Ember

by Anna Holmes

  Not the one who'd never prey on the bereaved. Not the one who'd never blame me for my own bereavement. Not the one who'd never wound me out of jealousy. This is someone else entirely.

  I shake my head. "I don't know you," I realize out loud. "I thought you were—"

  Jori's mouth pulls down. It's ugly, incongruous with the rest of her ethereal features, her sheaf of silken hair, the beauty to the curve of her. "Thought I was what?"

  "Not—this." I wave a hand at her dress, meant to beckon the lonely. "I would have given anything for you back—my leg, my life. But you’re really, truly gone."

  Gathering all of my energy, I limp to the door, my shoulders straight, chest rising and falling regularly even though I think I might never breathe again.

  "I'm right here," she shouts. "Are you mad?"

  I pause, my hand cradling the doorknob. To my surprise, I laugh. It's a strange, slow release, like something wound tight for a long time is being uncoiled. She reels back. "Maybe," I say. "We'll see."

  I leave Jori in the emptiness of her making.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Caelin

  A few things to be grateful for:

  He's not unconscious. I'm still Plain, so that's proof enough for me.

  In this armor, everyone leaves me be.

  There's not much city left to search.

  Mountainside curves around to a gentle end in the shadow of the setting sun, and I'm nearly out of shops. I've ducked in and out of just about every one I've found on both sides of the street, up and down stairs. "Where are you, oaf?" I mutter under my breath.

  A man looks at me sideways and scuttles off in the darkness. I'm about to snap at him in frustration when I'm suddenly glad I sound like a lunatic, because his shirking draws my eye. There in a crevice, pressed against a wall with his head in his hands and his leg stretched out in front of him, is Alain.

  He's trying to blend into the dark wood and the shadow it casts, but he's only partly invisible. His focus is poor. "There you are," I say. "I need you to come back and be a prince. Not a whole lot of time to explain."

  He comes the rest of the way into view, and he looks like he's just been thrashed. His face is reddish and blotchy in places and nearly drained of all color in others, and his eyes are swollen. "Were you robbed?" I ask involuntarily.

  He shakes his head and wipes at his face with his hands. I kneel in front of him and try to take stock. "Your leg? Come on. I'll get you to Maribelle and we can go have a rest."

  "It's not the damn leg," he growls, and immediately looks haunted by the sound of his own voice. "I'm sorry."

  "What's gotten into you?"

  He draws his good leg into his chest and holds on as though he expects this one to be taken from him too, his forehead rested against his knee. "I—"

  I think I know this face. He's thinking about her again, his present held hostage by the past. He's disoriented. But there's something different. I settle back to my heels and wait.

  Eventually he pulls himself into now. He looks at me through whatever veil of confusion he's seeing the world and says, "She's alive."

  I am about to exclaim that that's a good thing, but I can see readily that it isn't. "How?" I ask instead.

  "She pretended death to escape my fate."

  "Then she knew what happened to you." I didn’t know about the camps, and I am enraged. How this girl could leave him to them is unthinkable. And his leg—!

  Well, perhaps she had her reasons. Stupid reasons.

  I still sort of hate her.

  He nods, staring distantly into the corner of the nook. "Everything I've done has been…"

  "All right. None of this." I crawl over so that I sit next to him. "You've done what you've done. You've done what you thought was best, even when what you thought best was moronic or misinformed…and I can't see anything wrong with that." I elbow him. "And you know that I will take any excuse to call you a fool."

  "I am," he confesses.

  "Well, it's no fun if you own up to it," I complain.

  The faintest hint of a smile flares at the corner of his mouth, and for some reason I ache to see it come back, stronger. I'm oddly crushed when the opposite happens. And then my heart breaks entirely. "I watched her die," he sobs into a hand. "And she let me."

  I don't know what else to do. I pull him into an embrace and let his shoulders shake and just hold on.

  He's had his fill now. He won't look me in the eye, but at least I've managed to help him to his feet and slowly, we make our way out of the leeward alley. "So…what—what was it you wanted me to do?" Alain asks, voice thick as he straightens his clothes.

  "It's a long story," I reply, "But Tressa and I made short work of the tunnel bandits at an inn this afternoon."

  "Mmm."

  "And they seem to think …." He's not listening to me, is he? One way to be certain. "They think I should abdicate and so I've agreed."

  "Really."

  His mind is elsewhere. I sigh. "Quite. I'm going to turn the country back over to the Legion and become a nun."

  Now he looks groggy, like he's coming to. "Wait, what was that?"

  "You didn't hear me tell you I've decided to marry Gavroth? It was something of the biggest piece of news Elyssia's had all year."

  He glares at me. "Caelin—"

  "Don't use my name." I check the corners of my eyes. Most of the passersby seem to have gone in for dinner, and no one's seemed to notice. "Are you listening now?"

  "Yes," he snaps.

  "Gavroth seems to be of the opinion," I say, now lowering my voice, "that Rosalia is sending a prince to retake Elyssia. What do you know of it?"

  "A rumor, undoubtedly." He seems lost again, but collects himself. "I am given to understand that Rosalia considered the siege the very last resort for retaining Elyssia. Somehow I doubt their intent."

  "Is it possible?"

  He rubs at his mussed up hair and squints at the fading sun. "I suppose…expending one prince and his retinue might be an acceptable level of risk. It would necessarily be—" he stops short.

  "What?"

  "An extremely talented prince. Likely in magic."

  "I need to know if it's true."

  He leans his head back. "And you want me to…?"

  "I may have told Gavroth that you were the prince and that I'm your lieutenant."

  This gets a little bit of a laugh. "You take orders from me. That'll be the day."

  "That day could be today."

  "What will you gain?" he asks, his face somber again. "What will this deception possibly net you? Listen, you're making me into my father."

  I'd laugh, but I don't think he finds it funny. "If it is true, I am hoping that he'll try to aid you, put you in contact with others who know more about this supposed plan. Elyssia can't take another war so hard on the heels of this last one."

  "It would likely not be a war," he muses. "Rather, a targeted…"

  "Me."

  "You."

  My throat clenches a little. I know the Legion is none too fond of me, and given the chance, wouldn't mind if I fell off a very high cliff. I look his way. "I've given you no reason to want to keep me on the throne. You…aren't that prince, are you?"

  "No." There's something distant about his answer, and a wisp of doubt floats across my mind. "No," he insists more strongly.

  "You're certain."

  "I would have killed you by now."

  "Say that louder, why don't you?" But it’s true. Unless he's waiting for a more ideal time…

  "I don't want the Legion back," he says, and this time, I hear conviction. "I'll be the prince if you need."

  It's my turn to be slow to reply. My mind is far too caught up. I mean, I’ve come this far with him—he wouldn’t possibly…could he? He’s looking at me cautiously, waiting for an answer. I stammer, "Gavroth may wet himself. Fair warning."

  Alain grimaces, but takes it all valiantly all the same. I am too distracted to be fully disgusted at the genuine
relief that burgeons across Gavroth's ample face at the sight of Alain, completely himself with no Plain disguise. Tressa seems uneasy, but if only she knew what runs through my mind.

  Our now swollen party makes camp down the hill from Mountainside. Gavroth and his brother chattered all the way and continue to do so now, while Cole and the woman who still eyes my horse murmur back and forth. I've cast myself as the stern lieutenant who prefers not to socialize. It makes the crippling paranoia slightly easier to handle if I'm alone with it.

  I told Alain that I'm quite used to being in danger, and it wasn’t a lie. But there's something about not knowing from which direction attack might come that has my stomach completely put off dinner. Especially given the fact that Alain, on the other hand, seems to be happy enough with the new arrangement. They sit around the fire and holler songs of Rosalia and the Legion. I see Gavroth pass him his flask more than a few times, and while I'm not surprised, I am disappointed as Alain grows rowdier and rowdier.

  Tressa is disapproving, but says nothing, sharpening arrows in the firelight. I know she is unhappy with my decision, and at the moment, I am a little, too.

  He says he's not that prince, and after all this, I should take him at his word.

  But it's convenient. Many have been swayed by a pretty face with a tragic backstory. I had always thought myself safe from that sort of thing, but maybe not.

  I watch him. He tells his new Legion friends that he can say nothing of the coming coup, that it's classified. They groan in drunken disappointment. "Will there be a fight?" Gavroth's brother asks.

  "I hope not," Alain answers, suddenly sober.

  He limps his way over to me when Cole and the woman—Fiora, evidently—decide to take watch, and Gavroth says something quietly to his brother. "We'll need to come up with some way of keeping you Plain," Alain says. "I can't stay awake forever."

  I push my hair out of my face, irritated. It's not really my hair, and I'm tired of it. "I'll just continue to alienate myself and insist on sleeping separately. Then you and your friends can have camp all to yourselves."

  "Please don't do this," he says quietly. "I've only done what you asked."

  "I didn't ask you to get drunk with them."

  "I didn't actually drink," he says, and I have to believe him. His words are too crisp, coherent. "If you'd like me to be less believable, I can oblige, but in the meantime…"

  "Volunteer for second watch," I mutter.

  He makes the slightest bow, and I watch him walk back to the fire. I don't know what to make of him. I don't suppose I ever did to begin with.

  Cole and Fiora return for us. I've been lying with my eyes shut for a while, not sleeping, and Alain has been contemplating something. Jori, possibly.

  If she exists.

  Stop, I tell myself. I have to trust Alain. I made the decision once—I have to believe that version of myself. He reaches out a hand to haul me up, even though he winces from my weight. "Any ideas?" He wants to know.

  "Aside from absolutely covering myself, none," I whisper.

  He shakes his head. "That might have to be it. Anything I can do will fade after I sleep, unless it's something more permanent."

  "No, thank you." I walk even further from the camp, looking into the distance. The long grass waves like dark green velvet unfurling underneath the passing clouds. "You all right now?"

  "Not even remotely."

  That's good. I mean, it isn't, but if he were lying he would have reassured me. I think. My head's beginning to throb. "Give it time," I say vaguely, carrying on.

  "Caelin, I…"

  "We're going to have to come up with something else to call me."

  "Does your family carry a surname? I've never heard it used."

  "Yes, you have. The blasted marriage announcement has it plastered all over my kingdom."

  "I assumed that was an honorific."

  "Traditionally, you give it up when you gain the throne." I rub at my forehead.

  "How long ago was that?"

  "My grandfather."

  "Lightholder," he muses. "Appropriate, but a little poetic for the Legion. Holder is common enough."

  I don't like the name, but I don't like anything about what's happening now, so it seems only fit. I do like it that Alain is talking to me again, and unless I'm a complete fool, there's no deceit there. He does slip into his old battles every now and again, but I can hardly blame him. Especially today. At length, I venture, "Will you have her back?"

  "Yes. No. Definitely…not." He knots his fingers in his hair and lets out a wordless growl of frustration. "No. I can't."

  "Girls make mistakes, too. We can't be forgiven?"

  "You and she are nothing alike."

  Ah. I leave the topic alone, and he says little else for the rest of our watch. I curl up under my cloak and tuck in the edges. The light eventually comes back as Alain gives in to sleep. I can only hope it's appropriately dampened from the outside.

  I don't feel very bright on the inside.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alain

  Her hands find my shoulders where I'm hunched over the desk in my tent. Her fingers dig into the thick wool, trying to find the tension in my muscles. It's hard through so many layers. I give her delicate hand a pat and return to my work. There are so many books to look through. Marsh dumped a whole new load on my desktop not three hours ago, and I have to wonder if she's doing it to torment me or in feverish hope that I'll actually find something. So far, this siege is looking unlikely indeed.

  Jori leans over, her short hair falling in her eyes. She tucks it back as she so often does with an impatient swipe. I sigh and shuffle some blank paper over my designs. "It's classified, love."

  She doesn't like this any more than I do. Her hands leave my shoulders abruptly, and she walks out of the room without a word.

  I uncover my work and sigh. The engineers have brought me drawings of the city and the tunnels the general ordered last month. The castle's towers are higher than expected, and this complicates matters. The tacticians tell me that it's impossible, but Marsh and her superiors—whoever they are—are all pushing for something that I can't give them.

  Jori could.

  I think about turning, calling her back, apologizing, breaking the rules.

  But I can't. My appointment is new, and I know very well that I'm being watched. I am the youngest prince in the colonial territories. I can do things that others can't, things that have been previously deemed magically impossible, and that makes me both highly useful and suspicious to the Legion.

  I throw myself into the books again, thrashing about for some hope.

  It's only days later, when the words have blurred together and I can't think straight for all of the jargon running around the inside of my head that I find it.

  Surprise.

  It's basic—the first thing they teach you at the Academy, the first thing that baby animals learn how to do when hunting.

  Set up an expectation. Use our usual tactics, use our numbers, allow the Rebels to think this is just another Legion attempt to overwhelm their stronghold, destined to fail. We'll come from below, from the tunnels, and claw our way up.

  We'll need reinforcements, and for that I'll need Marsh's approval, and for that, I'll need Jori.

  Marsh doesn't like to talk to me much, ever since I made a mockery of her evaluations. She hates that the sort of things I can do without thinking are things that it takes most years to master. But Jori knows exactly which nerves to hit, which egos to stroke, which rules to break and which never to cross.

  I jump out of my chair, out of the tent and into the rest of the camp. Some of the recruits look confused by my appearance—after all, I have been barricaded for a few days, and usually a prince's entrance is heralded by a bit more fanfare. Some remember to salute, some laugh at the state of my hair and my clothes, and some stare, bathed in jealousy. I don't care right now. I grab the nearest sentinel. "Where's Sergeant Crow?"

  He points
to the alchemists' tent. Usually the alchemists are inside it, making all sorts of explosions and plumes of smoke and colored light and gods know what else, but today they've been kicked out, and I know why. Jori.

  She's inside working feverishly on something. I know that trying to gain her attention won't make much of a difference. When her mind is set on something, it's not likely to budge, even for me. She glances up, her coat cast over a chair and her plain sleeves rolled up. It's never mattered to her that alchemy is far beneath her level of casting—she aims to master anything and everything. She'll throw herself even into the most basic study until every book spreads before her in submission. It's what I love about her.

  I come up behind and wrap my arms about her waist. She allows me to hold on for all of a second before she pulls away.

  I don't know much of alchemy. My practice hours were dedicated to will casting. But I do know whatever she's mixing does not smell right. Not that alchemy ever smells good, but there's something decidedly foul about this. Like something rotten, but sweeter, less final.

  I reach for her scribbled recipe, but she yanks it from my hand. "Classified, love."

  Smoke bites the inside of my nostrils and stings at my eyes. The fire was not part of the plan. By Resurgence or Legion set, it provides a horrifying distraction. We all flee, a river of people streaming away from the blaze in the easternmost edge of the Upper Town. And then it all starts again, this time worse than before.

  Everyone comes to war angry—I've seen enough to know that now. But something about the fire incites even the people I know to be cool-headed, ready to tear down the nearest enemy. Someone grabs my shoulder. Marsh. She coughs, her voice hoarse, straining to be heard. "We need to go," she calls to me, pulling on my arm like my mother when she wanted me to move faster.

  I didn't like it then, either. I am about to shout back when I hear a groan. Fram has been felled, and a beam from the stable roof above cracks under the heat of the fire. It will fall. I look back at Marsh, who purses her lips and shakes her head as though to say don't you dare.