by Hannah West
Melda would not accept the coins I’d stolen from Orturio’s cellar, so I pulled the oldest girl, Stasi, aside as we prepared to go.
“Are you sure you will be safe here?” I asked, pressing several outdated gold pieces into her palm. “And have enough to eat?”
“This will help,” she replied. “And I can hunt too. My father stashed an old bow and quiver here somewhere. Thank you.”
I offered her a sad, knowing smile. Perhaps her early childhood had been different, but in the absence of a father, her mother needed her. Her eldest brother provided and the second eldest protected, leaving her to parent. Were the family more secure, she might have been permitted to learn a trade. I’d been fortunate enough to practice archery as much as I wanted, and to read and study and explore the city at will. But it wasn’t as though Father and Rayed had never underestimated me, had never closed a door on a conversation when they saw me peeking in. I hoped a promising future awaited Stasi.
Navara uttered a sheepish goodbye to Jeno while Glisette, Sev, and I watched, reining in smiles. We left the gray rouncey in the family’s care and departed the hidden cabin on foot.
For a quiet moment before dawn, the clouds cleared and the stars sparkled. They stayed put even as a rosy sunrise fanned out over the towering oaks, beeches, and evergreen firs.
We didn’t talk much, instead keeping our ears alert for any signs of foresters. Sev took us on a meandering path to help us avoid them, but we did spot a pair at the top of a wooded hill once. We hid behind a rock until long after they were gone.
By afternoon we glimpsed the ruins of the abandoned edifice through the trees. It was a relief; Sev’s face had turned gray and his bandages were soaked. As soon as we were safe, we could both partake of the remaining tincture in my bag.
Nature had reclaimed the sacred building for its own. Moss and ivy slithered along the walls. A young tree reached its branches through the shattered stained-glass windows as if seeking shelter. Ivy coiled around the ornate stone columns of the entryway, and the steps had cracked with the pressure of strong shoots pushing their way to sunlight.
We approached twin wooden doors hanging crookedly on rusty hinges.
“This is it?” Navara asked, peering inside. “It doesn’t seem like an ideal place to hide out and plan a coup.” She turned to Sev and whispered, “Was Commander Larsio drinking when you found him in the gambling den?”
“Only enough to fool the other players into thinking they could best me,” a stranger’s deep voice said.
I whirled. A middle-aged man with black hair, a clean-cut beard, and clever hazel eyes clapped Sev on the shoulder, earning a wince of pain. A quality sword hung from the man’s belt, but he gave no inclination that he planned to draw it on us.
“Commander!” Navara said. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No need to be sorry, Your Highness.” He smiled and bowed to her. “Your Majesty.” He bowed to Glisette, and then turned to me. “Sev didn’t mention a third companion.”
“I’m Kadri Lillis,” I replied.
“Ah, Your Majesty,” he said, offering another bow. “A pleasure. I am Gian Larsio, former commander of the King’s Army. Please, come with me.”
With a dignified stride that suited his status, the commander led us around the back side of the crumbling edifice.
Two guards in purple livery stood at attention outside an ivy-covered iron gate leading to the underground edifice. Navara and Glisette stopped in their tracks, and Sev flinched toward his knife. The warmth of live magic filled my chest.
“It’s all right. They’re retired soldiers,” the commander explained. “And they’re on our side.”
Sev’s eyes remained sharp and attentive, but I relaxed. The soldiers did look older, and their faded tunics bore a slightly different design from those worn by the soldiers in Enturra.
Commander Larsio swung open the iron gate and gestured for us to descend. The hairs on my arms prickled at the thought of being trapped underground, maybe even ambushed. Our best knife fighter was injured, and I didn’t know if I could take on more than one person with my elicrin stone and live to tell the tale. But Navara proceeded without hesitation. Glisette, Sev, and I followed.
What we found below was a torchlit Edifice of the Fallen much like the last one, with a mirror and unsettling scenes painted on the walls.
“Why did you choose this place to meet us, Commander Larsio?” Navara asked.
The commander detached the mirror frame from the wall. “Just as the king and the high priest have their secrets, the king and I have ours.”
Beyond the mirror lay another iron door, but when the commander opened the bolt lock, he revealed something far more ambitious than a secret room of religious treasures.
A long underground tunnel stretched before us, harboring hundreds of swords, shields, spears, axes, bows, and collections of armor glinting in the torchlight. There were crates with cans of food, grain sacks, bottles of lamp oil, fur cloaks, vials of curatives…supplies for survival.
“What is this place?” Navara gasped.
“A reserve armory,” the commander said. “It was built in case of a siege on the capital. It’s been here for hundreds of years, one of the best-kept secrets of Perispos. Even my former deputy, who’s now leading the queen’s army, doesn’t know about it.”
“In case of a siege…” Glisette mused, peering down dark passages that branched off from the armory. “Does that mean these tunnels go all the way to the palace?”
“Indeed. There’s also a path leading to the coast, where ancillary war vessels are kept underground.”
“Manmade tunnels vast enough to accommodate war ships?” Sev asked in disbelief.
“When your neighbors have magic, you need ingenuity.” The commander clasped his hands proudly. “Settle in and we’ll talk.”
We dragged crates into a circle and sat. Glisette found a stringent curative and fresh bandages to treat Sev’s wounds while Navara inspected the food stores. “These aren’t hundreds of years old, are they?” she asked, holding a jar of packed venison to the torchlight.
“No, Princess,” the commander answered. “Sour stomachs would only make a siege more difficult to endure. Before the stores spoil, I bring them to local edifices to distribute to the poor.”
“And the priests don’t know where it comes from?” she asked, nervous as a doe at the snap of a twig. “They don’t know about this place?”
“They have no idea,” he assured her.
Navara had kept a cool head during both of our encounters with the Uprising, but now I could see how thoroughly the group had terrified even the object of their devotion. Viteus’s promise to protect had rightfully rung hollow in her ears.
Selecting venison, green beans, and potatoes, Navara returned and passed the food around. Sev and Glisette were naming the resources and players at our disposal: one injured Marksman elicromancer with novice skills; an experienced elicromancer who lacked an elicrin stone; a capable hunter and fighter who was wounded; powerful allies who may or may not be on their way to help; and a princess with political sway.
“And whichever Holy we decide to call down,” Navara said when they had finished.
“Navara…” Glisette said.
“What? Now that we have weapons and supplies and a leader, you’ve lost faith?”
“I never had faith. Not like you did.”
“Do,” Navara corrected. “I can reconcile what I learned. If anything, I’m more convinced that a Holy will answer your call.”
“Planning well is the best way to keep innocent people, your people, from getting swept up in Ambrosine’s wrath,” Glisette said.
Navara thought for a moment and nodded.
“It’s true. We are facing an elicromancer enemy with little regard for mortal life,” Commander Larsio said. “With your permission, Princess, we will prioritize protecting the civilians of Halithenica.”
“Of course,” Navara said.
“That means
we don’t storm the city, even if additional forces from Nissera join us.”
“I agree,” Sev said. “Ambrosine doesn’t care about her people, but she knows that we do. If the battle happens within the city gates, that gives her leverage. She could terrorize her citizens to try to win concessions from us.”
“The tunnels, then,” Glisette said. “We catch her off guard.”
“It’s an option,” the commander said. “But that still brings the battle close to innocent people. We need to lure her out of the palace and away from the city.”
I thought of the labyrinth of mirrors within the palace that Glisette had described, and how easily Ambrosine could use them to her advantage. “How?” I asked.
The commander took a thoughtful swig of ale and set his flagon aside. “Before the sun sets tonight, Princess Navara will go to one of the towns and give a rousing speech, inspiring those who are able to join her rebellion and fight for us. That will lay the foundation of our deception: that we’re mounting a large-scale resistance to directly attack the city. But in truth, we’re planning an ambush.”
“Why would we want Ambrosine to think we have a strong army when we don’t?” Navara asked.
“A few dozen retired soldiers and an elicromancer without an elicrin stone will not draw her out,” the commander explained. “But if she believes we are a growing army gaining numbers by the day, with elicromancer allies, she and her army will meet us. The new commander will want to avoid defending the capital at all costs. It’s destructive and expensive.”
“But their forces are so much stronger than any civilian army we could gather,” Sev said. “Even a clever ambush would fail with those odds. Our hands are tied without real help from Nissera.”
“Nissera’s help would be ideal,” the commander admitted. “But Navara’s rallying cry will pick off soldiers who waver in their loyalty to the queen.”
“If they recognized Ambrosine for what she is, wouldn’t they have defected already?” I asked.
“As long as the king is still signing decrees, the soldiers might feel they have to obey their orders, regardless of the circumstances. But when Navara calls them to action, they will know they can defy the queen without breaking their oaths to crown and country. Those who do not abandon her when they have opportunity and reason should be considered complicit in her evils.”
The commander’s rationale and wisdom chipped away at the fear that had been steadily mounting. But as the only elicromancer here, I might have to be the one to defeat Ambrosine—and that scared me to the bone.
“The first element of our strategy is the inspiration and illusion,” the commander said. “That is your part, Princess. Tonight, you will raise the banner of your cause and make the queen believe we are planning an invasion. The second is false information. We need an informant to feed the queen secrets, secrets that she will believe we don’t want her to know. If we make our plan too obvious, she’ll recognize the deception for what it is. She has to think she is outsmarting us.”
“An altar attendant who used to work for the Uprising now works for Ambrosine,” I said. “The Uprising fed her false information to test her, and she took it straight to Ambrosine. I can force the priest in Enturra to put me in contact with her. He’ll do it—he doesn’t want to see Ambrosine triumph over Navara any more than we do. When I speak to the informant, I’ll pretend to be an Uprising agent who still believes she’s our ally on the inside.”
“But why would an Uprising agent know about our plans for rebellion?” Glisette asked.
“The Uprising lacks a leader. It would make sense for them to unite with our resistance to defeat a common enemy.”
“Excellent,” the commander said, rubbing his hands together. “The third element is battlefield advantage. The forest is a prime location for an ambush. But we can boost that advantage with unpredictable conditions. I can feel in my knees that the summer rains will come soon.” He looked at Glisette. “You could turn them into a winter storm, a storm for which we are prepared, and they are not. A storm that allows us to hide traps under a fresh layer of snow.”
“I don’t have my elicrin stone,” Glisette reminded him. “I have no control.”
“That leads me to the final element,” the commander said. “The theft. We need every elicromancer ally we can get, including you, Your Majesty. Sev knows his way around the palace, and we have a tunnel leading right to it.” He gestured at a dark passage leading north. I couldn’t contain my shiver. The thought of roaming in the dark, getting lost, getting trapped, going mad down here made me want to drag open that vault door and never set one foot underground again.
“That is far too risky,” Glisette said. “Ambrosine could have tossed my elicrin stone in the ocean by now.”
“She wanted trophies as proof of your deaths,” Sev reminded her. “You think she’d ask for a lock of your hair but toss away your elicrin stone?”
“She will kill you on sight, Sev!” Glisette cried. “And it could be for nothing. We have no proof she kept it.”
“Well…” I started. Glisette was going to kill me for this. “She took it from you before she ordered Sev to kill you, right? She may have kept it to monitor your status.”
“Status?” Sev asked.
Glisette sighed. “An elicrin stone separated from its master burns to the touch, but only if the master is alive. It’s a bond that can only be severed by death or willing abandonment. She could have known I was alive with or without your proof. I didn’t tell you that because I wanted you to spare us.”
“I was always going to spare you,” Sev said softly. “Why do you think I waited until you regained consciousness? I just needed one of you to talk me out of my orders.”
Glisette smiled crookedly at him. Sev grinned back, but the smile slipped away when he looked at the commander. “I’ll go now.”
“I’ll go too,” I volunteered. “Glisette can teach me the concealing spell so I can hide us both.”
“You and I should go, then,” Glisette said to me. “There’s no reason for Sev to risk his life for my elicrin stone.”
“You don’t know the palace like I do,” Sev argued. Neither of them seemed to want to admit outright that they were trying their best to protect each other. “Where the guards are stationed, how to navigate the mirrors…”
“And I need you, Glisette,” Navara said. “I could use another lesson before I carry a sword in public.”
“The commander would do a better job—” Glisette started, but Navara held out a finger to shush her.
“And most importantly, there’s a deity you need to ask a favor of.”
THIRTY-FIVE
GLISETTE
AN hour later I walked a distance with Sev down the north tunnel to see him off to the palace. The passage yawned at us, so dark that my mind could imprint whatever fears it wanted onto that stretching abyss.
It was easy to imagine a woman with a crown of knives whispering in the dark, or a creature wrought of teeth and muscle waiting to tear me apart, or even Ambrosine herself, watching me with wicked eyes like newly minted coins.
Sev’s hand brushed mine as we walked. When the armory was far enough away that we could claim some privacy, he stopped. We hadn’t truly spoken since before our kiss—not about the matters that animated my heart, otherwise thriving on only grief and revenge.
He turned, his dark eyes soft but intense. In the faint light from the armory, his face looked wan and tight.
We had only known each other for a few tempestuous days, but I felt attuned to the slightest change in his stolid expression and sensitive to his every gesture, whether meaningful or not.
“You should wait until the bleeding’s stopped,” I said.
He frowned at his bandage. “I’d imagine living without your power feels a bit like being wounded. You suddenly can’t do things that were easier than breathing before.”
I nodded. “I felt so helpless yesterday.”
“So did I. My brothers and
sisters are my responsibility. And I thought I had failed them.”
That word, failed, carved a hole in my chest.
But the rough warmth of Sev’s hand settled against my cheek. “Glisette,” he whispered, waiting until I looked up at him. “That kind of love—the love you have for Perennia—reaches across death.”
The levy broke and I fell into his embrace. His arm tightened around me, the other hanging limp at his side. I wept, crushed against soft leather and the scents of the woods. We resided in that moment, wishing we could cure each other’s pain. And the wishing itself was enough to ease it, if only a little.
Wiping tears from my eyes, I stepped back. He dug the iron effigy out of his pocket. “I’m going to find your elicrin stone. And until we meet again, we’ll each have something that belongs to the other.”
His touch lingered as he placed it in my hand.
Twisting torchlight at the mouth of the tunnel diverted our attention. Kadri stared past us at the path before her as though it was the gullet of a monster ready to devour her. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she called out.
Sev’s deep voice boomed back at her. “I have a map of the tunnels and everything we need in case we lose our way,” he said, patting the satchel at his hip. “Commander Larsio said there’s an emergency opening at the midpoint.”
Kadri nodded, determined but not enthused, and limped toward us.
“You’re sure you can do the concealing spell?” I asked her. “Remember, you have to be touching Sev for it to cover him. And it’s seter inoden, with emphasis on the—”
“I know, Glisette. Remind me not to take you on as a tutor when we go home.”
Home. I had hardly thought about home in the days since Perennia’s death. What would home be without her?
“Please, be careful,” I whispered. I embraced Kadri and then watched my two wounded friends venture into the darkness. The thought of losing anyone else made my heart feel like glass waiting to be shattered.
I turned and stalked back to the armory, finding it empty. After her swordplay lessons with the commander, Navara had gone to gather materials needed for the elemental ritual. According to the apocryphal scroll, it would call down one of the Holies. I had reservations about the ritual and tried not to pin all of my hopes on its efficacy—which was easier to do now that we had the commander’s acumen and, possibly, my elicrin stone. But it wouldn’t hurt to try.
