Riot of Storm and Smoke

by Jennifer Ellision

  We’ll have to fight.

  Aleta reaches the conclusion at the same time, and her fingertips radiate heat at my side. I swallow, not ready to try summoning water from the air again so soon. I haven’t slept, and I’m beginning to waver on my feet from my last effort. Tregle cups a flame in the palm of his hand, stepping in front of us determinedly.

  Clift raises his eyebrow. “So that’s the state of it, then? You’re truant Elementals.” He waves a hand toward Tregle. “Put that away, lad. You won’t have a need for it now.”

  Clift jerks his head. “Meddie?” The girl has been frantically flitting about the cellar, rolling up maps, folding leaves of parchment into books, and collecting small silver coins into a jingling purse.

  She sidesteps Tregle, who hasn’t yet doused his flame, to push her collection into my arms. Clift moves a heavy barrel aside to reveal a dark handle. A trapdoor?

  “It’s cramped,” he says. “And you’ll be right shoved up against each other with all of the other things I need to throw down there.”

  He crouches to lift the handle, and Tregle’s fire casts the wooden carving on the door into stark relief.

  It’s a hand. A hand with an etching on each finger: the four elements and a heart. A twisted sound issues from my throat, and I grab Aleta’s too-hot arm.

  “Bree? What is it?”

  That symbol. I can’t take my eyes off of it.

  It hangs as a pendant about my neck.

  Clift pauses to look back at me, but my eyes are locked on the door. Aleta follows my gaze, and I know the instant she sees the mark. She sucks in a shocked gasp as she recognizes it. “Where did that symbol come from?”

  A clatter stalls Clift’s answer. He hisses. “No time for that.” With a heave, the door is lifted. “Get in.”

  I clamp my jaw shut. The pit is dark, but Aleta and Tregle will have enough light for us once we’re inside. Grabbing the first rung of the ladder, I descend, Aleta and Tregle just behind me.

  “Don’t go helping yourself to a drink, you lot!” Clift bellows upstairs, sounding just as cheery as he had upon greeting us. “We charge for that sort of thing, you know.”

  Above us, Meddie scrambles to close the door. It falls with a wallop, and we’re plunged into darkness before we hear the scrape of the barrel being slid back into place.

  I’ve barely taken a breath before Aleta wordlessly holds her hands high, sending light flooding into the small pit. I shrink back. We’re squashed together so tightly that there is barely room to breathe, let alone sit. Aleta’s sharp elbow gouges into my arm. She and Tregle are pressed together, chest to chest. Both of their cheeks are flushed as they keep their eyes up resolutely.

  I let myself have moment of private amusement—my cheeks are hot from the temperature of the fire. But Torcher fire doesn’t heat a Torcher.

  And speaking of Torcher fire... The flame etched onto the trapdoor over our heads flashes in my mind. I’m sure it’s the same as Da’s medallion, along with the representations of the other elements. First, the symbol had opened the chamber where Aleta, Tregle, Caden, and I met to discuss our plans to undermine the king’s plots and now I find it on a barkeep’s cellar door? Coincidence after coincidence, but what does it all mean? I contemplate it in silence as we listen to Clift’s heavy footsteps, followed by Meddie’s lighter ones.

  Their words in the pub don’t reach us, but their voices do. We hear raised, angry demands. Clift’s low tones, joking, trying to smooth over whatever the situation is.

  Then the sound of a stampede as they flood into the cellar. Armor clanks. Commands are shouted. I hear tearing, crates crashing, broken on the ground. Barrels screech across the floor, and I bite down on my knuckle to keep a terrified exhalation from escaping. What if they move the barrel that hides us?

  When a set of footsteps approaches, I’m sure we’re done for.

  “Can I get you all something to drink?” Meddie’s voice is stifled by the layer of wood that separates us. She sounds nervous. Or do I hear that because I expect to? Whatever the case, I just hope that the guards don’t hear it.

  “Your mouth could be better served without disturbing us, wench,” one of the men growls.

  There’s the soft clap of a hand against metal armor. “I’d say your mind could be better served,” Meddie bites out, “but it looks like it’s just the right fit for this mindless task.”

  Oh, I like her.

  A resounding crash and a cry echo above us.

  Aleta’s hands fly to her mouth. Far from looking dismayed, she looks furious. The flames glowing at her hands and lips make her head appear to be lit with the force of her rage.

  At long last, the guards finish their search and leave, but it’s some time before we hear the slow footsteps of Clift as he descends the steps. There’s indistinct murmuring, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I recognize Meddie’s voice. She’s all right. Knocked around a bit—but all right.

  Clift raises the pit’s door. His big face is wan, his caterpillar eyebrows drawn. “The king wants you more than you let on.”

  I nod and press my lips together in a grim smile. “I’ll take that drink now.”

  With a trickle of tamped-down panic, I watch Bree and Aleta go. I’m alone against my father in the castle now. And he’ll stop at nothing to get them back. He’ll turn Egria upside-down searching for them. When it comes to Nereidium, he’s a spoiled child demanding a toy. But I fear his temper tantrums far more than a child sulking in a corner.

  Between the Fire Torching and Water Throwing they have at their disposal, I hope they’ll be well protected. Bree’s Throwing is certainly a force to be reckoned with. I spare a thought for Lady Katerine’s corpse, lying bloated and soaked on the sodden carpet in the chambers Bree and Aleta had shared—obviously Bree’s doing.

  I leave Katerine behind when I slip from the room. The guards left her undisturbed when they searched the room, and it’s easy to see why. The woman’s eyes had always been like ice, but her glassy stare is particularly disconcerting now.

  There’s no time for me to remove her body anyway, not after exhausting the precious bit of time I did have moving Duke Ardin’s body and funding my friends’ escape.

  It would have seemed wrong anyway, I reason. It wouldn’t be right to drag her into the same tunnel with the man she’d killed. Bree’s father is gone. He and Lady Katerine had clashed plenty enough in life; their spirits don’t need to continue their battle in the Great Beyond.

  I wonder if Father knows they’re dead yet.

  My pace quickens as I put as much space between myself and the girls’ suite as possible. Men and women jog through the halls, gossiping, searching, some simply leaning curiously out of their rooms. A scandalized gasp comes from a nearby doorway, and a shirtless fellow with his breeches half-done bolts through it. With all this chaos surrounding the search, more than one affair will be brought to light tonight as every room in the palace is inspected.

  The city watch must be mobilizing by now as well. Men from the day shift will be pulled from their beds to assist in the hunt.

  Please, I think. I hurtle around a corner, nearly back to my chamber. Please let them make it to Clift before the watch finds them.

  My friends would put up a fight, I’m sure. But within the walls, where my father’s men dwell like a thick bramble…they’d fail.

  And failure would mean—I can hardly bear to think of it. Adept Tregle would be executed without any sort of overture, but my father wouldn’t kill Bree or Aleta. They’re far too valuable.

  Besides, he’d want to see them suffer.

  For the first time in recent memory, I feel truly alone in the castle. Bree had been a welcome spot of honesty, someone who could be trusted to let me know in no uncertain terms how she felt. The fleeting memory of lips pressed against mine, arms wound around my neck assaults me.

  Even before Bree had arrived at the capital, I’d had an ally and friend in Aleta, someone else who understood exactly what my father
was like, who had seen him descend further and further into madness as years passed. Together, we’d pressed back against him in secret, getting others to safety, convincing him to stay his hand in the war.

  And through my efforts with Aleta, I’d stumbled upon the Underground movement. The rebel group works in secret against my father, and I’d been sneaking out of the castle to meet with them for years. Progress there was frustrating—middling to nonexistent.

  But when Bree and Adept Tregle had joined us, we’d had something to use against my father, and finally, finally, we were making progress. Now, though, I must persist alone. I’ll be watched too closely to make contact with any allies. I’ll be cut off from the Underground, and my friends are gone.

  However reluctant I am to lose their company, I do trust them to Clift’s keeping. He’s high in this sect of the Underground, and he has the connections to get them out of the city. I hope.

  So very much hinges on hope right now. A war, my friends, my allies…and Bree. She’s something more than a friend. More than an ally. But she’s someone I could lose too easily. Everything depends on staying a step ahead of my father.

  For the moment, though, my mind must be focused on the present. I need to get back to my bedchamber, to pretend ignorance and dispassion of the night’s events when my father inevitably—

  “Where. Is. He?” My father’s roar tunnels through the halls, and my heartbeat leaps into my throat. I swallow it back down. He’s close. I pause in my stride, debating. Is it better to face him now or later?

  “Caden!” echoes from the next corridor and the edge of my father’s cape flicks around the corner.

  Now, I decide. Now will have to do.

  Father stalks toward me like a powerful carnivore, muscles coiled and ready to strike, his arms fisted at his sides.

  “Father,” I say, painting my tone with surprise. “I was just heading to my chambers.” I feign a yawn and stretch, blinking widely. “Must rest up for the big wedding. But the castle’s in chaos.” I pause for dramatic effect. “What in Egria’s green pastures is going on?”

  Stars pirouette across my vision as my father casually backhands me. My cheek throbs and my arms flap as I stumble, windmilling back before righting myself like a pendulum swinging forward.

  Father nods as I recover. “Take him.”

  The guards seize me by the arms.

  “Perhaps you think me a fool,” he says. “I’ve seen your friendship with the girl. Lady Breena and her father are missing, and so is your bride. And Lady Katerine is dead.” He does know, then. But they haven’t found Duke Ardin, which means he hasn’t determined how they escaped. He doesn’t know for certain that they’ve left the grounds. And if he gives his guards even a bit of misdirection—that they think they’re looking for Ardin with two girls—it may save them. I look coolly back at him, and he grabs my chin, thumb grinding into my skin. “Answer me.”

  “I await a question, Your Majesty.” My jaw clenches, and my breath hisses out between my lips.

  “Where have they gone, Caden?” The soft flesh of my cheek is ground savagely into my teeth. I try not to blink as the pinching makes my eyes prickle.

  “I don’t know.”

  If the castle could shudder at the bellow my father unleashes in that moment, I have no doubt that it would.

  His eyes drill into mine, but I hold them stubbornly. I will not yield. I already know what my father thinks of me. He thinks I’m weak because I prefer my time devoted to learning and only spend what time is strictly necessary in training for combat.

  Useless at the front, I’ve heard him say. But he plays to his strengths. He learns and strategizes. He’s a commander—a king—but not a soldier.

  I strategize as quickly as I can while my position with my father dissolves like quicksand beneath my feet, but I arrive at no conclusion. I can see no route out. No course that will allow me to remain in his good graces without betraying my friends.

  Some strategist I’ve turned out to be.

  Father’s eyes grow wide. “You dare to defy me?” he whispers.

  I let the silence speak for me emphatically: I dare.

  His laughter crackles—lightning shooting through the hall. He palms my face, shoving it back so that it thumps lightly onto the wall. He gives another nod to his guards.

  They hesitate, exchanging a glance, weapons shifting in their hands. “Sire.” One is bold enough to try reasoning with him. “He is our prince.”

  “And I am your king,” he reminds them dangerously. “My son has grown too secure in his station. He needs to be reminded of his place. Of his responsibilities to the crown.” He lowers his face to mine, and his breath wafts over me, fanning the curls at my brow. “You’re my heir, boy,” he whispers. “But that doesn’t make you invincible.”

  This time when he nods, the guards heft me beneath the shoulders and drag me away. Any hopes I’d retained for my father’s redemption vanish in that moment. Distance makes him grow smaller as I’m hauled down the corridor.

  Until finally—as father or enemy—I simply can’t see him anymore.

  Despite Clift’s initial reluctance to shut The Soused Turkey down for the afternoon, when we go upstairs, Meddie slams the door, and together, she and Clift nail a “Closed” sign outside so that we can hold a conference of sorts.

  I don’t know where to start. He knows that we’re Elementals now—at least…that he knows that Tregle and Aleta are. He’s probably assumed that I’m another Fire Torcher. But he doesn’t know the rest of our story. He doesn’t know why we’re running or how we know “Rick.”

  But we’re in the dark as well. We don’t know what his Underground is. Or why he has the informal symbol of our tiny rebellion scrawled on his cellar floor. We don’t know what to trust him with or what to reveal.

  The air is thick with secrets and caution.

  For my part, I’d prefer not to tell him much of anything—or I’d rather we lie about it. Falsehoods on my tongue are becoming fluid. I’m practically adept. I’m not sure if it’s to protect Clift from the truth of things should the king get wind of our location or to prevent him from betraying us.

  Meddie sprawls across a bench, having flopped onto it after she hung the sign. A slab of meat is pressed to her eye, the raw juices running pink over her cheek. A smear of blood mars her lip, and her arm hangs at an unnatural angle.

  “Are you well?” Tregle asks. He looks concerned as he settles into a chair.

  I should have thought to ask it myself during my mental inventory of her wounds, but they looked largely superficial. I was sure she’d be—

  “Fine.” She keeps her answer short, pressing the cut of meat to her eyes so hard that a fresh gush oozes from the steak.

  “Near as I can tell, they saw her from behind and thought she was you,” Clift says softly, nodding toward me. He watches us as he speaks, wary, calculating. Entirely too observant. “They were quick in getting to her. Snapped her arm near in two to keep her from doing…well, something. You wouldn’t happen to know what that could be, would you?”

  I start guiltily. Her hair length and color do match mine in this lighting. The city watch must have instructions to keep me from gaining the upper hand, but I doubt they know they’d need to stop me from Throwing.

  That was a secret the king had threatened the lives of all who witnessed my powers to keep, and it’s about the only thing I’m glad he’s done. Better to be running from one madman than hundreds. He’s not the only one who could use a Water Elemental on his side.

  “No,” I say quietly, cutting my eyes away. “I haven’t a clue.” The lie tastes rancid, but is swallowed easily.

  Clift nods. I don’t think he believes me, but he’s got no reason to push it.

  “It was Meddie’s eyes that saved her,” he says. I zero in on Meddie’s good eye. Brown. “They had only a small description to go on, but they knew they were looking for a girl with blue eyes.”

  “And you’re…” I gesture to her e
ye and lip.

  “Told you. I’m fine,” she says, shifting in her seat. She lowers the steak and I wince. Her eye is nearly swollen shut. “They were right pissed when I interrupted them downstairs, that’s all. I just hope you’re worth it.”

  “They are,” Tregle says staunchly. Aleta rewards him with a rare smile, eyes flicking to him from beneath lowered lashes.

  “You’re lucky, Medalyn. They let you keep the arm. We got it cleared up before they dragged you up to the castle.”

  I feel sick. How many other girls will be dragged, terrified, from their homes and deposited before mad King Langdon tonight simply because they have the misfortune of being born with brown hair and blue eyes—or even green eyes and black hair? I glance at Aleta, whose expression isn’t nearly as queasy as I’m sure mine is.

  Clift is grim as he leans back, folding his arms across his chest. “I think it’s time we laid our cards on the table, lad.”

  He addresses Tregle. I sigh disgustedly. Why is it always assumed that the man is the one in charge?

  Aleta places a calm hand on the table’s surface. “I’ll thank you to address all of us,” she slides in. “Tregle is certainly competent, but the appendage you males sport on your nether regions doesn’t mark him as our leader.”

  Clift has the good grace to look abashed, his shoulders hunching up to his chin. He coughs. “Right you are. All of you, then. You say Rick sent you to me. You say you need to get out of the capital.” He taps a finger on the table. “I can help with that. But if the king’s going to be tearing the country apart looking for you, I’ve a right to know why. When there’s a truant Elemental, he sends a squad after them. What he doesn’t do is set a mission for his entire guard like he’s done for the three of you.”

  He’s right. But we’re quiet, unsure how much to divulge—or if we should divulge anything. Finally, Aleta straightens. She’s come to a decision, and I can’t help but think she’s the one best-suited to do it. She, after all, grew up expecting to lead.

  Tregle and I turn our attention to her. I don’t know about him, but I’m almost holding my breath—afraid to interrupt her, afraid for her to go on.