Snow dusts our shoulders as we trudge through the city in search of a warm beverage to pass the time. When we settle into a couple of bar stools at a dinner establishment and are rewarded with mugs of hot, mulled mead, complete with imported orange slices, I know we’ve found a good place.
I take a sip. “Makers, the last time I had a glass of mead…”
I flash back to the night before Aleta and I were supposed to be married. My Bonding banquet. Singsonging Bree’s name. Her fingers ghosting over my mouth, arms twining around my neck. Her breath in my ear. Our lips slamming into each other.
Lilia watches me curiously. “I take it this memory has something to do with the esteemed Lady Bree?”
I nearly smile. “What gave me away?”
“Something in your eyes. A hint of melancholy, a smidgen of longing…bit of this, bit of that, really.” She shrugs, gulping from her own mug. “She still upset with you?”
Fingers skimming the glass’s rim, I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so anyway. I think it’s more that she’s…frustrated with her circumstances.”
“Don’t much blame her for that.” Lilia peruses the depths of her cider, expression suddenly and very determinedly blank.
I am a clod. Of course Lilia is frustrated with her own circumstances. Her home and family have just been burnt to death, presumably by my father’s orders, and she is trapped here with me, with nothing she can do to fix that.
“How are you doing?” I put a friendly hand on her shoulder, and her lips detour into a grimace on their way to a smile.
“It comes in waves, mostly. Staying busy helps. I can manage to forget most of the time. But then I’ll think, ‘Oh, I have to remember to tell Elsbeth this.’ Or, ‘Dorna would be horrified by my manners.’ And then it comes back. I think, ‘I can’t tell Elsbeth a damn thing.’ And, ‘I’d give anything for Dorna to be horrified by me right now.’“
Her voice constricts her words and her shoulders hunch. “But what am I to do? The world can’t screech to a halt just because I want it to. All I can do is fight to stop the bastards who killed them.”
Father.
We finish the rest of our drinks in silence.
The next morning dawns clear and bright.
Lilia and I head for our meeting with the general at first light and are shown into his office by two soldiers who identify themselves as a corporal and lieutenant.
The general’s office is about what I expected to find. Several maps are pinned up against the wall—Clavins, every last one. It looks like they mark the homes of the different branches of Clavish government and armed forces. There are pins in one along the Clavish coastline. Ports—they have to be.
We beat the general to her office, but she presents herself in short order, introducing herself with a perfunctory bow. “General Orlova.”
Lilia and I return it as I cast a longing look at her walls. She’s arrived before I have all of the time I wish I could take with her maps. I do my best to fix them in my memory; even if she refuses our help, there are several strategic positions Lilia and I hadn’t guessed at yesterday, and we can at least try to send messengers to warn them.
“General,” I say. “I wish that I could say it’s a pleasure, but—”
“But,” she says smoothly, “I’m told the imbeciles who run Parliament refuse to see you. I, on the other hand, am the one who has heard unconfirmed rumors of Slaughter Starter in your country, which is closer than I would like to mine.”
I straighten. “I can confirm those rumors.”
“I thought as much.” She jerks her head at the corporal. “Come inside, Palinov. I want you to hear this, too.” Settling behind her massive oak desk, she dips a quill into an ink pot and looks up at me. “What can you tell us?”
I cover everything I can think of, from barely escaping the Reaping to the small vial it had been held in. I tell her how both Father and Clift were stockpiling the substance, and from the way her eyes go curiously flat at my statement, I’d wager she knows of some people who have been doing the same.
General Orlova lays her quill to the side. “I’ll be frank, Prince Caden. This is all…less than ideal, but I can see why Parliament put you off.”
Is she deaf or does her brain work improperly? I just outlined the effects of Ruin’s Reaping for her.
She holds up a hand. “No, I understand that Slaughter Starter is a substance to be feared. I understand you’ve lost good men and women to it. You have my condolences. But you have yet to give us a reason that this should affect us here in Clavins when our treaty with your father stands.”
As I’d thought. I exchange a glance with Lilia. “There is someone hiding within your borders who my father desperately wants in hand.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Would it not behoove us to simply surrender you then?”
“Not me. The heir to the Nereid throne and…” I hesitate, loathe to unearth Bree’s secrets yet again. But I can’t see any way around it. “A Water Thrower who accompanies her.”
As I’d thought, that changes things. Orlova’s interest drastically ramps up, but despite all of her badgering, Lilia and I stand firm. We won’t tell her who the Thrower is, nor will we reveal her location. But we swear on our honor that we speak the truth.
She lets us leave, running a hand through her hair in agitation. “All right. For my part, I’ll need to make some inquiries with Parliament. If they can be persuaded to hear me on this, I think it will have a similar effect. And if they don’t, then I’ll go bludgeon some heads in the other bases. See if we can’t get our hands on some Slaughter of our own.”
She spares us another bow as we take our leave, but it’s distracted at best.
“What do you think?” Lilia asks in a low voice as we follow the corporal out the same way we left—down a staircase that winds its way around the tower to the base of a bridge.
“I think she’ll do as she says. I only hope that it’s in time.”
Corporal Palinov strong-arms us to the side of the building as a messenger goes sprinting past, skipping stairs as he goes. The corporal eyes him. By now, we’ve reached the bottom of the tower and the gateway to the bridge sits just ahead.
“I had best see what that’s about. Pleasure meeting you both.”
He turns abruptly, following the messenger at much the same pace. My gaze follows him up, up, up, until he disappears into the general’s office again.
It takes the barest of connections between my eyes and Lilia’s. She jerks her head at the general’s door. “Do you suppose…?”
“You have to ask?”
Like the messenger and the corporal before us, Lilia and I fly up the iron stairs. She puts a finger to her lips, hushing me. I fix her with a deadpan stare. As though I need the warning. Give me some credit.
The sound is muffled, but what we hear is enough to send a chill straight through all of the layers I’m wearing and right to my bones.
“Where were they spotted?”
“A stone’s throw from the city. And picking up their camp quickly. They could be here in mere hours.”
The general’s voice is unsteady. “Makers, I wish we’d kept his son here. If we could ride out to meet him with at least that to offer, maybe we’d be able to keep the peace long enough to find the Thrower he spoke of.”
“I’m afraid I left the prince and his compatriot about to leave.”
And I don’t suppose we could ask for a better cue to do just that. Hands hovering over the weapons on our belt, Lilia and I take the stairs at a quick clip and slip onto the bridge, practically jogging now.
“We need to go.” Lilia’s breath puffs out of her in frosty clouds.
“You’ve no need to tell me twice.” The little we heard had been more than enough. There’s no time to waste. Whether my father rides with them or not, it’s his men that are headed for Clavins. His men, his mission and, most worryingly, his weapons.
We halt in front of a side street, and she grips me by the should
ers. “Right. You go for Princess Aleta and the others—in particular, that woman who’s supposed to be procuring a ship. I’ll get to our forces and meet you there.”
I’m taken aback. “I need to stay with you. With my people.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “If this is to come to anything, Egria will need a surviving heir. Whether you’ve been disowned or not, you’re an only child. And the only one I trust to do the job properly.”
She seizes me violently by the elbow and marches me three steps in the direction toward Bree’s inn. “Get to that ship, Your Royal Sloth-ness. And may the Makers help us all.”
I sprint through the city, slipping and sliding over patches of ice and sleet. My cape trips me up with its extra weight, and I unfasten its clips at my shoulder impatiently. I don’t have time for it to slow me down.
When I finally reach the inn Bree and the others are staying in, I’m well aware that I must look a madman. My cheeks sting with the twin stresses of cold and exertion. I’d run there with ice stinging my cheeks and a fist clenched tight around my heart.
My eyes flick about the tavern, and I’m about to head up to their rooms when I see them, heads inclined in a sort of huddle and bent seriously over pints of warm ale.
Aleta’s green eyes drift over to me, framed in the doorway, and widen. She half-stands, and the others turn to look. Upon seeing me, Bree’s expression is wary—guarded. I can hardly blame her, given how our last conversations have gone.
But her face changes the instant she reads the urgency on mine.
She fumbles her drink down, and in a scant second, she’s at my elbow, the others just behind her. She tugs at my sleeve. “Caden. What’s happened?”
Without responding, I let my eyes travel over the crowd and swear under my breath when I don’t see the white-blonde hair that matches Lady Katerine’s. I hoped her sister would be here. I needed her to be here. The ship she promised just became imminently necessary.
“Where is Elena? You said she’d secured a ship, hadn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“ELENA!” I bellow, catching the attention of the rest of the inn’s patrons with a shout that could shake the rafters.
Never one to be ignored, Bree fists her hands in my collar and tugs me down to her eye level. “Funny. That didn’t sound like an answer to my question. And Elena isn’t staying here. She’s Clavish. She has her own home.”
Aleta’s gone pale behind her. “I believe the situation necessitates some reading between lines, Lady Breena.” Her eyes drift to mine. “The king?”
“His forces, at least,” I confirm. “Get your things. If you happen upon Elena on the way, send her for the ship. We need it now. Not in three days.”
To their credit, not one of them asks another question before sprinting upstairs to scrabble together what is left of their meager belongings. I decide that I no longer care whether I’m drawing attention to myself as I bellow Elena’s name again, followed by a call for Sir Liam.
Unlike Elena, Liam is staying here—and has apparently been enjoying a mid-afternoon nap. He blunders into the bar like a sleep-inebriated bear, brows drawn in the sort of irritability only those who are unwillingly awakened display.
“The place had better be burning down—” His expression clears, alertness springing into his eyes when he sees me. “Your Highness?”
Quickly, I cross the room. With all eyes on us, the less they know, the better. We haven’t exactly been discreet in their city. Overtly Egrian, obviously military in nature—they had to be wondering about us already. I don’t care if they watch me, but I care about keeping things quiet enough for a panic not to be instigated.
One arm slung about Liam’s neck, I pull his ear close to mine. “It’s not burning down yet, Sir Liam, but it very well may in short order. And if we don’t locate Elena and this ship of hers, we may well go with it.”
I unfurl our precarious situation to him, and he withdraws immediately, checking that his weapons are fastened to his belt. “My men can be ready within the hour,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the docks.”
“Liam.”
I stop him with a hand on his shoulder, and he turns back, favoring me with a questioning look. “We haven’t much time to waste, Highness.”
“That is precisely what I want to address.” I swallow. “I’ll need to collect my own people and… Sir Liam, if I haven’t arrived in due course…if you worry over your ability to outrun my father’s forces because of it, I want you to promise that you’ll leave without me.”
His eyes widen, and he clasps my forearm before he leaves. “In the Makers’ name. I swear.”
I watch him as he exits. I appreciate his oath.
But I very much hope he doesn’t have to keep it.
The minute Caden asked about Elena, Kat appeared at my side.
“I will find my sister.”
She follows me as Aleta, Tregle, Meddie, and I run up the stairs to grab our things.
“You need me, Lady Breena.”
I grit my teeth, shoveling my clothing into a pack. I nod distractedly in thanks as Meddie kicks my boots across the room to me. Do I have my Underground token? Yes, the chain is still secured around my neck. The last thing I want is to lose my last memento from Da in all of the chaos.
“Send me,” Kat needles me.
“Look,” I mutter under my breath, sneaking glances across the room to ensure that the others are occupied. “If you want to go, then go.”
“I tied my soul to yours. I can’t just decide to leave you. I must be sent. But if you’ll let me go to Elena, I swear I will tell her that you have need of her presence.”
I still.
I could keep her with me. Denying her something she wants…and her twin, for that matter.
I could pay her back for what she’s done to me.
It’s a very tempting thought, but I can’t do it. Makers, this kills me. It’s not that I wouldn’t love to give Kat back a fraction of the damage she’s inflicted on me and other people, but we do need Elena.
“Why should I believe anything you promise? You’re dead. There’s no power left to be gained for you. Nothing left that you value enough to swear upon.”
“Her,” Kat says. “I swear on her.”
What else is left to say? My situation can’t be worsened if she breaks her word, but there’s a chance that her keeping it could save us all.
“Get your sister,” I whisper.
She disappears.
Louder, I say, “Do we have everything?”
Tregle hoists his pack onto his shoulder and nods. After confirmation from Aleta and Meddie as well, I move toward the doors and back to the pub.
I swear, if Kat doesn’t come through…
What are you going to do? Kill her again?
Relief crashes onto Caden’s face as we come downstairs. “Have everything? Good.” Again, he looks around impatiently. “Have you any idea where we can find Elena? We may need to seek passage elsewhere if we can’t locate her. We haven’t time to spare.”
I exhale. “I know, but just…give it a moment, will you? I think she’ll be here soon.”
A moment is more than we have, but maybe I look more confident than I feel. No one argues with me.
And, thank the Makers, I don’t have to convince them to stay much longer. My knees weaken in thanks when, true to Kat’s word, Elena comes sprinting into the pub, a telltale breeze fluttering through the open doorway. She’s used her Riding to aid her speed.
My breath releases in a great whoosh. Whatever I may have pretended, I wasn’t quite as certain Elena would show up as I’d acted.
She spots us immediately, joining our group with a wild look in her eyes. “What is everyone on about?” She rubs at her arms as though cold, eyes flicking from one face to another. “I could have sworn… I thought I heard…”
Kat had found her, then. I eye the ghostly figure lingering behind her. Kat crosses her arms, satisfied.
Elen
a shakes her head. “But that’s impossible.”
Composing herself, she looks at Caden for direction. I shudder, unable to quell the image of her sister looking to his father for orders, but I shake it off.
“Your captain. The ship,” Caden says. “We can’t wait days. We must leave tonight. Speak with him—”
“Her,” Elena corrects, but nods, a soldier used to orders. “I’ll leave at once. She’s a good sort, but she may require some additional persuasion given the short notice.”
“Whatever we have to give,” Aleta swears.
“We’ll need to rally the remainder of our forces,” Caden says, nodding decisively and turning to the rest of us. Meddie shifts her stance slightly, fingers twitching for her hip. He checks his own weapons to ensure they’re still sheathed and tightens his belt, where his scabbard is looped. “I’ll go for Lilia and the rest of our forces,” he says.
“We’ll head for the ship,” I say. I seize his hand and am at a momentary loss for words as I search his eyes. “Meet you at the docks?”
He squeezes my fingers and smiles reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll find you.”
For all that Caden means his words to be a comfort, they do little for me as we briskly follow Elena through the city. They’d sounded like a promise, but I am too familiar with promises that people shouldn’t make—ones they can’t guarantee themselves.
“What about the Clavish?” I ask Aleta, pushing an errant strand of hair from my lips.
“We can’t say anything until we’ve gathered everyone and are ready to board the ship,” Aleta says. She closes her eyes to lay a bandage over the regret, but carries on, marching forward, hair fluttering behind her like a cape being buffeted by the wind. “When we have, perhaps we’ll be able to warn some of them. They can worry over their own people, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and get out wherever they can go. Callous as it seems, I need to worry about my own people now.”
It does seem callous. But she’s right. I exhale in a cloud of cool mist. I need to do the same, and in effect, this has changed nothing aside from accelerating our timeline. Ruin’s Reaping means we need to get to Nereidium—and fast. We can’t waste any more time trekking through the countryside. I can’t defend the island physically with the way my powers are right now, but maybe I can—we can—give them enough warning that their navy can be prepared.
Riot of Storm and Smoke Page 22
