Riot of Storm and Smoke

by Jennifer Ellision

  Elena eyes me appraisingly. “How old are you anyway?”

  Looking at Aleta again, I remember waves crashing through glass and people clinging to sconces to keep from being dragged out of a ballroom by an unnatural tide. I remember speaking to the water for the first time. I remember thinking it was Aleta’s birthday.

  Why not? I think. It’s been a while since I could speak honestly. “Seventeen,” I say. “I turned seventeen a few months ago.”

  When there’s a soft knock at the door the next day, I open it to find Caden waiting, head ducked low, a self-conscious hand at the back of his neck. Lilia stands at his back like an awkward shadow, her eyes rimmed in red.

  “May I come in?” he asks, a current of apology in his voice.

  My hand strangles the doorknob, unable to shake the image of Caden’s gray eyes lit like his father’s, a forbidding edge in them at the idea he would not be obeyed implicitly.

  “Oh, go on,” says Kat. She winds an errant curl over her finger. The bared teeth in her voice are inaudible for a change. “The princeling is no simulacrum of his father.”

  Without a word, I swing the door wide and step back to let them through.

  “Where are your friends?” Lilia asks after a quick survey of the room.

  “Aleta and the others nipped out for a bite. Should be back any moment. Liam is… Well, I don’t know for certain, but I’d hazard a guess that he’s readying his men for the journey to Nereidium.”

  A journey I have severe reservations about. But not enough to stop me from going. “And Elena…”

  Caden starts from his disconcerting contemplation of my features. “I’d nearly forgotten about her,” he says.

  “I didn’t,” I say grimly. I’m sure it’s hard to reconcile a dead woman with a living twin, but it’s doubly hard when you did the killing. Triply hard when the ghost dogs your path. “At any rate, I expect she’s out scouting those ships she mentioned.”

  Caden nods. His hand lingers on his sword hilt. A frisson of icy regret skates through me. I doubt he even realizes how he holds himself battle-ready. The prince I’d known—the one so versed in strategy and academia—has had to become a soldier. Unable to help myself, I lift the hand from his weapon and look into his eyes. I swallow uneasily. Yes, the apology that was in his voice swims there, but there’s something else. Something I can’t put a name to.

  I drop his hand and clear my throat. “What was it you needed?”

  Caden and Lilia exchange a glance full of meaning, and I have to purposefully stop myself from snapping at them. Give them a moment to tell you before you bite both of their heads off like a dragon.

  “I’ve managed to get His Hotheadedness here to see that storming into Parliament to shout himself hoarse won’t exactly make them see the error of their ways,” she says. “We’ve managed to cobble together a plan to get them to listen to us—what’s more, a plan to get them to believe us.”

  “You sound quite self-assured,” Aleta’s voice says from the doorway. She nods at Lilia. “Lady Lilia, it’s a pleasure to see you again. My condolences for your loss.”

  A muscle works in Lilia’s throat. “Thank you. And the pleasure’s mine, Your Highness.” Lilia bows deeply.

  Tregle inserts his head in the space above Aleta’s. “You were saying, your ladyship?”

  “Attention lords and ladies.” Meddie’s disgruntled tones come from somewhere behind Aleta and Tregle. “Might we move this conversation into the room instead of just its threshold?”

  Aleta rolls her eyes, but the three of them file inside so that we can shut the door. Aleta folds her hands neatly in front of her, looking politely interested. “I take it your request for an audience with the Clavish Parliament was not met with glad greetings?”

  “No,” Caden says. Agitated, he runs a hand through his hair and flicks his gaze over to me. “I was just about to tell Bree—”

  “You said you have a plan,” I say. I have a terrible feeling about this, and the way Caden seems to have to force himself to meet my eyes isn’t helping.

  “We do,” he says.

  “It’s a demonstration,” Lilia says. “A Water Throwing one. From you.”

  The blood drains from my face. My fingers feel cold—numb. “You told her?” I ask Caden, feeling somehow betrayed.

  “You told Liam,” he says, sounding defensive.

  Aleta’s eyebrows shoot up. “Be that as it may, it is Breena’s secret to tell.”

  “Yeah,” I say lamely, though I can’t rouse myself to true ire. Caden hadn’t had ill intentions, and how could he have known I can’t really Throw anymore? It’s not as if I’ve told him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. Truth be told, he doesn’t sound like he is, and it’s got my hackles raised a bit. He sounds impatient, sure. And assured in his cause. But sorry? No, not anymore. “It’s just that we have so little time. It makes sense, you see. Why should they believe anything has changed? There’s no reason that the tide should have shifted to my father’s favor. His goal to conquer Nereidium has been at a standstill for years. We left out a vital piece of information. We’ve left out you.”

  “Me?” My voice cracks and trembles. “Caden, no. Leave me out of this.”

  “But don’t you see? They don’t know. They think my father isn’t mad enough to use the Reaping over one escaped princess, but they don’t know how things have changed. They don’t know that Water Throwers are back in Egria now.”

  They don’t know that the Nereid Princess is a Water Thrower. They don’t know that Aleta isn’t the princess at all. They don’t know that the king thinks he needs to capture two girls, but really, he needs only one.

  “I can’t—”

  “It should have been my first reaction, really,” he says. “I am sorry for that. Before rising to ire, I should have stopped to think. With a simple demonstration from Bree, they’ll understand the scale this war is about to go to. They’ll see how they have to step in. My father has been contained until now. If he isn’t stopped, if he has you to help him bypass Nereid defenses—”

  “Caden.” My breath comes short. My eyes flick to Kat, leaned comfortably against the wall, and she waves her hands at me irritably, motioning for me to get on with it. “Caden, I’m not… I can’t do that.”

  Caden’s brow knits together, and I can practically see him trying to work this out, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit into place. I want King Langdon dethroned. I want Clavins to move against him. So why wouldn’t I help him?

  “I’m surprised at you, Bree.” There’s no mistaking the disappointment flowing in his voice as he comes to what he sees as the only reasonable conclusion. “I didn’t think you were that selfish. Keeping your secret isn’t as important as defeating my father.”

  “Self—” I trap the exclamation behind tight lips. “I’ll let that go for now. Caden, the reason I can’t help you with this is…I’m not a Water Thrower anymore.”

  He reels back. “That’s impossible.”

  “Well…” I cross my arms and slice my eyes down at the ground. “It is a reality I am living.”

  I watch the thoughts flicker through his eyes, his recollections of what I told him of my travels. There are certain things I left out. Like Kat’s spirit. Like my birth parentage. Like this.

  “But the ice… Your survival after drowning… And you said there was a moment when you were so dehydrated in the forest you passed out because you were a Water Elemental who had been without water for too long. And what about your threatening of the bandit who captured you all—”

  “Flukes,” I say. I haven’t been able to duplicate them with any reliability. Even if I had, I still couldn’t properly call myself a Thrower. What’s a puddle of water compared to the feats I’d once been able to perform?

  “How could you keep this from us? Breena, we’ve been counting on your abilities—”

  “It’s not as though I haven’t been trying,” I snarl. “And where was I while you were making these pl
ans? Didn’t think to include me, did you? Conveniently away, was I? I am not a weapon to be wielded on whichever side I fall!”

  I quiet, chest heaving. A weapon. Just like the king had wanted to make me. There he stands, like a ghost, between us again.

  “You will have to find a new method for dealing with the Clavish Parliament,” I say. “One that doesn’t involve me.”

  Aleta chooses this moment to burst out laughing.

  I stare at her in disbelief. The last time I saw Aleta laugh this hard, it was because the king had moved her wedding date up. That was a bit of a different situation, more hysteria-induced. And this is a fine time for her to find her sense of humor.

  “I’m so glad you find this funny,” I say, more than a little offended.

  “No.” She waves a hand, the laughter dying as she wipes at her eyes. “It’s just… Is this why you’ve been acting so strangely?”

  “Well, I’ve had so little else going on,” I say. “What with my living father and very staid lifestyle.”

  “No, it’s just… You could no more stop yourself from being a Thrower than I could stop being a Torcher. Or a bird could cease being a bird.”

  “Aleta, I’ve tried,” I say. “Back at Clift’s, in the forest, in the bandit camp…”

  “And that is precisely your problem,” she says, sounding annoyingly self-assured.

  Tregle nods. “You forget the great Throwing you did before. Your Reveal was no small matter—and your small works with Shaker Alyss and then Lady Katerine… No one ever told you, I suppose, but it’s like the sleep your body requires to fuel it with energy, to recover from a day’s events. With two great events—and without giving yourself time to recuperate, by continuing to push yourself to Throw—your Elemental abilities haven’t been able to sleep.”

  That’s it? It’s all so…anti-climactic.

  “And you knew this the whole time?” I ask faintly.

  Aleta crosses her arms. “You should have told me.”

  I ignore that. It’s unimportant in the wake of what she said. “So the key to being able to Throw again is…to stop trying to Throw again?”

  “Essentially, yes. You say you managed something with Tofer? And we all saw the ice. When was the last time you’d tried to Throw before that?”

  Makers, she may be right. It was when the bandits had tried to have me killed and I’d tried to pull the water from our bindings. That was at least a month ago.

  “You’ve rested since then,” she says. “Try something now.”

  Hesitantly, and with no little trepidation at the number of eyes expectant on me, I slowly extend my arm, but Tregle halts me.

  “Wait,” he says and disappears, returning with a mug filled with dirty snow from outside. “It’s easier when you can use an already present form of the element. That’s how it is for Torchers anyway. The hardest is coaxing friction to a full flame. I’d imagine pulling water from the air is similarly exhausting, so…” He nods meaningfully at the cup of snow.

  It’s impossible to ignore. The introduction of a condensed form of water in the room pulls at my belly like a low chord plucked on a harp, reverberating quietly within.

  This will work. I can feel it this time. With a degree of excitement, I push my palm toward the snow’s vessel and will it to erupt upward, dusting the air with soft ice crystals.

  Except it remains still. And I feel myself deflate.

  “It was a nice idea, Aleta,” I say feebly, lowering my hands.

  Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand—I was so sure… Adept Tregle?” At a loss, she turns to him and finds him equally flummoxed.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like it,” he says. “An Elemental doesn’t revert back to powerless normalcy. It’s unheard of.”

  “At least I’m unique.” I put my clasped hands over my stomach. I had been so sure… I had felt it, hadn’t I? I could allow that maybe I’d fail to notice the snow on an elemental level outside, where it was everywhere, but in here, where it stood out discordantly from the wooden beams, the still air…I know I’d felt it.

  Caden tries to hide his disappointed expression, but I see it peeking out from behind the mask. “We’ll have to think of some other way to get Parliament to listen. You concentrate on resting.”

  Concentrate on resting. I bite back a retort over the unhelpful advice.

  “It’s not rest that’s the problem.”

  It takes the space of a heartbeat for me to remember that the living breathing woman who leans in our doorway is Elena, not Kat. She eyes me with undisguised interest. “A Water Thrower, are you? There’s not been one of you on the continent in—”

  “Sixteen or seventeen years, I know,” I say irritably. Kat chuckles behind me. “Did you need something?”

  Her eyes flick about the room. “Liam wasn’t in his room. I’d thought perhaps I’d find him here, but see that he’s not—”

  Her timing couldn’t be better. I need to get out of here. The air is too still, the pressures too intense, the fallen expectations of everyone scattered about the floor. I feel stifled.

  “He’s downstairs. I’ll get him for you.” I brush past her and hear her start down the stairs behind me. It was too much to hope that I not be followed, I suppose.

  “I overheard the tail end of that conversation,” she says as I thump noisily down the stairs and through the tavern.

  “Glad your ears are in working order, then.” Pushing the bar door open, I find Liam outside with one of his troop. “Liam, she needs to speak with you.” I jerk my head toward Elena and move to get past her, but she grabs me by the elbow. I pull free with lightning speed and hold myself defensively, feet pivoting as I redistribute my weight and hold my hands out in an attack position.

  “Elena,” Liam says, straightening at the scene that stands on the precipice of confrontation. He dismisses the man he’d been conferring with, and the red-haired fellow zips past me to find a drink at the bar.

  Elena closes her eyes in a move for patience, and a brief look of hurt flits over her features. “A moment,” she says evenly to Liam, before opening her eyes to regard me warily. “I’m not my sister.”

  “I know that.” I shift uncomfortably, avoiding her gaze. She may not be her, but she looks a great deal like her, a comparison that is only strengthened by Kat following just behind to stand by her side.

  “I know you do.” Elena hefts up her hair, resecuring it. “But I don’t think you really understand it. Ekaterina and I have always had very different ideas about things that matter. About morality. About life and doing the right thing. I think I can help you. If you’ll let me.”

  What can I say to that?

  Thankfully, Elena doesn’t seem to require an answer. She moves past me and steps outside. Catching the door as it swings shut, she regards me with a tilted head. “I found that ship you needed, by the way. Be ready. We leave in a week.”

  Clavish Parliament refuses to see me the next day. Nor do they see me on the day after that. When I’ve been refused for a third time, I pound my fist into the side of the building in frustration, missing Lilia by a hair. She narrows her eyes at me.

  “Sorry,” I say, apologizing and meaning it. She’d dragged herself from her mourning to escort me, and here I am, nearly taking her head off.

  The rough stone of the building has cut the side of my palm from my outburst, and I relish its sharp bite as I swipe the wound against my coat. I should have worn the gloves I’d procured. They’d have protected my skin from flares of temper, not to mention the fact that the air is icy, clawing its way into my fingers, into my bones.

  I gesture with my scraped hand toward the building. The fools would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend that everything is fine than prepare for the inevitable fact that it isn’t. “It’s just they’re so…”

  “Stubborn?”

  “Asinine.” I wilt down the side of Parliament House.

  Lilia raises a brow at me. “If the crown fits…”


  Lifting my own in response, I ask, “What do you mean by that exactly?”

  She sighs, lowering herself to the ground beside me. “I’m just hopeful that we have finally reached a point where you’ll acknowledge the futility of persisting with this day after day. You know as well as I that we’re short on time. Every day that we delay is a day that your father gets closer and—” She looks away and swallows. “We all know what will happen if he reaches us.”

  She’s thinking of her sisters, and now, I am too. I’m not sure what to say. “Lilia, are you under the impression that I’m unaware of our situation?”

  “No, I’m under the impression that you don’t understand when to give up on a fruitless course of action.”

  She’s right. I knead my forehead between thumb and forefinger. But by the ether, what else can we do?

  Two soldiers exit the building, and I nod distractedly to them. Their capes flap in the wind as they stroll past, catching my attention, the glimmer of a plan sprouting in my mind.

  Soldiers. Of course.

  I don’t know what business the soldiers had in Parliament, but I am so grateful they chose this moment to pass by.

  “That’s it,” I say. Excitedly, I look up at Lilia. “Sod appealing to the government—that’s just me repeating the same mistake I’ve been making all these years. I was trying to affect change by appealing to my father, by going to the heads of government. I need to appeal to the people. To the soldiers themselves.” I shove myself to my feet, dictating orders rapidly. “We’ll need to send messengers to the Clavish forts, bases, and ports.”

  “There’s at least one here in the city,” Lilia says, quickening her pace to keep up.

  “Then we’ll start there.”

  But first, we arm ourselves with maps of Clavins, then go immediately back to our inn and send messengers streaking toward our best guesses of military base locations, dire warnings clutched in hand. As for ourselves, we contact the nearest one, ensconced inside one of the tower bulbs close to the city’s edge.

  The general there agrees to see us, but not until tomorrow. We have a night to collect ourselves, to come down off the excitement of our sudden plan.