Fire in the Star

by Kamilla Benko

  Ravel grimaced. “They said they would, yes. I think we can thank the Camouflora for that. It’s keeping everyone safe tonight from another attack.” He gestured out to the fields, and Claire could just make out peaks of fabric and leaves. Woven Root was setting up their tents in a protective circle around Greenwood Village, settling as close to the Camouflora as possible to keep an eye on it. Here and there, Claire even saw a flash of copper as alchemists and their chimera patrolled the village borders.

  Sophie nodded. “Yes, we’ll come but …” She trailed off, looking in Sena and Nett’s direction. Suddenly, Ravel seemed aware of the still quilt next to them.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ravel said, and though his words were simple, Claire could feel their honesty. Nett seemed to as well, because he nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said. “If you could just help us carry him back inside, we can go.”

  “You don’t have to,” Claire said gently. Nett looked wilted, as though he needed some sunshine and water. “Sophie and I can do it.”

  “We do have to,” Sena said, and Claire was glad to hear fire in her friend’s voice, even if her expression still seemed lost. “And you have to bring that”—she looked meaningfully at the rag-covered bundle still in Claire’s arms—“and the others to Nadia. There’s nothing more important.”

  The inside of the Seed Cellar looked like a snail’s shell. Everything was gentle curves and circles, and the roots of the Hearing Hall directly above wove together to form a delicate lattice to stop the dirt ceiling from caving in on them. Here and there, roots dropped down to create sprawling chandeliers, with little tea-light candles perched comfortably in their bends and crooks. The overall effect was cozy—or it would have been, had the round table in the center of the cellar not been occupied by scowling adults.

  “This is absurd!” Grandmaster Bolt was shouting as Claire and her friends followed Ravel into the room from the dirt stairs. “Why should we believe anything a group of outlaws says?” The Forger grandmasters seated closest to him all nodded, their eyes as hard as the silver breastplates they still wore.

  “Because those alchemists—outlaws, as you call them—just saved all of you from crowning a fraudulent queen?” Scythe shot back. He looked even larger in the cramped curves of the cellar than he had in Fyrton. His hand was balled into a fist and his face was flushed, as though it was taking every ounce of will not to smack the table. “Stop being so stubborn, Bolt!”

  “Scythe, please,” Nadia said, rubbing her temples. Claire’s great-aunt sat at the top of the table. She was a small woman, hardly taller than Claire herself, but Nadia’s white hair fluffed out around her head, giving her a few more inches. Usually, she wore a haphazard wreath of leaves, wire, string, and gems, but tonight her wreath had been set aside in favor of the copper helmet that now rested by her elbow. Her expression seemed pained.

  “And Grandmaster Bolt, there’s no need to— Ah, children!” Nadia’s face brightened as Ravel nudged Claire and her friends forward. “They can help explain! Grandmasters, my nieces, Sophia and Claire Martinson, and their friends Nettle Green and Sena Steele.”

  If Grandmaster Bolt had seemed angered before, now he looked furious. “We’re supposed to believe the word of Sena Steele? The exile who not only illegally entered Fyrton twice but also stole the Tillers’ Unicorn Harp?” He shook his head as the other Forgers around him murmured their disapproval. “The Grand Council proclaimed her guilty just last month! This is preposterous!”

  A cat’s hiss resounded through the room, and a few tea lights snuffed out as Gryphin, previously tucked beneath Sena’s braid, launched himself at the Forger. It was only due to Scythe’s lightning-quick reflexes that Grandmaster Bolt kept both eyes.

  “What’s preposterous, Bolt,” Scythe said, trying to hold onto a squirming Gryphin, “is exiling a Forger with so much talent just because her father was a Tiller! It’s just as preposterous as trying to lock up Sylvia Steele, one of the best locksmiths Arden has ever seen.”

  Sena snapped her fingers, and Gryphin instantly stilled, though his rounded ears lay flush against his head in a lion’s sulk. He let out one last chirp, and Sena grinned.

  “He says he’s hungry, grandmaster,” Sena said, her voice dangerously polite. “And that you look delicious.”

  Nett looked positively horrified at what his sister had said, but Claire felt relieved. Though Sena always projected unrelenting confidence, Claire knew that when it came to the Forger guild, she was as sensitive as one of Sophie’s failed attempts at a soufflé. It seemed, however, that her training in Woven Root had soothed the sting of the Forger guild’s rejection.

  “Hmph,” Grandmaster Bolt said, far from appeased. But his eyes had landed on something even more offensive than Sena Steele: Thorn Barley, who’d just managed to squeeze through the door and into the crowded room.

  “What is the lackie princeling doing here?” Bolt demanded. “He could be spying for Estelle!”

  “No one here is lacking anything except for manners,” Sophie snapped, glaring at the grandmaster.

  Bolt glared right back. “And I suppose you’re going to tell us the same story Nadia and Scythe just did, a nonsense tale involving lost descendants of Prince Martin and a Spyden?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not,” Sophie said, grabbing Claire’s hand and pulling her forward. “She will. She’s the one who spoke to the Spyden, after all.” She gestured to Claire. As all eyes turned to Claire, she once again felt as she did before at the Tiller Council: confused and woefully out of place.

  “Sophie,” Claire whispered urgently, “I’m not the story-teller—you are!”

  “Go on, Claire,” Sophie whispered. “I believe in you.”

  Scythe pushed back his wooden chair and, standing up, gestured for Claire to take his spot next to Nadia. Reluctantly, Claire slid in and took her place at the circular table, while Sophie, Nett, Sena, and Thorn scooted so that they stood right behind her. Looking around, she realized she recognized many faces: the director of Needle Pointe, Grandmaster Bolt, General Scorcha, and Grandmaster Iris, as well as a few other Tillers, and alchemists from Woven Root. But still …

  “Where are the Gemmers?” Claire asked.

  “An excellent question,” a Tiller grandmaster with squinty eyes piped up.

  Nadia hastily spoke over her. “They’re fine, Claire, for now.” She pushed an untouched plate of snowdrop cookies toward Claire. They were shaped just like the little springtime flowers that sprang up in a unicorn’s hoofprints, but there was no way Claire could eat, not when it felt like her stomach was doing the polka.

  “According to my scouts,” Nadia continued, “shortly after you left Stonehaven, Jasper challenged Carnelian for the grandmastership. Jasper lost, though the Gemmering he threw at Carnelian was destructive enough to break Estelle’s Mesmerization on all of Stonehaven. Estelle, however, is furious that the Gemmers won’t join her, and so she’s sealed them behind the Everless Wall. Anyone currently in there can’t get out—and no one can get in.” A troubled expression darted across Aunt Nadia’s face. “Supplies, we suspect, are low.”

  “I’ve had enough of Gemmers,” Grandmaster Bolt growled, and the sound was so bearlike, Claire wondered for a second if it hadn’t come from the etched bear on his breastplate. “And I’ve almost had enough of this conversation, too. Scythe claims Nadia needs to be crowned, but with three of the four tines most likely destroyed in the magical earthquake, that question appears moot.”

  “Actually,” Sophie said, and Claire felt the warm press of her sister’s hands on her shoulders, “it’s not. Claire?”

  As carefully as though she were unwrapping a precious oil painting, Claire pulled the rags away from the bundle she held. Gasps filled the pine-scented space as the Spinners’ Love Knot, Tillers’ Oak Leaf, and Gemmers’ Stone tines glittered in the chandelier’s tea lights.

  Bolt seemed at a loss for words, his mustache framing a round O of surprise. Reaching behind his breastplate
, he pulled out the fourth and final tine: the Hammer. But he did not put it with the others. He gripped it in his vice-like fist.

  “All right,” the Spinner director said, tilting his head at Claire. His splendid white velvet doublet and matching cape had somehow managed to survive the queen’s attack unscathed, but his white-blonde hair still looked a bit like an exploded firework. “You have our attention. I would like to hear what this girl has to say because, if I’m not so mistaken, she and I have met before, yes?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “In the Historium?”

  “Er, yes,” Claire said with a blush. “That’s right.”

  “Then tell, why do we need to crown Nadia?”

  Nerves swept through her again, but Sophie placed a hand on her shoulder, and it felt for a moment like Sophie had adjusted her sails, keeping Claire upright. They were so close to completing the Crown of Arden! Just one more explanation, and Nadia could become queen.

  The pressure pushed on Claire’s stomach, but the fire crackled as though it were cheering her on. Claire took a deep breath and began. “I had never seen a ladder in a fireplace …”

  Slowly, she told them everything, the truth behind Queen Estelle and her brother, Prince Martin, and who she, Sophie, and Nadia were to him. She told her story, all of it, letting the secrets unspool from her. With each one she cast off, she felt lighter. She only held one thing back: that Sophie was a unicorn.

  Finally, she told them about her arrival in Needle Pointe and how the Spyden had told her that the only way to stop Estelle was with another queen, and what Estelle wanted: to make her wraith army able to withstand the sun.

  Horrified gasps erupted around the table.

  “If we are going to stop Estelle and the wraiths from taking over,” Claire said, raising her voice and keeping her eyes on the tines, which in the candlelight seemed more like broken off bits of darkest seawater than points on a crown, “Nadia must be made queen.”

  Silence filled the Seed Cellar, and Claire wondered if she had done enough.

  “One thing I don’t understand, though,” a Tiller grandmaster said slowly. “Is why it must be Nadia who is crowned. Why can’t it be, for instance, me? Or General Scorcha or Grandmaster Bobbin?”

  “I, well,” Claire said, flustered. She’d been so focused on what she must do, she hadn’t given much thought to the why. So she said the first thing that came to her mind. “Because Nadia is the oldest d’Astora. She’s the heir!”

  Immediately, Claire knew she’d said something wrong. The Grandmasters began to whisper among themselves, and the sound was like angry hornets.

  “A fancy name and royal blood is not a good enough reason,” Grandmaster Bolt snarled.

  “But they were when Estelle showed up?” Sophie demanded. Her fingers, which she’d been resting on Claire’s shoulders, now dug into Claire’s skin with a painful squeeze.

  Bolt looked down at Sophie with distaste. “We asked Estelle to prove herself. She promised us a unicorn.”

  Sophie opened her mouth and for one terrible moment, Claire thought Sophie was going to do something brave and foolish and very, very rash. But then, she looked at Claire and took a deep breath. “But Mayor Nadia has proven herself,” Sophie said, her voice quiet. “Unlike the rest of you, Mayor Nadia has led a coalition of jumbled magic peacefully for years.”

  “And,” Nett said, his usually bright voice dark with annoyance, “she’s overseen magic the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the days of King Anders the First!”

  “Under her leadership, the chimera are even waking up again,” Sena pointed out.

  The murmurs around them grew, and Claire sucked in her breath. Had they done it? Did everyone believe them?

  “You’re very convincing,” the director said, looking at Claire. “A talented storyteller, for a Gemmer … but we have no reason to believe you.” He reached across the table and plucked the Love Knot Tine from the middle of it. To Claire’s dismay, more heads nodded in the cellar. For once, the Forgers, Tillers, and Spinners were all in agreement—and they were all in agreement against her, her friends, and Nadia.

  General Scorcha nodded. “We have no need of queens, or royal blood.” She stood up from the table, her head narrowly missing a chandelier root. “Whatever strangeness is afoot, the Forgers will face it as Forgers always do: alone. We’ll leave as soon as the sun rises and the wraiths clear.”

  Grandmaster Bolt put the Hammer Tine back beneath his breastplate, and then the grandmasters from the other guilds stood up as well. A Tiller Grandmaster picked up the Oak Leaf Tine. Now only one tine gleamed on the table.

  “No, wait!” Claire said, her voice lost among the scraping of the chairs as the tines seemed to blow away as easily as dry leaves. Tears pricked her eyes. “Please! You can debate this matter until the moon falls out of the sky, but it doesn’t change what is true. Believe us or not, ignore us or not, it doesn’t change the Spyden’s words. Only a queen can defeat a queen. Without a queen of our own, we will lose, because Estelle is from the legends. She does control the wraiths. And she will attack again.”

  The grandmasters paused, and Sophie stepped forward. “Will you give yourselves a chance to save your home?” she demanded. “You’ve already lost magic! You’ve already lost unicorns. Do you want to lose Arden forever?”

  Claire knew they had heard her sister. She was right there! But it was as though Sophie was painted with Invis-Ability and the Forgers were wearing Lyric’s earmuff braids. The guilds continued to march out of the cellar and Claire—Claire had failed to convince them. She stared at the empty spot next to the snowdrop cookies where three of the tines had gleamed only moments ago.

  “It’s all right, girls,” Nadia whispered. “You tried. And who knows? Perhaps the Spyden’s words have another way of coming true.”

  But Claire wasn’t listening. She kept staring at the plate of flower-shaped cookies as a memory surfaced. A memory of white blossoms growing among the autumn leaves, right below strands of silver caught in a higher bush.

  “Grandmasters!” Claire called out one final time. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. “What if we showed you the last unicorn—the one from Unicorn Rock, not a Spyden silk illusion—would you believe us then? Would you crown Nadia?”

  Grandmaster Bolt and General Scorcha exchanged a Look. “If you can show us a real, true unicorn—proof of your story,” the general said, “then, yes. The Forgers will pledge our tine to Nadia.”

  “The Spinners, too,” the director added thoughtfully, and the Tillers joined in a chorus of quiet agreement.

  “By daybreak, then,” General Scorcha said with a sharp nod. “If you can bring and show us the real unicorn by daybreak, we’ll crown Nadia. Otherwise, we leave for our war, got it?”

  “But dawn’s only an hour away!” Sophie protested.

  “Then, you best get moving,” General Scorcha said and marched toward the dirt stairs and out of the cellar.

  As soon as the grandmasters had cleared out of the cellar, Sophie whirled on Claire.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, worry scrunching up her face. “Do you actually know where the unicorn is?”

  Claire shook her head, but she wasn’t sure if Sophie saw, as she had already grabbed the Stone Tine and was running to the stairs. “I don’t,” she called back. “But I think I know where the unicorn was. Come on, follow me! We don’t have much time.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  “All right,” Nett said as they hurried into their Woven Root tent, constructed only a few feet away from the Hearing Hall. “Spill. What do you mean you know where the unicorn was?”

  With a twist of his marimo, he sent its pearly light across the room, revealing four swinging hammocks, a tree stump table, and a beautiful rug with fringe that changed color with the seasons. The light also illuminated the confused expression on Sena’s face and the shocked one on Sophie’s.

  The two of them and Nett had followed Claire out of the Seed Cellar, but Na
dia and Thorn had remained, so that the alchemists could ask him questions about Estelle and her followers. Without a fully forged crown and the support of the guilds, they would need to scrape for every advantage.

  “We have to go,” Claire said, opening up her Hollow Pack and throwing in a spare blanket. It was definitely getting colder at night. She also grabbed a warmer pair of boots and a few loose sheets of paper. The Stone Tine was a heavy weight in her tunic pocket.

  “Hang on,” Sophie said, gently placing her hand on top of the bag. “Before you put everything in your pack, tell us what you’re thinking. Where do you think the unicorn was?”

  “Woven Root,” Claire said, triumphantly. “I mean, where Woven Root was, when we first found Nadia and the others!”

  She expected her friends to cheer, but instead, they only looked at her worriedly.

  “Claire,” Sophie said, in an overly gentle voice, as though she were pretending to be Mom. “A unicorn wasn’t in Woven Root.”

  Claire let her pack slide to the floor. She knew there would be no way to make Sophie budge until she understood.

  “There was,” Claire said, putting every ounce of confidence she could into her voice. “Do you remember the night we tried to break into the chimera stable and escape?”

  Sophie and Nett nodded. Sena didn’t, however, as she’d spent that particular night in the cells of Drowning Fortress, waiting for her execution, not knowing that they were on their way to rescue her.

  “It was the Tiller snowdrop cookies that reminded me,” Claire said, taking care to say her words clearly even though she wanted to shout them as fast as she could and then ride off on a chimera to the old campsite. “When we were sneaking out, I saw snowdrops under a bush, right under some unicorn mane that had gotten stuck in the branches.”

  “Claire,” Sophie groaned, burying her face in her palms, though her fingers couldn’t hide her pink cheeks. “I already confessed that I made up the unicorn following us. You know that. The ‘mane’ was just the silver thread from my Gemmer dress to, you know …” She hesitated. “Convince you.”