Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

  I had to think that she would surrender to Silimos soon in order to escape this prison of mind and body. From what I could tell, no one had found her, or at least no one had succeeded in freeing her if they had. The forest would become less welcoming each day. Her only way out? Agree to invite the Fallen inside her body and soul.

  Comforted and exhausted, I stumbled into bed without even visiting the edifice to spin fantasies for my mad, pathetic husband.

  Clouds shrouded the sky the next day. I rose late and donned mourning attire again. Devorian and I sat in an open-top carriage in the damp, warm air, following Perennia’s procession on a loop through Halithenica as rain began to fall.

  My subjects emerged from their clay-and-brick homes and cramped, dim shops to see her. Some openly admired her beauty, but no one offered me anything beyond perfunctory condolences with downcast eyes. Many frantically reached for the iron trinkets in their pockets as if to ward me away.

  This procession was a bad idea. If Devorian noted their apprehension, he might begin to weave a tale of his own, different from the one he’d barely given me a chance to tell.

  “I wish the Realm Alliance could be here,” Devorian said. “Or just a few of Perennia’s friends from home. None of these people know her. They’re being kind for your sake, but tomorrow they will move on. We could have at least waited for Glisette—”

  “No,” I said. “It was her spell that killed Perennia. She was so ashamed that she threw away her elicrin stone and fled.”

  “That’s not what I heard at the port. The criers are saying she went mad, murdered her own sister, and kidnapped the princess.”

  “Gossip,” I said, waving it off. “They don’t know her. They invent their own stories.”

  “Where is Navara then? And King Myron?”

  “The king has suffered digestive woes for weeks, and the princess is traumatized. She witnessed the altercation. It would never have happened if Glisette could resist being so suspicious of me. She got it into her head that I violated my probation. How? They put restrictions on my magic! She’s determined to think the worst of me, and it has broken our family.”

  A sudden, cold blast of wind tore through the city streets. Its frigid fingers tugged off my headdress. The rain turned to hard sleet and the people fled to shelter. Trying to escape the sudden onslaught of cold, miserable weather, the coachman snapped the reins and our carriage jostled roughly over the cobblestones. But we could only go so fast following a carriage carrying a glass coffin and a lifeless body.

  “Glissy,” Devorian breathed. He extended his palm and watched the sleet turn to snowflakes.

  “What?” I asked, my heart dropping to my heels.

  “It must be her…unless it snows here on the cusp of summer?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I breathed, crossing my arms against the biting wind.

  “I have to find her,” Devorian said. He craned his neck to see how far we were from the palace. His nose and ears were already bright pink from cold.

  “Why? She ran away. She doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Maybe not by you,” he said in a dark voice. Then he sighed, his breath fogging the air. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t turn against each other right now. I made that mistake with the three of you after Mother and Father, and I don’t want to do it again. I’ll leave after the ceremony and return to collect Perennia’s remains before I go home. Do you have Glisette’s elicrin stone? I’m sure she’ll want it back after…” He gestured at the wild winter weather.

  “I don’t know what happened to it,” I lied.

  We fell silent, impatiently waiting for the procession to end.

  As soon as we arrived back at the palace, Devorian stormed away to collect his luggage. I ran to my quarters to yank open my vanity drawer and rummage for the purple chalcedony. An elicrin stone that had been unwillingly surrendered—and whose owner still lived and breathed—would revolt and burn to the touch.

  A vile curse tore out of my lips as the stone seared my skin. I threw it back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Angry red blisters rose on my fingertips.

  Glisette was alive.

  Severo had defied me. He had spared Glisette, and probably Navara too. He wouldn’t release my sister only to let his princess perish.

  What had he given me, if not Navara’s lungs and liver?

  He had probably fled, taken his family into hiding, thinking he had outsmarted me. I didn’t even know where he lived. I had manipulated him with idle threats.

  But they wouldn’t be idle now. Within minutes, my men would be hunting down the spineless huntsman and the two girls he had failed to kill. I had already told the deputy commander to send out a few royal guards to look for the princess, feigning concern for her. Now my men would hunt in earnest, scouring every town, and every forester would be on the lookout for the three of them.

  I would not rest until my commands were carried out.

  I would not rest until my soldiers dragged the princess back so I could slaughter her myself.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  GLISETTE

  BACK in the armory, I found myself wishing I had insisted on accompanying Navara to inspire the people. But she was right; my snowstorm had surely stoked the anti-elicromancer sentiments that Ambrosine’s tyranny had set aflame. Even if we banished Nexantius and defeated Ambrosine, the people of Perispos would never trust elicromancers again.

  Solving problems our kind had created didn’t exactly make us heroes.

  Where was Valory? Mercer? Tilmorn? I would happily take even Melkior if it meant having another elicromancer ally. Who had the Fallen of Apathy claimed in Nissera?

  I sat on a crate, tapping my heels with impatience and worry, absentmindedly picking at the cloth tied around my bloody hand.

  Part of me wanted to pursue Sev and Kadri down that tunnel. At least it would give me something to do besides stew in my many failures. Maybe the apocryphal scroll wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was me—my heart, my soul, my tendency toward harshness and derision, which I had to beat back constantly like a swarm of flies.

  Desperate for a distraction, I snatched the commander’s sketches and notes. I took my time digesting every detail. It seemed that the ambush would take place where the northern border of the Borivali Forest intersected a road leading south from Halithenica. Thanks to the false information, Ambrosine would think our army was on the move from much farther south and would march her army to intercept us in a valley that offered her high ground and favorable conditions. They would think they were surprising us, but we would be waiting for them before they even reached the forest.

  After I had read and memorized the commander’s notes, I stood up, stretched, and wandered through the aisles of weapons. I withdrew a sword from its pegs and tested it. It was standard-issue but well balanced. The scabbard slid off with a satisfying shing, and I raised the blade, pointing it at an imaginary opponent.

  One of the guards shouted outside. My blood beat a deafening rhythm in my ears. Had a forester stumbled upon us? Or worse, had Ambrosine discovered our location?

  Seizing the hilt in both hands, I ran, my boots pounding up the stairs.

  When I reached the surface, I saw the two guards pointing their swords at three men—all blond, all wearing elicrin stones.

  Devorian raised his hands to show he meant no harm. Mercer flanked him on the left, a tracking map in his hand, and Tilmorn followed close behind.

  My sword dropped to the grass. I staggered into Devorian’s arms. Even the cool, hard pressure of his magenta elicrin stone against my cheekbone brought me comfort.

  The guards must have stood down. It felt like Devorian and I were the only people left on earth, tethered to it by our shared grief and love.

  A freezing wind swirled around us, but he spoke softly to me until my power calmed. “Perennia’s at peace now,” he said. “I helped put her to rest. She looked so beautiful. After all this, we’ll take her home with us.”

  “I was wo
rried that Ambrosine would trap or tame you and make you do her bidding,” I said through tears. I stepped back to look at him. He had braided his shoulder-length hair, which reminded me of Father.

  “I cannot be trapped or tamed, Glissy. You should have known better.” He frowned up at the ruins of the edifice. “Is this where you’ve been hiding?”

  Leave it Devorian to criticize the accommodations.

  “It’s more than meets the eye.” I turned, smiling through sniffles, to greet Mercer. He scooped me off my feet into a fierce embrace.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said.

  “So are you.”

  When he set me down, I met the one eye that was golden-brown as wheaty ale. He looked grim, maybe even a little thinner than when I had seen him a fortnight ago. Long, unpleasant sea voyages could do that to the hardiest among us, but I knew it had more to do with worry.

  “Valory?” I asked.

  “I found her. She’s alive. But it’s…hard to explain.”

  “We’re safe here,” I said. “Come inside and tell me everything.”

  As we turned to descend, I found my way to Tilmorn for a quick embrace. He noticed my bloody bandage and placed his thumb in the hollow of my hand to heal me.

  “Remember, not the scar,” I said.

  Power surged from his murky gray elicrin stone and traveled under my skin, closing up my cut.

  The old soldiers’ mouths dropped open. One of them found the courage to ask Tilmorn if he could heal the leg he had injured saving Navara’s grandfather from an assassination attempt. Tilmorn may not have understood his words, but he understood the nature of the request—he received the same everywhere he went. Beneath that stoic, intimidating exterior lived the heart of a Healer, which Melkior had never really possessed. Valory had done the right thing giving them each new gifts. In fact, Valory had done a lot of things right. But the world feared her and always would.

  “Right this way,” I said, picking my sword from the overgrown grass and leading them down to the edifice. “I think you’ll be pleased by what you find.”

  A Holy had not come, and Navara would be disappointed by that. But this was far better.

  Kadri’s kidnapping had initially brought Devorian to Perispos. Rynna, who had barely survived the attack, had gathered that the kidnappers planned to take Kadri to Erdem. Devorian had immediately set sail with supplies to make a tracking map for Kadri on the way. He planned to meet up with us at the palace and send Perennia home so that he and I could search for Kadri together.

  Mercer and Tilmorn had remained behind with Melkior and Fabian to continue fighting the invasion in the forest, but Mercer had quickly made a connection between the spreading disease and what was happening here in Perispos. Fabian and Melkior stayed behind in Nissera to govern and offer shelter to Rynna’s people as the rot spread and worsened. Mercer and Tilmorn had reached the Perispi shore a few hours ago, equipped with tracking maps for all three of us. They’d found Devorian first, who had departed from the palace and was materializing from village to village, asking about me. He had not been able to complete his tracking map for Kadri thanks to a storm that had covered the full moon at sea.

  When the three of them reunited, they set out in search of Kadri, who appeared to be closest. According to the map, they had crossed paths with her but had never seen her. Now, looking at the extensive underground tunnels, they understood what had thwarted them.

  “When did you make the connection between Ambrosine and the forest rot?” I asked Mercer.

  He ran a hand over his tired face and raked it through his sandy hair. “When we found Valory ensnared in the pit. We tried to cut her out, but the growth had become a part of her already. It would have been like cutting off a limb.”

  “It smells like the bowels of Galgeth,” Tilmorn said, tracing his thumb absentmindedly along the scars the Moth King had carved on his face—scars that even his gift could not heal. “The very air is toxic. We could only stay minutes at a time before materializing away. The growth was trying to latch on to us, just like it did to the fay.”

  “I knew the hollow place left by the Water might attract something,” Mercer said. “But how could Valory have been overpowered so easily?”

  I saw deep love engraved into the lines of worry on his face. Months ago, I might have averted my eyes, ignored the unwelcome ache in my heart. Now I forced myself to gaze upon it, like staring at the sun, and found it no longer burned.

  “The moment we found her, I saw a vision of Ambrosine using Valory’s portal to visit the Water,” he explained. “We think she lured Valory there and used dark magic to entrap her.”

  I felt weighed down, like I had swallowed an anchor. Valory may have been mysteriously absent, but the knowledge of her invincibility had nested at the back of my mind, a comfort in the darkest hours. She would get us out of this mess as soon as she could. Nothing could overpower her. She would come to Perispos and end it all with one flick of her wrist.

  That sense of safety had been stripped away.

  This must have been what Ambrosine meant. My plan has already been set in motion, but I want you to help me. Help me and be even stronger than Valory.

  Kadri was right. One of the Fallen had invaded the Forest of the West Fringe. It was all part of Ambrosine’s plan.

  “I could tell Ambrosine was using dark magic,” Devorian said as he perused the food options, picking up jars and plunking them back down with a grimace. “In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that she frightened me.”

  “She’s not using dark magic,” I said. “The dark magic lives within her. And his name is Vainglory.”

  After I explained everything to them, I curled on my pallet next to Devorian’s and stared at the red dot on Kadri’s tracking map by the light of a candle stub. She and Severo had not yet left the palace.

  I didn’t remember drifting off, but I awoke to Kadri yelling from deep inside the tunnel. I jerked awake, fumbled for my sword in the dark, and ran to the mouth of the passage.

  Had someone pursued them from the palace? The convenience of the tunnels came with drawbacks. If even one person on the other side found out about the underground network, this whole operation would be compromised. The commander had considered my elicrin stone valuable enough to risk such danger, but that was before he and Navara had returned to three elicromancers ready to fight for the cause. Their arrival would be nearly enough to temper Navara’s disappointment when she found I had not succeeded in summoning a Holy.

  I heard the shuffle of distant footsteps—it sounded like two people, thankfully—but I couldn’t see what state they were in.

  “Kadri?” I called. “Sev?”

  A groan echoed down the tunnel. “Help us!” Kadri called.

  Behind me, I heard three spells light three elicrin stones. Tilmorn pushed past me and ran to meet them. I sprinted after him.

  “Oh, Tilmorn!” Kadri gasped. “Help him! He’s lost so much blood.”

  Tilmorn blocked my view, but as I ran, I caught glimpses of Sev’s bare torso and a bloodied dish rag clamped against the wound. His face was greenish-gray, the color of death.

  If Tilmorn hadn’t come…

  I couldn’t even ponder it.

  “Ambrosine came in while we were searching her bedchamber,” Kadri explained, doubling over to catch her breath. “She started talking to her mirror and didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. We tried to sneak out, but she saw the door open and called for her guards. Sev and I lost hold of each other as we ran. There was a fight, and Sev got stabbed before I was able to cloak him under the spell again. We barely made it out.”

  “Did anyone see you open the passage?” Commander Larsio asked.

  “A guard who stabbed him followed us, but I killed him and dragged him into the tunnel with us,” Kadri said.

  “Blood trail?” the commander asked.

  She shook her head. “Just a bit before we stifled the bleeding. It wouldn’t lead them to the passage.” />
  Tilmorn alleviated Sev’s pain and restored him to health. Sev searched the faces standing over him, blinking at the ones he didn’t recognize.

  But when his probing gaze landed on Devorian, he bared his teeth and lunged.

  “Sev!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Tilmorn held him back, claiming the slightest edge in pure strength, but Sev was more agile. He ducked under Tilmorn’s arm and locked a grip around Devorian’s throat. Devorian, for his part, did not retaliate with magic. Tilmorn and I were able to drag Sev away.

  “He tried to kill me at the palace!” he cried.

  “That was his uncle!” Kadri yelled over the commotion. “Elicromancers don’t age, so the two look alike.”

  “It was Devorian you saw a few days ago,” I explained, gripping his arm in case he planned to attack again. “But he left the palace soon after.”

  Sev looked from Devorian to Kadri to me, his sweat-slicked chest heaving. Kadri’s words sank in. “Why was Mathis there?” I asked.

  “When he left the Uprising, he must have realized Ambrosine was his only ally,” Kadri said. “She wants to cripple the Realm Alliance as desperately as he does.”

  “Typical Mathis,” Devorian muttered. “Doing whatever is politically expedient without regard for the consequences.”

  “So, you didn’t get the elicrin stone?” I asked. My first hope was to see them return alive, but the disappointment at their failure to retrieve my stone dug deeper than I expected.

  “Oh, we did,” Kadri said, reaching into her pocket and pulling it out by the chain. She dangled it over her finger. “I probably should have led with that.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  GLISETTE

  THE summer rains did come, just as Commander Larsio’s knees predicted.

  For three wet days, we dug and rigged traps where the road met the border of the forest according to his sketches. Larsio traveled from town to town, recruiting trustworthy warriors. He sent some farther south to set up camp. That would be the decoy army, comprised of retired soldiers and inexperienced civilians.