Something was in the air—the currents were all blowing in wrong directions today.
With half an hour left before Florin’s surprise, Jaime rushed back into the city proper. The City Council was giving out free porridge in the agora to the masses. Jaime insisted on starting at the end of the line, and when his bowl was full, he brought it over to the city prisons.
Somewhere in here, Sojin’s in chains.
Jaime kept his head down.
Please, please, don’t let me run into him.
It stank powerfully of sweat and leather in here. His eyes watered. Jaime stopped outside the cell he was looking for.
Toran leapt to his feet. “Juno! Aw man, you brought me food?”
As soon as they were standing on opposite sides of the bars, Toran’s eyes bright, his smiling mouth open, Jaime dumped the porridge all over his face.
The entire cellblock went quiet. Tens of Glaiddish heads turned in his direction. And suddenly, Lady Eridene broke into roaring laughter behind him.
Toran unfroze, shooting him a glare of death. “Gods—I’m gonna beat you into pig lard—”
“That’s for lying to me,” Jaime said. “And for pretending to be my friend.”
“Hey! I was your—I still am your friend!”
“Why did you burn the forest?”
“That doesn’t matter, man—”
“Why, Toran?”
A short huff.
“Before we ever met, Beanie and I got separated at the west coast. I was trying to find her. But then I met you.” Toran pinched his moon-round forehead. “I thought it would be a good idea to stick around with a Sage ‘cos I didn’t know my way around this turd Kingdom. But then you wanted to stay here. And I saw how much your own war meant to you, and that mattered to me.
“But then guilt started eating at me. I had my own war I had to get back to—the one at home that Beanie’s trying to end. So I looked for a way to find her—”
“That’s why you burned the forest?”
Toran’s breathing grew flustered. “Yeah.”
“You’re not telling me everything—”
“I’m telling you the truth.” Toran balled his fists. “The Bean and I agreed that if we ever got lost, we’d send fire signals to each other. I just felt bad abandoning you, especially after our promise and all. And I was kind of scared of setting things on fire. So I kept putting it off—”
Jaime grit his teeth. “You’re not telling me everything. What’re you doing in my Kingdom?”
Lady Eridene shifted her glare to Toran. Don’t you dare talk.
Toran quickly said, “It doesn’t matter, Juno. By the time I sent the fire signal, I was so sick of rock-hard barley rolls and stinking mountains that I just needed to go home.”
“Poor moppet,” the lady muttered from the cell corner.
Toran showed his teeth. “Stuff it, will you?”
“No, you stuff it.” She marched over and jabbed her finger in his chest. “You’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place.”
“Me?” Toran whined. “Now that’s cruel of you, Beanie. What have I ever done?”
“For starters, the royal authority wouldn’t have found out who we really were if you didn’t gorge on so much grog and practically tell them we were from Glaidde—”
“Man, that’s not what happened—”
“And I was worried to death searching this gods-forsaken island for you! Do you realize what I had to go through to find you?”
“Jaypes’s ass?”
“Not funny!” Lady Eridene slammed her boot down. “The mercenaries almost refused to ride into Arcurea’s lands in case this stupid attack failed—and where are we now?”
“And this’s my fault?”
Jaime glanced between them, senses perked. They looked like they were about to rip each other’s heads off.
“I never wanted to come along anyway,” Toran whined. “You know I prefer sausages and your uncle’s delightful company.”
“Oh moppet, your story will make a fine Jaypan tragedy. Perhaps they will even perform it in a theater after you’re martyred.”
“Okay, that’s it. Take your Water Court missions and go away forever.”
“Ha! You begged me to take you with me—”
“Fart, fart, fart, what’d you say? Fart, fart—”
Jaime pointed to them and called to the guard, “I want them freed.”
Both of them halted in mid-sentence.
Florin was planning to hold them hostage until the end of the war, but Jaime knew that when the Archpriestess arrived, she would light Arcurea City into a bonfire. Even if Toran was withholding the entire truth from him, he was still Jaime’s friend.
And they had made a promise to each other.
The master-of-guard stepped in and crossed his arms. Jaime recognized him. Achillus Kyrossou, the new City Captain.
“The Lord Mayor gave strict orders to keep them behind bars,” the Captain said. “They only go free on his authority.”
His gaze hardened. “They’re my friends.”
“But the Mayor said—”
Jaime finally lost his patience. “Or do you prefer me to interrupt the festival so I can take it up with the Mayor? His wife assembled a lochos under the Air Emblem—” He pulled the medallion from under his chiton, pointedly displaying its sigil. “I am the Prince of Jaypes, not Florin or Prescilla or anyone else in this Kingdom.”
Captain Achillus brusquely turned away to avoid a bow. “Very well, Your Highness. Just for tonight.”
“Fine.”
As soon as a guard unlocked the door, Toran burst out and threw up his arms. “Freedom!” he whooped.
Jaime waited for Lady Eridene. She stayed sitting in the corner, inspecting a curl of dark hair.
“You’re free to go,” he growled.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere with a sugar plum pretender like you, even if my life depended on it.”
“I don’t believe this!”
Toran skipped to his side. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Beanie’s got more cock than a capon. She’ll come out when it’s time for a good piss.” He burped. “Buddy, I’m starving! Whadda they got at the festival?”
Jaime pulled Toran to the exit. “Come on,” he growled. “I’m running late. We need to get to the akropolis.”
Once they skipped outside, Jaime stopped short. The banestorm’s gusts drowned out all noise.
Gods.
The procession was already starting—or really, ending.
Panathea Way led from the agora to the akropolis and would finish at the Pantheon of Air, the largest holy monument in the city. He joined the tail-end of it, struggling to keep his head down. Despite the weather, older citizens stood on the marble steps of the agora’s administrative buildings, reciting famous lines from Jaypan epics. Flute girls and merchant daughters stood at the thresholds of their own homes, tossing windflowers onto the streets. All the while, children in garlands passed the edges of the procession, waving Arcurea’s banners, singing holy hymns.
As if the roaring winds of this banestorm didn’t exist.
Reckless. So reckless.
Toran opened his mouth, catching the sweet cakes the women and elderly uphanded at the crowds. Jaime tensed when Toran’s elbow jabbed him. “Why are you so uptight, man?”
“Why aren’t you?”
Tens of bodies squeezed Jaime into a grain of barley. The sooner he was out of these crowds, the better. He was about to kill someone.
When they finally made it to the akropolis, Jaime almost collapsed in relief.
The highest councilors stood on an altar in front of Pantheon of Air. The city had erected a marble statue of Lord Jaypes and clothed him with a wool himation.
Jaime shivered.
That was
exactly what he wore the day the medallion awakened his Sage-power.
The Menanders stood at both sides of the statue, accepting offerings with warm smiles. Lady Prescilla’s belly drooped over her waist.
Achuros wasn’t in the akropolis, either.
Weird.
His mentor hated this kind of stuff—festivals, big crowds, merry cheer. “Hoopla,” Achuros called it. But the old priest wouldn’t wander off if his Mayor was dedicating a festival to Lord Jaypes . . .
Would he?
Jaime stood off to the side with Toran while the final part of the pepkos played out in bursts of classical songs so lyrical, they made his shoulders shiver. A score of girls—none as pretty as Lady Eridene—carried baskets of barley meal to the altar. A toddler offered Florin a wooden figurine of Lord Jaypes, and the Mayor accepted it with a hearty embrace. All other citizens offered variations of wool, fruit, wine and oil flasks—the way his mother did when she would pray over his asthma.
“You know,” Toran chomped at a handful of grapes, “I heard the Ascaeriis were gifted with song. You should go up there and sing something.”
“I’m not an Ascaerii.”
“So? They’re practically treating you like one.”
He rolled his eyes, but his chest swelled. Toran was right. This wasn’t just a festival. As much as it was a bad idea, this was a gathering of avai, an amassing of all different classes and ages and people as varied as the leaves in fall. Never had he seen such unity among Jaypans. And even though Jaypes might have been the smallest of the Four Kingdoms, gods, Jaime was so proud to be Jaypan.
The night drew to a close when Florin’s household servants brought in a fat bull. Lady Prescilla sang a final song, her voice falling over her people like stardust. Then, Lord Florin stepped up to the bull with a knife in hand. He spoke a prayer to Lord Jaypes. All heads bowed.
This isn’t right. Achuros should be here. He’s an airpriest. Why isn’t he here?
The akropolis broke into thunderous cheers as Florin finished the sacrifice. It was difficult to make out the words over the gusts.
“Hail Lord Jaypes!”
“Praise to the Holy Lord of Air!”
Treason, this is open treason, they’re asking for it—
He jumped when Toran’s hand dropped on his shoulder. “Too uptight, buddy.”
“We have faith our victory is sealed,” Florin shouted. “Now, on this night, I wish our city to look upon the one whom our god has sent us.”
Jaime went rigid.
“The Council has seen him grow much over the seasons, and to mark his passage into adulthood, it is customary that his household bestow him with his first drink of wine.”
Toran bent over and choked on a grape. “Gods! You never had wine before?”
Florin held out a hand to the crowds. “Prince of Jaypes, if I may have the honor.”
Calves numb, Jaime stepped forward. His fingers started to twitch as thousands of heads observed him for the first time.
You still can’t summon currents. You don’t even believe in Lord Jaypes. What if they find out you’re faking all of this?
Jaime scoured the crowds. Captain Achillus was here now, his face tense with lines, the winds gnashing at his white mantle. Dozens of his mounted City Watch surrounded him. Despite Jaime’s throbbing chest, no one laughed or said a word.
A councilor helped him onto the altar. Jaime nodded in thanks since he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Prince,” Prescilla greeted with a smile. Jaime hugged her. She kissed him on the brow, her ringlets whipping behind her like a dark pennant. “Our city stands behind you.”
“And I stand behind you,” he whispered back.
Florin handed him a chalice, gripping it with two hands to keep the stormwinds from tearing the wine from him.
“I was nervous on the day of my Passage,” Florin whispered. “But you shouldn’t be.”
“Is it okay if I am?”
The Mayor laughed. “It is okay if you are.”
As Jaime lifted it to his lips, his stomach clenched. The air currents felt wrong again—very wrong.
He peered at the multitudes. Jaypans smiling at him in anticipation. Jaypans half-drunk. Jaypans clinging tight to their himations, the easterly winds buffeting their faces. He studied the Arcurean banners somersaulting across the akropolis, the way the breezes wheezed as they passed through wool and linen clothing.
Not cloth. They’re passing through metal plates.
The wine crashed from his hand. Jaime swiveled around and shoved Florin flat to the ground.
An arrow skewered the spot where the Lord Mayor stood a second before.
The crowds erupted into gasps. An elder councilor tore off its pennon and flipped over to the sigil: an albino dragon.
“Lord Haigen,” the councilor breathed.
“Florin!” Prescilla screamed.
But a storm of fire arrows pelted the altar, separating them. Jaime flipped off his belly onto all fours. Captain Achillus yelled his first order—
An arrow sank into his throat.
The civilian crowds shattered into shrieks and screams.
“Stay down,” Florin whispered. Bodies crashed all around them, faces, limbs, backs splintered with arrows. They looked like grotesque pine trees from down here.
Jaime dug his knuckles into the altar. “They killed Achillus. No one’s commanding the City Watch or the spearfighters from Korinthia.”
The young Mayor closed his eyes.
“I will.”
He helped Jaime up.
Enemy soldiers crashed into the akropolis. Their longspears blockaded the exits, forcing the flailing civilians back. Gold standards with the albino dragon of New Jaypes snapped in the gusts—the royal forces were here.
But how?
How did this many bodies sneak through Arcurea’s fortified walls unnoticed? Where was the City Watch? No one heard them coming?
Jaime grit his teeth at the sky.
Well, with this banestorm, a giant could smash through the gates and no one would hear a thing.
“Jaime!”
He plummeted back into the present. Florin was gripping his shoulders, bellowing over the tempests.
“Protect Prescilla. Whatever happens, don’t let them hurt her. Promise me!”
He swallowed, and nodded. “They won’t. I promise, my lord.”
As Florin rallied the City Watch with shouts, Jaime crawled his way over to Prescilla. She was reaching over to lift a fallen guard’s shortsword. Her mouth stretched open from the exertion.
“No, my lady!” Jaime placed his hand over hers.
“They are going to kill Florin—”
“We have to get away from the fighting! Let’s get to the City Hall—”
A new spate of screams forced him around.
The rear ranks of the unarmed crowds fell like mud-clay bricks crashing down from the sky. Outriders cut them down to make way. Someone else was coming.
His lungs shrank.
A fresh century of heavy infantry swept into the akropolis. New Jaypes standards, fitted on gilt staffs, rattled high over their heads. The rider in the center had a shaved head, lips darker than blood.
The Archpriestess.
To her left, Lord Haigen was buried under full Kaipponese battle-armor. A smirk spilled from under his lacquered helmet.
But this wasn’t why Jaime’s blood froze to ice, or the fact that his brother’s murderer had arrived two weeks early. It was the rider to her left, in matching white robes, grimace barely visible under the snarl of his beard. And suddenly, it hit him that Sojin was never the traitor.
His own mentor was.
Chapter Twenty-One
The drums from the royal ranks drowned out the thudding of his heart.
The Archprie
stess turned on the daimyo. “Where is the boy?” she demanded.
“Your Grace, so sorry.” Haigen bowed, the bridge of his nose crimping like a pig’s snout. “I told you, I never knew the Prince was here until I received your letter.”
“He is close.” The winds brought Achuros’s gravelly voice to Jaime. “That boy won’t abandon the Mayor and his wife to die.”
Reining her horse around, the Archpriestess bellowed to the lochos: “Search the akropolis! Burn down every wretched building until I hath the Temple Relic in mine own hand!”
The first raindrop spattered onto the altar. Achuros withdrew from all of them—galloping away in the direction of Chikos Pagos Hill.
Prescilla shook him. Jaime, Jaime. Calling him several times. Jaime blinked the hot tears out of his eyes. Turning around to face her.
“There is a tunnel under City Hall that will take you back into the forests,” she whispered. “Arcurea has several. Achuros must have led them through one of our postern gates.”
“I’ll—” He breathed out. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, Prince. I will.”
Jaime took her hands and helped her up. “We’re going together.”
They dashed into the City Hall’s outer colonnade, Prescilla hobbling as she held onto her belly. They passed the first pillar. A hand shot through the darkness—gripping his ankle.
Jaime bucked his legs by instinct.
A low groan.
Jaime gasped. “Toran?”
The stocky boy tottered to his feet, rubbing his bloody nose. “You didn’t have to kick me, you dummy.” One hand holding a half-eaten cake.
Prescilla’s eyes narrowed. “Not him.”
“Toran,” Jaime yanked him closer, “we don’t have a lot of time. You have to tell the prison guards to free the Glaiddish.”
“Wuh-why?”
In the background, someone played the sharp notes of a flute. Jaime glanced at the fiery courtyard below the City Hall steps. Florin was mounted on his white gelding now. At the sound of his notes, the City Watch regrouped, filed into prickly barricades of shields and spears.
Jaime turned back around.
“Arcurea’s forces won’t stand a chance against both the Archpriestess and Lord Haigen. I need you to convince the Glaiddish to fight for us.”
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