by Serena Rose
When all the men were laid on the cold ground of crypt, their arms crossed over their chests, Zorion closed each of their eyes, haltingly murmuring what prayers he could remember. He threw his bloody clothes into the fire, and scrubbed himself with cold water from the basin, declining Alain’s offer of a real bath. It was late, and more than anything, he wanted to be back with Alaia.
The room was dark when he entered, save for a bright circle of moonlight on the floor from glass dome above. He slipped under the covers as quietly as he could, but she wasn’t asleep. She turned to him, and he put his arms around her, pulling her close. She buried her face in his chest, and it was wet with tears. “All I can think about is how frightened they must be. What if he hurts them?”
He was at a loss. Somehow, he felt telling her that they might not even realize anything was wrong would not be helpful. After the coup, it had taken Lorea days to realize that their new life was not a fun vacation, that their father was gone forever.
Children were resilient. “They have Lorea, Galena, and Maite to protect them. We’re going to get them back,” he said, kissing her forehead. There was nothing else to be said. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep. He was still angry, and his mind was swirling with a thousand different scenarios for rescuing the children, but it had been a long night. He was too exhausted to even dream.
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Alaia woke with a start, heart pounding, immediately aware of one fact: her children were missing. Someone was knocking on the door. Zorion sat up next to her. “What is it?”
“The others are here,” Itzal’s voice called. “It’s time to make our plan.” They dressed in silence, both of them lost in their own thoughts, but when Zorion was ready, he came to stand behind her as she braided her hair before the mirror, his arms snaking around her waist.
“We could leave,” he murmured against her shoulder. Her fingers stilled. She couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. “Itzal and I could get the children back, and then we could all run somewhere far away. Somewhere we’d be safe.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Is that what you want, Zorion? To be a farmer somewhere with a little cottage while Imanol lives in your parents’ castle and runs the city into the ground?”
“No,” he said sharply. “But I would, because you and the children are more important to me than anything. Even if I’m the king, if I don’t have you… my life would be meaningless to me.”
“I don’t like this, all the intrigue and fighting,” she said. “But we can’t let Imanol win. At least our children are alive. How many more will die before the city rises up against him or collapses? You have a power possessed by no one else. If we don’t do something, we’re complicit in everyone else’s suffering.
“My brother died in the war that Imanol started five years ago, and my parents have never quit fighting. I’m certainly not going to be less than they are.” They had never really talked about her brother before, though Zorion knew about Danel. She thought she’d let go of her grief long ago, but now the wound felt fresh, and more personal. Zorion let out a long breath against her neck.
“As long as you’re sure, I won’t give up,” he said, and she squeezed his hands. She finished braiding her hair, and they went downstairs. Itzal was waiting for them in the great hall, sitting at a long table with several other nobles and Osane too. The old priestess hobbled over and hugged Zorion and her both.
“I know you both must be beside yourselves with worry, but the children are safe for the moment. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but now is the time for us all to act,” she said before taking her seat. Itzal looked dead on his feet, and Alaia could smell coffee coming from the mug in his hand. Her silent wish for her own mug was granted almost immediately as Maude came by with a cart of pastries and fruit and drinks for everyone.
“All right. Let’s get this started. I went to the palace last night. As expected, the children are being cared for, in the same nursery that the late King and Queen used for their children. None of the secret passages are, as far as I can tell, watched or barricaded. I have to assume that Imanol either doesn’t know about them or doesn’t care.
“The children’s room is guarded of course, but only on the outside. For the most part, Lorea and the other two nursemaids are left alone to care for them, with a guarded chambermaid bringing them supplies every hour or so. My plan is for Alaia and I to enter the palace by means of the secret passages, subdue the chambermaid and her guard, and pose as them to get into the room.
“Then Alaia, Lorea, and one of the others will take the children through the secret passages out of the castle, leaving me and whoever is left to leave as normal. With any luck, no one will realize the children are gone for an hour or so. But to make sure, Zorion should lead the rest of you in a distraction.”
“I have some ideas about this,” Zorion said. “Now that he has the children, Imanol has little reason to keep me alive, except that I have one thing he doesn’t have, that he’s always been obsessed with: the blood of dragons. I plan to show up at the palace as a dragon, maybe with some troops to look like a real show of force. I’ll threaten to burn the castle to the ground unless he faces me in single combat.”
“You plan to let him believe that if he defeats you, the power will pass to him,” Osane surmised, and Zorion nodded. “He will be ruthless in getting what he wants. You cannot let your guard down because he’s a fat old man.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said. “Does anyone have anything to add? Alaia?” He met her eyes, and she was grateful he hadn’t tried to argue against her going. To save their children, she wouldn’t be left behind.
“I’m ready,” she said, clenching her fists. He nodded. The conversation turned to the troops that would accompany him, which meant little to her. The meeting ended a few minutes later, and Itzal came to her chair.
“We have to go first, as soon as possible, but first you’ll need to change clothes,” he said. “I think I have some things that will fit you.” He gave her tight-fitting breeches and a shirt with a hood, all black, and soft boots to match. It was strange not to feel skirts swirling around her legs when she walked, and even stranger when he gave her a dagger to wear.
“I know you aren’t trained, but in the worst-case scenario… I think you can figure out which end goes in the bad guy.” Just a few hours ago, she had been horrified by the idea of fighting herself, now she accepted the blade with grim finality.
Zorion met them at the entrance to the crypts in his office, nearly crushing Alaia against his chest in a fierce embrace. “Please be careful. I wish I could go with you.”
“We all have to do our part if this is going to work,” she said, but she held him close, taking in every bit of him she could sense, the clean scent of his skin, the beat of his heart, the honey-gold of his eyes. “You’d better be careful too.”
“I will. We’ll be together again soon,” he promised, and he kissed her hard. Itzal clucked his tongue behind them. It was time to go. She followed the spymaster down the stairs, and darkness enveloped them as the passageway closed above. They went swiftly, Itzal guiding the way in silence, but finally there was a question Alaia felt she had to ask.
“These passages go all the way from our house into the palace?” It seemed like a huge risk, but also like an opportunity that could have been taken long ago.
“Not originally. They went far out into the city, but we expanded them. There’s one tunnel that goes into the root cellar of the palace. From there, the castle has a network of secret passageways. We could get right into the King’s bedroom if we wanted to.”
Her eyebrows flicked upward. “Why haven’t you? Assassinating Imanol seems much easier than this.”
“Exactly what I said,” Itzal exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “But Zorion didn’t want to take the throne that way. He wants a fair fight.” They let out identical sighs of exasperation.
“Well, it’s not a fair fight anymore.
If I ran into Imanol now, I’d kill him with my bare hands,” Alaia said, with the fierceness that only a mother defending her children can know.
Itzal laughed. “You know, I wanted to hate you, at first.” She turned to him in the guttering torchlight, and his expression was strange. For a moment she felt a flicker of unease. “I always knew he would marry… but I hoped. Well, as you know, he’s an easy man to love. He never showed more than a cursory interest in women until he met you.”
“Oh god,” she said as she realized what he meant. “I’m so sorry, Itzal. I never realized,” she said, patting him on the shoulder and then embracing him when he didn’t pull away. He shuddered.
“I don’t think he does either, thank every god,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “That would make everything awkward. I just felt… I had to tell someone. If he dies now, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“He won’t die,” she said, gulping back her own fears. “But I suppose that means Lorea is barking up the wrong tree,” she added with a huff of laughter. “This family is a magnet for heartbreak.”
He laughed weakly “I’m flexible. I mean, I’m not opposed to women, but I could never… with Lorea.” He shivered. “She’s like my younger sister. It’s not her fault she hasn’t been around anyone her age since she was a little girl. It’s mostly been the three of us since the coup.” He sighed. “I’m hoping when all this is over, Zorion will set her up with some nice young lord, and she’ll forget all about me.”
“Maybe he’ll let her attend Heartfire with the village girls. She’ll get a kick out of that.” Itzal let out long breath, but when he spoke again, his voice was lighter. Alaia thought he must’ve been carrying that burden a long time, and her heart contracted in sympathy.
“We’re nearly to the palace,” he said. “We should be quiet. The kitchen staff is in on the plan, but we should avoid being seen by anyone else until we find the chambermaid and her guard. Follow my lead.” The next passage they turned into was dark, with rough earthen walls, and ended in a wooden ladder she could hardly see.
Itzal went first, slowly lifting a door in the ceiling and peering around. He scrambled through it after a moment and beckoned her, pulling her up through the hole as she was a bit too short to do it herself. They were in a cellar, just as he’d said. The air was rank with the smell of old potatoes and dirt, and she held her breath to stifle a cough that threatened.
They passed into the kitchen amidst a clamor of clanging pots and pans and billowing steam. The servants were cleaning up from breakfast and getting ready for lunch; they hardly paid any mind to the interlopers, but the head cook saw them at once.
He jerked his head to the far corner of the room, and they made themselves as small and out of the way as they could. The wait seemed interminable. But then the cook came over, holding a young woman, a girl really, by the shoulder. “Tara is the maid for the nursery,” the cook said. “She’ll help you.”
“Are you… the children’s mother? The princess… I mean?” she asked, shaking. Itzal frowned, but Alaia nodded. She was sure that this poor maid was terrified but also just as sure that she was a good person.
“I’ve come to take my children back,” she said, as fierce as she had ever been. Tara gulped and nodded.
“I’m s-sorry. I’m j-just so fright-t-ened of the King. B-but they’re j-just babies. I heard them crying for their mother, and I want to help. You c-can have my clothes. The g-guard, B-Brom isn’t too b-bright, but he’s one of the k-king’s favorites. You’ll have to knock him out. We m-meet just outside the k-kitchen in a few m-minutes.”
Itzal patted her shoulder. “If everything goes well, you won’t have to worry about the king anymore. You can hide in the cellar until this all blows over.” She nodded, and pulled off her overdress and smock, trading it for Alaia’s shirt and hood.
“Thank you,” Alaia said, and that was all they had time for. The cook pointed her to the maid’s cart and she pushed it out into the corridor.
“Where you been? I was waiting…” Brom said in a slow voice. Alaia made herself small and trembling.
“The cook was just asking me a question about the children,” she said in a quiet voice. He had to lean closer to hear her.
“He better learn to mind his own business,” said Brom, and a dark shape leaped from the darkness, grabbing him from behind and snapping his neck before he could speak his surprise at the situation. Alaia jumped back with a gasp as the body slumped to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Itzal said. “I know we didn’t plan on killing anyone, but he was just too big to knock out without causing a ruckus. It was unavoidable.” Alaia could only shake her head, her heart racing. As worried as she was about her children, she wasn’t quite as ready to see death as she thought she was.
“I’ll be back in a second,” he said, dragging the dead man back into the kitchen. He reappeared a moment later wearing the dead man’s helmet and tabard. They were obviously much too big for Itzal’s lithe frame.
“Don’t you think they’re going to notice the size difference?” she hissed as they walked down the hall.
“I’ll think of something,” he muttered. They traveled down the corridor, up a slanting hallway, and then up another. There were tapestries on these walls and portraits of rulers from ages past. The thick carpets made the cart harder to push. In the distance, she could see two guards standing at attention beside a door. They’d already passed a few guard outposts who barely paid them a second glance, but these men were different, more alert.
“That’s it,” Itzal said. “Let me do the talking.”
Alaia took a deep breath and bowed her head as they moved forward “You ain’t Brom,” said one of the men at the door. Apparently, Imanol’s guards were all related.
“No, I’m not. Very clever of you,” Itzal said with a winning smile. “The king called Brom to assist in some important business. Something strange is going on outside, and the king needed someone he could trust to look into it. I’m no one important, as you can see, but there’s hardly a reason to send a skilled guard like Brom to guard against babies, am I right?”
“The King said we were to let nobody but Brom into the room,” the guard said stubbornly, though she could see he was already a bit confused. A lot had been happening the past few days, and his orders must have changed so often that he hardly knew the right thing to do at any given moment.
“Well, if you want to go ask him, that's your affair,” Itzal said. “The king doesn't seem like he wants to be bothered by such a trivial matter. I hardly know what would happen to someone who questioned his orders, and he won't be happy if the children start crying because they don't have clean nappies. But it's your decision.”
The two guards glanced at each other. Alaia would have laughed, except her heart was in her throat. “Go on in then. But no funny business.”
“We wouldn't dream of it,” Itzal said. The door was opened, and Alaia couldn't stop trembling. Her children were inside. She kept her head down and pushed the cart through, and the door shut behind them.
CHAPTER 12
They waited a half hour. Zorion could do nothing but pace in his office. There was no way to know if Alaia was all right, if they had been successful. Everyone he really cared about was in the palace, and he felt untethered. The clock chimed the hour, and he went up to the roof. Stationed around the city, 100 men stood waiting for his signal, four groups of 25 each under the banner of a noble house. It was not enough to take the palace, not even close, but with him, it was enough to seem like a credible threat.
The transformation took no time at all. It felt strange to be perched on top of the house during the daytime, and he could hear the sounds of city life just below him. He climbed to the peak of the roof.
Either way, they would not be coming back here, and he was filled to the brim with frustrated anger that needed at outlet. He looked down at the city, to the palace squatting like an indolent courtier by the riverbank, an
d roared. The windows across the street rattled. People screamed and dogs barked. He leaped into the sky with a mighty flap of his wings.
Behind him, the house shook and groaned, and at least one window broke, but it remained standing. It seemed like a good omen to Zorion. He soared low over the city, and the people below looked up, wide-eyed. Some of them were afraid, but most were awed, and even delighted.
His mother had rarely used her power, but the people remembered. He roared again over the market district and saw a line of troops exit a park and follow after him. By the fountain in the main square, children stood and pointed, and out of the taverns spilled more men.
Into the noble quarter he flew, and the men coming out of Lord Firenze’s estate shouted and raised their hands as he passed, and there, at the palace gate, was Osane and the last group of soldiers.
He landed perched on the gate itself and roared down at the guards patrolling the courtyard. Many of them dropped their weapons and ran at once. Clearly, the guard captain didn’t care much for discipline. Tell Imanol to come and face the true King. He has one hour to appear before I burn this whole place to the ground, he shouted into the minds of anyone within a hundred yards. He gazed over the scene with a critical eye, and shot a fireball at a banner overhanging the second-floor balcony. Everyone in sight ran into the palace as it turned to ash. Once again, all he could do was wait.
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Maite and Galena were sitting in the corner, rocking Izar and Zuzen, though by their sounds of discontent, they were in no mood to be soothed. Alaia wanted to run to them, but Lorea stood up, hands on her hips. “You'd better tell your king to let us go. My… Prince Zorion would never just hand his children over. He's ready to fight you.”
“You're absolutely right,” Itzal said, and Lorea’s expression transformed from anger to relief.
