
“There is no turning back now,” Yanchasa said, and she knew it was true, but how had it all gone so wrong?
“Isn’t there some way?” She glanced to the side and saw Bea looking at her curiously, eyes suspicious. In a snap, Bea’s expression changed to one of admiration. “Don’t worry,” Starbride said. “I’m not talking to myself.”
“I guessed.” Her eyes shifted to Roland, and Starbri
de could feel her seethe. “That’s not a very powerful trap.”
Roland stood from his work and then jogged to catch up. He didn’t respond to Bea but held her gaze steadily.
“You’ll have to give him time,” Starbride said. “Without flesh magic, he’s weaker than he was.”
Bea sneered. “He’s pathetic and frail.”
Starbride shrugged, not caring if they got along as long as they obeyed. When she’d first come into Roland’s cell, he’d shrieked and backed into the wall, chains rattling. She had to seize his body with flesh magic to still him. She tried to be kind, make him calm enough to listen. Finally she’d said, “I’ll give you back your Aspect if you help me, your Fiend.”
He’d stiffened like baked clay, watching her intently.
“Though I’ve already told you,” she’d said with a laugh, “Yanchasa’s no Fiend.”
“No less a monster,” Roland said.
Starbride had stepped close to him and let him go; he kept his feet and looked her in the eye. “One you want back. The strength, the power.” She smiled. “The freedom from guilt.”
His eyes had squeezed shut, white around the creases. “Spirits forgive me.”
“You can feel his touch again.”
He’d rolled his lips under, and she’d thought he might cry. She used flesh magic to make the dirt and old sweat slide from his skin. He shuddered, already smelling better, and she imagined he felt better, too.
“Yes,” he’d whispered, and she smiled. She’d use him up and then cast him aside. It was what he deserved for everything he’d done.
A little voice asked what she deserved for everything she’d done.
As they came to a three-way junction, Starbride shook the thought away and tried to remember what she’d seen in Katya’s notes.
“I remember the way,” Yanchasa said. He turned her body in the right direction, the others setting traps as they went.
A gaggle of knowledge monks ambled down the hall, talking excitedly among themselves. Starbride put them all to sleep, all but one. An Allusian man in their center stared at the others in shock before he dropped to one knee, shaking their shoulders and asking what was wrong. When he spied Starbride, he called for help.
“Adsnazi,” Starbride said. She slowed. If she couldn’t use mind magic…
Yanchasa flickered at her side and laughed. “Fire or destruction or your bare hands, daughter.”
Starbride glanced at her palms. She’d been scratching around the pyramids again, smearing them with crimson.
“Let me,” Bea said.
Roland caught her arm. “It’s not your place.”
“Get off me, you pathetic wreck!”
“Daughter?” Yanchasa gestured toward the adsnazi. “Well?”
The adsnazi stood slowly, eyeing them. “Wait,” Starbride said in Allusian. He paused. She stepped toward him, letting the pyramid rest in the crook of one arm. “The monks are only asleep.”
“Your doing?” He glanced at her forehead, her bloody hands. “Why?”
“Yes, why are you taking the time, daughter? The others will soon be on our track—”
“I need to get past,” she said. He was her age, maybe a little older.
He licked his lips. “I’m not stopping you.”
“You cannot leave him behind to set the hunters on our track!” Yanchasa said.
Starbride’s arm lifted, though she didn’t command it to. She felt heat gathering in her palm, and a buzzing pain built behind her eyes. “Wait,” she croaked. “I want to know his name.”
Fire bloomed, and the adsnazi screamed. He writhed on the ground, and Starbride felt a pulse from the pyramid over her heart. One of the children loped forward and tore the screaming man’s throat out in a rush of fiery blood.
Starbride pushed at Yanchasa, fought for her body, but it was like pressing back the tide. She grunted as she shoved and felt a tiny pop in her left eye as Yanchasa’s presence subsided. At last, she could lift her own arm. “I wanted to know his name!”
“What does it matter?” Yanchasa asked.
Bea peered into her face. “What happened to your eye? The white bit is all red.”
She used flesh magic to fix herself, or at least she hoped so. She’d have to look at it later. “Come on.”
As they continued past the corpse, Starbride tried to find her center. How much of what she’d been doing, what she’d been feeling lately, was her own? Yanchasa’s shadowy form disappeared, and his voice seemed fainter. It tired him to possess her. She wondered if he seethed inside the pyramid.
“My apologies, daughter,” Yanchasa said. “It’s been so long since I’ve prepared for real battle, I’ve forgotten my place.” He laughed then, and the sound set Starbride’s teeth on edge.
Chapter Thirty-five
Katya
Redtrue stared at the darkened pyramid so long Katya was tempted to shake her. The other adsnazi spread out through the capstone cavern, searching, but for what? Starbride wasn’t there.
“This isn’t what I felt,” Redtrue said at last.
Katya waited for more, clenching and unclenching her fist.
“We should search the palace,” Brutal said. “She couldn’t have gotten far.” They made plans, search patterns for the corridors, the city. Katya kept staring at Redtrue. There was more to this story. They just had to figure it out.
“The energy was still there, muted, but still there,” Redtrue mumbled.
“And you didn’t sense the capstone energy coming up into the palace,” Katya said.
Without sparing her a glance, Redtrue shook her head.
“We could get more allies from outside the wall,” Castelle said. “Count Mathias, the Allusian nomads. There’s no place Starbride can go that we can’t track her.”
“She’s still here,” Katya said.
“How do you know?” Dawnmother asked, and Katya realized she hadn’t leapt into planning with the others. She called for them to hush, and they crowded around.
“The energy from the capstone is still here,” Redtrue said. “I feel it more strongly now than when we were upstairs. It’s still down here.”
“But they weren’t in the tunnels,” Hugo said. “Where else could they…Oh, spirits.”
The dead city. Katya could see the thought cross all the faces like a river jumping its banks.
Maybe Starbride had intended for them to run around like headless chickens, searching the palace and the city. More likely, she’d gone below because she was looking for something. Katya closed her eyes and tried to keep the past from washing over her. Close, dark spaces; air filled with dust, clogging her nostrils and scraping her throat raw; and the tons of stone hanging over her head, waiting to fall and keep her in silence forever.
Just as when she’d inched out of the ground to freedom, a voice inside her said she couldn’t do it. No one could expect her to be so strong. Nightmares about her mother’s death had merged with tableaus of stone crushing the life out of her, her family and friends being swallowed by the hungry earth.
Katya’s eyes slid open. She’d feared being trapped underground with Yanchasa, but that had been her imagination running wild. Starbride suffered that very fate at this moment. “I have to,” she whispered, never mind the fear that wanted to root her to the spot. Whatever might happen below wasn’t the issue; she knew she’d die of shame if she stayed above.
She tried her best to shut off the squealing, fear-ridden part of her and gathered the adsnazi. Starbride had to have taken the new path down into the dead city. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Lead and we will follow,” Leafclever said.
Katya started away. She couldn’t talk about it too much or she feared she’d run, taken over by terror.
At the top of the path, a sloppy combination of stairs and slope, she didn’t pause but nearly leapt the length of it. Speed was her only ally now. It wasn’t until Redtrue hauled back on her arm that she even thought to listen to those around
her.
“There is a pyramid ahead,” Redtrue said, her tone betraying that she’d already said so more than once, and Katya had shut out her voice.
“Easy enough to cleanse,” Leafclever said.
As Redtrue called for him to wait, the floor of the tunnel blew upward, knocking Katya to the floor. This was it. Now she would fall again, or the stone would crash down around her, or she’d wake up in the dead city to find that she’d never left.
Brutal hauled her upright. Her ears rang, and she choked on dust. She grabbed hold of his wrist to keep from following the shrill voice in her mind and sprinting upward.
“It’s a special kind of pyramid,” Redtrue was yelling. “One designed to explode if you try to cleanse it.”
Katya coughed and tried to control her shaking. “How many more are there?”
“Two that will explode. Several that will not.” Redtrue frowned. “Those that won’t will hardly do anything.”
Something leapt through the swirling dust, over the trap pyramids. Katya ducked, pulling Brutal down with her. She heard the screams of those behind as a creature landed in their midst.
Katya caught a blast of cold wind and well-remembered dread. She was afraid to turn and see what she knew was behind her but forced herself. She glimpsed mottled skin and huge eyes.
How would they fight a wild Fiend without Ma’s Fiend to distract it? She began to call for Hugo to take his necklace off, but Vincent appeared before her.
He and the Fiend traded blows so quickly, Katya was afraid to blink. The Fiend scored a hit on Vincent’s thigh. Vincent’s sword carved a deep groove in the Fiend’s arm. It all happened in the space of a few breaths before warm light and the scent of summer rain flowed from the adsnazi.
The Fiend shrieked and turned away, but Vincent stood between it and escape. He sliced, backing it into the glow. Katya grinned as the thing slowed, hampered by adsnazi power. She stood to join the fight, but the creature tottered and melted into a pile of molten rock.
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