And this Autumngale, there was something more.
She wrinkled Tamerlan’s nose, trying to catch it.
I hate to sound impatient, but do you think we should be chasing him?
Yes. Of course. He pulled another lungful of smoke from the roll of Spice balanced on his lips – asking for her to stay. The burning end was almost gone.
Light another one. They’re in my inner pocket.
She fumbled inside and found the oilcloth roll, carefully extracting one before wrapping the others. Urgency bit at her, but if she wasn’t careful, and she ruined these rolls, this might be the end of their chance. Carefully, she lit one with the other, replacing the old stub for a new roll between Tamerlan’s lips.
Okay. Now, to run.
She took off across the rooftops, combining Tamerlan’s greater strength and larger muscles with her own street experience to push him harder and faster across the rooftops than she had ever been able to go.
And more skillfully than I could.
She ignored the compliment, focusing – searching with her nose.
This way!
She followed the trail up a tile roof, using Tamerlan’s feet to climb the slippery tiles. The Grandfather wasn’t far ahead.
Below, a roar ripped through the crowd and she glanced down to see a cloud of orange – oranges flying through the air and in the streets and on the wall and the carrot orange smell of sport puffing around them. That was fine. Just the Autumngale celebration.
Her grip slipped and she fell slightly, catching herself in time, but the knife in Tamerlan’s right hand skimmed across his leg leaving a gouge.
Oh no.
Calm. It will be okay.
I cut you!
She shook, at the thought. She’d taken someone’s body and cut them with their own knife.
An accident.
But taking him hadn’t been an accident.
I welcomed you.
Not good enough. She clenched his jaw, sheathed the blade and stood still, glued in place while her breathing grew more and more rapid.
Can I have just a little control over my body?
Oh, dragon’s spit! Why hadn’t she ... fumbling mentally, she tried to find a way to give it to him without surrendering to the triumphant looking spirits around them. Their fingers seemed longer as they reached for him. She felt his mind grow stronger, gently nudging her aside. The touch was close – as close as a brush cheek to cheek would be.
There we go. Let’s calm down a little. Deeper breaths. Yes, there you go.
It was his body. So, why did it feel like he was taking care of her? He caressed her mind.
Easy now, easy. Let it out. Big breaths. You’re going to be okay.
He said that like he’d said it a thousand times before.
I have. I tell myself that a lot. When life is too much. When I feel trapped. He paused. You’re going to be okay.
She was going to be okay.
Let’s follow the Grandfather. This is Yan and I think he’s heading for the Palace.
She thought so, too. But why?
He was there before to get a book. Maybe he needs another book.
That seemed reasonable. She pulled in a long breath and then began to scramble again, ignoring the ache in her – his – leg where the knife had scored it.
Tamerlan?
Right here.
It felt almost as if his consciousness were holding hers – like the clasp of hands.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken you over.
You did what was necessary. And I am grateful.
His mental voice felt warm on her consciousness,
They were climbing quickly now. Climb up one side of the roof, slide down the other. Jump to the next. But what would they do when they reached the first canal or a similar barrier that they couldn’t cross?
Almost before she thought it, they were there. She stopped with a skid on the edge of the tile roof, a single tile falling from her quick stop and plunging over the edge of the roof into the street below.
She stared down. Had she hurt someone? Calls and cries drifted up and around the tile, a swell of red rolled over the street. But she didn’t see anyone hurt and lying in the street. She could smell it now, though, the overpowering smell of violence – red and smoky.
Look.
She followed his mental prodding, looking toward where the crowds fought, and oranges flew through the air. But that wasn’t all. Red swirled up and spattered outward, the scents mixing with actual colors. Someone was shedding blood.
“Variena!” someone in the crowd called. “Our savior! For Variena!”
That was her mother’s name.
Just the thought of it sent a spike of sadness through her chest. She would probably never see her mother again. Like almost everyone else, she had probably perished when Tamerlan saved Marielle in Jingen and woke the dragon.
I am guilty of many things, but not the death of your mother.
She hadn’t meant to accuse him. It just hurt to think of her, that was all.
I saw her alive and well in the refugee camps here just days ago. She looks like you.
Marielle felt like she’d frozen. He’d seen her?
Except she has brown eyes.
That was her!
Icy excitement filled her at the thought.
“Variena!” the cry was louder now and before Marielle’s eyes, they surged into the streets – thin men and women with gaunt faces and wild eyes, swirling with the red smoky scent of violent determination. They came in a mass, their jaws set, and weapons held out. Where they met the groups of people throwing oranges, they waded in like harvesters to the wheat, hacking, chopping, stabbing. Not a change of expression filled their faces. Not a hint of sympathy. They came to conquer. And they came in the name of her mother.
She shivered, feeling suddenly cold to the core.
Do you see why I must end it all? I must find the root of all this trouble? Everything is wrong. Everything!
And then a new group plowed out onto the street. Yan Palace Guards in blue and gold tabards, holding their halberds high, marched like toy soldiers through the streets. They were minutes from clashing with the hollow-eyed uprisers. Moments and then they’d really see battle.
She held his breath in horrified anticipation. But when the groups met, they merged like two rivers, one clear and one muddy. They didn’t intermingle, but they flowed side by side and while the uprisers screamed her mother’s name, the guards chanted something else.
“For Variena and Decebal!”
“Decebal Zi’fen!”
“House Zi’fen!”
She felt like her eyes might dry out they’d gone so wide. She couldn’t close them in her shock. Tamerlan’s mind reached around hers, taking back control, pulling her back from the edge.
Both our families have brought disaster on this city.
She’d missed so much when she was in the clock. None of this seemed to be a surprise to him.
It is and it isn’t all at the same time. Etienne warned me. I just wasn’t listening.
She and Tamerlan had to fix it. She could see that. That’s what he was going on about – fixing gouges and repairing wounds.
She sank into his mind like into a comforting hug as he slid down from the roof to a balcony and into the street, still racing toward the palace. They could do this if they worked together. She might have lost her sense of everything else, but that was the one thing she was certain was true.
33: All is Ever Lost
Tamerlan
Warmth and tenderness filled him. If he could preserve her from this hell, he would. Anything she needed. Any solace. Any help.
He was the only one who should go mad for this.
She was already plunging him through the crowds toward the palace, weaving between guards and revolutionaries. One of the Yan guards grabbed Tamerlan by the front of his shirt.
“Whose side are you,” he began with a growl, but his words cut off as
he glimpsed Tamerlan’s face. “You look like him.”
“I am Tamerlan Zi’Fen,” Marielle said with his lips. It felt strange how she said his name – gently, like she was worried about breaking it.
The guard dropped him like a hot coal. “My apologies.”
As they filed past, the other guards all shot him worried looks – earned, no doubt, by his father’s behavior – but he was soon past them, as Marielle hurried through the streets and tried not to slip on the sticky peels and ruined fruit all over the ground. Any other Autumngale the feasting would start soon and the old rivalries would melt into one big feast and dance. Any other Autumngale, he’d have the day off to spend with friends.
But not today.
Today they hunted.
Marielle chased through the streets, skidding around a group of revolutionaries. Something big was going on by the palace. The crowds thickened as they approached it, but there was no fighting here. It was almost as if the fight had almost been won.
So easily?
So quickly?
That troubled him. Even as Marielle directed his body into the thick of things, he was watching. The signs of his father were here. Only Decebal would turn a population from their rulers after marrying one of his children into the ruling family.
Marielle was focused on the scent of the Grandfather. She was sniffing the air with his nose. But he was watching the crowd. Watching their faces as they drew closer to a crude platform still being constructed and a knot of somewhat better-armed refugees. Had he seen these faces before? They looked familiar.
They leapt forward as Marielle followed the scent, so obsessed that she didn’t seem to realize they were headed right into the knot of the revolution’s leaders. She was excited, like a dog hot on the trail.
He’s close. He’s close.
She needed to pull back. They were too close to the ringleaders. One of them was already snarling at him, pointing to him with a leather-gloved finger.
In front of them, another moved to shield a woman in a heavy cloak with her back to them. His arm whipped up, stopping Tamerlan at the same moment that the woman whirled to face them, the hood falling to reveal her face.
Variena.
Shock reverberated through Marielle. She must not have believed it, not really, not until now. The blood seemed to drain from his face at her reaction.
“You. The one who brought food,” Variena said, looking at him with calculating eyes. “You seem to always arrive at just the right moment.” Her smile was predatory. “Timeliness is a welcome trait in a man.”
He tried to clench his jaw as he pulled in a puff of smoke from the roll of paper still hanging from his lips. Marielle was frozen with shock, like she’d been hit by a pole between the eyes.
Let me take over, Marielle. He pulled at her grip on him, sliding it from her mental hold.
“I’m afraid not,” he said smoothly. “My appointment today is elsewhere.”
“If you think to foul this up – you and that worthless piece of ruler scum – ”
He hadn’t realized she knew about Etienne but he was smooth in his interjection. “This has nothing to do with you. Not yet. I’m just trying to prevent what happened in Jingen from happening here.”
She leaned in close so that he could smell her clove-scented breath. “What happened in Jingen worked out just fine for me, pretty boy.”
“But now you’re on top,” he said smoothly despite the sweat forming on his brow. She was a formidable woman. She had all of Marielle’s assurance and none of her morality. “And those on top have the most to lose when the tables are flipped.”
She grunted. “Don’t get in the way or I’ll carve that pretty face to ribbons.”
Tamerlan gave her a crooked smile and pushed away, hurrying out of the crowd. Marielle – inside his mind – was upset. He felt her emotions ricocheting from one to the next as he drove them toward the palace. How was he going to get in there without her abilities to guide him? Could he use the same technique he’d used when Lila was guiding him? That seemed unlikely.
Just give me a moment to catch my breath.
He didn’t have to worry. The bridge stretching across the canal to the palace doors was busy – but unguarded, the doors flung wide open.
Be careful. All is not as it seems.
This was worse than he’d thought. No one guarding the Palace? Had that ever happened before?
He picked up the pace, trotting up the bridge and dodging tattered refugees as they intermixed with Landholds. None of the Landholds looked happy. Their eyes kept flicking toward the Yan Palace Guard. And the Guard was everywhere. They weren’t preventing movement and they weren’t stopping anyone. One of the guards in a rumpled uniform lounged idly at the highest point of the bridge, looking leisurely over the people moving in and out of the palace. He seemed to be at his ease until his eyes squinted and his hands flicked out, grabbing a whey-faced Landhold from the bridge and hauling him over the rail and into the water with a single burst of energy.
There had been no warning. When he was done, he returned to seemingly lounging along the bridge. No one was fooled. The crowd moved like a group of rats surrounded by large cats.
The guards smell of madness.
But so did Tamerlan, according to Anglarok.
No one helped the gurgling Landhold from his place in the moat. The walls of the moat were slick and steep. His only hope would be to find a passing boat or to be a very strong swimmer.
Tamerlan swallowed, hurrying through the door with the rest of the crowd. It was hard to move quickly through the press of bodies.
He’s just ahead! I can smell him! He’s close!
He almost thought he could see what she meant, like a swirl of colored smoke up ahead. The more he focused on it, the harder it was to see. Perhaps, it was only his imagination.
He saw the scarf first – the red scarf waving in the wind. Like a dog with a fresh scent in his nose, it gave him a new burst of energy. He put his head down and ran, thrusting every ounce of power he had into long, powerful strides.
He was gaining. He could tell. He pushed past a screaming maid in the door of the palace, dodging the white linens she threw in his face in her terror. He was the least of her problems. He’d be gone before she could blink. She should be more worried about the guards on the bridge.
The Grandfather was only strides ahead as they raced up a shallow flight of stone stairs and then down a tapestry lined hall. Screams and cries of surprise rang out down the hall where the Grandfather ran ahead of him as Palace servants rushed away from the commotion. Tamerlan dodged past a wide-eyed man dressed like a butler – his hands full of silver candlesticks – and then as he ran into a pack of maids on their hands and knees scrambling for the dropped cutlery, he placed a hand on one of their shoulders and vaulted right over their bent heads. No time for civility. A woman dressed like a Landhold stood before him with her hands over her mouth, surrounded by shards of broken vases and a mirror that used to line the hall beside where she stood. He sprang past her without a second look.
The Grandfather cared nothing for the health or property of anyone. Like Time the ever-rolling stream, he carried all those things away – eventually.
The Library doors were wide open when Tamerlan finally skidded around the corner to them, panting and heaving with exertion. She was there again. Amaryllis.
His eyes caught on his sister standing with her back against the door. Caught the slight shake of her head. She didn’t want acknowledgment. Or she didn’t want him there. And either way, it stung.
Isn’t that Amaryllis? The one you meant to save when you saved me instead?
Yes. No time for that.
He burst through the door.
I feel the great sadness in your heart at the sight of her.
She was well and she had a future. Asking for anything else was just selfishness.
And isn’t love selfish sometimes? Doesn’t it want to know that the beloved loves, too?
Not real love. Real love wanted what was best for the other no matter what the beloved thought of the lover.
What a cold approach. It doesn’t sound like you at all.
He didn’t want to think about it.
Because it stings.
And he didn’t have to.
There was the Grandfather! He was grabbing a book off the shelf.
Tamerlan leapt, flying through the air arms reaching out. He knew without having to say anything – the Grandfather was about to jump through time and space again. The old man was already whirling, sparks pouring off him like water from a falls. His eyes met Tamerlan’s as Tamerlan fell short, hitting the stone floor of the library with an oof as the breath was knocked out of him.
“You fell short,” the Grandfather laughed. “In the end they all do!”
And then he vanished with a pop.
34: Whisper of Rebellion
Marielle
The pain bit at her. He held so much pain inside. So much rejection and hurt. When he thought he was hiding it, it oozed out of him like sap from a tree. No wonder he wanted so badly to save everything. No wonder he took refuge in the smoke with all that hurt building inside like thunderheads. He’d been such a beautiful boy with a sweet, artist’s heart. She’d seen that again and again in the past.
But it was the fragility of his very sweetness, it was the vulnerability of his compassion that made it possible to shatter him. And he was shattered. She felt it as he tried to bury his pain at his sister’s lack of acknowledgment. She felt it as he stuffed his loneliness past the shards of who he’d once been. Now, he was all loneliness and guilt in one rolled up murky ball.
Not all.
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