by Anna Holmes
"Simon and I circled this damned lake twenty six times waiting for a landing spot last night. Remind me the next time you get married to give myself plenty of time to get here."
"I just hope there is a next time," I say queasily. The fever is gone again, but so is the antidote now. I'm going to have to be careful.
The lakeshore curves up a bit, and I can see the processional now. Thank gods, we Elyssians love our ceremony. A child from every province walks in bearing some sort of wedding gift as a token of good luck. The entire choir walks in. A regiment of guards presents the national emblem. The bride's maidens walk in with the groom's attendants or friends or whomever, and then the families, and then the officiant, and finally, the bride.
At the peak of the hill, I watch the last of the children disappear into the wide open doors. "I take it I need to hurry," Tressa says.
"That'd be good."
I'd like to be inside before Alora gets there, pull Riley aside, explain things. I'd also not to be barreling towards the building with the heaviest guard in Elyssian history, but today is not my day.
We're close enough now to hear the strains of the choir, halfway in. It is beautiful. I do remember vaguely my father's coronation and the joyous music from the cathedral. I remember too well his funeral. The family portion of this processional is short indeed, since what little remains of my family can be counted on one hand, and Riley's relatives are sparse, too. It's good. It gives us an opening. The family is mostly seated when we burst in through their ranks. As though she hasn't been running this whole time and hasn't just jumped off a castle, Tressa speeds past the guard and slips Riley’s aunt. The guards, late to react to our entrance, rush to detain us.
"Go," she tells me. "I'll take care of this."
There's no time to argue the point. Ten men are converging on us. I vault off her back and run. I have to duck between family members finding their seats, and I catch sight of a face that nearly halts me. My mother. She doesn't look thoroughly surprised to see me in my current state, and just smiles in her lopsided way. I can only muster a frown, the promise of a thousand questions later. There's someone else I need to talk to now.
My every footfall echoes off the white stone and upwards through the marble columns to the series of domes above. I'm told that in some places cathedrals are dark stone places, lit by candles at all times. Ours is open, the only walls a thin barrier of water so thin it's like glass, an invitation for light and shadow and life and death and everything that comes with them. The rows of wooden benches are draped with rosevines and gold fabric which threaten to snag at my sword as I run. By now, the archers have been called into the spaces between the columns, but they don't dare fire for all the guests still standing in the aisles, shocked.
At the altar at the head of the cathedral, Riley turns in time to see me gasp up and catches me by the arm. "Caelin?" He asks, his shadowy face twisted in the deepest of confusion.
"I don't want to marry you," I get out.
"I don't want to marry you either," he says, laughing slightly. "What changed your mind? I could barely believe it. I just got back this morning, and they shoved me into this getup."
"It wasn't me," I tell him. "Kelvin—"
"Well, of course it was his idea. But if you're…" He glances up. The guards didn’t stop Alora, and here she comes, radiant and composed despite the clamor and the archers and guards restraining my friend. "Why are you in two places at once?" Riley asks out of the corner of his mouth.
"Kelvin," I answer loudly, so my voice carries.
The hush I've come to expect when a bride enters falls over the crowd, though this time, it's abrupt and awkward as the people in the front realize that there are two of me. Tressa has been subdued. I don’t see any blood, thank gods, but the archers still have their weapons ready. The choir doesn’t know whether to keep going, and we're left with a fading song as the last choristers break off mid-note.
"So the ransom note—" he starts, his voice ringing off the vine-draped columns and the light-streaked ceiling. Everyone can hear him in the silence. "That was real? You were kidnapped, and we…" He turns to his stepfather, who has now stood from his seat. "We're having a wedding," he says slowly.
"More or less," I say, and a general murmur begins from the people around me. Dignitaries in their ridiculous finery, kings and queens and dukes and ladies all gasping and talking behind their hands.
"Riley," Kelvin begins. "Surely you don't believe this…cheap impostor. Guards!"
The guards begin to advance, save two holding Tressa at the end of the aisle. Alora looks around her as though stunned. "Riley," she starts, her voice—an imitation of my voice—high and plaintive. "Please, it’s me."
Riley takes a step back, his mouth falling open. He reaches around himself and makes a grab for a sword which isn't there. Weapons don’t usually have a place in our weddings. I toss him mine and hold his gaze for a moment. He catches it and nods slightly, holding it out in front of him and striding to stand in front of me. The guards stop short.
Riley ignores them, pointing the sword directly at Alora. He tells her, "For a moment, I was confused, but thanks for clearing things up. The princess would never beg for help from anyone. Least of all me."
Alora's face twists. "Oh, but she did. You should have heard her whimper."
Kelvin steps in between Riley and the guards—and dangerously close to me. "We can't trust anything either of these say," he oozes. "Guards. Detain them both."
He stares right back at me as he orders, the slightest smile on his face. She was happy to do it, he tells me, his mouth still smirking. I hate having his voice in my head. I always have, but now it sounds like a devil’s sneer. Alora squawks a protest, and he masterfully ignores her, too, his eyes, as always, set only on his goal.
"Riley, put the sword down," he says out loud.
"Call off the guards," Riley answers. "We can make sense of this now."
Kelvin instead motions them forward. They take a step, two, then halt, caught between the man who I’ve held up as my second in command and the man who actually led them. I lean overt Riley. "I suppose I'll have that sword back now."
He tosses it to me, and I turn and sheath it. "What are you doing?" He demands.
"Death is not an appropriate alternative right now," I tell him, waiting to be collected.
I wait, and I wait, but nothing happens.The guards are stuck mid-stride. I’ve seen this before, just once. Behind me, a scrape-step sounds, ending right behind me. "Thank you," Alain says as he becomes visible at my side. "For saying so."
Kelvin looks hard at me. "Who is this?"
Riley turns, too. "Who is that?"
Alain’s hand finds mine, and he slips something into it—something I used to spend hours tugging on and rolling between my fingers. I look at him and try to disguise my gratitude. "This is Alain. He helped me escape."
"The Legion prince," Kelvin replies.
Alain tilts his chin up and stands up straight, a slight smile in place despite the fact that he is facing down a man who would see him dead.
"Alain has already proven himself more loyal than you have, Kelvin," I inform him.
"Alain comes across an injured princess against whom he fought, and he ensures her safety so that the truth about your treason could come to light. When you find your princess missing, you hire another one and carry on." To Alain, I say, "Did you walk through the wall? Because you are dripping."
Kelvin turns to Riley. "We both know the real princess would never align herself with a wretch like this. Let the guards put an end to this farce of—" I make a show of reaching into my pocket. His sentence slows to a stop once he realizes what's in my hand. His eyebrows turn down ever so slightly. His shoulders stiffen. The pendant swings, the sapphire catching the light. "Can’t be stolen," I remind him. "You put that spell on it yourself, as I remember."
He bows his head, his eyes still burning. "My deepest apologies, Your Majesty."
In my head
, he says, Very well. This has gone far enough. I concede.
I’m not about to believe him again until he allows the guards to lock him away. Before I can open my mouth again, he wrings his hands. "We feared you lost, and I only wanted to look to the stability of the country." He waves a hand, and Alora is restored to her airfolk self.
Riley stares at her, and then back at Kelvin. His brow lowers, his voice flat, deadly, darkness seeping into the air around him. "You told me she had run away."
"I did what I needed to," he says. "For Elyssia." He turns to me and bows his head."I subject myself to your mercy."
I am about to tell him that he'll receive none of it, but he cuts in again. You would be wise to be merciful. Everyone is watching, Caelin.
"We will discuss this later," I tell him. "I think this charade has wounded enough people. I would like to apologize on behalf of Elyssia to those who have traveled far to be here, to those who were joyful at the prospect of this day and have now been disappointed. You may direct any questions or concerns to me. I invite you all to partake in the reception as planned. However, there will be no ceremony preceding."
The cathedral is silent. I look out at the assembled guests, hoping to see some friendliness somewhere, some hint that someone out there doesn't think me dispossessed of my faculties, an unworthy heir. Instead, I am met with screams.
I whirl in time to see the jar of blue flame hurtling towards the altar. I grab Alain's wrist and he unfreezes the guards. In almost the same move, he sends a huge blast of air which shoves Kelvin, Alora, and Riley and the first few rows of guests away. He covers my body with his and dives out of range the blast. The heat roars over me as it did back at the prison and my shoulder sears. For a moment, I think we didn’t clear the fire, but it’s only the poison moving around the wound again.
I peek out from under his arm. The large banners, the crests of our families, are burning their last threads and dissipating into ash. The white marble floor, ceiling, and columns are charred. Thanks to Alain, no one was caught in the blast.
"Get the guests out," I yell to the guards.
They don't hesitate, and neither do the guests. They flee, shrieking, pushing, shouting. Some of them take Alain's route out through the walls of water. Others scramble out the door. Tressa breaks free and charges toward us, against the tidal wave of people. I crawl out from under Alain and look in the direction from which the conflagration came.
In the spot where the children stood, bearing gifts of the goodwill of the people, stand Rye and at least twenty soldiers from the Grove. They toss their children's robes aside, whatever spell which rendered them short and angelic dismissed. In Rye's hand is another jar.
"Did you think that it was done?" he asks me, no bragging in his tone, no smirk on his face. Rye is completely, gravely serious. "Did you enjoy your celebrations?"
This is not a question I am intended to answer.
I am intended to die.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alain
Nothing has ever scared me more than that little jar of blue fire in Rye’s hands. Caelin doesn’t take her eyes off of it for more than a second at a time. He holds it higher as Tressa aims an arrow. She lowers the bow. The guards at our backs hold, used to taking cues from Caelin. For once, there are more of us than there are of them, but even if we added a hundred more to our number, it would mean nothing if the conflagration remains in their possession.
Rye pulls back his cloak and reveals two more strapped to his belt. Most of the others show off at least two . And next to Rye is the blonde woman who wounded my leg—or rather, the woman whose face Jori borrowed when she wounded me. I don't trust it. Caelin's noticed her, too, by the way her eyes zero in on her, searching, likely for the same things I am—hints of Jori anywhere.
"If we fall," Rye declares, "the jars break. If you freeze us again," he says, staring directly at me, "the jars will break."
"Under what circumstances will they remain unbroken?" Caelin asks, her voice subdued.
"None. They will be broken all over this godsforsaken city and its godsforsaken inhabitants. Over their airships and their wares and their army and especially their princess."
"So why haven't you done it yet?"
"Caelin," snaps Kelvin.
"No. I want to know," she says, taking a step forward, watching Rye. "What is it you're waiting for?"
"Me," I say out loud. "Is that it?"
His eyes flash to me. "You've played your part well, sir. It's time to be reclaimed."
"My part, hmm," I muse aloud. "And which is that? The one for which you wrote a premature notification of my death?"
"In the past," he says, confidence not gone from his voice. "The brand doesn't lie. You are a prince of the Legion, and I was mistaken to have discounted you."
I walk half the distance him, and only now does he remember to lift the conflagration higher. I laugh. "You will say anything, won't you? Whatever gets the job done. Let me remind you of something, Rye. The Legion isn't coming, and even if they were, I wouldn't be going with them."
I wander back away. I don't know what kind of response that last comment will get me, and I'd rather be near Caelin if it doesn't go well. Rye watches me go, his face hard. "I don't see that you've much of a choice."
"You seem to be bent on destroying everything, anyhow. That doesn't leave you with much leverage. I'm worth nothing to you dead."
"That's very true," he concedes. "Kelvin, secure him for me, will you?"
Caelin turns and glares swords into her advisor, nothing escaping her lips but an angry snarl that might be a word.
Kelvin keeps his eyes on Rye. "This was not part of the agreement," he tells him evenly.
Riley takes a faltering step back. "You let them in, didn't you? You wanted the city to be…"
It's about now I feel someone probing the boundaries of my mind, testing my resistance. I search through the faces of Rye's soldiers for the will caster, but no one seems especially strained. No one makes themselves obvious by using Marsh's hand gestures. It doesn't feel like Jori's familiar trespass, but do I even know what her mind feels like anymore?
Caelin leans over to me. Under her breath, she asks, "Alain, remember what you did with the falling jar at the prison?"
Brilliant princess. Slowing anything is no small task, especially with whomever comes knocking at my mind. The intruder seems to realize what I'm about to do and begins struggling, pulling away. No good. This caster hasn’t got a chance. I suggest none too gently that my intruder start the same spell.
There comes a point in casting when your will has committed itself to the spell and your concentration no longer matters. I can feel my subject's horror when they realize that that time has come, and I start casting their spell in concert with my own.
Even with two of us, I don’t know if I can do it. I can isolate the ones who flashed jars, slow them the most, but splitting my focus that many times saps my strength. "Tressa, do you have a bag?" Caelin asks urgently.
Tressa dumps out her satchel and follows Caelin’s lead. The two of them rush toward Rye’s soldiers slice through the leather straps which hold the jars. My captives strain against the spell which makes their muscles think that the air is thick as the deepest muck, but they only move fractions of inches at a time. It’s the same sort of thing that locked everyone in place at the prison, but to divert it, focus it only on certain people, takes so much more work. I can’t just let it do what it will.
Caelin yanks the container from Rye's hand while his face sluggishly contorts. His hand, however slowed, still catches hers. I move to pull it free. This lapse lets a few seconds slip by unhampered, and by the time I regain control, a few of the band have started to move to the edges of the room, too near the walls for my liking. It's harder to concentrate on all of them when they're dispersed, and my mysterious will caster seems to still be near me. I doubt that it's Kelvin, though there would be some poetry in that, I think.
Caelin works as q
uick as she can one handed, and Tressa hurries to collect the jars as she goes. Over her shoulder, she calls to the guards. "After those, please!"
They hustle to try to harvest the jars from the soldiers who've scattered. For a brief, shining moment, I smile in relief. All I need to do is stand and focus.
Of course, that would be too simple. Kelvin’s movements grow sharper, smoother, as he begins to shake off my spell. He’s not my unwitting accomplice, but he’s eager enough to show off his casting. A pew rattles free from the floor. Caelin lunges and pulls me to the floor just as it sails overhead, smashing against a marble column.
Caelin grits her teeth and lifts her head again "Stop him!"
The guards abandon the Legion soldiers to chase Kelvin right as my concentration finally slips. Tressa's bag now contains about half of the jars put on display in front of us. The guards have left about ten more. My eyes dart to how many remain on the belts of those in front of me. There are three people with five jars between them left, and three more armed ones headed for the walls. In the brief moment that Kelvin's flight distracted me, it seems that they broke away. "Caelin," I shout.
She sags, but continues to remove jars from those still in the room. "Keep holding these," she says. "Riley—"
"I've got it," he says. He’s acquired a crossbow and a bag, maybe from a guard. There are too many movements to follow, even among those I’m slowing. He takes off running and leaps through one of the watery walls.
"If he drops them—" I start.
Caelin winces. "He knows. Keep thinking, Alain. I need that lovely brain of yours here."
The forgery Kelvin intended to marry off today—Alora—edges forward. "I can help," she says quietly. Her eyes carry more guilt than fear, and I wonder what she’s done to deserve it. Still, Kelvin seemed willing enough to dispose of her and his stepson.
