by Hannah West
I looked through the blur of tears and found Sev standing over his fallen opponent, his brow shimmering with sweat. He had jammed his knife deep into the man’s chest and now ripped it out, trailing fresh blood as he dashed toward me and knelt.
“Are you hurt?” He didn’t touch me, but I could see the instinct to do so pulsing in the raised veins of his strong and slender hands.
“No, I’m all right.” I waved him off and pushed myself up, reclaiming my knife and lifting my skirt to sink it back into the sheath. Was it my imagination, or did his eyes follow my movements? “Let’s go find Navara,” I said, and looked at Kadri. “Praenthar sarth. That will undo the barrier.”
Kadri repeated the spell and disintegrated the stone blockade. Bitterness wreathed her words as she said, “We can’t let him take her.”
THIRTY-ONE
KADRI
THE huntsman and Glisette were fast, their soles pounding across the courtyard as they dodged and shoved their way through the throng. I bumped against someone, rocked back on my ankle, and squealed as it throbbed. I pined for the vials of tincture rattling around in my satchel.
The huntsman made an agile leap onto a ledge. “She’s riding away,” he said, peering at the road. He looked down at Glisette. “I’ll run ahead. Take your time so the guards don’t pay you any heed.”
Glisette nodded. “Be careful, Sev.”
The huntsman leapt off and ran through the market. Glisette secured her veil, but a few liberated locks waved like banners in the breeze. I did my best to stash them away as we walked.
Viteus wasn’t like a royal guard following orders. He wasn’t basic sword skills and a love of country stuffed into livery. Devotion to Agrimas and a thirst for blood drove him. Orturio might be dead, but with the princess in his grip, Viteus might step into the role of leader and keep the Uprising intact.
As we neared the river bridge, the sight of the guards in purple livery made a rising panic roil inside me. Surprisingly, they were more of a boon than hindrance; they had stopped Viteus and taken his knife. They appeared to be questioning him, their hands resting on their sword pommels.
“They must have seen him chasing a girl and not known who she was,” Glisette said. “Should we wait? He might tell them who I am.”
“He won’t,” I said. “He wouldn’t risk leading them to her. The last thing he wants is for Ambrosine to capture Navara.”
“Let’s go, then,” Glisette said. She linked arms with me and slowed her pace. I followed her lead, forcing myself to look nonchalant and smile. Another bridal party trailed behind us and we ambled back to join their group. Viteus held us in his furious gaze but did nothing. I wanted to meet his stare, though I knew the meager satisfaction wasn’t worth drawing attention.
As soon as it felt safe, we hurried, knowing the guards could set him loose at any second.
My ribs felt bruised from breathlessness, and my ankle was in agony by the time we caught up to the huntsman and the princess. They had waited for us in the nearby woods. They were relieved to see us, and for the first time since the Jav Darhu had kidnapped me, I actually felt safe.
“That was not what I expected,” Glisette said, rasping for breath. It was so strange to know she was momentarily mortal, to see her without that cloudy lilac stone at her throat. “Kadri…how did you get here? How in the world did you get tangled with the Uprising? And why did Valory give you an elicrin stone without telling us?”
“The king of Erdem found out about my elicrin stone and sent mercenaries to kidnap me,” I explained, catching my breath. “But a man named Rasmus Orturio bought me out from under King Agmur. He and Mathis were working together to overthrow the Realm Alliance—”
“Uncle Mathis?” Glisette clarified.
“Yes. They thought I could help them. If I couldn’t or wouldn’t, Lord Orturio planned to kill me. Mathis just wanted to weaken our influence, but Orturio wanted all elicromancers dead. He was the leader of the Uprising.”
“I knew it,” the huntsman said darkly. He was a handsome fellow, as far as those things went. The way I caught him looking at Glisette, coupled with the knowledge that Ambrosine had trusted him and Lucrez had risked her life to protect him…well, it made me wonder if he looked at all women that way. “It was Rasmus Orturio all along.”
“Yes.” I pulled my gray skirt to untangle it from a gnarl of thorns that had latched on to my hem. “But I killed him.”
The huntsman—Sev—looked at me with wild eyes. “You killed the leader of the Uprising?”
“I did,” I said, wary, resituating the pack on my shoulder. I patted the outline of the bottles to make sure they were still intact.
Sev’s face changed. He’d been wearing the detached expression of someone trying to stay alive. Now his brown eyes shimmered with an emotion so raw I couldn’t name it. Awe? Sadness? Anger?
He stalked back toward me, and I felt the urge to back away. But he took my hand, looked at me squarely, and said, “You’ve won revenge on my dead father’s behalf. You’ve ripped out the Uprising’s radical hatred by the bulb. For that, I owe you. I will do anything you ask of me. Thank you.”
“Um, you’re welcome,” I said, overcoming my surprise. “I actually…I did it for Lucrez. To my understanding, you and she were…familiar?”
“Were?”
I bowed my head. “They found out that she warned you they were coming. They killed her for betraying them.”
My words had never broken anyone like this before. His eyes filled with tears.
“The man chasing Navara was the one who did it,” I said. “His name is Viteus. Orturio gave the orders, and Viteus carried them out.” I almost mentioned the neighbor, Yannis, but bit my lip. The huntsman already looked angry enough to turn back and kill Viteus with his bare hands.
“She was my friend,” he said. “She loved my siblings like they were her own family. She never told me the truth about the man she worked for, but…only because she knew what would happen if she did. And she was right.”
Now I felt broken. I shut my eyes against the memory of Viteus manhandling Lucrez, gleefully dragging her outside to put her to death.
“I’m so sorry, Sev,” Glisette whispered. “She seemed like a lovely person.”
“She was…and clever too,” he said. “She fooled me. And she saved me.”
“She saved me too,” I whispered.
“What kind of help did the Uprising want from you, Kadri?” Glisette asked.
“They thought they could convince me to turn against the Realm Alliance, to undermine you. Based on the truth…that I disagreed with one of our first decisions.”
Glisette stared at the dirt under her fingernails, and then rubbed her forehead, not meeting my eyes. “I could tell you wanted a harsher punishment for Ambrosine, but I didn’t acknowledge it. I held our pardon of Rayed like a shield against my guilt.…”
“I should have spoken up—”
“No, I was the problem, Kadri,” she said through her teeth. “I was being selfish as usual. I found it difficult to punish Ambrosine, partly because Perennia wanted to think she could change.…” She trailed off, grimacing against a flood of tears. “It was easier to answer Myron’s marriage offer than to face the truth that my sister was irredeemable.” She sighed and offered me a small smile. “I can’t believe you’re an elicromancer. Valory shouldn’t have given you the elicrin stone without asking us.”
“I know. And I shouldn’t have taken it.”
“But…you deserve it, Kadri. More than most of us who entered the Water.”
I stared at her for a few seconds before throwing my arms around her shoulders. She laughed and returned the embrace.
“Perhaps we should make changes to the Realm Alliance when we return,” I suggested. “More mortals. And maybe…maybe Valory should take a step back. There’s too much power in our group. The stakes are too high for new leaders trying to find their footing.”
“I think you might be right,” she said.
“And I’ll give up my elicrin stone if I need to. So mortals don’t think we’re using Valory’s power for our own gain.”
“What’s your gift?” Glisette asked, stepping back so her blue-green eyes could examine my elicrin stone again.
“Marksmanship,” I said with a crooked grin.
She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “As if you need that anyway.”
“We should move on,” Sev interrupted. “He’ll try to follow us. Kadri, is it? You can ride Orfeo.”
I nodded and limped over to pat the great gray beast, who flicked his tail at me. I mounted my healthy foot in the stirrup and managed to launch myself onto the saddle with help from Glisette.
“We risked our lives for nothing,” Navara grumbled as we started off. “Sorry, Kadri. Not for nothing. But we were supposed to get that scroll.”
“Scroll?” I asked. “Is that what you were looking for in the vault?”
“Yes,” Navara sighed. “The sealed apocrypha that will tell us how to defeat the Fallen.”
I slipped my hand into my bag and extracted the silver scroll case. “I don’t want to bring false hope, but Orturio had a cellar of treasures and I found this. I tried every which way to open it. I don’t know what’s inside it, but I know that both the Uprising and Ambrosine want it. Orturio told me that Ambrosine burned down an edifice to try to destroy it.”
I handed the artifact down to Navara. She frowned, turning it over, and noticed the gold seal of the four-horned ram. “By the Holies,” she breathed. “This is it. Unless it’s a duplicate.”
She searched for a pull-tab, just as I had, and then scowled and tried to twist both ends.
“The high priest must have passed the scroll to the Uprising through Father Frangos,” Sev said. “To keep it safe from Ambrosine.”
“The Uprising didn’t tell me why she was looking for it,” I said. “What interest does she have in destroying an Agrimas scroll?”
“She’s a vessel for one of the Fallen deities,” Navara explained. “Nexantius. He’s living inside her, and the scroll is supposed to tell us how to banish the Fallen should they manage to claim human vessels.”
I looked down at Glisette, expecting to see skepticism, but found only resignation on the graceful planes of her face. Could the ambiguous connection I’d begun to draw between Wenryn’s plight and Apathy’s scourge be real? If so, why was a Fallen plaguing Nissera?
Eerie echoes of Mercer’s warning at the Realm Alliance meeting reverberated through my mind just as they’d reverberated through the meeting chamber back home: Whenever deep magic is eradicated, it leaves a gap, a hollow place of power. It presents an opportunity for another supernatural force to establish dominion.
“So…” I started, “do we believe in the Holies and the Fallen now?”
It was a genuine question, but Glisette dipped her head in embarrassment. “To an extent,” she admitted. “There’s undoubtedly a dark being inhabiting Ambrosine.”
“And you’re sure she’s not dark on all her own?” I asked.
“She is. But she’s encountered something even darker.”
Navara huffed in frustration. “Now if only we could get this thing open, we could defeat both of them.”
“Or…all three of them,” I ventured.
I began to explain my growing suspicions about the scourge of Apathy, gaining confidence when I realized they were taking me seriously.
“Is that why the rest of the Realm Alliance hasn’t come to help us?” Glisette asked. “You think they’re facing a Fallen of their own?”
“To my understanding, Silimos would need a willing vessel to inhabit, one with the capacity to hold extraordinary power,” Navara said. “Granted, I don’t know much about the Water, or the hollow place it left. There’s so much we still don’t know. If only we could see this twice-damned scroll.”
Sev looked over his shoulder in surprise. “What?” Navara asked, but he didn’t answer, smiling as he again trained his eyes on the path that only he knew.
Glisette reached up to take my hand in hers, intertwining our fingers.
Stranded between my two countries, I had found a bit of home.
THIRTY-TWO
GLISETTE
THE aroma of smoking venison made me salivate as we neared the cabin. Sev had hauled back a fallow deer before we’d left this morning. He and his mother made a fine team putting food on the table to feed so many mouths.
The younger children nearly took Sev down like wolves attacking a bear, then noticed Kadri and asked her how long she’d be staying and whether she lived in a palace too. They had clearly acclimated to royal guests.
Sev and Stasi herded them away as we gathered in the large room to eat. I felt the sensation of eyes on me as I set my empty plate on the floor and shamelessly licked grease from my fingers. When I looked up, I found Sev watching me.
Melda clucked over Kadri’s bruised ankle. Thankfully, Kadri had tincture with her and threw it back like it was liquid salvation.
When we finished dinner, Stasi coached the children through washing the dishes, and Jeno went outside for his shift as watchman. Navara rinsed her hands before extracting the scroll case from Kadri’s bag.
“Is it some sort of puzzle box?” I asked her. Kadri pulled out a chair and sat, watching.
“Maybe.” Navara pressed on the gold emblem to no avail. “My father told me a riddle about the sealed scroll. It mentions a key, but there’s no keyhole here.”
“What was the riddle?” Kadri asked.
“It’s a reference to the Holy of Honesty,” Navara explained. “‘I carry the candle and the key. I bear the burden of truth.’”
With a metallic click, a tiny pull-tab popped out of the scroll case.
Navara gasped. “It’s not a riddle. It’s a password!”
Kadri and I exchanged glances. Kadri mouthed, “Magic?” I nodded.
Navara pulled open the tab and peeked at the edge of the scroll. The ink had been well preserved, exposed to only hints of light and traces of dust over the centuries. I could almost smell the secrets it contained.
“This is breaking the law,” Navara said, suddenly on the verge of panic. “I’m not supposed to know what it says until I’m queen. Maybe I should do this alone so the Holies don’t curse either of you. Yes, that sounds best.” She shooed us off. “Go sit over there. I’ll read it and let you know what I find. That way, I’m the only one in danger of being cursed. It was my idea, so here I go.”
The two fingers that held the pull-tab trembled.
She unrolled the first page of elaborate, ornamental writing, flinching as though it might burst into flames. As Kadri and I walked away, I braced myself, wondering if there really was some kind of curse on this scroll. With magic involved, there was no telling.
But nothing happened. Navara released her bated breath and began to read.
Yawning, Kadri went to stretch out on her pallet. I searched the room.
“He went outside,” Navara said from behind me.
“Who?” I asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Sev.” The hint of a canny smile tugged at her lip.
A more bashful girl might have blushed, but I just narrowed my eyes at her and strode to the door, casting a conspiratorial smile her way as I pulled the latch.
The night breeze was crisp and smelled of smoke. I saw Jeno sitting by the waning campfire with a crossbow. Sev rounded the corner, carrying the armful of firewood that he had chopped in a rage yesterday. He wore his hunting knife and a hatchet on his belt.
“Too cramped inside?” he asked, stalking the rest of the way to the fire and dropping his burden.
“A bit.” I joined them in the shuddering ring of firelight. Jeno’s dark brows furrowed as he studied the woods. Sev had said he took his role as lookout very seriously. Something told me Jeno was ready to grow up, and knew whom he wanted to be like when he did.
“I wanted to thank you,” I said to Sev. “For helping me
keep calm during the ceremony when I…” I trailed off, hoping he understood.
“I couldn’t have you falling apart when there was urgent consummating to be done.”
I laughed, a curious warmth unfurling behind my navel. Even though I hadn’t known him long, it felt like a legendary accomplishment to have cracked his dispassionate façade, especially when I remembered the initial disdain in his eyes. To him, I’d been nothing but a haughty, foreign elicromancer queen who had inflicted my vicious sister on his mortal nation. What did he think of me now?
“What is consummating?” Jeno asked, peeling his eyes away from the woods to look at his older brother.
Sev laughed. “Walk the perimeter, would you?”
Jeno complied with only a little protest.
I stepped closer to the fire, crossed my arms against the cool night, and realized I was still wearing Stasi’s ripped dress.
“So, your friend,” Sev said, bending to set a log on the dimming fire. “She’s not one of the all-powerful elicromancers we’ve been waiting for.”
“I’m afraid not. The rest of us have undergone extensive training, but Kadri is new at this.”
“Does she have any chance of defeating Ambrosine?” he asked.
“She can help, but Ambrosine is probably the most powerful of us all—except Valory Braiosa, who doesn’t count. Ambrosine is older than the rest of us and has been an elicromancer the longest. She gets what she wants, whatever it takes.”
“Not always,” Sev said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice trembling a little. I looked him in the eye. His dark curls were thick and tousled, cutting an exaggerated shadow on the ground.
“I mean that I gave her nothing, in case you were wondering. Neither the information nor the…other thing she sought.”
I smiled in relief, not caring that it would make my feelings obvious. “It’s hard to believe anyone could reject her,” I said, collecting my thoughts. “Her heart is rougher than a pumice stone, but she’s objectively ravishing.”
