by Becky Allen
They couldn’t walk directly to the edge of the channel. A full block away, the water was up past their ankles. They had to pick their way through the stone city—or at least, what remained of it. Streets and alleys were blocked off by debris, and mud coated every surface. Vagrants stared out at them from the buildings that still stood, and people were lying among the piles of rubble.
“This is terrible,” Jae said. “And the Highest don’t help at all.”
“There isn’t much they could do,” Elan said. “I don’t think anyone could fix this mess.”
“I don’t see why not, if they tried,” Jae said. “You saw Aredann after the quake. You helped repair it. The Highest could do the same out here, or at least help the people, if they cared at all.”
Elan blinked. He had helped repair Aredann, now that he thought about it, and he’d insisted all the Avowed help, too. They’d hauled fallen tiles and bricks, making sure every hall was usable again, and that nothing was in danger of collapse. There hadn’t been anyone else to do the work, so they’d just…done it. But still, that had only been one estate house. This was a whole neighborhood, dozens of buildings, thousands of people.
Jae was right, it was terrible. He wondered if the Highest had even come to see the damage themselves. More likely, they’d sent Avowed stewards to look for them, and the stewards hadn’t thought that the homes of a bunch of poor Twill were worth much.
As they drew nearer to the reservoir, the neighborhood improved a bit, eventually opening up into a park. A flooded, muddy, miserable, trampled park, though, trees tilted over at odd angles, actually knocked askew by the water.
Lenni led them to one that was large enough to climb up on. It was slick with rot and mud but got them above the water, which grew deeper with every step.
Lenni pointed off into the distance. “There, you can see the pavilion—I just wish we had a way across,” Lenni said. “It would be good to be able to look back at the shore, see where people will be. This park will certainly be overrun….”
Jae slid down from the tree, the knee-deep water splashing as she hit it. Elan called out to her, but she waved him off and walked forward, grabbing soggy, tangled branches to keep herself steady. Then she said, “Follow me.”
Lenni frowned, but Elan trusted Jae. He did as she had but found the ground under his feet sloping up, the water getting shallower. Jae was walking slowly, very slowly, forward. Muddy land was rising to meet her feet.
“Oh,” Lenni gasped.
Jae said nothing, concentrating on each step. She led the way out, not just of the park but onto the water itself. The bridge they left behind was slippery, nothing more than a tiny sliver of land. Waves washed over it; it would be all but impossible to see from a distance. Assuming the guards who watched the shore didn’t look at them.
But the guards were distant, and there wasn’t that much light. The guards wouldn’t expect anyone walking over the reservoir like this. Even if they did glance over, they’d assume it was something strange in the wind. Shadows, or trees floating by. Not people moving inch by inch closer to the island.
The pavilion looked almost as if someone had intended to build a hut but had only gotten as far as the corners and hanging the roof and stopped before building the walls themselves. The corners were covered in white tiles, with mosaic artwork climbing up them and across the ceiling. Waves and flowers at the base, a brilliantly realistic skyscape across the ceiling. It was almost disconcerting to look up and realize that the moon and stars above were only tiles, and if he turned his head he could just make out the real moon outside, half blacked out by the ceiling.
The corner supports were decorated, too; above the wave-and-garden pattern there was writing. He stepped closer to the nearest and read the script written ceiling-to-floor on it: One for each element, joined here. This is the center.
One for each element—four elements, four reservoirs, four cities, four Highest families. He tapped his fingers against his chest, where he’d been branded with a circle split into four quarters.
He walked to the next corner but couldn’t read the text. It was faintly familiar—it wasn’t the mage script Lenni had given him the key for, but if he was right, it was the more ancient script. The one no one could translate. And seeing it here, in this mage-built and mosaic-decorated pavilion, he realized why it had looked so familiar in the first place.
“Jae,” he called, splitting the silent night. Jae winced from the noise and he mouthed “Sorry,” sure she’d read his lips. He hadn’t meant to startle her. She rolled her eyes but walked over to join him, Lenni trailing her curiously. “This whole place feels familiar. It reminds me of the mosaic room, by the Well. Especially this.” He pressed a hand to the writing.
“Mosaic room?” Lenni asked.
“There was a memorial for Janna Eshara by the Well,” Elan explained. “It was a lot like this place.” He walked to the next corner. More writing, still not in the common script he was familiar with. This one was mage script—he could recognize a few of the symbols, just enough to be sure.
He racked his brain, trying to remember enough to put together some of the letters, and made out the word “element.” That had been common in the texts he’d been poring through, so he was sure of it. And while he wasn’t as certain, the first word looked almost the same as common script for “one.” He studied the rest, trying to remember, and the memory of one of the instructional texts leapt out at him. It had been about mages linking together.
Joined.
Which meant the text in front of him read One…element, joined…
He took a step back, staring. He couldn’t be sure without the key to translate, but he would have bet all the water in the reservoir that the wall of mage script said the same thing as the wall of common script.
“They’re the same,” he said. “The common script and mage script writing, they’ve got the same message. Why would they do that?”
“To make sure everyone could read it,” Lenni said. “It’s hard to say for sure, but I think they all used to be more common, and not everyone could read every script. So if the Highest wanted everyone to be able to understand this island’s importance…”
“Then they’d have written it in as many scripts as possible,” Elan finished. “Which means that wall is…it’s a key!”
Jae looked at him like he’d gone mad, but as he dug into his bag for anything he could write on, Lenni understood.
“Not to a door,” she said to Jae. “If the older script says the same as the other two, we can use it to put together a key to the script—we’ll be able to translate the oldest writings! There’s so much we could learn. You’re brilliant, Elan.”
Elan smiled but didn’t say anything, too busy carefully, painstakingly, trying to capture every curve and flourish of the ancient script message in front of him. Then he’d copy the mage script and common script, just to be sure.
“That’s good,” Jae said. “But we need to make a plan to get the knife. That’s why we’re here.”
“We’ll need a way to get close,” Lenni said. “Their bridge will be heavily guarded.”
“So we’ll need a bridge of our own,” Jae said, and looked out at the water—back over the slippery, nearly invisible path she’d raised for them. “I can create one. From wherever our people are grouped. And I can sink theirs before they ever cross—they’ll be trapped here. With no extra guards, and no way out except through me.”
Jae never spoke loudly, but her voice now was like the desert night. Cold, dark, and deadly.
“That’s perfect,” Lenni said. “We’ve got what we’ve come for—and more than we ever could have hoped.”
Elan finished his work and checked it one last time. Then he tucked the paper away, not in his bag but against his skin, under his shirt, protected by his shirt and robe both. Now that they had a plan, there was nothing left to do but go back to Palma’s and wait. In a few days, if everything went well, centuries of wrongs done by his famil
y would come to an end. If this worked, then everything was about to change.
Jae always woke before dawn, so she was already awake the morning of the vow ceremony when Palma knocked lightly on the servants’ door. Palma and Lenni both came in. Palma roused Elan while Jae sat up.
She looked up and met Lenni’s eyes. This was the day. By tonight they’d have the knife, and soon her people would be free.
“Come downstairs,” Palma said, reaching out to take Elan’s hand. “Before my parents rise. You can have some tea and eat and then get going. The streets are going to be awfully crowded today.”
They ate quickly and then headed out into the noisy streets. The trek was a lengthy one, since they had to travel to the city on the opposite side of the reservoir, Caenn, where the crowd would hopefully be thinnest.
Traveling through Kavann was the worst of it. It was so crowded that Jae felt crushed by the sheer number of people, all of them buzzing around, pushing, trying to get somewhere that seemed to require crossing in front of her and stopping short. She found herself elbowing angrily, barely able to make it through the thick of things without losing track of Elan and Lenni. But ultimately most people were trying to make their way to the reservoir shore, even picking their way through flooded streets and parks, to get a glimpse of the ceremony on the island.
It wasn’t quite as bad when they reached Caenn, though even there it was still crowded and busy—busier even than the streets the day they’d come into the cities through the giant gate. Everyone seemed to want to come out to see the ceremony, or at least get close enough to be able to claim they had. The markets were flooded with people, selling food and drinks and even flags and whistles, turning the whole thing into an enormous, noisy, overwhelming party.
Finally Lenni led them into what remained of Caenn’s flooded stone city. Here, too, people had climbed the rubble to get close, but someone jogged up to greet them—Osann, muddy up past his knees, who then led the way through the debris-filled streets to where a low wall still stood. It separated a park—the estate house grounds—from the city around it, and with the channel and reservoir as swollen as they were, the water flowed right up to the wall itself. The crowd here was thinner, held at bay by Avowed guards, there to ensure the peace, that this party wouldn’t become a riot.
“Will you be able to work from here?” Lenni asked.
Jae tried to ignore her automatic irritation at being asked a question and nodded.
People began to fill out the area around them. Jae didn’t know how many of the people in the gathering crowd were with them, but Lenni had promised it was enough. As the drought had grown worse through the years, she’d found more and more people who secretly raged against or resented the Highest and had grown the Order from a mere half dozen into a secret force only she knew the true size of.
They had offered Jae and Elan masks, as the rest of the Order planned to wear, but Jae had refused. She was going to seize the knife and with it her people’s freedom, and she didn’t want anyone to question who had done it. She wanted to look Elthis in the eye as she shattered his world. Elan had made the same decision—wanting to prove to the world that he was alive. He was already disavowed, and the more people who learned the truth of why, the more people would be swayed to their side. Or so he hoped. Jae wasn’t as optimistic, but spreading the truth could only help them in the long run.
Soon, the ceremony started. A procession marched across the bridge from Kavann to the island, muddy water lapping at their ankles and the hems of their impressive, bejeweled robes and dresses.
Next to her, squinting, Elan said, “Those are guards at the front, and then Lady Callad and Nallis. I can’t tell who else is who from this far away, but it looks like the rest of the Highest, then their families…Erra should be there somewhere.”
Jae blinked into other-vision, let her mind’s eye float up above, closer to the procession. She could find Elthis near the center of the parade easily enough. The younger woman at his side had to be Erra. She and Elan both resembled their father, with golden-brown skin and finer hair, looser curls, than most people had. Several Avowed flanked the two of them, some of them holding small children. Elan’s niece and nephew.
Lady Callad and Nallis were at the front of the procession, Callad’s skin as dark as Jae’s own, and she wore a gleaming golden robe. They were surrounded, too, but Jae didn’t know who else in the group were the other Highest and who were just Avowed, lackeys lucky enough to be allowed to witness the ceremony up close.
The group reached the island quickly enough. Two servants hurried to set things up, placing a brazier within the pavilion and lighting a fire inside it. Erra stepped forward and placed a brand to heat on the flames. Then the servant produced the knife and laid it out near the brazier.
Jae focused on it in other-vision so she could look more closely. Though the whole pavilion now shone slightly with magic, the shifting energies that surrounded the Highest, the knife was by far the brightest thing on the island—probably in the cities. Jae reached for it with her mind and felt the deadly, deep thrum of the Curse, and pulled away quickly.
“That’s it,” Jae murmured. “I can feel the Curse in it.”
“Wait for it,” Lenni advised. “We want them to get started, to think they’re safe and start to relax.”
Jae nodded but couldn’t take her mental gaze from the knife. She knew it had once belonged to Janna Eshara, but it was even older than that. It was maybe the most ancient and magical thing in the realm.
Finally Lady Callad deemed the ceremony ready to begin. No one would really be able to see it from shore, but Jae could observe with magic. And, she realized, she could even hear. It was just a matter of manipulating the energy of the air, which jangled and buzzed as she reached for it. It was easy enough to twist it around, pull it into herself, so anything said on the island would sound in her ears as well.
“Are you ready?” Lady Callad asked, standing next to the brazier.
“Yes, Highest,” Nallis said. His voice trembled, but he managed not to shake, despite knowing that the heated brand would be pressed to his skin. He knelt next to the brazier, facing his mother.
“Will you, Nallis of Kavann, vow your loyalty to me, to my line, and to the rest of the Highest families?” Lady Callad asked.
“I will,” he said.
“And will you vow to do all you are asked, and all you are able, to uphold the order we Highest have given the world, and to strike down those who seek to overturn it?”
“I will,” he repeated.
The magic in the pavilion flared, bright and glowing, almost like a fire in and of itself. Nallis let the robe fall from his shoulders. He was shirtless underneath, dark skin shining in the light of the fire, as Lady Callad wrapped a gloved hand around the brand’s handle.
“If you speak the truth, and you vow to uphold these things with your life and all your energy, you will feel this brand for only one heartbeat, and then you will be healed.”
“I swear it,” Nallis said. “On my life and my energy, I swear.”
“I accept your vows,” she said.
Nallis went stiff and terrified as his mother pressed the brand to the skin above his heart. The crowd yelled again, the people at the front able to see what was going on enough to know when to cheer. Nallis recoiled in pain, swaying on his knees, and the magic went mad, a frenzy of sparks and light. But after a moment it faded—and Nallis’s glow in other-vision had dimmed.
Around the shore, people screamed and cheered. Lady Callad set the brand back in the brazier and now held the knife, which pulsated with magic, as dark and cold as the brand had been hot and bright. Jae shuddered as she listened.
“You are now Avowed, but you are also my first child, and heir to my line,” Callad was saying. “Without the Well, we are nothing but dust in the desert. Will you vow, above all else, to protect the Well and its magic—to serve it, guide it, and use it wisely?”
“I will,” Nallis said.
> “This responsibility may cost you your life. It may take the lives of all you love and hold dear. Will you still swear?”
“I will,” Nallis said, yet again. “I vow by my life, all my energy, that I will protect the Well and its magic.”
Callad held out the knife and Nallis accepted it. The magic swelled, and Jae felt it like pressure gathering in the air, the moments before a cloud burst. Nallis pressed the blade against the newly healed brand on his chest.
“Ready, be ready,” Lenni said as Nallis traced the quartered circle and the Curse thrummed. Jae reached for the energy of the world around her, calling on as much of the earth as she could. The Curse was strengthened by the vow and the knife, so Jae held on to the rest of the magical energy in the area, readying it to do her bidding.
Nallis finished and offered the knife back to his mother. The Curse echoed in Jae’s ears as Lenni yelled, “Now!”
Jae raised an arm, staring at the bridge, then dropped it. As her arm came down, so did the bridge, sinking beneath the water and tearing itself apart. Foam and bubbles rose where it had been. People on the shore and island alike started screaming, as the island group realized they were trapped.
Jae raised both arms this time, the energy curling out from her, and the land obeyed her, mimicking the motion. Two new land bridges unfurled in front of her, from points she and Lenni had picked during their first excursion. The trails of muddy land hadn’t even reached the island yet as the members of the Order charged across them. People slid and slipped but hit the island at the same time the bridges did.
“Let’s go,” Elan said, and took Jae’s hand so they could follow the Order’s mad dash.
Fighting had broken out by the time they reached the island. There weren’t nearly as many guards here as there had been on the Kavann shore, where they were now uselessly staring across the water, but it had only taken moments for them to realize they were under attack. Maybe the magic shocked them, but someone was yelling orders, telling them to concentrate at the jug neck where members of the Order were trying to push away from the bridges and toward the pavilion.
