by Morgan Rice
“Whoever I am?” the man said. “Look at me closely.”
The Master of Crows did so, and realized just who he was speaking to. He had seen this face before, albeit with hair, and usually only for brief periods before his crows had been killed.
“Endi Skydar,” he said. “You have taken an even greater risk than I thought. You should speak quickly. Why should I let you live?”
“I hear that you have a problem,” Endi said. “You have run into an issue with magic that you cannot fathom. I have run into my own problem: I and my men have nowhere to go. Perhaps we can help one another.”
“And how can we help one another?” the Master of Crows asked. “You are not your brother Oli, to know the history of such things. And you are a Skydar; one of my enemies.”
“I was a Skydar,” Endi said. “Now I have no name. As for what I know, secrets and hidden things were my business. It might be that I heard about a man who was asked to give advice on a magical matter. It might be that when my cousins turned out to have power, I looked into ways of countering such things.”
“So, what are you asking?” the Master of Crows demanded.
“You give me and my men an honored place in your kingdom, and your army,” Endi said. “In return, I will provide you with a ritual that will weaken the walls of Stonehome, and any other magic they put before you.”
That would give the Master of Crows access to the town. It would give him Sophia’s daughter. With that much power in his hands, he could afford to be generous.
“Very well,” he said. “You have a deal. Fail me though, and I will kill you and all your men.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sophia stared at the city beyond the door, beyond the normal spaces of the world. Sienne pressed up against her leg, while Lucas and Kate flanked her to either side. Sophia didn’t know what to make of the city that lay there, even though she had seen it before in visions. The city was radiant, rainbow colored in parts and golden in others. People, tall and elegant, walked through the streets, dressed in radiant gowns and golden suits of clothes.
It was all beautiful, but none of it was what Sophia had come to the city to find. None of it was the reason she had left her daughter, her husband and her kingdom to trek across the sea and the desert, past the city of Morgassa and out into the wastelands. She’d done that to find her parents.
And then, there they were.
They stood on the street in a clear space between the others there, looking up at the doorway Sophia and the others had just passed through. They were older than they looked in her memories, but so much time had passed since then, could it really be any other way? More importantly, they still looked like them. Her father leant on a stick now, but he was still tall and strong looking. Her mother still had the same red hair, although it was shot through with grey now, and she still looked like the most beautiful woman in the world to Sophia.
She ran forward without even thinking about it, and wasn’t surprised to find Kate and Lucas running forward with her. Her arms closed around her mother and father, and the others joined the hug, until it felt as though they were all one big mass in the middle of the street there.
“We found you,” she said, barely able to believe it. “We actually found you.”
“You did, darling,” her mother said, holding her close. “And you had to go through such a lot to do it.”
“You know about that?” Sophia said, stepping back.
“You aren’t the only one in the family who sees things,” her mother said with a smile. “It is why we left the path as we did for you.”
Sophia could feel how worried that made Kate feel.
“You saw all of it, but you weren’t there?” Kate asked.
“Kate-” Sophia began, but her father answered before she could go on.
“We would have been there if we could, Kate,” he said. “You have suffered, all of you, and we would have stopped every moment of that suffering if we could have done. We would have brought you with us… we would have given you a perfect life if we could.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Sophia asked. She thought of the orphanage, and of everything that happened in the wake of the attack on their home. “Why didn’t you?”
“We do owe you an explanation,” their mother said, “and there are things that we have to tell you, but not here, in the street. Come with us, all of you.”
She and their father led the way off the street, the crowds there parting as if in respect, or perhaps the way that a crowd might have kept back from someone sick. Sophia and the others followed them to a large house with carvings on the outside that seemed to ripple in the sunlight. There was no door, as if people here didn’t fear the possibility of thieves, only a kind of curtain to keep out the wind.
Inside, their parents led the way to a room whose floor seemed to be a larger metal version of the disc map that Sophia and the others had followed to get there. Its lines glowed with every step they took upon the floor. A large, low table sat at the center of the room, with chairs set around it. There was a divan on which their mother and father sat together, a camp chair that Kate took without pause, an odd looking carved stool that Lucian smiled at for a moment before sitting on it cross legged, and a deep, comfortable looking chair with a rug in front of it that Sienne curled up on, waiting for Sophia to sit down too.
She did so, and a large woman in the same radiant clothes came out from a side door, bringing food and water. Again, Sophia had the feeling that the food had been prepared specifically for each of them. Lucas got a kind of fish dish, Kate a kind of hearty stew, Sophia a delicate dish that reminded her of the things prepared in the palace of Ashton.
“It’s like you know us better than we know ourselves,” Sophia said. A horrible thought came to her. “This is real, isn’t it? It isn’t some fever dream while we’re all dying in the desert? It isn’t some new kind of test?”
“It isn’t any of that,” their mother assured her. “We wouldn’t even have subjected you to the first test, except that the door requires it. We live here, but we do not control this place.”
“We had to pass through that damn door just the same way,” their father said. “For me, the guardian sounded just like my old tutor, Valensis.”
“It made us choose who would die,” Kate said.
Their father nodded. “The lost city does not admit those who will not put love first.”
“At least not through that door,” their mother said. “And you’ll note that your father does not say quite how long we were in those blasted prisons before we made our choices. But that is not what you want to hear from us. We should tell you why we did not come for you.”
“We couldn’t,” their father said.
“Because the Dowager would have killed you if you had been in one place?” Lucas asked.
“Yes,” their mother said, “but not in the way you think. That night… she had so many people killed, but she did something worse with us. She tried to break the connection that makes us who we are. She tried to poison our connection to the land. She tried to destroy the thing that makes us who we are.”
“I’ve felt it,” Sophia admitted. “It’s like… everything in the land is there for me to touch, and I can draw power from it if I need to.”
Kate chimed in then. “Siobhan had an old sorcerer teach me that all magic is about moving power. He taught me to heal by giving people power, and to kill by stealing it. I’ve felt that connection too. It’s the same thing on a huge scale.”
“It’s the same, and not the same,” their father said. “Some of those with magic understand it, and some of them use it to prolong their lives. An old creature like Siobhan had power because of it. A thing like the Master of Crows has power because of it. They have their connections: Siobhan to her fountain, the Master to his crows. For us, it is different: we are connected to our land and our people. We balance it and we touch upon it, but we must be careful not to take too much from it, not to damage it.”
Sophia had felt that when she had been connected to the land: she had felt the fragility of those connections, and how easy it might be to do damage to them.
“I don’t understand,” Lucas said. “How could the Dowager poison that link when she had no magic? And why doesn’t it affect us?”
“She got another to do it,” their father said. “It took a lot of time and effort to hunt him down and try to make him undo what he did. As for why it does not affect you, I think it was just aimed at us. I am grateful to all the old gods that it hasn’t touched any of you.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t come to get us,” Kate said.
“Oh, Kate, my darling child,” their mother said, standing and going across to Kate so that she could hug her. “We couldn’t take you with us, and then we lost you for so long. Even we didn’t know where you were hidden, not after you and your nurse didn’t make it to the friends who were to smuggle you out.”
“After that, we couldn’t come back to look,” their father said. “The further we stayed from our land, the more slowly the poison progressed. It gave us time to look for an antidote, but meant we couldn’t come back for you.”
“And there was more. You have seen the future, Sophia. So have you, Lucas.” She made a statement of it, not a question. “You have seen things that will happen, could happen, might happen.”
“Siobhan talked about possibilities,” Kate said.
Sophia saw their mother nod.
“Possibilities, affected by the barest touch,” their mother said. “When Alfred and I argued about going back for you, I saw… I saw the world in ruins, land after land in flames. I saw us dying before we ever found you. When we decided to hold back, I saw the potential for a return to beauty and to peace. I saw you, Sophia, and I saw beyond you…”
Sophia swallowed as she thought about her daughter, Violet, and the visions she’d had of her. She’d seen the possibility of an age of unparalleled peace, and the possibility of something far darker. She’d changed the name she might have given to her daughter just to avoid the second. Could she blame her parents for their own hand on the scales of fate?
“So you left us?” Kate demanded, obviously not as willing to forgive it.
“I wish I could have been there with you,” their mother said. “I wish I could have taught you about magic instead of… her. We had so little time though, and we did not dare to leave the city…”
“So that the Dowager wouldn’t find you?” Kate asked.
It isn’t cowardice to want to avoid a fight, Kate, Sophia sent over to her.
It feels like it to me, Kate shot back.
“It wasn’t cowardice, Kate,” their mother said, and Sophia smiled at the thought that of course their mother would share their talents. “It was the only way that we would get to see you all. The disc… the waiting… do you think I wanted to do that, instead of just reaching out to you and bringing you to us?”
“Then why didn’t you come when Sophia sent out messengers looking for you?” Kate asked. “Lucas came to us.”
“We couldn’t,” their father said. “We couldn’t leave this city.”
“Why not?” Sophia asked.
“The poison,” he said. “Being in a place like this, cut off from the world, was the only way to slow the effects enough to see you. It was the only way to get to tell you all the things you needed to know.”
Sophia swallowed at the thought of that, of her parents having to run not just from the kingdom but from the world to survive. Then one of her father’s words caught in her mind.
“Wait, you said that it slowed the poison being here. Not stopped it?”
“No, my darling,” their mother said. “The poison is still in us, and still working to kill us. Even the brief moment of connection to the world through the doorway sped it up. I wish… I wish for so many things, but there is no time for any of them. Your father and I… we are dying.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sebastian tried to hide his frustration as he talked to Asha and Vincente. Of course, when they could both read his mind, hiding anything wasn’t easy.
“The refugees can’t just stay in tents forever,” he said.
“It isn’t forever,” Vincente said. “Just until the army that threatens us is out of the way.”
“And if they don’t like it,” Asha said, “they can always go back out to face them. They aren’t the ones maintaining a shield around Stonehome. They aren’t the ones hunting down attackers. They should be grateful.”
Grateful to be stuck in tents. Grateful to have lost their homes and their loved ones. Grateful that they had to ask for help.
“That’s not what I mean,” Asha said, and once again, it was obvious that she was deep inside his thoughts.
Sebastian looked over to where Emeline sat with Cora, his daughter Violet cradled in Cora’s arms. Cora seemed happy with her there, and Sebastian was grateful for that, because he’d seen how hurt she was in the wake of Aidan’s death.
“Emeline, can you help me?” he asked. “Asha is looking into my thoughts.”
Emeline came over, giving Stonehome’s co-leader an unfriendly look. Sebastian felt something settle around his mind like a cloak, and he guessed that she’d blocked Asha out.
“I could break through that block,” Asha said.
Emeline smiled tightly. “No you couldn’t, and if you had any manners, there would be no need for it.”
“Why would people want to hide their thoughts if they’re not thinking anything wrong?” Asha countered, but she sounded as if her heart wasn’t in it.
“We are finding whatever spaces we can for people,” Vincente said. “You are our king, Sebastian.”
Asha looked at him with obvious surprise, and Sebastian had the sense of a silent conversation taking place between the two. Emeline supplied the content of it for him.
“Asha is claiming that Sophia might be their queen, but you are the Dowager’s son, and she cannot follow you. She says that they both know that Violet is their real queen.”
Emeline smirked as Asha glared over at her.
“I won’t be embarrassed by it,” she said. “Princess Violet is one of us. She belongs here, and will be a great queen.”
“One day,” Sebastian agreed. He didn’t like the way Asha said it though. She made it sound as though he and Sophia didn’t matter; as though they existed just to bring Violet into the world.
“Sebastian is our king,” Vincente said aloud. “Sophia is our queen, and Stonehome supports the crown. They will create a world where we can live, Asha.”
“They don’t even have a world where they can live,” Asha said, gesturing to the tents. “We saved them, but they complain. ‘We only have tents’, ‘why isn’t there more food?’, ‘what if they’re reading my thoughts?’ We exhaust ourselves to protect them, and they wonder when we will turn on them.”
“It will take time, Asha,” Emeline said. “It will only take-”
Sebastian saw her freeze in place, her eyes unfocussed and looking past him. Sebastian knew what that meant: she was seeing something well beyond the confines of the hidden town.
“What is it?” Sebastian said when he saw Emeline blink her way back to herself . “What did you see, Emeline?”
“It isn’t safe here,” Emeline said. “I saw… I saw the shields falling. I saw the New Army sweeping in.”
“Impossible,” Vincente said. “The shields are unbreakable. We turned back the enemy easily last time.”
“I saw it,” Emeline insisted. When she focused on Sebastian, he could see how serious she was about this. “We have to get Violet out of here.”
Sebastian blinked at that, but he could only agree with her. If the Master of Crows was going to get into Stonehome, then he needed to get Violet out of here. They all needed to get out of here.
“But you can’t take Violet,” Asha said. “She’s one of us!”
Sebastian turned to her, surprised by the suddenly protecti
ve note. “Violet is my daughter,” he said. “And I will not put her in danger.”
He saw Asha shake her head. “She’s not in danger. Vincente is right. No one could get into Stonehome.”
“I saw it happening!” Emeline countered.
“Where could we take her?” Sebastian asked. If they could make it to the coast, then maybe they could get to Ishjemme, but that would mean abandoning the kingdom that they had only just won. They would lose it before Sophia could even get back to it.
“There’s barely anywhere as strong as here,” Vincente said. “The only place that might be stronger would be Monthys back in the day when its defenses actually stood and Monthys has fallen.”
“Which means that the enemy aren’t there now,” Emeline pointed out.
“It still wouldn’t be strong,” Vincente said. “In the days before the civil wars, it had layers of magic and stone, but now…”
Sebastian had heard from Sophia what it was like now, damaged, almost ruined. Ulf and Frig had gone up to try to rebuild it, but they were dead now, killed by the Master of Crows. The New Army had probably passed it by, but to think of it as a safe place would be madness.
“Monthys will draw people,” Emeline said. “And the bones of the magical defenses will still be there. They can be reactivated.”
“We have magical defenses here,” Asha insisted. “Violet is the whole reason that we allowed you to come here.”
“Not the whole reason,” Vincente said.
Asha gave him a sharp look, and Sebastian had the feeling that this was an argument between them. He was more interested in what Asha had said.
“You only took in the refugees because of my daughter? Because of some flash of vision that you’ve seen?”
Asha seemed defiant. “Not just that I’ve seen. Everyone who catches flashes of the future has seen the queen to come. You can’t deny that.”
“My daughter will choose her own future,” Sebastian said. “I will do whatever I have to do to keep her safe, and to give her those choices. I’ll fight for that, if I have to. Don’t forget that, Asha.”
