I bask in that pride for a moment. I think, perhaps, we can do this. We’ve made it this far. The haunts of Katerine have become less frequent and no longer disconcert me as they once did. I’ve even managed to Throw again. Sort of, at any rate. And Liam should have word of a ship at any moment now.
But Caden’s next words bring that line of thought to a crashing halt. “The Ruin’s Reaping took a great deal of my men,” he says. “It was not an isolated incident. My father has been amassing great quantities of it and working with Larsden in an effort to make it a more controllable substance—with little success, if our encounter with it is any indication. But you’ve no idea how far gone my father is…” His hand grips his knee, a suppression of emotion if I ever saw one. I make a note to find out exactly what’s behind that later.
Before conscious thought takes hold, I shoot to my feet. I think I have a very good idea of how far the king is willing to go, actually. “We have to get to Nereidium,” I say. My fist is clenched, shaking. “I mean, Reaping, that’s… We have to warn them. We have to do something.”
“We are doing something, Lady Breena,” Aleta says quietly.
I whirl on her. “We need to do it faster.”
She sits, placid as ever, hands folded neatly in her lap. How can she just sit there when her country is on the line? I struggle to rein in my temper. “Why doesn’t this upset you?”
A dangerous spark lights her eye. “Should I fly off the handle as you’re doing? Would that improve our situation?”
“There’s more,” Caden interrupts. “Nereidium isn’t his first target.”
My stomach dips unpleasantly. So that’s what Caden’s doing here.
“He’s coming for Clavins, isn’t he?” Tregle asks.
“He is,” Caden says grimly. “At least, that’s what Lord Macon Jospuhr has led me to believe and I’ve no reason to doubt him. That’s why I’ve brought my troops. I’m hoping to have an audience with Clavish Parliament on the morrow to give them a firsthand account of what the Reaping is like to help them ready themselves.”
Ruin’s Reaping, I think again, almost disbelieving. King Langdon is mad. No one else would invite the madness of that battle fire back into the world. “If he’s got Reaping,” I say, “and really intends to use it, we’re doomed.”
“What a ray of sunshine and joy you are,” Meddie says.
“I don’t ordinarily find myself in agreement with Mistress Medalyn,” Aleta pipes up. “But she’s right. Your dour disposition may be misplaced. The agreement between nations was not necessarily to destroy it all—none of us would trust each other that much. Merely to cease the use of it as a weapon. Perhaps the king has been mass-producing it, but he won’t be the only one who has it at all.”
“He’s not,” Caden says. “Clift has a healthy stockpile of it below The Soused Turkey. We give the word, and he’ll start smuggling it out to others in the resistance, to go on the offensive.”
“So you’re saying—” Hope, which had fled so quickly, returns. “There’s a chance? If we fight, there’s a chance. Maybe some Torchers…?” I turn to Tregle and Aleta, who bites her lip with regret.
“I cannot stay,” she says. “I must get to Nereidium with the utmost haste.”
“I go where Her Highness goes,” Tregle says stiffly. Aleta looks at him in surprise. It appears they haven’t quite reconciled, but Tregle’s feelings are as plain as ever.
“Wouldn’t do you much good to stay,” Caden says. “You’ve read the stories. Ruin’s Reaping isn’t like other fire. It eats even Torchers alive. It’s beyond your powers.” He looks at me. “Possibly even beyond yours.”
Certainly beyond mine. The splash I’d impressed Tofer with is nothing next to the tidal wave I’d been able to conduct on the eve of my Elemental Reveal. Reaping would reduce such a thing to steam in a fraction of a second.
“I’m for Nereidium as well,” I say. “But what next? Liam will have the ship, but—”
“Let’s hold on that front,” Caden says. “Until we have all the information we’re able to gather through our meeting with the Clavish Parliament.”
“What meeting is that?” Liam asks. I hadn’t heard the door open. He slouches in the doorway, brow furrowed at what he’s overheard. He enters, bowing deeply at the waist when Caden lifts a questioning brow. “Liam of Shengaia, Your Highness.”
“Ah.” Caden’s expression clears. “Rise, Sir Liam. Lady Lilia of Masonstone has kept me well apprised of your accomplishments.”
Liam grins, clearly pleased that his reputation precedes him, before business takes priority in his mind once again. “Thank you. But the meeting, Highness?”
“Yes.” Caden draws himself up regally. “I advise holding on determining a course of action, at least until we can speak with Parliament and see what they know. I’d like to get the measure of them. Hopefully we’ll find that they have—”
“With respect,” Liam cuts in smoothly. “I cannot help but feel that that would be a decision in error.”
Caden pulls back and blinks, clearly unused to being questioned by someone so soon after making his acquaintance. “Oh?”
Liam nods to Aleta. “If your father is blazing a trail for Clavins, then our first priority needs to be ensuring those he would use as his pawns are far from reach.”
Aleta half-stands, infuriated at the slight. “I am no one’s pawn.”
“The pawn princess,” Meddie muses from her position on the bed. She picks under her nails with a blade. I see that she’s helped herself to looking through the room while I slept. “I quite like that.”
“You dare—”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean—” Tregle interjects.
“Oh, I know exactly what she meant.”
The room dissolves into a cacophony of bickering and shouting. Aleta and Meddie must have turned this energy on the bandits in the time I left them, but clearly bottling it up hasn’t made it go away. Meddie is blaming Aleta for their capture, while Aleta hurls insults. I think I hear both “myopic” and “short-sighted.” It’s not like her to be redundant. Tregle places himself physically between them. Ordinarily, I’d trust Meddie to keep her knives to herself, but Aleta looks determined to murder.
Meanwhile, Caden and Liam, in what I think started as an effort to simply be heard over Aleta and Meddie, are shouting at each other as well, albeit somewhat less red-faced about it. Caden insists that Liam “must see reason,” while Liam grits his teeth and “must advise action, Highness.”
I close my eyes. Their words ram into each other and clog up my ears. My throat feels closed and my stomach sloshes.
I exhale a shaky breath and twist, trying to keep my control. “Stop,” I whisper.
If anything, their volume only grows, and I inhale sharply. “I said, stop.” My eyes shoot open, and a thin sheet of ice forms before me. Before I can blink, it cracks and shatters on the ground.
Liam’s jaw drops, and Meddie’s eyes are wide. Liam knew nothing of it, but for Meddie… Well, I suppose hearing I’m a Water Thrower and seeing it are two different things. And Makers, I suppose this means I still am one after all. Some mingled combination of victory and relief flows through me with the realization.
Caden pushes a curl out of his eyes. He looks disconcerted—and chagrined. “I apologize. That got quickly out of hand.”
The only look Aleta gives me is one of sardonic triumph. “Not a Thrower anymore, you say?”
“Shut it, you.” Groping behind me, I shakily lower myself to a bed. What is this weakness that comes over me with small Elemental acts? I can’t possibly function as a Thrower this way.
I’m not given much time to muse over the notion.
“Well…” A purr comes from the doorway. My heart drops somewhere below my feet.
She may be in a dirty brown tunic, but there’s no mistaking the flesh-and-blood Kat who leans against the doorframe. Her hair is melded silver and gold, and her eyes…like ice. Just like the blood in my veins when I
see her.
“This is an interesting turn of events.”
A strangled noise escapes me, and ghost-Kat shimmers into existence, sprawled across my lap. Her lips unfurl in a beaming smile, and her eyes lock hungrily onto the live simulacrum.
“It has been too long.”
I am still, frozen between the space of a breath and a heartbeat, one Lady Katerine in my lap, one before my eyes. Aleta and Tregle leap back, sparking flames on their fingers in an instant. Caden draws his sword and stands before me, but I rise and push him aside. Taking her cue from the rest of us, Meddie twirls her knives dangerously. It’s a warning: don’t cross her.
Looking taken aback, Kat draws back her arm and palms fire of her own, eyeing us all warily. “Quite the welcome committee you’ve amassed, Liam,” she says without looking at him. “Shall I ready myself for knights to rappel from the ceiling with crossbows?”
My brow crinkles. Her voice sounds…different. A strange, faint accent coats it. Her vowels are long, limping behind the rest of the word.
“Here—what is this?” Liam strides across the room and makes as if to yank Meddie’s arm down, but she pulls away, blade aimed pointedly at him. He holds his hands up and glares at her. “Put those away.” He turns on Aleta, Tregle, and Kat in turn. “And put those out.” Caden is next. “Highness—”
“I will keep hold of my sword, thank you, Sir Liam,” Caden says softly.
“Liam,” I choke out, watching as Kat’s ghost circles her breathing body with deliberate, contemplating steps. “You don’t know…what she’s done.”
“What she’s done?” He looks at me, bewildered. “Such as free the people trapped with your friends? Made ship inquiries on our behalf? Yes, a demon woman, she must be.”
“Liam,” I say lowly. “That’s Kat. The Kat. The one I told you about. The king’s right hand.” I swallow. “She killed my da.”
Kat sucks in a tight, whistling breath, and her knees buckle, flame vanishing in a wisp of smoke. “Did you say Kat? As in, Ekaterina?”
“As in your name,” Tregle says. Aleta reaches out with her free hand and grasps his, fire undulating over their clasped fingers.
“Makers,” she says. She looks at Liam, at a loss for words.
“Lady Breena,” he says. “May I present Elena?”
Elena?
She tilts her chin toward us. “I believe you may have known my sister.”
Kat’s sister.
We’re settled uncomfortably in the small room, now. Caden beside me on the edge of one bed, while Tregle and Meddie tower protectively over Aleta on the other. Liam and Elena stay on their feet.
“I lost Ekaterina years ago,” says Elena. “When we first joined the Adept forces, it seemed a blessing. We were starving. I was sick. Barely scraping by. But the army wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more, and when that duke introduced her to the king, she found it.”
Da. My heart jumps.
“Ekaterina started calling herself Katerine, burying herself in King Langdon’s bidding, twisting her powers for his sinister purposes. She tried to reconcile with me but…” She shakes her head. “I wanted no part of what she’d become. I deserted his army, escaping to Clavins.”
“We did hear of you,” says Caden. “At least…I had heard that Lady Katerine had a twin sister and that this was the source of her affinity for two elements. But whenever someone spoke of you, it was said that you died. That you were—”
“Killed in action,” she interrupts. “Yes, someone mentioned that to me. Truth be told, Ekaterina’s powers were warped, and the way the king used her did nothing but darken her soul. Still, she was my sister. My twin. I loved her dearly and never doubted that she cared for me as well. I think if the king had let her learn I’d disappeared, she may have come after me. And he couldn’t have that, so he crafted his falsehood. Let her believe that I was dead.”
Kat stands in front of Elena, so that I have to look through one sister to see the other. “I don’t know that I would have left for you,” she whispers. “But if I’d known that you weren’t dead and he let me believe you were...” Kat turns, and despite her translucent form, even I can see the loss in her eyes.
She dissipates abruptly, and I blink at where she stood. I suppose the sudden reappearance of one’s long-dead twin is cause to process in private, even if one happens to be dead themselves.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Caden says to Elena gently, speaking for us as a group. I think Aleta and I are still too wary of this stranger who looks like an old foe to accept that her next move won’t be to twirl a finger and steal the air right from our lungs.
“To the more pressing business, I think,” says Liam. “Have you had any luck in obtaining a ship?”
She nods. “Some. I’ll need another day or so to finish ferreting out my contacts. And it may take another week to prepare the vessel. How many do you expect to have aboard?”
“All of my men,” Liam declare. “And all of you...?” He searches each of us. “That puts us somewhere within a city block of thirty.”
Caden hesitates, his hand spasming on my knee. “I need a day.”
I turn to him in surprise. “A day? For what?”
His look mirrors mine. “Why… To speak with Parliament, as we discussed. To develop a plan, see which of my people will stay and which will journey on.”
That does nothing to clear things up for me, and my expression must show it because he lowers his head to gently butt my forehead with his. His eyes search mine. His breath washes across my lips in a way that makes me tingle quite unfairly what with all of these people around.
“Bree…” he says. “I am going with you, of course.”
Oh. I’m suddenly grateful I’m sitting because my knees feel disconcertingly wobbly. A grin spreads across my face, and my hand drifts up to grasp his. It hadn’t seemed such a matter of course to me, but Makers, I am glad to hear it. I don’t want to think of leaving him behind again.
“Yes, well…” Kat—Elena stands and stretches leisurely. “You have all of the discussions you like.” She nods to Liam. “We’ll speak soon.”
He gives her a jerk of his head in farewell, then seems to think better of it. “I’ll see you out.”
The tension vibrating in the air dissipates when Elena leaves and all of us stare at each other, at a loss for words. I voice what we’re all thinking. “So…do we trust her?”
“Trust would be an emotion for the uninitiated,” Aleta says. “None of those are among us.”
“Your Sir Liam seems to think well of her,” Meddie says.
I nod distantly, not sure this makes me feel much better. When it comes straight down to it, what do I even know about Liam? He says he’s on our side, sure, but well...what would happen if our wishes didn’t line up quite so closely?
No, I can’t start thinking that way. I need to choose to trust people.
At least until they do something to lose it.
“We’ll be on guard,” Tregle says. “But if this is the best contact that we have, we’ll have to chance it. We need to get you—both of you—” Here, he hastily transfers his lingering gaze from Aleta to me. “—onto a ship.”
Silence settles in the air. That seems to conclude our business. Or perhaps we’re just too overwhelmed by all of this to discuss anything else. I know that’s how I feel. In the space of what seems like only a day, I’ve rescued my friends, found Caden not only alive, but here, and discovered Lady Kat’s sister is our ally. To say I feel bombarded by emotions is something of an understatement.
Caden pushes to his feet. “I should return. I need to ensure that my people have adequate shelter tonight.” He clears his throat. “Breena, would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
“Of course,” I squeak, studiously avoiding Aleta’s knowing gaze. I dust my hands against my breeches and follow him out the door.
Through the inn, I take the lead. It’s messy and crowded, filled to the brim with soldiers who want to get their h
ands on some companionship and a drink, whichever comes first.
Threading my way through the people comes naturally, and I reach a hand back to Caden to tie us together in the throng. His fingers lace through mine. His skin is dry and cracked. He rubs my thumb, and my pulse jumps.
I tighten my grip in his.
Ale spills on my shoulder as we duck beneath the arm of a woman with a glass raised in a toast. An elbow bumps my ear. The attention I pay them is the sound of a stone plunking into a puddle compared to Caden’s wave.
When we finally make it outside, my skin is buzzing.
The night air is frosty, cold against my cheek. Caden’s lips part; his tongue darts out to moisten them. “Bree,” he starts. “I wanted to talk to you about—”
My fingers skim his lips. Whatever it is, it’s waited this long. And whatever he has to say… I’ve realized I don’t want to hear anything more about war or fighting or succession tonight. I just want a moment for myself, to revel in feeling close to him.
My eyes flick up from his collarbone to his eyes, the night sky reflected in them. His throat bobs, and I dance my fingers up to his chin.
“I don’t want to talk,” I whisper. And I close the distance between us.
Elsbeth,
I’m safe, as is my companion. I’m so sorry I was unable to respond before now, but things were…difficult for a bit.
Give my love to Father and Dorna. Matthias, too, if he visits.
I’ll write soon.
Lilia
She didn’t want to talk—not at first anyway. So we didn’t.
Instead, we let ourselves forget. Just for a few moments. For a little while, there was only Bree. Her mouth and mine, her soft exhalations in my ear, her hand in my hair.
There was no war. No plots, no politics, no shadows of our fathers’ pasts hanging over our heads. Just us and nothing else.
Gradually, though, reality intruded, as it so often does. We regained ourselves enough to leave the wintry street, enough to find our way to the rooms Lilia had procured for us.
Riot of Storm and Smoke Page 19
