Ember

by Anna Holmes

  The princess leans back and observes me. At last, she says, "Yeah."

  Caelin gives me the tiniest bit of a smile, the first I've seen all day. I find myself smiling back, and straighten my clothes and try to compose myself.

  Well. Rye wants a prince. He hadn't bargained for me, and certainly not the princess who came with me.

  "Do you think we can trust the information he gives us?" she asks, her voice low, her eyes flitting back and forth from the defunct listening box to me.

  "Rye won't risk being abandoned here by the Legion for insolence."

  "I don't understand. Gavroth is from the Southern Shore."

  "No, August is from the Southern Shore." They were likely all born in Rosalia. August is just young enough to remember little of that, though. If I'm correct, they probably came with their uncle in the time before the appropriation."

  "A diplomat," she sniffs. "My dislike for him just keeps growing."

  "This isn't the first time I've heard his name," I say. I perch on the hard wooden chair next to the door and check on the bandage on my leg. It's the first day it hasn't soaked through, but I know it's time to change it. At least I have something to talk about while I do it. Caelin moves to help, and this time, I let her. Her eyes catch mine, but she looks down right away, her face glowing a bit. At first I think that the spell's worn off somehow, but then I realize that she's blushing. I do the same, cursing myself. Gods only know how long this discomfort will last. "I am surprised that Rosalia hasn't tried to reclaim him."

  "Well, you certainly seemed to have the measure of him," she says, focusing possibly too deliberately on my bandage. "Perhaps the Legion got smart for once and had no desire for a man more interested in his own power than efficiency."

  I can't help an indelicate laugh. "You'd be incorrect. The Legion thrives on men like him. Far easier to let them do what they will and discipline them after the fact than to find those who will lead well in the first place." Tressa's shoulders soften slightly, and she returns the arrow she'd been sharpening to her quiver. I smile in her direction. "Does it surprise you to hear me offer criticism?"

  "It surprises me that you have thoughts," she answers tersely, but I may detect a hint of fondness hidden underneath. I give her my sweetest smile until a tug at the bandage sends the wound into a paroxysm.

  Caelin winces. "Sorry, sorry. That wasn't intentional."

  Through a jaw clenched so tight I'm unsure it'll open again, I squeeze out, "It's…all right."

  "Alain," she sighs. "Please say what you mean."

  "I mean, from whom did you learn to bandage? Lumberjacks? Miners? Gavroth?"

  "That's better."

  Tressa looks from Caelin to me and back again as though she's watching a game of shuttlecock. I'm glad we can provide such amusement. Eventually the bandage yanking is done, and I sit up, fitting my leg back into the boot. "They may not want to speak to me much with the two of you present. I can cast some sort of listening spell." In the corner, the listening box sits forlornly. "Almost wish I hadn't broken that."

  Tressa casts one more dirty look my direction, then looks down at the broken inhibitor and she takes a breath and nods.

  Caelin stands, wrapping her arms around herself. I almost throw my cloak over her until I realize she isn't cold. What is wrong with me? The slightest twitch from her has me jumping. No, she's right. This won't do.

  She drifts away from me to the fogged up mirror in the far corner of the room and attempts to pull her fingers through her hair. "Here," Tressa says. She moves behind Caelin and sets about coiling it up for her.

  Caelin laughs ruefully. "I know twenty five ways to disarm a man, but ask me to deal with this mess and I am useless."

  "My mother was very keen on ensuring I looked neat," Tressa reflects. "She said people were going to make their opinions of me without much provocation, so I may as well surprise them."

  I can't help but look up and start to break apart whatever rapport I may have made with her. It's too hard not to ask. "Are you…?"

  "The only one intelligent enough to worry about things like that?" she asks bluntly.

  "I was trying to find a more delicate way to put that."

  "Delicate is not something I do well. As far as I know, I am unique."

  There are stories, of course, of centaurs speaking. They usually end up being cryptic things, or lone stoic heroes, or savage villains in theses legends, little more than glorified rumors hybridized with the same old tropes. Tressa is none of these things. In fact, once we stopped trading barbs, all I could think was that she’s so very—ordinary. Minus one pair of legs, she could well be someone I grew up with, or fought against, or ran into in any old town. Her profession, on the other hand… "And were you raised to be a bounty hunter, or did that just come later?"

  She laughs. "Decidedly not. My parents did not cause fusses. Not that I helped with that. Our neighbors spent more time chasing off centaurs than getting to know them."

  Caelin fidgets with the edge of her boot and keeps her lips pressed together. She doesn’t want to ask, but Tressa already thinks I’m rude, so I will. "Your parents were different, then?"

  "Not much. They spent their whole lives there, learned the same lessons, endured the same hardships as everyone else. Somehow they didn’t come out as scared and hateful. Couldn’t tell you why, but I’m grateful. They found me stuck in the mud on the edge of their farm and wouldn't leave me to the elements."

  "Forgive me," Caelin says, frowning, "but isn’t that just…I don’t know, decency?"

  Tressa chuckles. "Yes, but decency didn’t require them to raise me alongside their boy. He ran off to join the Legion even as our parents harbored Resurgents. I don't know what happened to him. So I keep looking. Every bounty helps the trail get a bit clearer."

  "What would you do if you found him?"

  "I don't know," she admits. "Punch him, maybe? But I think my parents want me to look after him, even if he is a blasted traitor. You remind me a bit of him, actually, without the fishy bits."

  "Maybe I can help. What is his name?"

  "Kai Nuthatch. Like the bird." She uses a bit of Caelin's hair to tie the rest down and sets about pinning the braid into a neat coil near the base of her head. "He was young and stupid and talented like you. You wouldn't have met him, I don’t think."

  My hand clamps over my eyes. I've got to decide something here. I can pretend ignorance and let her go on chasing secondhand information, or I can tell her what I know. I pull my fingers back and watch her for a moment. She's gentle, precise with Caelin's hair, lost in the spiral. She deserves to know. At last, I say, "Actually, I have."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Caelin

  Tressa’s fingers reflexively yank my hair, pinpricks of pain tugging all over my scalp. She realizes her strength right away and murmurs an apology. I assure her it's all right, but I do inch forward, just in case.

  "Is he…?" she starts, looking at Alain as though she isn’t sure she wants the answer.

  Alain leans forward, clasping his hands together. "I don't know," he says heavily. "I only saw him in passing before he escaped."

  "Escaped," she repeats, blinking.

  "Yes. He was the one who gave me the idea. He took two others with him. I don't exactly know where their plans took them, but I do know that a box of alchemical supplies disappeared along with them."

  She laughs—a quiet sound at first, and then a broader noise that fills her chest and the air. "He would. Of course he would."

  "That would have been quite difficult," Alain says, rubbing at the back of his neck. "As it was, I was only able to make it out with my life, and I have the benefit of being able to disappear."

  She leans her head back against the wall and shuts her eyes, her lips crooked up. "Thank you, prince."

  "All I did was confirm that he was a slave," Alain says, obviously confused.

  "If Kai escaped, then he is alive. I told you. He's stupid and talented. If you survived, the
n so did he."

  I can see Alain grapple with the unspoken truth that he's too kind to voice, his fingers biting into the hard mattress of the cot. Kai is not Alain. There's every possibility that he did not survive. Then, there is every possibility that he did.

  At last, he rises with some difficulty. "We should go."

  We do as our prince commands.

  Lunch is simple, some prepared vegetables and a modest cut of meat for each of us. Tressa is given nothing, so I sneak some into my handkerchief and stuff it into my belt pouch for later. She stands in the corner, working to remain in her petulant character, but I keep catching little hints of smiles. I do hope she's right and that her brother is hidden somewhere.

  So far, Rye has said nothing of any importance, and Alain has let him go on about the state of the Grove since the war. I see him bristle more than a few times at the mention of the hardships faced by the cozy little hidden town with its nursery and its vegetable patch. I know his mind is with the slave colony. Have I become so accustomed to his face that I can see this but the Legion captain cannot?

  I should just turn for the castle now and demand that the colonies be released. I trust Alain. I trust the way he flinched in Mountainside when a driver cracked a whip nearby. I trust his stories of Kai's escape. This trip should come to an end.

  Except it can't. I'm trapped in the Grove, waiting to hear if there is a viable Legion threat to my life and my country. I lean forward, trying to hide my impatience. Rye looks my way. "Lieutenant Holder. Where in Rosalia did you say you were from?"

  "I didn't." I don't have as much freedom as Alain does. I can't openly disrespect Rye, but I can show him that I don't feel like talking much. "The Orion Satellites," I answer, reaching for the farthest flung province in Rosalia's clutches. For once, I'm grateful for the tedious studies of geography forced on me.

  "Ah. I spent some time in Orion."

  "Did you," I say in a voice that suggests that I don't want to talk much more on the topic.

  "Yes. I oversaw the prisons there. Strangely, I don't remember hearing your family's name."

  Alain leans forward. "Lieutenant Holder was stationed with my unit far before my elevation."

  "All the same, sir, you won't mind if I ask for her papers?"

  "I do mind," he says, syllables crisp. "Her character is unimpeachable."

  "I didn't mean to suggest otherwise," he says, taking a sip of his wine. "My deepest apologies. I only think it odd that I shouldn't have heard of her family. The Satellites are after all small islands."

  I should have gone with a crowded Rosalian city, I suppose, but I'd been more interested in defeating the Legion than learning all of its parts. There were too many, anyhow. Rosalia was the epicenter of a hungry empire indeed, devouring neighboring countries, some even more easily than my beloved island. I glance sideways at Alain. "Sir, if it puts Captain Rye at ease…"

  "I won't hear of it, Lieutenant," he insists. "Unless my word is not enough?"

  Rye bows his head deeply. "Of course not. The matter is forgotten. You'll forgive my overabundance of caution. The Rebels draw closer every week, and since time is of the essence…"

  Alain frowns. "In what sense, Captain?"

  "You are of course aware that if the Rebel princess is allowed to marry, she'll be crowned Regnant. The matter is complicated intensely by her marriage."

  "I don't see why," he says. "A dead princess or a dead queen makes little difference."

  He says this in a voice so cold that I want to shiver. I force myself to remember the boy who turns blue at my slightest touch, who tried to preserve my feelings this afternoon. That is Alain.

  Rye carries on, ignorant of my fear. "That dead queen will have a king, and that king has family. Monarchy of lineage is like an infestation of rats. If you don’t exterminate them all, they’ll just keep cropping back up. As it was, we were fortunate when her father finally died that his queen was wholly incompetent. She and the daughter were to have died, too, but even the most careful plans can fail."

  My knuckles turn white around the handle of my knife and fork. Under the table, Alain's hand finds my knee. Rye's voice echoes in my skull. Were to have died, too. My father took sick.

  Alain clears his throat, taking his hand from my knee. "Poison will be suspected this time. No matter what, it's a very large risk for the Legion to try to claim Elyssia. We need to know that you are dedicated enough to ensure a return and to understand its pitfalls."

  Rye laughs. "Sir, are you suggesting that the king was poisoned?"

  "There's no need to suggest, Rye. I may be young, but I'm not stupid."

  He clears his throat. "Forgive me, sir. That was classified. I was not sure you knew."

  How could Alain have known? I didn't know. I hadn't even thought to think…

  The room has begun to spin slightly. Behind me, a clatter breaks the silence, and a scuffle picks up as Tressa begins to grapple with the woman that Rye seems to keep posted at the door wherever he goes. Rye opens his mouth to call for guards, but Alain rolls his eyes as though he's bored. "Lieutenant, if you would, please?"

  I give a sharp nod and rise. I grasp her upper arm and begin to march her away from the dining room. She goes dutifully, quietly, down the ramps, across the dusty yard, past gawkers and chickens alike, and back up, until we reach our quarters. She shuts the door behind us as I stand rigid in the middle of the room. "Hey—"

  I kick the listening box into the corner under the cot and kick the cot over when that's done. Tressa stands quietly at the door. She doesn’t even blink as the aging, battered wood crashes and groans and splinters against the planks. When I have the cot completely kicked into submission, I turn my sights to the hard wooden chair, the legs of which reverberate satisfyingly under my boot. Even without a listening box, I'm sure my tirade hasn't gone unnoticed. I don't care. The devils take the Legion and their smug plots and their shitty barracks.

  My father might still have been here. This war might never have happened. Alain would never have met Jori. His leg would be fine. Kai might never have left home. Tressa's farm would never have burned, and the thousands who died in the name of their king or their princes or for the love of peace would still be here if not for Rye, or men like him. The Legion’s diplomats.

  I search my brain, which becomes only more labyrinthine with rage, for a memory of Rye's face. There were so many. The parties my father had loved to hold for dignitaries and peasants alike held hundreds. The days at court, the endless streams of visitors—I can't remember him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there.

  When I reach around myself and start to draw my sword, Tressa grasps me by the wrists. I know I could break the hold if I needed to, but she’s right. I may need my strength for enemies less easily defeated than furniture. She eases the sword from my grip and sets it aside. "I know," she says.

  And I know she does. I let my head hang, my breaths quick. "Did he tell you to get me out?" I ask at last, my voice dull.

  "He said he didn't know where that was going and to be ready," she answers. "I don't think he intended to uncover that much truth in one day."

  But I'm glad he did. The Legion is not to be trusted. I'm not sure about the Resurgence. Slowly, she releases my wrists, watching my face. "I don't think I can go back in there," she says.

  "I'm going to have to," I say, wiping at my face.

  "He said he'd try to set up some spell…"

  "I need to be there," I say in between breaths, holding my hands to my hips, letting the rushes of air carry away the wrath as much as I can. I circle the little room, or as much of it as I can in between fragments of wood and overturned furnishings.

  "Your highness," she begins.

  "Use my bloody name."

  "Caelin," she says expressly, holding my gaze in hers. "If you go back there, are you going to kill Rye?"

  I'm going to want to. So much. At the barest minimum, I'd like to throw him into that colony and watch him suffer what Alain had to at the han
ds of this war. But I know. If I want to find out what threats live now, I'm going to have to let this one be. "No," I tell her.

  "All right, then." She hands me my sword, and I slide it back in its sheath. "I'll stay here, and if they come looking, I'll pretend to be unconscious. Tell them I put up a fight."

  I nod briefly, and then remember my handkerchief. I hand it to her. "The parsnips are a little dry, but at least it's something."

  She gives me a bit of a smile. "Be careful, please."

  I force myself to inhale again and fix the world with a death stare. Lieutenant Holder would be annoyed. So for now, grief and utter rage looks like slight irritation. With that, I march out and back to the dining room.

  Alain seems momentarily surprised to see me again, trailing off mid-sentence as I enter. I excuse myself and resume my seat, keeping my eyes off Rye to avoid the urge to stab him with the silver fork resting at the edge of my plate. Alain does not pause any more. "Did you have much trouble, Lieutenant?"

  I tuck a stray wisp of my hair away again. "A bit of a struggle, but not much more than usual."

  "Aha."

  Rye frowns. "If I may ask, sir, why are you keeping…that with you?"

  "That remains classified unless you can adequately answer my last question," he says, leaning forward on his forearms and folding his hands.

  The captain puts down his fork and considers for a moment. "The Legion has not been in official communication with us," he admits. "What we'd heard of your return was nothing but rumor. It came through the Wanderers from the Ridge and the Cove."

  "I see," Alain says. "It seems we have a leak."

  "It's nothing more than a bit of hope," Rye cuts in. "The morale has been desperately low. It gave them something to grab hold of."

  "You know as well as I that the Legion is not here to be a handhold for the desperate, but a rock for the many. Our mission cannot be jeopardized by gossips."

  "No, indeed."

  Alain holds his silence for a moment. To all appearances, he seems to be weighing his options, but I see him stalling. At length, he lifts his head. "All the same, and even with the glaring violations of protocol, I will allow your Wanderers to accompany me on our mission."